Never asked to feel your halo (Faberry)

1: Five years later she has the world at her feet

Between classes, the hallways housing the sophomore lockers were the busiest thoroughfares in William McKinley High School. Connecting the main entrance to the Principal's suite in one direction and the stairs to the second floor in the other, with branch lines that led to the cafeteria, the gym and the auditorium, it was always full of activity.

Sometimes it was impossible to squirm or even shove your way through the crowd, it was so thick and slow-moving (pun intended), and trying would more than likely see you shoved back in return, maybe hard enough to land your butt on the floor, providing entertainment for all. And that was just the regular kids. Try shoving past anyone important and you wouldn't just wind up dazed and wondering why you were on the dirty linoleum, you'd also be wondering where your shoes went, and your lunch money, and, if you happened to share a class with the popular kid, possibly any of your homework they hadn't had a chance to do yet too.

Walking these corridors was like a daily running of the gauntlet, as footballs passed overhead; kids were pushed into lockers; gossip and insults filled the air and nobody, nobody, got out of anyone's damn way . . .

It was horrible.

Probably.

She honestly wouldn't know because when she turned the corner, heading to her locker before her last class just like everyone else, the crowd moved.

For Quinn Fabray, everybody got out of the damn way.

It wasn't like a choreographed movement where as soon as they saw her the crowd shrank respectfully back against the walls – although that would have been awesome, and a little weird. It was more that everyone knew just when to side-step or drift off of their previous path to avoid being in her way.

It was the best feeling ever, this evidence of her power and the control she had in this school. It was something she had craved for so long and now that she had it, no matter how long it lasted, it was a feeling she would never, ever get tired of.

The trick, though, was to make sure no one else ever realised how much she loved it, because if people knew that, it became a weakness. Something that could be used against her. Something that could be exploited to oust her from the coveted position at the top of McKinley's hierarchy. Something that could take all that she'd worked for away.

And, obviously, something she was never going to let happen.

So she walked the halls behind a mask of cool indifference, keeping any genuine pleasure at the way the lower lifeforms scuttled out of her path deep inside, because if people couldn't see it written on her face, they would never suspect it was there. People around here rarely looked much beyond the surface, especially when the surface was as pretty to look at as hers.

It was getting a little harder recently though. Finding out you're pregnant after a stupid, stupid drunken one-night stand (like it had even lasted a night) was probably enough to rattle even those with the strictest self-control, right? And the morning sickness – a new and entirely unpleasant development – was already proving a bitch to hide . . . but she could handle it. She had to handle it because there was no one else to do it for her. There never was.

Telling Finn had helped though; they'd talked over the weekend and he'd promised to stand by her and support her in whatever decisions she made. She was disappointed that he hadn't immediately done the right thing and proposed; it was still early enough that if they had the wedding right away they could convince everyone it was a honeymoon baby, but there was just enough guilt there to stop her from insisting on it.

Besides, what if he refused? She couldn't afford to scare him off.

At least Puck had backed off after his initial outburst. He'd been giving her a wide berth all day. He must have come to his senses over the weekend, realising that if he just kept his mouth shut that he could get away with his little mistake scot-free and, honestly, she hadn't chosen Finn to let Puck off the hook; she'd lied because Finn was the better man for the job, but she didn't blame Puck for taking the easy out she was giving him.