Never asked to feel your halo (Faberry)

26: I Plead Insanity

Quinn saw Mike walking through the halls towards her first thing Tuesday morning and he scowled as they were about to pass each other.

Luckily she'd come prepared.

She left him spluttering, teeth chattering and dripping raspberry-flavored ice.

Feeling so much better already she gave one of the glossy posters that had appeared on the walls over night an identical toothy smile and dropped the empty cardboard cup into a trash can without slowing down.

Rachel sat up straight, staring ahead with a neutral expression when Quinn took her seat next to her in American Lit. It wasn't going to be easy to get through the lesson with the hostility between them but she had a plan to survive: ignore Quinn at all costs and the tried and tested, no looking, no talking, no touching rules.

It occurred to her that each time the rules had been tested they'd proved less than infallible but this was plan B after all and couldn't be expected to be perfect. Plan A had fallen through when her Daddy had declared she did not in fact have a temperature and a slight case of the sniffles – of which he had seen no evidence of yet – was not a good enough reason to take time off of school.

'No looking, no talking, no touching,' she repeated in her head a few times to make it sink in.

She shouldn't have been surprised that she was already having trouble with that first one. Who wouldn't want to feast their eyes on Quinn Fabray at every opportunity? She stayed strong though. It was the only way.

"Hi."

The quiet greeting nearly made her break rule two but she bit her lip until the urge passed.

"It's polite to say Hi back, you know?"

Rachel scoffed and then bit her lip again hard. Did that count as breaking a rule? She hadn't actually said anything.

"You're not talking to me again?"

What gave it away?

"I had nothing to do with what Santana and Kassie did after Gym, you do know that, right?"

Quinn sounded so concerned that, even though Rachel knew it was insincere, she couldn't help nodding. The head cheerleader's horrified reaction after the event had convinced her that the lesser Cheerios had acted alone, but Quinn was far from innocent when it came to tormenting her. In fact, she'd paved the way for what had happened yesterday with her previous three years of abuse.

"So, you don't really hate me, right? This is just you being a little pissed?"

Rachel didn't respond. Obviously she didn't hate her but she was more than a little pissed!

"Will you just say something? Anything? Yell at me if you want."

While yelling might relieve some of her tension, she couldn't do it in class which Quinn knew and was probably the only reason she'd suggested it. No doubt she was expecting Rachel to back down because of the selflessness of her offer but she wasn't stupid. She saw right through Quinn Fabray now and she wasn't going to be fooled again.

"Fine, don't speak to me, but you can't stop me from speaking to you."

Rachel groaned inwardly and made sure her face betrayed her thoughts – why couldn't she just leave her alone?

To her delight Mr. Laxforth finally started the lesson, meaning Quinn would have to be quiet. She allowed herself a small smile when she heard the other girl grumble under her breath.

"Okay, no new chapter today, but I have a worksheet on the previous two chapters so I hope you've all been paying attention."

Rachel's smile left quickly because she hadn't been paying attention. The only thing she paid attention to in American Literature these days was Quinn. It seemed typical of her luck that the one time she was completely focused on listening to the reading, there wasn't going to be one.