Will The Real Rachel Berry Please Stand Up?

2

Quinn thumped the pillow with feeling, partly in an attempt to vent some of her frustration and partly to create a pillow she might be able to sleep on. This was the second night in a row she had been kept awake with snippets of the conversation and images from 'The Berry Incident' (as she now called it) replaying through her head. Repression? Depression? She might not be the biggest ray of sunshine but she was certainly not depressed and what did she have to repress? Quinn's usual coping strategy of imagining a well-timed slushy delivered into the face of whoever was annoying her was backfiring. Close-up images of cherry slushy sliding down a tanned cleavage weren't having the desired effect and she didn't want to linger too long on what effect it was having. A new strategy was needed so she started to think about the dubious outfits the singing gnome had worn to school. The pantsuit had her snorting but as her memory recalled various skirt-and-jumper combinations a tiny part of her wondered how she had managed to retain so many mental images of Berry.

The singing gnome nickname led her into a musical interlude where she amazed herself with the number of song renditions she could recall the short-statured girl making. In her mind's eye each song was accompanied by a close up of Berry's facial expressions and boy did she have a big mouth. Imagine that mouth...she reined in her thoughts; this wasn't helping. She could hear her mother stumbling down the corridor outside towards the master suite. Sounded like 'mothers' ruin' was living up to its name. Should she be trying to persuade her mum to lessen her alcoholic intake? Was she her mother's keeper? At least little Miss Singing Gnome didn't need to worry about drinking mothers, bet her fathers didn't overindulge – god did everything have to come back to Berry?

Quinn threw her covers off – perhaps some hot chocolate and a warm bath would aid her relaxation process. She crept downstairs while laughing quietly at her silliness; honestly, a herd of elephants skateboarding through the hallway wouldn't wake her mother now.

As Quinn dressed for school the next morning she gazed at herself in the mirror. A slight red tinge round the eyes was the only evidence of her recent insomnia. She adjusted her ponytail, squared her shoulders and mentally ran through her plans to totally ignore the annoying gnat that was Rachel Berry. She would be one hundred per cent focused on her studies and a long run after Cheerios' practice would ensure that she was physically exhausted enough to fall asleep later that evening.

With a deep breath she jogged down the stairs to say her goodbyes to her pill-popping, pint-of-water-quaffing mother and headed to her car. See, it was that easy, no Berry-related thoughts for nearly 10 minutes. She noisily pulled out of the driveway and headed to school. Ignore the singing gnome – how hard could it be?

"Quinn?" a familiar voice called her as she stood at her locker trying to remember what she needed for the morning. Honestly, this is how hard it could be. She turned to face the girl who was currently causing her to lose sleep. With a deep breath and her fiercest expression plastered to her face (she hoped), she snapped, " RuPaul. There'd better be a good reason why you're wasting my time."

An unfazed Rachel smiled brilliantly at her and Quinn stared intently back to ensure her eyes didn't stray (to judge the validity of her slushy vision). Though it was hard to tell with that unicorn (unicorn?) sweater on.

"Mr Schuester has called a lunchtime meeting of the Glee club and as Captain I wanted to ensure an exemplary turn out of the club to facilitate..."

"Fine, I don't need the details" she interrupted, "I'll let Santana and Brittany know to spare them the soliloquy."

"Hardly a soliloquy, Quinn. I think you'll find-"

"Berry, as far as I'm concerned you were talking to yourself." She retorted and turned on her heel, slamming her locker shut and then walking away. She mentally slapped herself – what was she doing giving Berry material for her impersonations?

Quinn realised her plan to ignore the singing gnome suffered from one major flaw – she noticed whenever the smurfette was about and she was about an awful lot. Considering how many classes they didn't share how come Berry was always in the same part of corridor (well, okay their lockers were close together) or the ladies' room when she dropped in? Three lessons and five Berry sightings had made her abandon her plan. She hadn't decided on an alternative – she didn't interact much with the midget anyway. Oh and wasn't the point to stop thinking about Berry? All she had ended up doing now was thinking more about Berry generally rather than focussing on the Berry from the café. (The tune to Jenny from the Block drifted briefly across her consciousness although caff rather than café was needed to fit Berry from the caff to the tune.) Sleep deprivation was impeding her ability to think rationally, never mind making her recall excruciatingly bad pop tunes – which reminded her: Mr. Schue's abrupt Glee meeting. It was time to head off.

Moving to a back seat for the meeting, Quinn folded her arms across her chest and scowled. Berry entered the room next, taking the front seat and smoothing down her oh-so-short skirt – Quinn stared at the door to avoid looking at the dwarf's disproportionately long and shapely legs. She willed for the rest of the club to arrive quickly and her prayers were slowly met. She greeted Santana with a grunt and smiled briefly at Britney. She tuned out Mr Schue's ramblings and didn't bother to look at what allegedly inspirational word he had scrawled across the whiteboard. She vaguely took in the excited hand in the air and verbosity of Berry's input as she pondered about the jarring differences between how the gnome was behaving here to how she behaved at the café. What was that about? How could she use what she had learnt about that pipsqueak to her advantage? Mind you she had to admit that the Kurt impression was incredibly spot on especially when compared to his current posture.

The final lesson of the day rolled around and Quinn found that losing herself in the intricacies of calculus problem-solving gave her no room to be side-tracked by her other thoughts. She congratulated herself mentally for achieving an hour and a half of Berry-free thoughts. The sudden ringing of the bell released her from her thoughts. Cheerios' practice was now calling. As she rounded the corner heading towards the gym the splash of ice on skin and clothes, followed by a muffled squeak, assaulted her ears. High-fiving rowdy footballers brushed past her as her eyes took in the sorry sight of a rather drenched Treasure Trail heading for the nearest restroom. Quinn hadn't realised quite what she was doing as she followed after the drowned rat. Opening the door to the deserted (bar-for Berry) restroom she stepped in, her thoughts still struggling to catch up with her actions. She quickly took in Berry's appearance as the bigger ice chunks were being towelled off. Well, the munchkin's unicorn sweater hadn't been ruined as she wasn't wearing it but that shirt would need a serious intervention if it was to survive the onslaught.

"Came to gloat? Are you happy now?" Rachel snarled at Quinn's reflection as she slipped her wet shirt off and threw it into the sink.

"I, er, I- um," Quinn struggled to form coherent thoughts (never mind speech) as she took in the red stained bra and realised that the real-life cleavage was fuller but was just as tanned as the ones in her imagination. She dragged her eyes up to meet Rachel's glare in the mirror.

"D-Do you want me to help you?" Quinn finally managed to splutter out, flushing slightly at the images and scenarios conjured up by her mind as she wondered about where she could help - touching skin on the pretext of removing chunks of ice. Rachel stopped her movements and turned slowly to look Quinn in the eye.

"Help me?" Rachel looked puzzled as Quinn squirmed slightly and felt her cheeks redden.

"Oh, do please expand on how you could 'help me'," Rachel added in a tone that Quinn had never heard from her before. Quinn's mouth was dry and she couldn't think of any suitable response.

She took a step towards Quinn and lifted her hand to poke her in the chest with a red-stained finger.

"You're a major part of the reason I'm even in this situation. I suspect your 'help' would result in my further humiliation so why don't you just run along to your bimbotic balancing gymnastics and leave me-" Rachel bit off a part of the sentence (were the following words that stopped supposed to be 'the hell' or 'the fuck', Quinn briefly pondered), body already turning to face the sink when she quietly added, "-alone."