Santana could feel Quinn’s pain. It felt as palpable as the blanket beneath them. It dug into Santana’s chest and burned as it made it’s way down to the pit of her stomach. The Slytherin felt like she would never eat again. The pain of this knew knowledge taking up all the space inside her. “I’m sorry,” Santana all but whispered. She felt really bad that Quinn had been made to hold on to such a horrific secret. It was an extreme burden for a kid to carry.
“I know you had to brake your promise,” Santana stated softly, “But thank you for telling me…I had to know.” Her eyes were now tracing the patterns of the Ravenclaw’s blanket. Neither girl seemingly able to make eye-contact. They now shared a secret that neither one of them wanted.
At the time, Quinn wanted more than anything to shout from the rooftops that some asshole violated her friend and that she needed help, but she couldn’t. All of the words she wanted to say formed a rock in her gut that she’d carried for three years. “I know you did, it’s the only reason why I even told you,” she murmured.
She gathered the strength to look up at Santana. “She needs you,” she said outright. “I’ve… got things to sort out, but you’ve gotta go to her. She loves you so much,” she continued, a tear finally sliding down her face.
Santana snapped out of bubble of rage when Quinn shook her and yelled. “Fuck!” she exclaimed. “I’m sorry,” she breathed out smelling the smoke for the first time. Santana looked out the curtain wand in hand, ready to fix whatever mess she had made. She sighed heavily when she saw that Quinn’s roommates had put out the fire and were now trying to repair the damage. They looked completely confused and irritated, but Santana didn’t have to time to concerned about them at the moment. Her focus went back to Quinn and what she said about Brittany. “I’ll be good,” Santana said, more to herself than to Quinn. “I’ll control it. No fires,” she said shaking her head, trying to convince herself that was possible.
After a moment Santana’s anger built back up, but she pushed it down hard, deep inside herself so she wouldn’t start another fire. “So he never got caught?” Santana asked hazel eyes, her face contorted in disgust. “Not even her parents?” As close as the Hufflepuff was to her family, Santana couldn’t believe Brittany’s parents didn’t know. “What did they think happened to her? She had to go to the hospital or something right?”
Letting Santana go, Quinn rested back on her legs, having risen to her knees when she shook the Slytherin. Once she came back into the confines of the bed, the blonde ran a hand through her hair. “She wouldn’t let me tell anyone, San,” Quinn stressed. “Even if I did tell anyone, she’s never come out and said it.” A lump developed in the Ravenclaw’s throat as she recalled the time she vowed not to tell; a vow she quite willingly broke just now. “She was hurt for a little while, but we managed to heal her. I don’t even remember how,” Quinn admitted.
Quinn looked hard at her bedding, so hard that it seemed like she was committing the patterns to memory. “This is the first promise I’ve ever broken to her,” she breathed.
Santana held her bottom lip in her mouth, biting down hard to keep the tears burning her eyes from falling. Looking at Quinn, watching and listening to her try to explain what was completely unexplainable; something so horrible, it made Santana angrier than she had ever been in her entire life. All along, deep down Santana knew the answer to that question. She knew the reason Brittany never discussed her first, she was just too afraid to ask. Now Quinn had confirmed her fears. Santana was enraged. “How? Wha- shit!” Santana stammered. “Fuck, did they at least get the bastard?” Santana had to know if the person who hurt Brittany in such a horrific way had at least been punished. Whether he had or not, she planned on finding him and doling out her own for of justice. She didn’t care if it did happen three years ago. If she landed in Azkaban so be it.
If Santana wasn’t so focused on Quinn, she would have noticed the smoke coming up from the other side of Quinn’s curtains. It was likely that Quinn’s roommates were now attempting to put out a fire, that they had no idea how it started.
A bitter laugh escaped Quinn’s lips as Santana asked about the guy getting caught. “You’re the first person to find out since it happened,” she admitted. “She made me swear not to tell. I wanted to, more than anything, but she wouldn’t let me. The way she told me… it was never directly out there. It was in a way only I could decode.” It was a stone in her stomach ever since.
Smelling the smoke herself, her eyes widened as she shook the fog of what she’d just told Santana off of her to grab the Slytherin by the shoulders. “For fuck’s sake, Santana!” she shouted. “I know you’re pissed, I’ve been pissed about it for three years,” she hissed, her eyes narrowing. “You said you were going to Hufflepuff after this, but you and I both know that you setting shit on fire is the last thing she needs right now.”
Santana could see the pain the conversation was causing Quinn, but as usual the Ravenclaw remained extremely composed and collected. The blonde was right, if Santana really wanted to know, she would have to ask. No one would just volunteer information like that.
Squeezing her hands together to stop them from fidgeting, Santana swallowed hard and mentally told herself to just do it. “Tonight Brittany got this message talking about her first time…whenever someone brings that up she totally avoids it. Tonight, she just got…like really upset. Britt never cares when people talk about sex, but her first it’s like…I don’t know. She like checks out or something. I never asked her about it, but I’m going over there tonight and I need to know…” Santana looked straight into hazel eyes, “Did something happen to Britt?…Did someone hurt her?”
And there it was. She asked. There was no way that Quinn was going to deny Santana this information; it was very much a need-to-know situation. She didn’t care if Brittany was going to be upset with her; she was dropping the bomb whether anyone liked it or not.
And nobody did.
“I didn’t find out what happened until a week after it happened, because we had to find out whether or not she was going to be okay,” she began. “We were 13… she was thirteen,” she repeated, looking away from Santana, her voice cracking a bit. “It happened at Quidditch camp, so… so I wasn’t there,” she continued, her voice shaky. “I wasn’t there to stop it… maybe if I was less rubbish on a broom, I could’ve,” she added, a bitterness showing in her voice the likes of which neither one of them had ever really heard from Quinn. After all, this was the first time they were ever talking about it.
Closing her eyes again, she reoopened them, tears welling in them though she didn’t dare let any fall. “The bastard stole into the night into her tent. She… to this day, she just calls it the ‘alien invasion’.”
And there it was.