This is a story I started writing before it was a Faberry Week prompt, so this will have more chapters to come and the true Faberry portion will come later on.
A/N: Minor trigger warning: suicide.
Present
It had been two years since the first outbreak. Families watched each other die while the rest of the human population just waited and prayed. Religious fanatics encouraged people to repent and cleanse themselves of their sins before it was too late and they were turned into the monsters they all feared. Politicians pushed for new laws that forced people to turn themselves in and used military muscle to force some citizens into quarantine.
The initial panic had died down somewhat and there were fewer stories about The Infection, as the media were calling it, and more about how communities were dealing with the aftermath. Lima, Ohio was practically overrun, so many people migrated to the outskirts and in more rural areas; some left the country altogether. Military outposts were set up in major cities and the head medical and research office was found in California with branches in New York and Chicago.
Makeshift graves were scattered everywhere – in front of houses, in overcrowded cemeteries, and even in school playgrounds. The unfortunate souls were buried anywhere there was space. Mangled body parts peeked out of the ground as a constant reminder that the human race had failed somewhere along the line. Those who could not be buried were burned in an abandoned landfill.
The life that people knew was completely different. Professions that existed before the infection no longer had any practical use. Teachers, of course, were still needed, as were medical practitioners and scientists. There was also still a need for entertainers to take the edge off and make people forget about their current state.
That's where Rachel Berry came in. She was one of the last performers standing, so to speak. She had started her career while attending NYADA and taking on small roles where possible - a TV ad here, a back-up vocal there. She wanted to use her presence and talent to help people forget. She wanted to help people forget that they had lost so much; forget that they had to live differently; forget that they were alone.
Ever since The Infection, Rachel started changing her perspective as most people had to do. Things went from being all about her and her career to making people that she knew feel better about their hopeless situation. Above all, she wanted to make her fathers proud.
It was the least she could do.
She found her fathers together in their home in Lima. They had already begun their transformation when she went to visit after hearing that her hometown had been affected. When she looked into her fathers' eyes, they weren't their eyes. They were bloodshot and empty, yellow skin surrounding them, almost as if they had become lepers or were already dead. She remembered crying in their arms when they told her what was happening and what was going to happen.
Denial filled Rachel's mind and heart. She was too young to lose her fathers. They were supposed to attend her first Broadway show, give her away at her wedding and spoil her future children. They were supposed to be invincible and just be around forever.
"You'll be okay, baby girl," they would tell her. "You're stronger than you think. You'll never be alone, because we'll be watching and looking after you."
Rachel cried for months after that visit. She promised to visit them as often as she could, but with all of her prior engagements, it didn't leave her much vacation time.
Kurt was in Boston, but he had to drop out of college due to the infection. It attacked his muscles and bones. It grabbed hold and refused to let go, and eventually, he lost his ability to control his own body. His voice became rugged and raspy as if he smoked ten packs of cigarettes a day, even though he had never touched a cigarette in his life. He comforted Rachel as much as he could, but when the time came, he and Blaine had checked themselves into a military hospital to be monitored. They didn't want to take any chances.
Rachel went to visit them both when she could, but between those two and her fathers, her work, and everything else that was going on, she found it hard to juggle it all. She knew the end was coming soon and she prayed to anyone who was listening that they would hold on long enough so that she could say goodbye.
During one of her performances, a man came up to her backstage and said that she needed to come with him. In general, she would never trust a strange man no matter how expensive his suit or how important he looked. There was a look in his eyes that pleaded with her and then she knew: Her fathers were dead.
There was no funeral, because there were just so many who passed and it appeared to never end. Rachel had them cremated and spread their ashes around one of the nearby reservoirs. A country club was located on the reservoir, as well, and right before Rachel had gone off to college, the owners of the country club finally opened it up to gay couples. Rachel and her fathers would have picnics there once a week when they became members as a sort of "up yours" to the other members who voted against it.
This was almost a year ago. Rachel was slowly losing everyone who meant anything to her and she was drowning. She hadn't spoken to Quinn in almost four years. After high school, they kept in touch while she was at NYADA and Quinn was at Yale. They would text and Skype together just to say hi or ask how the other was doing, ask about their glee club friends, or complain about their classes.
Once finals had come around before spring break of their freshman year, Quinn dropped off the face of the planet. She stopped texting, stopped signing onto Skype; even Santana and Brittany hadn't heard from her. Rachel assumed that Quinn had just gotten really busy with schoolwork, but when she hadn't heard from her at all during their spring break or anytime after, she figured that Quinn had found her own friends and Rachel should do the same.
Finn joined the army right out of high school and was sent to North Carolina to train. He was glad he'd at least be in the same time zone as Rachel and they were still talking, even though they had broken up. They still wanted to be friends.
Finn never quite understood Rachel and Quinn's friendship, but he didn't get in the way. He knew that Rachel needed familiarity, so having Quinn and Kurt to talk to when he wasn't available would help a lot. Rachel worked in the campus bookstore and took the opportunity to meet more students and faculty by working on campus and she hoped that it would benefit her in the long run.
Rachel lived fairly happily in New York. Things were tough at times, but she expected them to be. Kurt would come by once a month to spend time with Rachel. They'd go see the latest musical or play on Broadway, though most of them had been shut down; stuffed themselves full of food, and just hung out at Rachel's apartment and discussed the latest trends.
After high school, all of them had promised to keep in touch. Rachel and Finn put their relationship on hold, saying that if they were meant to be together, they would end up together; they had all the time in the world.
That is, until The Infection was discovered.
Finn was the last to go. When he moved to New York, Rachel let him stay with her. They talked about their future and what their current relationship meant. They were content with just being in each other's company again. Finn knew that he didn't have much longer and he would try to downplay what was going on in his body so Rachel wouldn't worry, but she did anyway. She quit her job, hardly ate, and spent most of her time trying to research and find some way to keep him alive longer. The internet only had so much information. They tried everything. She made him take ice baths every night, took red meat out of his diet, and even performed various religious rituals. Nothing seemed to be working. Finn's humanity was slipping away and there was nothing she could do.
One night, when Rachel finally fell asleep on their couch after a long night of research, she didn't hear Finn leave the apartment. When a nightmare shook her awake, she slinked into the bedroom, only to find the apartment empty. She opened every door, but Finn was nowhere to be found. His phone was still on the nightstand, but his shoes were gone. After throwing a heavy coat around her shoulders and slipping on a pair of sneakers, she left the apartment in search for her ailing ex-boyfriend.
She walked down a couple of blocks, but it was dark and there were only a few streetlamps on the road. The eerie shadows seemed to follow her every move, feeding on the panic and despair, waiting to swallow her whole. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something move.
Against her better judgement, she walked into an alleyway and as she walked closer the figure, it started to look familiar. She recognized the tall stature of her ex-boyfriend and called out to him, but he didn't make any movements toward her. The closer she got to him, the more frightened she became.
"Finn," she called out timidly, begging him to turn around.
The pale moonlight shone on Finn's hunched body and Rachel looked up at him and realized that his feet weren't touching the ground. There was a rope tied to his neck and he was dangling from a fire escape. Rachel shook Finn's arm, tried to revive him. When he didn't move, she scrambled up the fire escape and untied the noose and Finn's body fell to the floor. Rachel's heart started pounding and she kneeled next to her Finn's cold body. She placed a hand on his chest and her initial sobs started to make her body convulse.
He left me. He left me again.
She called the only person she knew who could make her feel like she wasn't spiraling down an endless hurricane of fear and panic. It rang five times until the familiar voice spoke and kindly asked her to leave a message.
Hi, this is Quinn. Sorry I missed your call. Leave me a message!
"Quinn, I don't know where you are or what happened between us, but I really need you right now. I don't... I'm so lost. Please, just please call me back."
Rachel crumpled onto the floor and held Finn's head in her arms. She saw an envelope that must have fallen out of Finn's hand on the ground next to her. She picked it up, but couldn't bring herself to open it. Not yet.
She lay down next to Finn's body, not wanting to leave him alone and she knew that even if she called an ambulance, all they would do is take them to a military hospital where she would have to stay overnight to make sure there was no contamination and they would most likely keep her away from Finn's body. This was the only way she would be able to grieve and say goodbye. So, she lay with him.
Periodically, she would look at her phone in case she missed a call or a text, but there was no reply. She came to the frightening realization that she was completely and utterly alone. Quinn wasn't coming for her. Nobody was.
