Spoilers: Set post "On My Way".
Disclaimer: Characters belong to RIB and co. I'm just playing. And doing awful things to them.
A/N: Trigger warning for suicide. I was trying to sleep and couldn't get this out of my head, so I decided to write it down. Remember; your reviews keep me sane. And alive. And also, writing. No pressure. :D
Rachel Berry sits on the floor at the foot of her bed, the sunset visible outside her window casting hazy shadows about the room. She makes no anticipatory move to turn on lights. She waits for the darkness to arrive. There's a pen in her hand that hadn't been there a second ago, a pad of lined paper balanced on the knees she'd brought up to her chest. She laughs, a little brokenly, because she doesn't remember moving. The movement makes her wince, inside and out, the twitching of her lips causing pain to flare about her eyes and she wonders what she looks like. How red they are, how swollen, whether or not it would hurt to touch them because that fleeting second of pain has already been forgotten. And she's numb again.
Her eyes feel heavy inside their sockets as she glances about her room, trying to pick out keepsakes from her childhood and the things that mean most to her. All she sees are hollow objects linked to memories she can't recall. Meaningless. Her wedding dress lies in a pile at the feet of the chair before her vanity table, its pristine whiteness marred with blood but, "It's okay" Finn had told her dads, "It's okay, it's not Rachel's.". She blinks. Her fingers tighten their grip on the pen and she tries to make the lines on the page hold still. They sway through her tears.
Last night, I dreamt you stopped the wedding. We were at a church, Finn and I, and there was sunlight streaming in through stained glass windows in the ceiling. Everybody from glee was there, and my dads and Carole and Burt, but you weren't. And at first I remember not knowing why. I was in a white dress, but Finn wasn't wearing his tux and he looked like he didn't belong there. I kept looking at the clock and time, it was so strange, it kept jumping. Backwards and forwards, like it couldn't decide which direction it wanted to move in, and then suddenly we were saying our vows. And I was so confused. Because I didn't know why. I didn't know how we'd gotten to that point. And then, it was like a movie; right at the point where you'd most expect it, objections to our union, you burst into the church and screamed my name. Like I screamed your's, when we found your car. And I ran to you, and I was so happy. Because you'd saved me, even when I'd tried so hard to refuse you. You saved me, Quinn. I didn't forget the dream, though I tried to. And today I wished for it to come true. But instead my nightmares found me.
I took some pills. I don't remember the name of them, but that doesn't seem to matter right now. You'd be angry with me, I know that. I think I'd be angry with myself if I could feel anything, but I can't. You're gone, Quinn. Everything is numb and empty, and I don't want to feel anything. Never again. I know what you'd say. You'd say, "Rachel Berry isn't a quitter." You'd say, "You're destined for greater things than this, Rachel." You'd say, "You deserve better." You did say that. You told me I deserved better than Lima, Ohio, better treatment than what you'd showed me, a better 'someone' than Finn Hudson. What about you, Quinn? You deserved to live. But you're dead. You're gone. And while the 'Rachel Berry' who sought fame and the bright lights of Broadway would never had chosen what's destined to be looked at as 'the easy way out', that isn't the person who's writing this letter. I can't feel her anymore. She's gone. I think she died with you. And I envy her. She had it easy, disappeared before I really had a chance to realise it. I was too busy cleaning your blood from my hands. She slipped away when you did, but I was too focused on trying to hold onto you to even notice she was gone.
I can't live in a world without you. Where there are reminders of you everywhere. Reminders of what might have been, what could have been if I'd just been truthful with you. With myself. I can't and I won't. I know that this will hurt. That Finn and my dads will blame themselves. They won't understand why. People will be sad. And I'm sorry for that, I am. But I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to be in a world that you're not. I don't know how to exist without you. I don't want to. So I won't.
It's kind of funny, really. You always said I had a stubborn streak.
With a sigh she doesn't hear, Rachel places the pad of paper and the pen beside her. Sunlight flickers through trees outside as it makes its steady decent, sending a ray into the room to catch the engagement ring she'd placed on the windowsill an eternity ago. There's a note next to it. It doesn't say much, words that read "I'm sorry" and "I love you" at the surface, but mean something that won't ever be voiced at the core.
Suddenly more exhausted than she's ever been in her entire life, Rachel Berry lowers herself to the floor, curling onto her side. She's cold in just her underwear and she can feel patches of dry blood on her arms. It itches. Her puffy eyes flutter shut as she presses her cheek into the carpet and takes a deep breath. She can't remember a time when breathing had been so hard. She'll be glad, she thinks, when she doesn't have to try anymore.
Eventually, the sun goes down. And darkness takes her.