DISCLAIMER: I neither own Glee nor the characters. They are the property of Ryan Murphy and FOX. This is purely for fun. Enjoy!
A/N: I have come out of fanfic retirement because Kelsey prompted me this idea and I just couldn't get it out of my head. I hope you all enjoy the return of my madness.
For a Thousand Years
Chapter One: The Ghost of Rachel's Past
"Bubbe, look at this!" A little girl with her hair pulled up in two perfect pigtails had her head buried in a musky old box in her grandmother's bedroom, siphoning through the contents like she had found her own personal treasure. "Bubbe, come quick!"
"Rachel, oy, I'm coming! My bones are too old for this," she half-joked while hobbling into the bedroom on achy joints. The older woman let out a tired sigh when she sat on the edge of the bed, but smiled earnestly at her little grand-daughter who bounced energetically before her. "What did you find?"
"The most amazing things, Bubbe!" The eight-year old said while she pulled out book after musty, ancient book, placing them on the floor. "Is this really my family history?"
"Absolutely, my little star. Come bring one to me and I'll show you everything you want to know." The child was bursting with excitement as she tried to pick up a book that was almost half her size. Her grandmother helped her, and together they lifted up the giant tome that comprised their family ancestry. Rachel wrinkled her nose at the damp, dusky smell of the paper as her grandmother turned the pages and landed on an elaborate family tree.
"Wow," Rachel breathed, in awe of the intricate details littering the pages. "The Berry family tree."
"That's right. This book goes back hundreds of years, ever since your ancestors came to the United States during the mid-1800's." Rachel looked at the names on the list and gasped at what she saw.
"Bubbe! There are so many Rachel's here!" She looked up at her grandmother with excitement in her gaze. "Was I named after them?"
The woman nodded. "Rachel is a precious family name. We try to skip a generation or two before it's used again, though. For example, look over here," her Bubbe pointed to a long branch that had very familiar names on it. "This is our line of the family. As you can see, my mother's name was Rachel too." The light of nostalgia entered her eyes as memories from long ago returned to her like footage from a movie reel. "You know, you look just like her when she was young."
"Really?" Rachel asked, her interest fully piqued. She would never know her great-grandmother, so she wanted to learn as much as she could about the woman she was named after.
"Yes," she replied, digging through the pictures. "Look at this one. She was a little older than you are when this picture was taken in 1912." Rachel took the picture from her grandmother and stared at the young girl smiling back at her. It was an ancient picture, its ends fraying while age spots discolored some of the background. But the girl in the picture was clear enough for Rachel to see, and as she looked into the eyes of the great-grandmother she would never meet, a strange chill shot down her spine and she could no longer look at it.
They really did look similar. Almost too similar.
But Rachel was too young to understand why she could no longer look at the picture, and she slipped it back into the box with the other forgotten memories while her Bubbe continued to rifle through the photo albums. She shook away the disconcerting feeling she experienced, instead falling back into the past with her grandmother at her side. She reached into the box and Rachel pulled out another picture, a picture of great-grandma Rachel standing with a man. He was tall and lean, and stared down at great-grandma Rachel with nothing but the deepest affection in his eyes.
"Is this my great-grandfather?" She asked innocently, passing the picture over to her grandmother. The woman pushed her thick-spectacles up on her nose to better see the image in front of her. Her nose was wrinkled in concentration before she let out a laugh.
"Him? No, that's not my Papa," she said fondly, shaking her head. "That was my Mama's first love."
"Her first love?" Rachel asked, cocking her head in confusion.
"Yes, and she would have married him too," she trailed off, her voice growing ominous. "If he wasn't a ghost."
"A ghost?!" Little Rachel exclaimed, staring at the picture in front of her. The man didn't look like a ghost, and there was a picture of him in her hands, serving as proof that he was, in fact, a real person. So what did her grandmother mean? "That's impossible!"
"I know it is, but it's true," the grandmother hesitated, and broke off mid-sentence. "But your Daddy would kill me if he knew I told you this story. It's not one for little girls."
"Please, Bubbe, I have to know!" She looked down at the picture in her hands and Rachel needed to know more. The man, who towered over her ancestor with his immense height, absolutely captivated her with the look of pure adoration in his eyes, directed solely at the Rachel in the picture. His smile was warm and handsome; and he was dressed in a suit that reflected the fashion of the time. Rachel flipped the picture over and it said "FH & RB" on the back. According to the family tree, great-grandma Rachel's last name was Behr, but who was FH? And why did her Bubbe think he was a ghost?
"Alright, dear, but if you have bad dreams tonight, don't say I didn't warn you."
Rachel puffed out her chest with pride. "I'm a big girl, Bubbe; I think I can handle it."
"Okay, well, according to my mother, when she was 16 she fell head over heels in love with the man in that photograph. Word around town was that he absolutely adored her, fell in love with her at first sight, and gave her everything she'd ever wanted. All your great-grandmother really wanted was for him to propose, and for them to share their lives with one another."
"What happened?" The little girl asked. "Did he die?"
"No," Bubbe said firmly with a shake of her head. "No, that wasn't the problem at all." For some reason, goosebumps erupted all over the little girl's arms as her grandmother continued the tale. "One day, they went for a walk, and my mother confessed her desires for them to live as husband and wife and grow old together. She thought he would propose to her then, and promise her his heart, but the exact opposite happened. He refused her, broke her heart, and told her that he could not provide her with the things she needed. My mother was crushed beyond words but she eventually moved on and married my father a few years later."
"But why? What happened?" Rachel was almost in tears, fighting against her confusion.
"I don't know, Rachel," she laughed. "I wasn't born yet."
"But it doesn't make any sense!" She cried. "They loved one another! Why would he leave her?"
"My mother always said that being with him felt more like a dream than actual reality," she said with heavy nostalgia.
"But you said he was a ghost!"
"Ah, that's where the spooky part comes in," her Bubbe said mischievously as her tone darkened. "When I was a little girl, about ten years old, I went to the nickelodeon with my brother and sister. Back then you could see whole movies for only a nickel, and we used to go every Saturday. But anyway, I got lost one day on the way home, after my brother started chasing my sister and her friends through the local park. I was terrified and alone, and I had no idea how to get back to our house from that part of town. All of a sudden, I look up, and there was a man in front of me. A kind, tall man with warm brown eyes and a smile that I immediately trusted, even though he was a stranger. He held out his hand for me to hold and he walked me all the way home, without even having to ask where I lived."
"But how did he know?"
"Ah, don't jump ahead my dear. When we walked down my block I could see my mother in the streets, knocking on people's doors and poking her head in the alleyways, looking for me. I pulled the man by his hand, dragging him toward my mother, but the man pulled his hand away from mine before we could reach her. I ran into my mother's arms, crying, and when she looked up to thank the man who found me, she turned as white as a ghost, took me inside without a word of thanks to the man, and immediately showed me this picture. I recognized the stranger instantly . . . because he didn't look a day older than the man you see here."
"Wait, what?" Rachel might have been eight, but she was extremely intelligent for her age and always knew when something was amiss.
"It was the same man, Rachel. The man who saved me was the man in the picture. And while my mother looked like a grown-up adult, he still looked like the strapping young man you see in your hands."
"But Bubbe, it could have just been a coincidence," the young girl said cleverly, doubting the truth behind her grandmother's story. "Maybe the man just looked similar to great-grandma Rachel's old boyfriend."
"Well, it could have been a coincidence," she shrugged. "But I remember the look in my mother's eyes when she saw that man. It was like she saw a ghost."
Rachel thought about her grandmother's story for a long moment, holding the picture in her hands and staring at it like it held all the answers to her questions. Was her grandmother right about the man in the picture? Was he really a ghost? Was her family being haunted by this person, this "FH?" Would he try to haunt her too?
She put the picture back in the box and closed the giant book on her Bubbe's lap, too scared to continue thinking about her weird family history.
Sometimes it's better if things stayed in the past where they belong.
TEN YEARS LATER
The bright afternoon sun hung high above her, shining through the cracks of the massive skyscrapers that towered over her and made her feel even smaller than she already was. Dozens of people poured out of the subway entrance as she tried to descend, pushing through the gaggle of New Yorkers that threatened to stampede her while she tried to keep her balance on the stairs.
Rachel Berry heaved a sigh of relief when she made it to the bottom in one piece, holding her ballet bag tightly against her before heading towards the train. She had been in New York for a whole semester, and she could never quite get used to how crowded everything was all the time. It was like another world compared to her little hometown of Lima, Ohio, and even though she was happy to follow her dreams of Broadway and stardom, she just wished she didn't feel like a little fish in a giant, massive pond.
She hummed to herself while she stood on the platform, listening to her iPod while waiting for the train uptown. There was a chill in the subway and she shivered, feeling goosebumps rise on her skin. Actually, on second thought, it wasn't the cold that was giving her goosebumps, but the sudden and acute sensation that she was being watched, something that had been happening to her ever since she moved to New York.
Feeling paranoid, especially since she was commuting alone, Rachel immediately peeked around her, trying to see if her instincts were correct. Even though the disconcerting sensation had been happening more and more frequently, she never found proof that someone was actually watching her. The platform was pretty full of people, but no one in the vicinity was looking in her direction. But something was telling her not to let her guard down, and she glanced across the platform towards the other side, where the commuters were waiting for trains to take them downtown, and it was then that she noticed the man for the first time.
He was staring at her; that was absolutely certain. The hairs on the back of her neck were standing on end when they made eye contact, and she froze as a chilling fear settled into her bones. He was standing right at the edge of the platform, directly in front of her, his hands stuffed inside of a simple black pea coat while the man seemed to appraise her from across the tracks. She was so stunned at the sheer audacity of the situation that she didn't even break eye contact, wanting to know every detail of his face so she could file a police report if need be. He was tall, and his face seemed familiar to her, like she had seen him once in a dream. His dark eyes stared right through her, with chiseled cheekbones pointed downwards in a frown, like she had offended him in some way. He was definitely handsome, with a lean but muscular physique and a strong jaw, but Rachel's heart pounded for different reasons; she felt threatened by the man and his blatant staring. Didn't he know how unbelievably rude he was being? And really creepy to boot!
But Rachel was not about to let some weird stranger rile her up and freak her out before a full day of classes, even if he was handsome and oddly familiar to her. She stared right back at him, feeling defiant despite the lingering fear prickling at her.
The spell was broken when her train pulled up at the station, blocking him from her view. She snapped out of the trance she felt, entering the train and sitting down at a window seat that faced the opposite platform. Rachel spotted the man immediately, still staring at her through the train window, his lips still curved downwards in a grimace. When the train started to pull away her eyes lingered on his frame as long as possible before entering the tunnels and the disconcerting feeling of being watched followed her around all afternoon.
One thing was definitely certain: living in New York was never dull.
The blood was pumping through his veins like a bullet of adrenaline shot through him, and his hands were shaking inside of the coat he wore to keep out the chill he couldn't feel. Lately he'd felt number than usual, keeping up with appearances so as to not draw attention to himself. People would get suspicious if he was standing around without a coat on in the middle of winter, and it was best if people didn't ask questions about him. He never knew how to answer them.
This is why he had to keep his distance from her from now on. Rachel Berry was here, she was safe, and that was all that mattered to him. He already felt foolish enough for exposing himself to her in so blatant a manner, but sometimes it took every ounce of strength he had just to stay away from her; to stop himself from approaching her and finding some way to introduce himself.
It never works out the way you want it. You always end up alone.
He shook away the voice in his head, his only companion throughout a long and weary life. The solitude was starting to get to him; the never-ending struggle against loneliness and the cloying pull of despair that he fought so desperately against. The only solace he had was that hope still lingered in his heart, a hope that had survived heartbreak after heartbreak, a hope that kept him going no matter what. He closed his eyes and he could almost hear her voice, calling out the promise she had made to him so long ago. A promise she'd been able to keep time and time again.
"I will always love you."
He watched Rachel's train pull away and there was an emptiness inside of him that felt particularly hollow after that sudden first encounter. She probably thought he was some kind of freak; some creepy city dweller who did nothing but stare at strangers from across the subway platform.
When he was, in fact, a part of her destiny.
A sigh heaved from his lips as he headed out of the subway station, into the bright afternoon sun that he shielded his eyes against. The glare of the sunlight was strong, almost too strong as he walked into an intersection and heard the sudden, sharp horn of a taxicab. The speeding yellow vehicle plowed right into him, sending his body flying as the air rushed out of his lungs in a huge burst of air. When he hit the black Manhattan pavement like a rag-doll he knew he should have felt pain everywhere, but the sensation that coursed through him was the same tingling numbness that he always felt in the absence of pain. He took a deep lungful of air while a crowd of people surrounded him, and they all gasped when he lifted himself up off of the ground without any help a few moments later. He could only hope that the sound of his bones cracking back into place was muffled by their stunned cries of alarm.
"Son, don't you need any help?" An older man with a briefcase asked. "That taxi could have crushed you!"
"I'm fine," he said, brushing the dirt off of his coat and offering the man a smile. "Really, it didn't leave a scratch."
"It's a miracle," a young woman commented while he started to walk away from them. The crowd around him was pretty thin, and for that he was grateful. He didn't need anyone spreading rumors about a guy walking away from a car accident completely unscathed.
Besides, it didn't feel like a miracle.
To him, it felt more like a curse.
She was still sweating from her strenuous day of rehearsal when she left the NYADA campus later that night, forgoing her scarf and gloves and walking down the street with her coat open, despite the winter chill. It was a long trek back downtown towards her dorm building and Rachel already felt exhausted from her class load to even care about the risk of getting sick from being exposed in this weather. She was tired, she was sweaty, and she just wanted to take a shower and go to bed.
But first, she was hungry. She detoured from her route back to the subway and headed towards her favorite vegan deli, where she could get a nice hummus wrap on whole wheat. She was thinking more with her stomach than her head when she passed by a darkened alleyway, and didn't even notice the figure of a man reaching out of the abyss to grab her.
The movement was sudden and violent, completely disorientating her. First Rachel was on her way to her favorite deli and then she was being dragged into the alley with a strong hand covering her mouth, her screams being muffled by the man's meaty fingers. Whoever he was he smelled foul, and his stagnant breath was hot against her cheek as he growled in her ear.
"Keep quiet bitch and don't fucking move," the sting of hot tears filled her eyes as a sense of hopelessness hollowed her out. He held up a pocketknife for her to see and the glow of the streetlamps reflected off the blade. Her eyes went wide with fear as a combination of terror and adrenaline pumped through her body. She could hear her heart hammering in her ears as the man pressed the blade into her side, and she could feel the sharp metal poking at her through the fabric of her coat. "Say a single word and I'll gut you right here." Fat tears slid down her cheeks as he reached into her open coat to touch her, and she closed her eyes against the despair she felt consuming her.
"Let go of her."
It was a low voice, calm and collected that called to her through the darkness. Her eyes shot open from shock and she tried to blink back her tears to see who her savior was. But the darkness was too deep, and all she could see was the outline of his silhouette. The man gripped her tighter and she let out a squeal of fear as the shadowed man took a single step closer.
"You keep moving and this bitch is dead, ya hear?" The man screamed, backing deeper into the alley as her would-be savior blocked the only exit.
"There's nowhere for you to go," for some reason, the man's voice seemed to break through the panic she felt, and she tried to regain control of her trembling limbs. It was a voice that almost seemed familiar to her, but she shook it away as an impossibility. She knew no one in New York besides her classmates at NYADA, and none of them seemed to care for her at all. "Why don't you just let her go and we can forget this ever happened."
"You don't know shit!" The man screamed, and Rachel could only hope that his screaming would alert someone to her plight. The man in front of her seemed unfazed and took another step closer, and Rachel summoned all of her strength and courage before biting down on the hand that was keeping her silent.
Her captor's bellow of pain echoed throughout the alleyway, and the man in the shadows reached forward and pulled her out of the way before tackling the man that grabbed her to the ground. She still couldn't see her savior's face, but she watched him fight the young Latino man that had grabbed her while they both wrestled with the knife. Rachel screamed when she saw the knife get plunged into her savior's side, and blood dripped freely from the wound while they continued to fight one another. More tears flowed freely down her face while she frantically called 911, and she heard a loud grunt as the criminal passed out on the ground, unconscious.
"Oh my god," Rachel cried hysterically as she hung up the phone, wiping away her tears that were freezing on her face in the cold night. The man who had saved her life lifted himself off the ground, but her eyes were fixed on the bloody wound in his side where the knife had stabbed him. She rushed towards him, filled with gratitude and running off of the adrenaline that still lingered in her bloodstream. "We have to get you to a hospital."
"No, it's alright," he spoke calmly, trying to wave off her concern. She shook her head and pushed his coat away, trying to find the wound.
"I need to stop the blood flow."
"It's already stopped."
She shook her head, "That's ridiculous. The police will be here in a minute and we'll get you to an. . . ." she looked up at the man who had saved her life and froze once more. " . . . Ambulance." Her mouth hung open in shock, trying to process what she was seeing. Maybe it was the stress of the moment, making her see things that weren't there, but Rachel was almost certain that the man, who had risked his own life to save hers, was the man from earlier that morning. The man who had been staring at her from across the train tracks.
And when she looked down at the wound on his side, it wasn't even there. Blood was marring his skin and his clothes but there wasn't even a scratch on him.
She took a step back, needing the space to breathe. Could it just be coincidence? Who was this man, and why was he sacrificing his own life to save hers? She saw him get stabbed, so why wasn't there a wound?
"You're," she breathed, as a certain panic entered his gaze. "Y-you're the man from this morning." He didn't deny it, but he didn't agree with her either. "You're not hurt."
"I'm glad you're safe," he said kindly, ignoring her statements and backing away from her, ready to leave. "Make sure the police escort you home when they get here."
"Wait," she called to him as he walked away, but she suddenly felt dizzy from the traumatizing events of that night. The man came back to her, placing his hands on her shoulders to steady her while he looked into her eyes. The warm, chestnut brown hue was welcoming and kind and she felt a connection blossom between them, unlike anything she had ever felt before. "Who are you?"
"Be safe, Rachel," he replied, completely avoiding her question. She wanted to know how he knew her name, but she had a feeling he wouldn't answer her even if she asked. He gave her a smile then, a smile that pulled up his right cheek and illuminated his face with youthful glee. It made her heart pound erratically, and she wanted so desperately to know who he was when he placed a chaste, yet intimate kiss on her forehead.
He walked away from her without a word, and she was powerless to stop him. Her legs felt weak, like her knees were made of jelly, and the sounds of police sirens filled the air as he walked out of the alleyway and disappeared.
But she was going to find that man again, she promised herself as the flashing lights came closer.
He had some serious explaining to do.
Told you it was the return of The Minsk's Madness!
Until next time. . . don't stop reviewin'!