Here's a story I've been working on for a while now. Thank you to Defygravity09 for helping me realize it was probably post-worthy and that my readers would enjoy it.

It's complete besides the final chapter, which I plan on finishing tonight or tomorrow. There are 32 chapters total, and I will be posting chapters sporadically based on request and how much time I have to post however many at a time, (if that makes sense).

Also know that these chapters are pretty short in length, considering most of them are just letters.

Love always and I hope you enjoy, Hayley

A Prologue:

Shelby Corcoran sat in the living room of her apartment, drinking tea and watching while her youngest daughter, Beth, played with her toys in front of her. She smiled at her little girl, who seemed so full of light and energy and just excited to be awake and playing.

It only took one phone call to ruin Shelby and Beth's moment of bliss. She didn't even have to answer the call to know something was horribly wrong. She could feel it in her gut.

"Hello?" she said tentatively.

"Shelby, thank god. I thought someone had called you by now. You're her mother, you deserve to know."

Shelby had about a billion questions by the time the voice had finished talking but all she could manage to get out was, "Who is this?"

"Sorry. It's Will." his voice was rough.

"Will? What about my daughter? What happened to Rachel?" A thousand bad situations went through her mind at once-was she hurt? Did she fall? Was she sick? Did she need surgery?-but nothing seemed to prepare her for what she was about to hear.

"Shelby...oh god, I'm so sorry." his voice broke. Was he crying? "Rachel died, yesterday, in a car crash."

Shelby's throat tightened and she couldn't remember how to breathe. Tears instantly streamed down her cheeks. He was lying, right? Rachel couldn't have died in a car crash. Rachel, her sweet, sweet Rachel couldn't be dead. No.

Her throat was hoarse and her voice broke as she whispered, "Sick joke, Will." and nearly hung up the phone.

"Shelby," he said softly, his voice so remorseful that Shelby knew he had to be telling the truth. That was when Shelby Corcoran broke down-something Shelby had never done before in her entire life. She let out a scream-a heart broken, life shattering scream that was full of nothing but regret and sorrow and anger and pain.

The phone dropped out of her hand and Beth looked up at her mother, confused as to why she was yelling.

Shelby dropped to the floor and screamed again.

Her long-time girlfriend, Cassandra July, had heard the first scream from the bathroom (she had been taking a shower) and wrapped herself up in a towel before slamming the water off and running to Shelby. She got to her by the time she had screamed out in anguish the second time. With wide, concerned eyes, Cassandra dropped to her lover's side.

"Shelby? Sweetheart, what's wrong?! Are you hurt?"

Shelby clutched her hands together and leaned forward with another scream. Her Rachel. Her first born. Her baby that was never hers-could never truly be hers. She had missed so much, and now...now...

"Rachel, no!" Shelby yelled out again. Scared, Beth clung to Cassandra's side.

"Mommy?" she wondered.

Cassandra was terrified and didn't know what to do. She had never seen her lover so lost, so broken. In so much pain.

Then it clicked. Shelby had yelled "Rachel". What the hell had happened to Rachel? Was Rachel...she couldn't be…dead?

She spied Shelby's phone, still on, on the floor next to her. Slowly, she reached over for it and held it to her ear, one hand on Shelby.

"Who is this?" she asked.

"Who is this?" a man's voice she didn't recognize asked back. He had clearly been crying as well.

"Shelby's girlfriend."

"Cassandra?" Will had met her once or twice. "It's Will."

"Will. What's wrong with Rachel? Shelby can't function."

After a short moment of silence, Cass heard him reply, sadly, "Rachel's dead."

Cass felt like she had been punched in the gut. She hadn't known Rachel extremely well-then again, neither had Shelby-but she was still Shelby's daughter. Shelby's flesh and blood.

"What happened?" Cass whispered, tears brimming her eyes.

"Car crash," Will mustered. "Kurt and Finn are in the hospital, still. But Rachel...the semi hit her spot on. He was drunk."

"Finn was?" Cass questioned, trying to make sense of a situation that seemed illogical. How could a car crash have killed Rachel Berry? So, she wasn't immortal but she was otherwise unconquerable. She had such big dreams—aspirations. How could she just be…dead?

"No, the driver of the semi that hit them. Finn was being perfectly safe. It wasn't the kids' fault."

"They were just the victims." Cass whispered.

"We're all still over at the Berry house, if you two want to come over," Will said after a long beat of silence and processing. "We're just...mourning."

Cass turned her attention to Shelby, who was hyperventilating. She silently coached her into taking deep breaths and clutched Beth to her side.

"We have Beth," she said into the phone.

"She can come," Will let her know. "The kids have been wanting to see her-Puck and Quinn are here, though, will Shelby be okay with that?"

A tear slipped down Cassandra's cheek. She couldn't believe she was having this discussion. About going over to her girlfriend's teenage daughter's house. To mourn her death.

Shelby drew in a sharp breath and wrapped her arms around Cassie, crying into her shoulder. Cass embraced her and kissed the top of her head, soothingly. "I don't think she'll care." she muttered into the phone. "We'll see if Shelby feels like leaving the house."

"Okay. You know the way?"

"I know the address, I'll figure it out. Goodbye, Will."

"Bye, Cassandra."

She hung up the phone and threw it onto the couch and held onto Shelby while she cried over her baby girl.

Beth was still very young and very small and didn't understand what was happening. But her Mommy and Cassie were crying, so she started to cry as well. It took a solid hour and a half for Shelby to start to calm down. Silent tears continued to flow down her raw cheeks as she slowly pulled away from Cass and whispered, her voice rough, "I want to go."

"Are you sure?" Cass wondered. "You don't have to, sweetheart."

Shelby nodded. She felt so many things-anger, regret, depression, frustration-but she also felt numb. Cass placed a slow, lingering kiss on Shelby's forehead before saying,

"Okay."

She wrapped an arm around Shelby to help her stand and ten minutes later they were driving to the Berry household. It was only a twenty minute drive but no one said a word and the minutes dragged on like they were hours.

Once Cassandra pulled into the driveway, the two women just sat there-Beth kicked her feet against her car seat in the back.

They finally went inside (Beth found her way to Puck, who greeted her with open arms) and Shelby completely lost it.

She had spied Hiram from across the room and yelled, "My daughter died YESTERDAY and you never called to tell me what had happened?!" she demanded, ripping herself out of Cassandra's grip (the blonde had been trying to hold her back) and rushing towards him.

"Shelby," Cass said with a tone of warning.

Heads turned (they were all Glee kids, and a few adults, Cassandra noticed) and watched as Shelby grabbed the front of Hiram's shirt, tears just pouring down her face to the point where she couldn't see.

"Let her go," Will said from behind Cass.

"How COULD you?!" Shelby yelled. "She was MY DAUGHTER TOO! I know I didn't raise her and that's the biggest regret of my life but she was still my daughter too and you DIDN'T FUCKING CALL ME!"

"I'm so sorry, Shelby," Hiram cried back.

By this time, Cass and Santana had taken to pulling Shelby off of him.

Defeated, Shelby whispered, "Sorry isn't good enough," and collapsed into Cassandra's embrace once more.

"Shh, love," Cass soothed, rubbing her hand down the back of Shelby's head. She bit her cheek so she wouldn't cry-so she'd stay strong for Shelby. "I know, baby, I know."

. . .

Except she didn't, not really. Not even Cassandra understood the pain that Shelby was feeling. She was broken.

Beth sat on Quinn's lap and everyone sat in the living room, just staring at each other. The mourning group consisted of Puck, Quinn, Sam, Mercedes, Santana, Brittany, Artie, Tina and Mike, and everyone else in Glee Club (Besides Finn and Kurt, who were in the hospital, and Blaine, who was with Kurt). Emma and Will sat with each other in the corner.

. . . Cassandra and Shelby learned that Finn was in a coma (his mom was at his bedside, as well as Burt and Blaine, on occasion) and Kurt had broken his leg and 2 ribs.
Shelby stared sullenly at the coffee table in front of her while she heard all of this new information. She was listening, but in her mind, they were alive and fine and nothing else really mattered because Rachel wasn't.

The funeral was the worst thing Shelby had ever experienced-not because it was a horrible service, but because it was her teenage daughter's funeral.

LeRoy and Hiram had asked Shelby to sing and she agreed to do it, but only for Rachel. They asked her to sing "I Dreamed a Dream" and "The Way We Were". She managed to make it through both while choking through tears while everyone else wept as they listened.

She was so young, Rachel. She had such amazing dreams-a whole life ahead of her. She had done nothing to deserve this. She had been a 4.0 student, a model child, so talented, so wonderful, a star.

The world was just so damn CRUEL, Shelby decided as she wiped another tear once the service was over. She walked by the table covered in gold star confetti and pictures of Rachel. The accident had been too gruesome to give her an open casket.

Reaching her hand out, Shelby stroked a picture of Rachel posing like Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl. She would never see her baby again and she didn't even own a picture of her. Her heart stung with a giant stab of guilt.

Hiram cleared his throat as he walked up behind her. "Do you want all of those pictures?" he offered. "We have copies of them at home..."

Shelby spun around, took note of where Cassandra was standing with Beth across the room, then directed her attention back to Hiram and nodded, crossing her arms over her chest. She noticed he was carrying a box.

He held it out to her.

"This is for you," he said.

Shelby double blinked, slowly. "What is that?" she asked.

After awkwardly clearing his throat again, he choked up anyways while responding,

"Some of Rachel's things we thought you'd want. We felt horrible because you're right, you are here mother. It's also full of letters."

Now Shelby was puzzled. "Letters?" she questioned.

With a nod, Hiram said, "We found them in her closet, next to her Barbra shrine. A whole bunch of letters in this box titled, "Mom".

Shelby had thought she had control of her tears but she was wrong. They started surfacing again as she heard this news. "She...Rachel wrote letters to me?" she couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"A ton of them," Hiram nodded with a small, sad smile. "We didn't read any of them. They belong to you."

For the first time in her life, Shelby reached out and hugged Hiram Berry.

"Thank you," she cried. "I can't believe she's gone."

"She loved you so much," Hiram let her know.

That did her in. She was destroyed.

And that night she would begin reading the first of many of Rachel's letters to her.

"Dear Mom, (Is it alright if I call you Mom?)..."