Author's Note: I'm well aware I probably shouldn't start a brand new story when I'm struggling to write In Treatment, however, it's become pretty obvious that I'm going to be stuck at a dead end unless I start addressing this little plot bunny. This story was initially spurred by my interest in exploring the relationship dynamics of a Puck, Rachel, Santana triad. I could have stopped there, but, then I started wondering how Rachel would react if she obtained her dream and had it yanked away from her.

This is the result of those musings.

This is not an In Treatment future fic. All Glee episodes up to 2.16 are recognized; there was no epic Puckleberry romance or Pezberry friendship. But, because this is a story about second (or third or fourth) chances and starting over, that doesn't much matter in the long run.

Sing Me Home
Chapter One: How Beautifully Blue the Sky

It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything.

Chuck Palahniuk

It happens in May.

Rachel's been in L.A. for a couple of months, even though she hates the city, surviving the Broadway shut down (thanks to the musicians and stage hands striking) with a little help from Jesse St. James. She's got a recurring role on his hit medical drama, as a former nurse turned troubled patient, and it's just enough to keep her from crawling back to New York, crappy waitressing gigs, and her ex-girlfriend.

The Tony award nominations were announced the week before and she's still riding the high of being nominated for best performance by a leading actress in a musical. Pirates of Penzance may not be one of her favorite musicals and Mabel may be far from her dream role, but, it got her on stage in front of a huge crowd every night. Even though the strike essentially shut down Broadway, the Tony Awards are still being held and Rachel's just got to endure a couple more weeks of traffic jams, smog, and a ridiculous filming schedule before she can head back to New York and walk down the red carpet with her dad and daddy on each arm.

Rumors are flying that the strike will be over before the awards and then she can stop sleeping on Jesse's couch and leave L.A. with enough money to survive while she's trying to secure another Broadway role. Of course, even the absolute exhilaration she's feeling isn't enough to keep her from getting pissed off by the traffic, the bitchy internet gossip mongers, and the fact that Catherine still won't talk to her. They've been together two years (her longest relationship after Finn) and apparently that means she's supposed to suffer through months of sore feet and small tips and getting patted on the ass by drunk patrons to stay in New York because Catherine can't leave her engineering job to go 'gallivanting off like a fucking gypsy.'

Rachel knows that taking Jesse up on his offer only made things worse. They've been friends since her freshmen year at Julliard (after they participated in the same week-long workshop) but Catherine never liked the fact that they almost "did it." However, Rachel's not the type of person to turn down a gig just because her significant other has jealousy issues. Honestly, she's not the type to turn down a gig, period. Besides, even if her sexuality is pretty fluid, she has no desire to jump back on the crazy train that was St. Berry.

There's been a lot of growing up (for both of them) since she got egged in the parking lot sophomore year of high school.

It happens in May, on one of those truly rare days when the sun is shining and the sky is that perfect clear blue it always is in the movies. She's stuck in traffic (like usual) and doesn't even have Jesse for company because he left early to meet with his agent. Rachel hears sirens but there isn't a whole lot of maneuverability in four lanes of bumper to bumper traffic. It's also L.A. and people are so desensitized to sirens that they don't take it seriously until the lights are flashing in their rear view mirror.

Rachel's inching her way towards the side of the road, along with everyone else in her lane, when she hears the first crunch of metal. She screams, involuntarily, even though nothing happened to her or the piece of shit rental she's driving. Even as she's laughing it off, looking around to see what the hell is going on, the screaming of metal intensifies and she realizes that this isn't your average fender bender.

Her dad's voice is shouting inside of her head, a thousand defensive driving lectures mashing into one long litany, but she literally can't go anywhere. She's trying to force herself into the far right lane, in order to get the fuck off the highway, when a Hummer comes out of nowhere and smashes into the driver's side of her environmentally friendly compact. After that, all she can really remember is lots and lots of pain, the sound of metal on metal, and the coppery taste of blood when she splits her lip on the steering wheel. There's a moment when the mental image of being smashed into a perfectly square cube of meat and bones flashes through her mind and then everything goes black.

The first time she wakes up, she's confused because the script didn't call for any scenes on a gurney. Then Rachel realizes that the eyes assessing her are dark brown and not pale blue; even with the restraints, she still manages to hurt herself struggling to get away from the doctor who calls for sedation in the same breath he's telling her she's going to be fine.

Even half drugged she can still read the flinching in his eyes that signals that he's lying.

The second time she wakes up, she's coming out of anesthesia with tears running down her cheeks and her heart hammering in her chest. Rachel tries calling out to her daddy, all she wants in the whole world is her daddy to hold her hand and make it better, but her throat hurts from intubation and when she can't do much more than croak, it causes her to freak out even more. The nurses keep telling her to calm down and she keeps crying and eventually they slip her something that makes her feel like she's floating in a golden cloud.

This is in direct conflict with the fact that she feels like she's in hell.

The third time she wakes up, she's in a private hospital room and Catherine's sleeping in the chair beside her bed. Because Rachel wants her dads or Jesse or even Quinn fucking Fabray (because anyone would be better than her ex), she closes her eyes and wills back the itchy panicked feeling that always comes with certain pain meds and forces herself to go back to sleep.

Her dads wake her up the fourth time. Rachel can hear them screaming at Catherine from the hallway, because no one had the presence of mind the shut the door, and she wonders how much time has passed and how long it took them to get to L.A. from Lima. Her daddy is waving his hands around wildly and looks like he's close to stomping his foot. Her dad just stands there, his neck bulging from barely contained rage, and she wonders if he's going to punch a wall before or after he storms off.

Catherine, as usual, isn't about to be outdone. She pulls herself up to her full height, five foot eight (which makes her two inches taller than Rachel's daddy), and runs a hand through her brilliant red hair. It isn't long before her hands are on her hips and she's unleashing all of her (completely unnecessary) Irish Catholic anger on the two men. It's the same tired argument that's been buzzing in the background since they started dating.

"Just admit it; you're both pissed off because you thought you'd finally gotten rid of me. You might be out and proud but that doesn't mean you want your daughter shacking up with some dyke."

"Catherine…" Her dad's voice is dangerously low, to the point she has to strain to hear him, and Rachel wonders if he's angry enough to start punching people instead of walls. Her daddy fixes her ex-girlfriend with a steely look and puts his hand on her dad's shoulder.

"We shouldn't even be having this conversation. You left her, didn't talk to her for months, and then have the audacity to come out here and start showing some concern. She could have died and you're still acting like a spoiled brat."

"Hiram," Jesse speaks up, out of sight, and Catherine sneers, "just kick her out already. You and Leroy are next of kin; the only reason she's even here is because Rachel forgot to update her emergency contacts."

A nurse walks up then, flanked by two security guards (who seem more concerned with the angry black man then the stupid bitch who's currently keeping Rachel from her dads). The noise level is reduced by a power of ten and then Catherine's storming off, her loud steps echoing in the corridor. Rachel just pushes the little red button, thankful for the shot of pain numbing relief that starts dripping down into her IV.

This must be the reason people get addicted to pain medication. It's not even that it feels so much better (which it does), it's that she can stop thinking about her dads and the Tony Awards and her little apartment in New York that she's still renting for when she can come back. She can stop thinking about how Jesse looks like he wants to cry and how Catherine showed up even though they're not speaking and how she really, really wants to call Finn even though they only ever exchange Christmas (holiday) cards now.

She thinks about pushing the little red button again, but settles on grabbing her daddy's hand when he sits down beside her. She wants to go to sleep and have everything be better when she wakes up, but, if Rachel's learned anything it's that she's only going to hurt worse when she wakes up.

It's never really quiet in a hospital, not like they show on TV, anyway. Machines are always buzzing and if the nurses aren't bothering you every hour to draw blood or take vitals or generally be annoying, they're gossiping at the nurses' station. People are constantly walking up and down the hall (sometimes running) and occasionally a patient or a family member will freak out and really disturb things.

Rachel knows she shouldn't be so ungrateful, considering hospitals and doctors and nurses save lives (like her own), but she's so tired of being woken up to be poked and prodded and told that she can go back to sleep once they're finished with her. They are never finished with her.

Her dads and Jesse take turns watching her throughout the night. At one point, Jesse even tries bribing the nurse with an autographed copy of his head shot (yes, he carries them with him everywhere) if she'll just let Rachel have a couple of hours of uninterrupted sleep. The nurse declines and has the decency to look offended even while she's blushing like a school girl.

She wakes up in the morning to her dad rolling up a prayer mat (he's only really religious when something bad happens), the smell of strong coffee, and CNN with the volume turned down low. Her leg has started to throb (she really has no desire to look at it beyond recognizing that it's in traction) and Rachel considers pressing the red button again. Her dad starts talking, however, and distracts her from connecting her thumb to the device that's become her new best friend.

"Bunny, how are you feeling?"

There's a part of her (a small part) that wants to tell him that she's thisclose to having Jesse buy her a gun so she can blow her brains out. Because, honestly, she's always had a real low tolerance for physical pain and she's pretty much at her breaking point. So, while she should be thinking about real world concerns, like her apartment or her career or the countless of hours of physical therapy she's probably going to have to clock in to get her leg semi-functional (even though she has yet to talk to the lying doctor), all Rachel can really focus on how her whole body hurts so bad that she just wants to die.

Instead, she swallows a couple of times, forces a smile, and manages a whispered, "Okay." If her throat didn't hurt so much, she'd tell him to stop calling her Bunny.

He bursts into tears, which is pretty par for the course, and all Rachel can really do is pat his hand and wait for the tears to subside. Leroy Berry might be built for the NBA but he cries like a girl. Usually it makes her proud (that her dad is so in touch with his emotions) but all it's currently doing is making her uncomfortable because he won't stop and her daddy isn't there to calm him down.

Jesse comes back after what seems like an eternity, muttering something about phone calls and agents and rescheduling, and makes her dad take a walk.

"Hiram's talking to reporters right now," Jesse's never been one to beat around the bush, so, Rachel's kind of surprised when he doesn't immediately tell her how bad her life sucks, "you're the biggest celebrity here, besides me of course, and this is kind of a big deal." He fills her in on the details: bank robbery, high speed chase, four dead and a least twenty wounded, and the meth head who robbed the bank walked away without a scratch. "Someone's already leaked photos of the accident to the press; Extra ran a story last night about what kind of prosthetic you might get if you lose your leg."

He sees the panic in her eyes and curses, "You're not going to lose your leg, Rachel. You're eventually going to hear this all from your doctor, but, you were in surgery for hours. You're currently held together by pins and screws and you'll be in traction until Dr. Michaels feels confident that you're not going to get an infection and they can put a cast on your leg."

"Look, this isn't the end of the world," Jesse's looking straight at her and Rachel's focused so hard on his face (because she wants to punch him in the mouth until his teeth break) that she can see the tightening of his eyes and the slight pinching around his mouth that signals he's lying. He hasn't been able to lie to her since he walked back into her life. Probably because there are enough lies between them for a lifetime.

It is the end of the world. There's no way in hell she's ever going to dance again. She knows it, Jesse knows it, her dads and Catherine know it, all that's left is for someone to come out and say it. She won't because it means admitting that her career on Broadway is over when it was just getting started. Jesse won't admit it for the same reason and her dads won't because they've never been very good at denying her anything and vocalizing this is kind of the same thing. Catherine probably would, because she's always been really good with brutal honesty, but Rachel's pretty sure her daddy's already got a restraining order drawn up and ready to be signed.

Eventually the doctor comes in, he looks like shit and smells slightly of cigarette smoke, opens his mouth and starts ruining her life. She knows it's not fair to blame him, after all he's not the one who's responsible for the accident, but she hates him for it all the same.

While Dr. Michaels talks temporary wheelchairs, future surgeries, and hours upon hours of physical therapy, all Rachel can think about is how someone is going to have to pack up her apartment and ship her things back to Lima. How this man, who's only trying to do his best by her, is spelling out a prison sentence. Because no one who ever went back to Lima ever got out again. By the time she's able to walk again (without the aid of a walker), Hollywood's not going to want her (she's barely tolerated by virtue of her association with Jesse) and Broadway will be sympathetic but realistic. You know, because she's never going to dance again.

If she were a race horse, they'd probably put her to sleep. Instead, they're going to ship her back to the too small town she spent her whole life planning to leave behind. She wonders how long it will take for one of her old classmates to corner her at the supermarket and mock her for having all her dreams crash down around her ears.

Rachel wonders how long it will take to sink so deep in self-pity that she contemplates falling in bed with Finn and ruining whatever relationship he's in at the moment. She pushes the little red button and kind of hopes that he's with Quinn, if only for the sake of history repeating itself (or something like that). It's not that she wants Finn anymore (ship sailed and lost at sea) but self-pity and sex with Finn go together better than peanut butter and chocolate. Fucking over Quinn, well, that's like sprinkles on a sundae; it's totally unnecessary but magically makes things better (until the guilt sets in at least).

It's a month and a half before she's out of the hospital and out of L.A., flying first class with a prescription for anti-depressants tucked inside her purse. She cries the entire flight back to Lima.

Author's Note: While the first couple of chapters will be pretty Rachel-centric, Puck and Santana should be making appearances soon. This plot bunny has been bugging me for a while, can't wait to see what you all think about it.