A/N: "Choke" fallout. I should be studying, but I couldn't help but write this. Sorry for the heavy-handed title.
Price of Fate
"Please, please, please. Please! You can't let her die. You can't let her die. She doesn't deserve this! PLEASE!" Rachel begs. She's sitting on the ground. Her palms are pressed together and against her face. Her body is rocking. Shaking. She gasps, sucking in uneven breaths.
More desperate words spill from her mouth—a mantra of wretched, urgent lyrics.
She pleads, she cries. She just wants someone to hear her because Quinn doesn't deserve this.
"Please, this can't be her fate! Not now! Not when things are finally going right for her! She doesn't deserve it! Not now! Let her live!"
"Is this what you wish for Rachel Barbra Berry? In your heart of hearts?"
The voice echoes all around her. It's composed and androgynous. Each word is carefully measured in the same even tone as its predecessor.
Rachel, for the first time, tries to focus on her surroundings. She can't though. There's nothing for her to see but an infinite expanse of gray. The voice is bodiless, but not soulless. She can feel it living and breathing around her.
"Yes! Please!" Rachel sobs, "Let her live!"
"To live is not in Lucy Quinn Fabray's fate Rachel Barbra Berry."
"Then change it! Change her fate!" Rachel's angry now. Why dangle hope in front of her only to snatch it away.
"To change a person's fate is no simple task. To change it, another must change theirs in return. To give, something else must be taken away. I ask once again Rachel Barbra Berry. In your heart of hearts, do wish for Lucy Quinn Fabray to live?"
"You mean," Rachel whispers, "if my fate, my life, is altered from what it is supposed to be, Quinn will live."
"Yes."
"Then yes. I'll give anything to allow Quinn a chance to live."
"It is done."
"Hey. Hey Rachel. Wake up."
Rachel eyes open to the waiting room of the hospital. Her eyes are blurry and full. She's been crying in her sleep, she realizes. She blinks rapidly and suddenly everything comes together. She sits up rapidly.
"Rachel, hey," Finn says from next to her, reaching out and placing an arm around her. She had been leaning against his shoulder. He's anxious, she can tell. His leg is bouncing on the ground. "The doctor's here."
"Hey baby girl," her daddy says from her other side. "Do you… do you want to listen?"
Rachel looks over the short distance to where Ms. Fabray stands with a couple of doctors. Her heart picks up its pace as other the rest of Glee Club begins to crowd around them. Santana and Brittany curl around each other. Tina and Mike hold hands tightly. Puck paces, his jaw tight. Kurt and Blaine, Mr. Schuester and Ms. Pillsbury, Sam and Mercedes, Rory, Sugar, Artie. Rachel wastes no more time. She springs to her feet, dragging Finn with her. She wipes at her eyes, trying to get rid of the tears for at least the moment.
She steals a glance at the clock. Quinn's been in surgery for hours.
"Ms. Fabray, are you okay with everyone hearing," one of the doctor's begins, casting a look at the entire Glee crowd.
Judy Fabray nods her head tightly. She looks as if she is going to break.
"There's no getting around it. Quinn sustained substantial injuries. We lost her on the operating table," the doctor stated gravely. Rachel feels as if her own heart stopped. There's a choked sob from somewhere in their crowd as well as a number of shaky gasps. "We were able to revive her with some difficulty, but we were still able to revive her. We're not in the clear yet, but right now, she's a very lucky girl…"
The music comes easily. "Don't Rain on My Parade" is her song. She can sing it backwards, double-tempo, in her dreams. She owns the first few bars and knows it will go smoothly the rest of the way. Her audition will go just like she always imagined it. NYADA and New York are waiting for her. Then…
The lyrics are stolen from the tip of her tongue.
Apologies and platitudes flow without difficulty.
Her heart pounds. She breathes. She tries again.
She can feel the lyrics coming wrong this time. She tries to stop them, tries to correct herself. She only succeeds in hitting the wrong note.
Her opportunity is gone, and she's left in darkness on the stage.
She finds herself frozen. The darkness bleeds into gray.
It is done.
A/N: Rachel :( :( :(