It was raining the day she called him.
Quinn was sobbing, and he could barely make out what she was saying.
Rachel. Car crash. Drunk driver.
Dead on impact.
He felt the bottle slip from his grasp and shatter, brown liquid pooling on the floor. Her voice was frantic, but he couldn't speak. He leaned against the wall for support and fell into a slumped sitting position, pressing the end button on the phone.
A few hours later, Puck, who's his roommate, finds him in the middle of their wrecked apartment, an empty case of beer next to his sobbing figure.
He grabs the beer away from him, and is screaming at him, until he looks up and the tears are flowing, and Puck is nervous and shit, he sounds bad, and Puck sits next to him and manages to get an answer. He hands him back the beer, goes to the fridge, and grabs five more.
xXx
She'd been crying for days.
She didn't want to eat or sleep now that she couldn't wake up to the sounds of kosher bacon sizzling and snapping in a frying pan and R singing along to show tunes. Her best friend was gone, but it was more than that. The closest thing she had to family, like a sister to her, was gone. They couldn't laugh and reminisce about Julliard and she'd never come help with her dance lessons at the little studio she'd leant her money for. She wouldn't be there to make her soup and force the medicine down her throat when she was sick. She'd never hear her beautiful singing voice again.
After about a week she drug herself out of bed and ate a few stale crackers, then called Finn, and told him. He didn't respond, and after the sound of breaking glass she heard a click and the dial tone. She fell back into her bed and sat there, crying.
xXx
He was shocked when he heard.
Numb. On fire. In pain. Emotionless.
The first thing he thought was he'd never gotten the chance to apologize. He knew he would regret it his whole life, and the guilt already felt like it would crush him, like he could have stopped the car.
He wishes he had died, not her. He deserved to die after he betrayed and egged her, but life is cruel. Now, the beautiful, innocent girl was dead.
And he never got to tell her he had always loved her.
He'd been there for every single show, every off broadway production she'd ever taken part of.
[He's sure Finn wasn't.]
xXx
She's trying to comfort a sobbing, pregnant Brittany while keeping herself together. She wants to close her eyes and tell it all to go the fuck away.
But she can't.
It feels like only yesterday it was junior year, and she was calling her Yentl and Man Hands and Treasure Trail.
She could never apologize or ask for forgiveness- she could never tell her how he envied her. She'd gotten plastic surgery, and drank a disgusting mixture for every meal to look good. She'd insulted and mocked to feel better about herself. Rachel hardly ever did those things- She sure as hell hadn't been a perfect little lady- but she'd been kind. She took every slushie with a brave and silent air of contempt and disgust. She was going places. The 'popular' kids who threw the ice cold mixtures would stay in Ohio. She'd be a dazzling star in New York City, belting out her solos as Eva. Or Laurey. Or Fanny. And those were just the beginning.
She'd been so sure of herself, of her future. It didn't seem fair she'd never perform. She'd never see her perform.
Their unborn daughter would never get to hear Rachel's angelic voice.
xXx
She cried after Santana got off the phone with Quinn. San always made this puckered up eye face when something really bad happened.
It was Rachel. She had gone to heaven to sing with the angels.
Why couldn't she stay just a couple more weeks? Then her little baby could have gotten the chance to hear her sing a song by Journey, or that Barbra lady she liked. Her poor baby would never hear a lullaby sung by her auntie Rachel.
Santana tells her with a thick voice that God needed her there with him right now, he couldn't wait. She thinks he's selfish. Santana smiles sadly, and says sometimes he can seem selfish.
She later sobbed to Santana that at least now Rachel was having pretty dreams for the rest of time. She could sing to their first baby, Joshua, who'd been born too little up in heaven.
Santana smiles and little tears roll down her cheeks.
Yes, she breathes, Rachel is singing for God and Joshua, in heaven.
xXx
She doesn't hear until she receives the invitation to the funeral. She was always being overlooked. When she reads the fancy cream paper her vision blurs and she collapses as the tears gush from her eyes. Mike runs to the room, their one year old son following curiously. He reads the little paper and holds her. Their little boy kisses her on the cheek, where a tear was leaving behind a damp line. She sniffles and pulls him into a tight embrace, thinking about death more than she'd like. She'd been like that on high school, the weird Asian girl who wore dark clothes and too much eyeliner. The goth.
xXx
They find out a week after it happens.
They come to visit the girls in their apartment, but all they can hear is sobbing. Kurt quickly pushes open the door, and they find Quinn curled up in Rachel's bed, her clothes surrounding her and her perfume hitting them like a pleasant, cherry scented mist. It's engulfed the entire apartment.
Mercedes realizes what's happened after a few minutes of interrogating, and they all break down and curl up in their little shrine to Rachel.
xXx
They bury her on the first day of spring. Or, rather, they bury her ashes. She'd only been identified by her license plate- even her teeth had been charred beyond recognition.
Spring had always been her favorite season. Santana and Brittany are holding their new baby, Rachel Marie Lopez-Pierce. The baby has brown eyes and dark hair, with a pale complexion. They later find out their sperm donor was Rachel's cousin. It feels right, that they have a little piece of Rachel, in a way.
Finn is blank and bursting with emotion at the same time. He keeps his face bare. He is going to break down. He is going to die. Puck and Quinn are on either side of him, keeping him from spiraling into a deep dark depression.
The truth is, they're a second away from it too.
Her friends and family and Mr. Schue and Ms. Pillsbury are there. After the funeral, they visit her parent's house for the wake. Quinn gets 'lost' on her way to the washroom and goes to her old bedroom. She sits on the bed quietly for a few minutes, taking in every detail, before silently standing and going back downstairs, closing the door on grief and despair.
xXx
Hundreds of miles away, in a small hospital in a bad part of New York, a Jane Doe sits by her room's window. She can't remember anything, only that a brunette like herself had attacked her and stole her car. After that she'd been mugged and beaten. Her lips were cracking and her face was swollen and purple. Her rather large nose hadn't been broken, but areas around it were bruised. She felt scared and alone, and thirsty. She sang songs she didn't know she knew. She decided she liked Broadway, and gold stars.
She doesn't know her name, but Rachel sounded pretty.