Author's note: This is a rewrite of an original story I published long ago. It was recently stolen a few times so I've made some changes to the storyline. Hope you enjoy!
Warning: Adult content
Disclaimer: Do not own Glee
Please Review!
6:00 A.M.
The time she's been waking up everyday for the past 17 yrs. She reaches over, hits the snooze on her alarm clock, and rolls over. She knows she should get up and brace herself for the day ahead, but she can't help but close her eyes and force herself to capture the last ten minutes before the alarm rings again.
6:04 A.M.
The blankets are yanked violently off her body, while a punch is thrown out of nowhere, hitting her directly in the stomach. It's not even close to seven when he usually wakes up and he's already at it.
She sits up and wraps her arms around her middle, cradling it and gasping in pain. She knew she should have gotten up the first time. One of these days she'll learn, one day she'll get it right.
"Wake the fuck up!" he screams at her, his voice is loud and threatening. It rings through the air as he paces around the bedroom in his boxers. His hair is a mess and the exhaustion is clear in his crystal blue eyes, but he doesn't give up. He never does. Instead he stalks towards her once again and she curls into herself, protecting her body from what is sure to come.
"Take care of that goddamn noise right NOW!" he hisses while delivering several punches to her face, hitting her nose for the second time this week.
She scrambles to her feet and keeps her head down as she sprints from the room. She doesn't say a single word or even glance his way. She wants to cry, to let everything out. She knows she can't, her life depends on keeping him happy.
She continues running down the hall of their gorgeous Manhattan apartment. One hand is wrapped around her throbbing abdomen while the other is cradling her bleeding nose, catching the blood before it lands on the pristine white carpet beneath her feet.
Everything about the apartment screams perfection. Everything is neat and untouched, nothing out of place. The apartment itself is a mask, covering the dirty lies and people living in it, much like the smile she wears on her make up covered face everyday. It is absolutely everything she ever wanted growing up. Its beauty and elegance reflects the irony of her own filthy lifestyle, just another reminder of everything she doesn't have.
She turns left at the end of the hallway and as soon as she pushes open the heavy wooden door, she's greeted with two pairs of the most gorgeous green eyes she's ever seen.
"Momma!" they scream in unison, standing up to reach their chubby little hands out to her.
"Good morning baby," she says as she scoops up a little boy, drying his eyes in the process. He immediately stops crying and gives her one of his adorable baby grins that show off his brand new baby teeth. He grabs onto her hair and yanks excitedly as she plants a big sloppy kiss on his chubby little cheek. She loves how happy he is in the morning, how his eyes light up when he sees her. His green eyes capture her brown ones and she has to suppress her tears. It's like she can see everything in a new way when she looks into those eyes. The innocence that was taken from her is present in his eyes and she resents that he is able to see the world as a happy place. She envies his carefree and acquitted life, but most of all she hates that one day he'll realize that life isn't easy and that the world is a dirty place filled with people who will bring you down in the cruelest ways possible. She hopes he doesn't learn this the hard way like she did. She prays every night that he stays safe and lives innocently. She prays she can save him from everything that's ever happened to her.
She finds herself smiling, a rare occurrence now a days as he babbles at her, his baby talk loud and giggly. She sets him down on the floor to run around and watches as he heads straight for his play table and grabs his favorite train set. She's grateful that he's so easy going, even as an infant he was entertained so easily. He never fusses and is always happy and when he's not grinning that adorable grin that makes her heart melt, he's babbling. He is truly the light of her life, he's her son, the bouncing baby boy that she couldn't imagine life without.
She's shaken from her thoughts by another ear-piercing cry.
"Momma!"
She runs over to the second crib and picks up the little girl up as quickly as she can. She can't afford to wake him up a second time, two beatings in less than an hour is too much for even her to handle. She winces as she settles the little girl against her hip, her flesh is tender from the punches, but nothing will stop her from holding her little girl close.
"Hush baby girl, it's okay," She coos in her ear while stroking her soft curls. "Momma's here, there's no need to cry," She says calmly as she walks over to the rocking chair.
The little girl lays her tiny head on her mother's shoulder as she continues to cry. Rachel sighs as she pats her back, waiting for her tears to subside. Her daughter is the exact opposite of her brother in every way possible. While he has a constant need to be the center of attention, she's very quiet and reserved. She always wants to be held and refuses everyone else besides Rachel, not that she's ever around many people anyway. They lead a very private life, but it's because of these sensitivity issues, that she doesn't do well around strangers. Rachel doesn't want to blame herself for those sensitivity issues, but who else is there? She gets her stubbornness from her mother, however. When she doesn't like something, there's no reasoning with her. There's no doubt in Rachel's mind that her resilient little girl is her mother's daughter.
She wakes up every morning with tears in her eyes and fights with Rachel as she struggles to get the little girl ready for the day. She turns the little girl around in her lap so that she's facing her one on one. Her wide green eyes are filled to the brim with tears as she cries, expressing her anger at being woken up yet again by her brother. Her hair is a mess of curls and her bottom lip sticks out so far she resembles a cartoon character. Rachel tries to hold back her laughter, but when the little girl's chin begins trembling, she looses it. She knows she shouldn't laugh at her daughter's obvious distress, but she can't help it. The little girl is too cute for her own good.
She stops crying and stares at Rachel in disbelief as her mother laughs at her. She sucks in a deep breath and screams loudly, letting her know how unhappy she is. Rachel panics and rocks the little girl faster, her laughter still caught in her throat. Her cries don't stop and luckily for Rachel, she knows exactly what to do to calm her daughter.
"Raindrops on roses and whisker on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens," she begins to sing quietly. Her son turns to her at the sound of her voice and stumbles over happily, a huge grin on his face.
"Brown paper packages tied up with string, these are a few of my favorite things," Rachel smiles as her daughter hums along, her tears slowing and eventually stopping.
"When the dog bites, when the bee stings.When I'm feeling sad,I simply remember my favorite things.And then I don't feel so bad," She belts the last note as loud as she can without the sound traveling down the hall and holds it as long as she possibly can. Her lungs feel like they're going to burst, but she has an audience and she'd rather die a thousand deaths than give a performance without giving it her all.
The little girl claps her hands excitedly from Rachel's lap while her brother babbles from his place on the floor. She never would have imagined that this was how her life would be. If you told the seven year old, Rachel Berry, when she bought her first Barbra Streisand album that she'd give up her Broadway dreams to raise her children, she would have laughed in your face and proceed to give you a list of reasons why that simply wasn't feasible because nothing would deter her from her dreams. She looks down at her two smiling, green-eyed children. As much as she wants to be on the stage, to hear people screaming her name as she does what she was born to do, she knows she made the right choice-the only choice.
Her life now revolves around two things: her children and the secret she's been keeping since she was thirteen years old. The most important thing though, is keeping them safe with a roof over their heads and food in their mouths.
7:00 A.M
She stands from the rocking chair and places her daughter on her hip as she walks out of the room, scooping up her son on the way. She expertly places him on the other hip, suppressing a groan when he accidently kicks her in the same spot she was punched in not so long ago.
She places both children down in their playpen and heads into her dressing room, one of the many rooms the spacious apartment held. She picks out a red and black plaid skirt and a deep red V-neck sweater to match. She lays them down carefully on her dresser before walking to the mirror. She stands in front of it, shedding her pajamas until she's fully naked. Looking at her now you'd never know she carried two children. Her tiny stature and slim figure disguise the fact that she is a mother and because she's young her body bounced right back. Only few faded stretch marks on her lower belly remain, a reminder and the only proof of her pregnancy.
Her face doesn't look that bad or so she thinks. She inspects the damage done to her body as she sets out the make up she's going to need to cover the split lip, bruised cheek, and bloody nose. She takes a deep breath and shudders as she places the scar cream next to the make up. She doesn't even know why she bothers with it anymore, it wasn't like it actually worked. Her permanently marked body proves that. She sets it down anyway. She needs it, she always has. Maybe not for the same reasons as in the past, but she needs it nonetheless. She doesn't need a physical reminder of how worthless she feels.
Two weeks ago he'd come home angry. His show didn't sell out like it was supposed to and two of the cast members had missed several of their cues during the matinee. Needless to say, he was angry when he came home early and Rachel hadn't had time to clean the broken glass he'd thrown at her earlier from the kitchen floor. She barely had time to react before she was flying face first into the marble topped island in the middle of the room. Her forehead split open, leaving a nasty gash that was sure to scar. Sure enough, she'd applied the cream right after collecting herself and calming her fuming boyfriend, praising him and fueling his already too large ego until he shoved her away. Her bleeding forehead of no concern to him.
She can't help but to think of every time she's used the scar cream and of how many times she's going to in the future. She hates that she associates the cream with pride, but every time she's needed to use it she's kept him away from her children. She knows he'll never lay a hand on them and he's never hurt her while they are close by, but she won't chance it. She will never give him the opportunity to hurt her children and if she has to be his personal punching bag to keep him away, then so be it.
She knows that no matter what he does to her, the two little angels in the other room love her. It doesn't matter how disgusting she looks covered in scars and bruises because for once in her life she doesn't need to hurt herself to feel something.
She runs her fingers up and down her arm, feeling the scars she made four years ago when she dragged the razor blade across her skin. She needed to be in control then, needed to feel something to remind her that she was human. Now she has her children for that, they're all she'll ever need.
She takes one last look at her repulsively battered body before grabbing a towel and heading to the bathroom where she fills the tub with sweet smelling bubbles and oils. She chuckles as she hears her son's babbling from the other room. Knowing him, he's probably crawling around his sister talking her head off while she plays quietly with her toys. She can practically see the little girl's eyes, begging her to take her away from her brother.
She walks back over to the playpen and swoops them both into her arms and removes their pajamas, stepping into the bathtub. Bath time is always her favorite time of day, it's when she can finally relax and have fun with her kids. She watches her son splash around with his sailboat while she rinses the conditioner out of her daughter's hair and for a one and a half year old, she has a lot of it. It falls down in thick brown curls, framing her little face and falling just past her chin. She peeks over at her son's thick mop of brown hair. She's tried everything to tame it, but nothing was ever successful. She even tried letting it grow, but his thick curls were too unruly and nearly impossibly to keep out of his face. Currently, it was cut short and sticking up in every which way, covered in the bubbles he was spreading around with his boat.
He starts his usual babbling and Rachel uses the time to take her daughter out of the tub and wrap them both in a pink fluffy towel. She drains the water from the tub and lets her son grab at the bubbles as they disappear and carries her over to the bed, setting her down in the middle so she doesn't roll off. She glides her hand through the little girl's wet hair and turns to make her way back in the bathroom to collect her son when she's stopped by a tiny voice.
"Momma?" her little girl calls out to her.
"Yes, baby?" she answers as she looks back at her baby girl.
She watches as she crawls to the end of the bed, grabbing onto the towel wrapped around Rachel. She uses the towel to pull herself to her feet, looking Rachel dead in her eyes. Brown eyes stare into piercing green ones so intensely that Rachel doesn't even notice when her little girl places her chubby little hand over her bruised cheek.
"Sorry, momma," she whispers quietly.
Tears spring to Rachel's eyes as the little girl rubs her mother's cheek gently. She always knew the time would come when they were old enough to realize that something was wrong with their mother. She always worried her son would notice first and that it would scare him, but staring into her baby girl's eyes so filled with worry, she couldn't have been more wrong.
"Momma's okay, sweetheart," Rachel whispered, placing her own hand on her daughter's cheek.
The younger brunette shakes her head, she knows something isn't right. Everyday her mother looks in the mirror and everyday another colored mark appears. She doesn't know exactly what's happening, but she knows it's not good. She thinks that the marks hurt because Rachel makes funny faces when she touches them. She doesn't know where they come from or why they're there, but she doesn't like them. She doesn't like that because of them she doesn't look exactly like her mother. Everything else about them is the same except their eye color and nose shape and she wonders if maybe one day she'll get those marks too.
She wants to say so much more to her mother, but she doesn't know how. She can voice it clearly in her head, but when she speaks it comes out jumbled like her brother's. She wants to learn to speak so she can sing like her momma and everyday she practices with Rachel, but she doesn't seem to be getting any better at it. It's just like walking. She knows how and she wants to be able to run around like her brother, but she won't. She needs to be close to her momma, she doesn't like it when Rachel leaves because every time she comes back there's another mark. That's why she clings to Rachel all of the time. She's afraid that if Rachel isn't holding her then she's going to leave and get more marks. She thinks she's protecting her mother when she's in her arms, it's the only way she knows how to keep the ugly marks away, but lately she can't seem keep up because they're happening more and more and it scares her.
She smiles up at her mother and hugs her close. She loves everything about her momma, in her little world, Rachel is absolutely perfect. A superhero even, and when she grows up she wants to be just like her mother.
Rachel pulls away and sets the little girl back in the middle of the bed and goes back to the bathtub to retrieve her brother who beams up at her from his cocoon of bubbles.
"Okay, little man, up we go!" she giggles as she pulls the giggling boy into the pink towel.
He immediately stops his laughing and scowls. He doesn't know much about colors, they're learning about them from a book Rachel teaches them out of, but he knows that this color is for girls. He sees his sister wear this color almost everyday and there's no way Rachel's wrapping him in this towel.
Rachel literally blanches at her son's face, she can't believe her son is refusing to be wrapped in a towel because it's pink.
"You can't be serious?" she asks the little boy who raises his eyebrow and smirks, a smirk she's seen so many times before.
Sometimes she really can't believe the things her children do. She knows that every parent claims to have special children, but she knows hers are different. They're extremely perceptive for their ages and they're not afraid to show it. She can honestly say she learns something new everyday from her kids and it only makes her love them even more.
She carries him over to the bed where she dresses them quickly, putting her son in a little striped shirt and shorts and her little girl in a precious pink dress with a big white bow. She puts on his white shoes and sets him on the ground and not two seconds after his little feet hit the ground, he's on the move. His sister watches as he roams around the room pretending to fly his toy airplane in the air and Rachel swears she sees the little girl roll her eyes.
Rachel grabs a brush and a comb as she begins her challenge for the day, brushing her little girl's hair. She loves her daughter, she really does, but fighting with her over her hair wears her out. She places the little girl in her lap and works the brush through her hair, removing the knots as gently as she can. Her daughter cries in her lap and squirms around making the already difficult job almost impossible.
Rachel sighs in relief as she manages to pull her hair into two French braids held back by big pink bows. She turns the little girl around and kisses her little pink cheeks. The little girl sniffles and pouts as she's set on the floor to play with her brother.
Rachel readies herself and applies her daily dose of make up before scooping up her kids and heading downstairs. She places them in their matching highchairs and begins their breakfast.
As soon as she turns back to the stove her daughter begins to cry so Rachel turns on the radio and begins singing, soothing her with her voice. She reaches into the freezer and sticks her tongue out in disgust as she unwraps the bacon and eggs. She's been vegan for as long as she can remember, ever since she saw the horrible video about dairy farms, she's refused to eat any animal byproducts. Of course she doesn't force her children to eat vegan as well, they were clearly meat lovers, something she'd learned the hard way during her pregnancy.
8:30 A.M
It's not until two long pale arms wrap their way around her bruised stomach that she realizes she's in trouble. She didn't hear him come in because of the radio and she immediately regrets her choice. He was awake and expecting breakfast and it was her fault it wasn't ready yet. She knows she's going to be punished for this, he always punishes her when she messes up.
She's about to apologize when she's forcefully pulled away from the stove and back against him, his fingers digging possessively into the flesh of her waist.
"Where the fuck is my food?" he whispers harshly into her ear. She releases a labored breath, his fingers burning holes in her sides. "Are you deaf? I am speaking to you!" he yells. "Where the fuck is my goddamn breakfast?" he screams. Almost instantly her son stops his babbling and goes completely quiet and her daughter wails loudly.
Her cries break Rachel's heart and she knows she's freighted of him. He never spends any time with them and to be honest, they probably don't know who he is. She's not entirely sure that's a bad thing either.
"It's c-coming," she stutters, trying to keep control over her voice. Her eyes burn with tears, but she refuses to let them fall. It's a promise she had made to herself a long time ago, she'll never let him see her cry.
"Hurry it up then," he says as he grinds himself into Rachel from behind, breathing roughly down her neck. He leers at her like she's a piece of meat as he sits down at the table and begins sorting through the paper Rachel leaves for him every morning.
She finishes the bacon she made for him and serves it to him, shivering as he smiles and plants a kiss on her cheek. She hates that smile, that devious one he always gives her before something bad happens. She shakes it off and serves her kids the mini pancakes she made into little dinosaur shapes for her son and stars for her daughter. She sits down with her freshly prepared fruit bowl while she watches her son smash his food into his mouth while her daughter neatly picks at hers.
So far it has been a typical morning for Rachel. It begins with him screaming, punching, eating breakfast, screaming more, and then leaving. A knot formed in her stomach as she watches him finish off his plate. She knows there's going to be more yelling, there's always more yelling. She stands up and takes their plates to the sink and begins washing them, praying to a god she no longer believes in that he'll spare her just this once.
It's not until a white hot searing pain burns the backs of her legs that she realizes it's never going to happen. She crumbles to the floor, howling in pain. Her legs feel like they're literally on fire. She fights to hold back the tears, they're burning in her eyes almost as badly as her legs are burning. They cloud her vision and she panics because she can't see him at all. The only sound she can hears are her children crying and a sizzling sound she realizes is coming from her scorching legs.
She hears his footsteps approaching her and she jumps back in effort to get away, but like always he's there to make sure she can't escape. He slams the skillet down on the table and she realizes that he's poured the hot grease from the bacon over the back of her legs. His fingers close around her throat as he forces her to stand, staring into her tear filled eyes.
"Please," she gasps out. "P-p-please stop." Reluctantly he lets go, leaving her gasping for breath on the floor. He walks toward the elevator door, grabbing his coat and sheet music.
"I'll be home late this evening and I expect you to be ready for me when I get in," he says as he straightens out his shirt.
"Yes, of course," she mumbles between her gasps of pain, praying that he would just leave already.
"Rachel," he grunts as he straightens the scarf around his neck, running his hands through his perfectly gelled curls.
"Yes?" she answers quietly. She's in too much pain to fight him anymore.
"Isn't there something you'd like to say to me?" he asks, his eyebrow raised and a smirk on his face. He knows how to push every button of hers, how to bring her down to her absolute lowest.
"Have a great show, Jesse," she answers lowly, her head hanging in defeat.