Title: Just One Friend
Fandom: Glee
Genre: Angst/Friendship
Status: Complete
Pairing: Rachel-centric, implied canon relationships, but it's not a romance fic.
Rating: M for character death
Words: 1700
Summary: If she'd had just one friend, things could have been different.
Spoilers: Everything through till Special Education until after their performance.
Disclaimer: Character death. I'll say it again, character death.
Note: Based off 1991mslmj's 'Rachel (What if?)' video [ youtube [dot] com [slash] watch?v=m01mb0X1yo8 ]. Full credit to that amazing video-maker. All I did was try to turn it into words.
'I think if I'd had just one friend, things could have been different.'
That's all the note says. That's all it will ever say.
That's the last thing she'll ever say.
They cheer when they win, even if it's a tie. It doesn't matter either way; they're going to Regionals.
"Party at my place! Puck, bring the booze." Santana grins, Brittany's arms around her waist, their dispute forgotten. The blonde wears a matching grin on her face. Puck gives them the thumbs up, high-fiving Artie, who doesn't seem to mind his girlfriend being grabby with another girl.
"What time?" Mercedes asks, glancing at the watch.
"Why wait? We can go back right now," she replies cockily.
"Hey, if we ask Kurt to come we could probably get him to drive us in his Hummer-"
"Can we all fi-"
"I brought my car too, so that's 12 of us right should be fine."
"Don't you mean 13?" Lauren waves her hand at Rachel, who has so far only been sitting on the couch watching them speak.
"Who invited the midget?" Santana says smarmily.
Rachel smiles tightly. "That's all right, Santana. I already have other plans."
The Latina almost looks uncomfortable. "I was kidding. You're not that big; you could probably squeeze in."
The brunette stands up and smiles again. "Thank you, Santana, but I really do have other plans. Congratulations though, all of you. That was a lovely performance that definitely deserved more than just a tie." She walks to the door.
"C'mon, Rachel, she was just kidding!" Puck calls, almost going after her, but she holds up her hand, not looking back. She waves. No one else calls her back.
She doesn't have other plans. Her fathers had to rush over to Florida to find her grandfather, who had been rushed into the emergency room a day earlier. She'd requested to stay behind, knowing that leaving the team short of one person yet again would make it impossible for them to compete.
All she has to go back to is an empty house and another night spent singing at a video camera, and maybe one more watching of her Funny Girl DVD.
She can still hear the raucous laughing of her teammates as they pushed the thoughts of her aside, already focusing on the celebration party.
She can't forget. Putting on her Cheerios uniform, walking down the hallways, all she remembers is once wearing the uniform and torturing the girl; rejecting her many offers of friendship.
She stops in front of her locker and remembers slamming it so many times. Remembers all the confrontations she'd had with the girl; all the meaningless insults she'd hurled. She leans against the girl's locker often, overwhelmed by all that she'd shared with her, yet pained by how little it had meant; how painful it must have been. She can't even remember why she hadn't liked the girl. After the first few weeks, it had just become natural.
And she wonders. She wonders whether things could be different if she'd been that one friend the girl needed instead of that one more cold-hearted bitch.
It was too late, but she's stopped terrorizing the other students. It was too late to stop terrorizing the one person who mattered. It was too late.
He quits the glee club. It's too hard. He can't sit there and not think about her singing her heart out, baring her soul to them. He can't think about how they took it and ripped it into shreds.
He thinks about her telling him he wasn't alone. He thinks about a lot of things, mainly about how he left her to deal with it on her own. Things could've been different if he stayed, he knows.
He remembers holding her hand and singing with her. He cries just thinking about how much he wants to sing with her just one more time.
He wishes he'd accepted her, as she was, the way she had accepted and liked him.
She, on the other hand, wonders how they would've sounded if they'd sung in tandem just once, instead of in competition.
They hugged, once, and she remembers how the hug had felt like sweet victory, how all she could think about was getting the solo from Rachel Berry. Back then all that mattered were the solos that she wasn't getting.
Even after, when she got even less solos and all she felt was jealousy, she could always take the memory of the hug and remember how one time, she'd won.
She regrets not taking the hug as a tentative offer of friendship. She regrets not taking that offer and cradling it as the fragile thing it was. She regrets.
He knows they could have been something. If they hadn't been so obsessed with other people, he thinks he could have prevented this. If he hadn't been so crazy about Quinn, if she had been less obsessed with Finn, they could've been something together; not alone.
He thinks about her smile a lot. It was a smile he'd only ever seen directed at him, the smile of a girl who was happy to be with someone who seemed to genuinely like her. "I just hope we can still be friends." It wasn't a smile he saw often.
He thinks about her smile, and her hope, both of which he'd wiped away by walking away.
He tries not to think about it too much. It hurts.
He'd broken her heart so many times. He'd picked so many other things over her: his popularity, his freedom, his lust. He can't remember why. None of them seem to mean anything now that she's not there to share it with him.
He wonders why he hadn't valued her before she was gone. He still looks up during basketball games expecting to see her there, and there's always that moment where he's surprised she's not. Then he remembers. He spends a lot of time on the bench.
She was the one. He knows it. He'll never find someone like her ever again. Someone who accepted him for all his flaws and still loved him, but it's not about him. It's about her, and he wishes he had been the one she needed.
He wishes he had dared to be.
She once said she liked being in glee club. She can't say it anymore; it's no longer true. Every time they dance, every time their voices join together in harmony, there's always something missing. They all know it. There's a void there, and there's another one in her heart.
She wouldn't have admitted it, but the girl had slowly but surely squirmed her way into her heart. She liked her. Admired her, even, but it was too late now.
She hadn't pretended to like her; she'd pretended to hate her.
When she's alone with Brittany in her room, she cries a lot. Brittany holds her, the blonde's tears soaking into her hair as they mourn the loss of a friend and cherish the one they have.
If she'd had someone like Brittany, would she have done it?
She'd liked her. She'd really, really liked the girl. She was talented, smart and driven, everything she'd wanted to be.
Being a part of something special had made her special, and the person who'd helped make her a part of that was gone. Something special had been lost, and she doesn't think she'll ever get that back again.
She sings harder than before, determined to not lose it. It's the only part of herself that reminds her of the girl. She needs that part; without it, she thinks she'll go the same way.
Sometimes she'll sit in the seats of the empty choir room and close her eyes. She'd come in sometimes during break, and the girl would always be there—singing one more song before going for lunch or back to class.
Sometimes she can almost hear the girl hitting the perfect note just one more time. She cries then, but only at the beauty of it; the beauty of it that brought so much tragedy.
He honestly can't understand why people seemed to hate her so much. She was really kind of nice. Granted, he was always slightly terrified of approaching her, but he wishes he had manned up and asked her, just once, whether she wanted to come over and dance with him.
Without her, he would never have been able to dance so openly. She'd brought something into his life that made him happy.
He thinks by taking her own life, she'd taken some of that happiness with her. He's always liked how energetic she'd been while dancing.
He misses her.
Maybe if he'd been less willing to agree with the general consensus that she was a horrible person, and point out that she helped him back onto his wheelchair on a regular basis after he was pushed down by the football players, things would have been different.
Maybe if he'd remembered that even though he might have been literally pushed around, she was always pushed away because of who she was. Whereas people seemed more willing to accept his faults simply because he couldn't walk.
Maybe if he'd said 'yes' instead of 'I don't really think it's a good idea' when she asked to sing a duet with him.
Maybe, things could have turned out differently.
He knows he could have done more. He knows that if he'd bothered looking just a little closer, he'd have seen all the signs. A girl like her, strong as she was, could only take so much before breaking. A person could really only take so much.
And he knows, when he looks at the only group of people who could have become the friends that, in hindsight, she needed so badly, that they blame themselves. And so does he.
He also knows that in many ways, they really are to blame. For that, for never taking the cruelty towards her seriously, he's sorry. He's so, so sorry.
They all are.
Order: Quinn, Kurt, Mercedes, Puck, Finn, Santana, Tina, Mike, Artie, Mr. Schue.