Fallen Star
Rachel picked up the sparkly gold star that had fallen off her trailer door and sighed. It was a metaphor for everything she'd ever wanted from life, and had momentarily achieved before she had stupidly given it all up for her TV show, which had majorly sucked. If someone had told her, only a few months ago, that she'd blow off playing the part of Fanny Bryce on Broadway, she'd have called you absolutely insane. She never imagined she'd do anything like that.
And now she'd lost everything. Just a taste of success made the failure afterwards a million times worse. The absolute worst part was that it was completely her own fault. What kind of idiot blows off their life's ambition to film one episode of a truly awful TV show? Now she'd never get anywhere in the business. Her friends had been trying to ring her for weeks and she'd been refusing to answer. They wouldn't understand. Her whole career was over, her life was over. New York was all she'd ever wanted and it didn't feel like her home any more.
More than anything, Rachel was embarrassed. Throughout high school, she'd blown off the scathing remarks about her personality and attitude, saying that none of it would matter because one day she'd be a star. Now they'd all seen her humiliate herself in front of the entire nation. What director would take her seriously now?
So she was moving back to Lima. Because really all she ever would be was just another Lima loser, she just hadn't realised it until this point. So what if New York was her dream, she could find another dream. She just had to look for it.
At McKinley, Rachel had always been that girl with the voice. The one who was kind of annoying, but talented as hell. The one who'd always known that she was going to get out of that God-forsaken town and do something with her life. Without that, she didn't know who she was anymore. So she needed to go back to Lima and find herself. Because beneath all of that diva, was a lost, scared girl who just wanted her dads to hug her and keep her safe from the world.
When Rachel reached Lima, she realised that something was drastically wrong. Not only her life had collapsed in the last few months while she'd dropped off the radar. Her dads told her that they were getting divorced and that they were putting her house up for sale. Blaine had been dumped by Kurt and cut from NYADA. Sue had taken over McKinley and made all of the New Directions disappear. Even Mr. Schue had left, choosing to transfer to Carmel instead. Nowhere felt the same anymore, all of her safe places were gone and would never come back.
She felt herself slipping back into the depression that she'd felt in New York. What was the point in living if she had nothing to live for? Nothing to look forward to. Nothing to dream of. Rachel had nothing left to give, all of her energy and desire to live had been drained out of her. She felt tired all of the time, started skipping her morning workouts as she couldn't drag herself out of bed until the early afternoon. She lost her appetite, she'd always been skinny but her ribs were starting to protrude. Dark purple bruises were appearing under her eyes, darkening with every day that passed. She no longer bothered with her appearance, rolling out of bed and pulling on a pair of sweats and a hoodie that had used to belong to Finn, not bothering with her hair and makeup. Then she'd go to the Lima bean, with the hood pulled over her face to disguise her, to get her daily caffeine dose. Before it had all gone wrong, Rachel had disapproved of drinking coffee, it was bad for your vocal chords, but now she couldn't bring herself to care. It's not like her voice mattered anymore.
Sam Evans was working at McKinley High as the assistant football coach. He was happy with his job. Unlike many of his former glee club members, he didn't mind Lima. He had no big ambitions really, just wanted a happy life with a family that he loved. The simple things were what mattered to him the most. So when Coach Beiste had offered for him to be her assistant, he'd jumped at the chance. He loved football and the guys on the team were great. Football was the one thing where Sam really felt that he excelled, where he fit in. He supposed that was how Rachel felt about Broadway. So football was his dream, and he had achieved it.
One lunchtime, when he was doing his daily coffee run for the footballers, he saw her there. Rachel Berry was back in town. Blaine had told him that she was, but he'd seen no sign of her. He'd never really known her that well anyway. She looked like she was trying to hide herself, he wondered why. Sure, her TV show had been an utter failure, there was no denying it, but that wasn't like her at all. She'd normally be on a stage somewhere, singing her heart out over her loss and sadness, putting all of her emotions into her voice.
The second their eyes met, Sam knew that something major was wrong with Rachel. He took her hand and attempted to lead her from the shop, knowing that what he had to say to her was best done in private, but Rachel resisted. Her eyes were blank as she looked right through him, as though he wasn't there. He gave up on that tactic and instead tucked a note quickly scribbled on a napkin into her right hand. "Bleachers. 10pm."
Sam had been sitting there for almost an hour when the small girl turned up. She sat near him, but left a wide gap between them. Her eyes were rimmed with red and Sam could smell the alcohol on her breath from where he was sitting. They sat there in silence for a while. Both of them knew why they were here, but neither wanted to start. Eventually Rachel drew in a shaky breath and began to speak.
"My career is over. My life is over. I have no idea who I am anymore. What's the point in carrying on? I'm not even alive really; I'm breathing, but not living. It's finished."
"Rachel. This isn't you. The Rachel Berry I know would never let one mistake keep her from Broadway. Nothing could. When we were in school together, even when I didn't really know who you were, I knew that you'd be famous someday. You were born to be a star. Listen to me. Everything you do, it's for this. Now I'm not saying that you have to move back to New York immediately or anything, but you can't just give up on your dreams. Without you, the world is missing out on so much potential. You're amazingly beautiful inside and out and your talent is unbelievable. So many people would kill to have what you have Rachel, that potential to be even greater than you are already." Rachel looked at the ground, scowling.
"What would you know? You don't know me. We were never even friends really."
"I know we weren't, and I regret that. But I'm not stupid enough to miss what an amazing person you are. Finn Hudson was one of my best friends. Sure, we had times when we were too similar and didn't see eye to eye, but I knew him well. The thing he talked about the most was you. He had so much faith in you, the one thing he said he knew would happen in the future is you being a star. He's not gone, not really. He's still up there looking down on us."
Sam pointed up into the sky.
"That star, the bright one right there. That's Finn Hudson. He's there to watch over you. To guide you on your way. Whenever you feel lost and lonely at night, just look at him and you'll feel his love and faith in you. Love like what you had with Finn, it's too strong to ever go away. Yes, you might move on and I know that he wants you to, but he's your guardian angel watching over you. He told me that if you ever forgot who you really are, I need to remind you. Rachel Berry you are a star, just like Finn."
As Sam walked away from the bleachers, leaving the brunette to think about what he'd said, she remembered when Finn had given her the star for Christmas. She'd asked whether he'd named a star after her.
"No, I thought about that but then I named it Finn Hudson," Finn replied. "Because there is already a star called Rachel Berry, and she's right here on earth and she's brighter than any of those stars up there. So I wanted to make sure that whenever she feels lonely, she can look up at the sky and no matter where I am, she can know that I'm looking down on her."