Title: Tonight, we are the king and queen (1/2)
Author: ellowyntinuviel
Rating: PG-13 for some language
Word Count: ~11,000 for this part
Pairings: Rachel/Santana friendship and romance; mentions of Brittany/Santana, Rachel/Finn, Rachel/Puck, Santana/Puck, and Santana/Finn
Summary: No matter what, they'll always have Halloween.
Author's Notes: All the neighborhood names in this fic are fictitious. I couldn't find any reliable data on real neighborhoods in Lima, so I just made them up. The Glee characters aren't mine, but I had fun borrowing them. The next part should be up in a few days.
In masks and gown we haunt the street
And knock on doors for trick or treat.
Tonight we are the king and queen,
For oh tonight it's Halloween!
Jack Prelutsky
It's a little early for trick-or-treaters, but the ringing doorbell doesn't surprise Rachel. When she swings the door open, she sees two people standing there. The first person is tall and wearing all black - black shoes, black skinny jeans, and a fitted black hoodie. They have on a simple white mask with black circles painted around the eyes and on the lips, shrouded in slight shadow by the hood coming up over the person's head. Holding the person's hand is a little girl with long dark hair and bright brown eyes. She is dressed as an angel, her gold halo shining in the light from the hallway.
The irony immediately strikes Rachel and she stifles a laugh. "Hello, Camila," she said kindly. "You look beautiful."
"Thanks," the girl grins up at her shyly. "I like your costume."
"Thank you," she answers. Like the other person, she is wearing a simple costume (only because her quest requested it) - a simple black dress complimented by a purple shawl and black witches hat, which she had draped in purple fabric to match her cape. Her black leggings also had hints of purple in them. It's not quite as flashy and spectacular as Rachel wants to dress for what will likely be her last Halloween in Lima (her next ones will be in New York when she's in college), but her companion is adamant that they don't draw much attention to themselves.
"Don't be shy now, Camila," comes a muffled voice from under the mask. "You remember Rachel."
The small girl nods. "Yeah, she's our Halloween friend."
The masked-head bobs up and down. "And if you're good she'll give us all her candy because she can't eat it."
Rachel scoffs. "Actually, a surprising number of candy is vegan-friendly," she informs them. "But I promise that you can have all the candy that I can't eat."
The mask rises up and the person takes the little girl's hand. "You ready to go? I got kids to scare," Santana smirks.
Rachel rolls her eyes, grabbing her keys and her cell phone and closing the front door behind her. The three make their way out to Santana's car, Camila walking in the middle and skipping gleefully, muttering something about chocolate and caramel.
"I must say, Santana, your costumes in the past have been much scarier," Rachel says, sliding into the passenger seat. "Just who or what are you supposed to be?"
Santana's eyes widen. "I'm Masky."
Rachel stares at her blankly. "Is that name supposed to mean anything to me?"
Camila gasps in the backseat, setting her orange pumpkin bucket in her lap. "It's from Marble Hornets," she cries. At Rachel's blank look, her jaw drops and she levels a glare at her older sister. "SantÃ, she doesn't know what Marble Hornets is. I thought you said she knew awesome Halloween stuff."
Rachel crosses her arms, huffing. Santana laughs, pulling a piece of hard candy out of her pocket and throwing it to her sister in the backseat. "Play nice," she warns, "or that's the only piece of candy you'll get tonight." She shoots Rachel a playful wink. "And Rachel knows tons of cool Halloween stuff, about like goblins and witches and fairies and shit."
"Santana, please refrain from cursing in front of the children tonight."
Santana scoffs. "Yeah, okay, whatever," she says. Her words are dismissive but they both know she'll do as Rachel asks. "So I thought we'd hit up the Northside first. They have the best candy."
Rachel nods, agreeing with Santana. Northside definitely has the best candy.
Rachel Berry is eight years old when she meets Santana Lopez.
She's wearing a beautiful princess costume for Halloween. It's all long flowing ribbons and detailed beadwork. She plaits her hair as best she can (her fathers are useless) and wears a pair of heels to keep the dress from dragging on the ground. She originally wanted to make herself a costume, but she hadn't been exactly sure how to do so and her dads are as bad at costumes as they are at hair; their solution was to take her out and get her the most expensive costume they could find.
And it is gorgeous, but ultimately it slows her down. She wants to run from house-to-house with the other kids, not get stuck walking slowly because she can't navigate through yards in her outfit. She quickly gets annoyed at her heels always sticking in patches of grass as she tries to walk. It doesn't help her mood that her dads have stopped yet again to talk to some other parents.
Scowling, Rachel crosses her arms and glares at her parents, hoping that they will turn and pay attention to her soon. She doesn't want to resort to yelling, but if she needs to, she is fully prepared to unleash her anger on them. The sun is already down and night is fully upon them, signaling to Rachel that she doesn't have much time to collect all the candy that she can carry.
Northside is a nice neighborhood, one of the nicest in Lima. But that also means it's a gated community, and while the people who live there are nice enough to open their gates to the masses and give out better candy than anyone else in town, their courtesy only extends so far. Northside closes its gates at nine o'clock, meaning that the kids who come from other areas to trick-or-treat have to leave early and Rachel's fathers are seriously cutting into the time she has left to trick-or-treat.
Just as Rachel gets ready to march over to her laughing fathers and throw a tantrum, something grabs her. She tries to scream, but a hand clamps over her mouth. It smells like plastic and rubber is shaped like some kind of claw. Rachel struggles against the person holding her and before she knows what's happened, someone clad all in black is running away from her with the bag that holds all the candy she's collected.
"Hey!" she calls out, stomping her foot. "Get back here right now!"
The boy (because only boys would be so cruel) doesn't stop, and if anything, he runs faster as she yells after him. Rachel looks around frantically and sees that her dads are preoccupied. Her candy is getting away, clutched in the hands of someone running down the street as fast as he can. Rachel grabs her skirt and takes off after him, sprinting with difficulty in her nice shoes. The thief rounds a corner, several bags swinging in his arms.
He's taller than Rachel (which isn't a feat considering her height), but Rachel is angry and determined. They pass several houses that Rachel doesn't recognize and continue turning corners until they reach one of Northside's many small parks. Her legs hurt and she's struggling to stay on her heeled feet as she watches the thief reach a tree and pull himself into it, climbing up a few branches.
Rachel stands below, clutching her side and breathing heavily. "Come down here right now!" she yells. "Give me my candy back!"
The boy pulls off his mask and Rachel sees that he is actually a she. The girl looks about her age and has long dark hair that unfurls out from under the mask she removes. The girl swings her legs over the side of the branch and pulls one of the several bags she's undoubtedly stolen into her lap, digging through it in search of some candy. "Come up and get it, princessa," she taunts, smirking down at Rachel. (Yes, even by the tender age of eight, Santana has perfected the smirk that she will later become known for.)
"No," Rachel shouts, putting her hands on her hips. "You bring that candy down here. It's mine."
"Nah, I think it's mine now," the other girl says simply.
Rachel's eyes well up with tears, because it just isn't fair. She has on this nice, but restricting dress that cost a lot of money and is now stained at the bottom with dirt. Her feet ache and her chest hurts. And now she's in a park she doesn't know in a neighborhood she doesn't know with a person she doesn't know. And to top it all off, she doesn't even have the candy that she worked so hard to collect.
So Rachel just stands at the bottom of the tree crying because she doesn't know what else to do.
The girl in the tree bites her lip. "Come on, don't be a baby," she says, which just makes Rachel cry harder. "Aw, jeez. Fine," she declares. The girl tucks the bags of candy she's stolen securely in her arms and climbs back down a few branches before dropping to the ground easily.
Rachel's lip quivers as she looked at the girl in front of her.
"If I give you your candy will you stop crying?" Rachel nods and the girl holds out her arm, displaying several bags with varying amounts of candy. "Which one's yours?"
"Um," Rachel stutters. "I don't know. They all look the same."
The other girl rolls her eyes. "Just pick one. I don't care."
"Can I have one with a lot of candy?"
"No," she replies. "And you're lucky I'm even giving you any of my candy."
The other girl is glaring at her, so Rachel grabs the first bag she sees. It happens to have the most candy it and she smiles, pleased with herself. "That's not your candy," she says. "You stole it."
"Whatever," the girl mutters says with a tilt of her head. "I've got it now, so that means it's mine."
They stand there staring at each other for a moment and Rachel looks the other girl over. She has on a skeleton costume, a black jumpsuit with white bones attached to it. She has two different gloves, though, one resembling a lobster claw and the other a skeletal hand that matches her jumpsuit. The mask she's holding is a pumpkin face, contorted into an evil grin.
"What are you supposed to be?" Rachel asks.
The girl shrugs. "A monster," she says.
"It's weird," Rachel responds. "I've never seen a monster that looked like that."
She glares at Rachel. "It scared you, didn't it?"
Rachel plays with the handle on the bag she's holding, looking around at the park. It's completely dark now, the only light coming from the dim streetlights standing over the road next to it. There's no one around at all and Rachel frowns, nodding.
The girl doesn't say anything as she stuffs her mask into one of the bags she's carrying. She turns away from Rachel and starts walking back the way they came. At least, she thinks that's the way they came from. Rachel takes a quick look around, finding nothing but October fog and an empty park and she quickly runs after the other girl.
"Where are you going?" she asks when she catches up to the girl.
"Home," she replies shortly, finding a candy bar and taking a few quick bites of it.
Home. The word makes Rachel sigh as she brings one of her lips between her teeth, biting on it. Rachel's going to be in trouble, really big trouble, when her dads find her. She knows her address, has it memorized because her dads made her, but she actually doesn't know how to get to her house, especially not when she's really far away from it.
"Why are you following me?" the candy thief asks.
Rachel walks beside her, frowning. "I don't know where I am," she says.
"Well you don't live with me, so go away," is the response she gets.
Rachel tries not to cry again, but her earlier tears are still too fresh and she does anyway. "Please let me come with you," she cries. "Maybe your mom will let me call my daddies. I don't know how to get home and what if something happens to me? My dad says that little kids get kidnapped and hurt by themselves and that's why I'm supposed to stay with an adult," she finishes.
The girl sighs with a flourish and hands Rachel a chocolate bar. "I don't like nuts," she explains, shooting Rachel a look that dares her to challenge her words. "You can walk with me I guess. Just stop crying already."
"Oh, thank you thank you thank you," Rachel smiles, sniffling and grabbing the girls arm as she bobbles a little bit on her heeled shoes.
The girl makes a big show of pulling away from Rachel and glaring at her. She leads them down the street and around a couple of turns before the silence starts to get to Rachel. She's a loud child and she can't stand the quiet, not when there are songs to be sung and words to be said. Her thief-turned-escort doesn't look keen on talking to her, but that's never stopped Rachel before.
"I'm Rachel Berry," she says smartly, holding her hand out because she's been taught that proper introductions include a handshake.
Her companion doesn't take it, however, just digs around in her stolen bags of candy for something to eat. "Santana," she says by way of introduction.
Rachel drops her hand. "That's a pretty name," she responds.
Santana shrugs. "S'okay."
They walk in silence for a bit longer, and this time, Rachel is okay with it because Santana definitely doesn't want to talk to her and she doesn't want to make the other girl mad enough to leave her behind. She absentmindedly pulls the wrapper off of the chocolate bar Santana gave her and starts munching on it, humming just because she can't help herself. Santana surprises her by joining in her song, some old classic rock song that her daddies always sing, and they hum it together for a while, singing little bits out loud when they remember the words.
The fog is getting heavier and with each passing second, Rachel knows that the amount of trouble she's in is growing. "How much longer do you think we'll be?" she asks.
Santana glances around. "Few minutes, maybe," she says, but she frowns when she says it and Rachel's heart drops.
"Are you sure you know where we're going?" she wonders
"Of course I do," Santana shoots back, clearly annoyed. "I live here."
Santana turns a corner, glancing around her. When Rachel stares at her unsure, she sets her face with resolution and storms down the street. When they reach the end of it, she looks around again. "Santana, are we lost? My dads are going to kill me."
"No! Stop asking that," the taller girl says. "I know where we are!"
She grabs Rachel's hand and pulls her around another corner, marching them both down the sidewalk. After a moment, she seems to realize that she's holding on to the shorter girl and she lets go of her, going through her candy bags again - this time until she pulls out two caramels.
Rachel looks nervous, her eyes darting all around her. She finds only houses she doesn't know and yards she's never seen. There aren't any trick-or-treaters to be seen, which doesn't comfort her. "Where are all the kids?"
Santana shrugs. "It's late. Northside is lame and they make everyone go home early."
Rachel nods, biting her lips. Santana hands her one of her caramels and she eats it greedily. The sugar and the sweetness flow through her veins and somehow make it easier to deal with the fact that they're probably a little lost on dark streets with shadows dancing all around them.
Santana notices a sign, reading it aloud to herself slowly. "Yay," she says with little enthusiasm. "I know where we are now," she tells Rachel. "Told you."
After a couple more turns, these taken with much greater confidence, Santana stops them again. "Hold open your bag," she says.
Rachel does as she's instructed, because Santana's been giving her candy all night (way more than she originally took from Rachel) and Rachel is happy to take whatever else she wants to give. Santana diligently goes through all her bags, pulling out candy bars and chocolates and every fun-size something-or-other that has nuts in it and dropping them into Rachel's opened bag. She pulls a face. "It's not cause I like you," she says. "I just don't like nuts."
Rachel nods and smiles, just happy to have someone who's being nice to her. The kids at her school tease her, making fun of everything from how she dresses to the fact that she has two dads. She doesn't believe that Santana doesn't like her at least a little bit, but she lets the lie slide because Santana's been treating her better than any of the other kids she knows, giving her heaps of candy and helping her get home.
As they come around another corner, Rachel recognizes the street they're on. She spots the horrible scarecrow sitting in someone's yard and she remembers that she almost cried when it jumped up and yelled at her. It's flat now, lying on a bench on someone's front porch.
"Rachel!" she hears. Her father, Hiram, runs over to her, taking her into his arms. "Where on earth have you been, young lady?" he demands. "Do you know how worried we've been?"
Her other dad, Leroy, comes over to them and hugs Rachel before he stands up and puts a hand on Hiram's back. "Rachel, you know you can't just go running off like that," he says. "What if something had happened to you?"
Rachel looks at the ground, scuffing her feet across the pavement. "I'm sorry," she tells her fathers. "I just got lost."
"You were supposed to stay where you were until we were ready to go to the next house," Hiram replies, his voice rising.
"I know," she says, biting her lip. She hates being in trouble, hates it more than anything else.
"We went to the park," she hears behind her. Santana steps up next to her. "I live over there and I know all the streets and stuff," she says, pointing to a large house down the street.
Rachel looks at her gratefully.
Leroy frowns down at them though and Hiram still looks upset. Rachel knows that it's useless for either of them to bother trying to explain or make excuses. "It's not safe for either of you to go wandering off like that," Leroy says to them. "You're both too young to be off by yourselves."
"I think you should run on home now," Hiram says to Santana, who shrugs. "Rachel, say goodbye to your friend. And don't think that you're not grounded for this little stunt."
Rachel's frown deepens, because not only is she going to be confined to her room, but she has to say goodbye to Santana. They stare at each other for a second before Rachel leans forward and lays a quick kiss to Santana's cheek. When she pulls away, Santana's eyes are wide and her cheeks are tinged pink.
"Thanks for helping me," Rachel says.
"Yeah, no problem," Santana stutters. She gives Rachel a quick hug, and Rachel feels something being dropped into the pocket of her dress. Before she can say anything, Santana runs away, her hair flying behind her and bags swinging in her arms.
When they climb in the car, Hiram takes Rachel's candy, telling her that she's in trouble and she's already had enough sweets for one night. "You can have it back in a couple of days," he says.
Rachel pouts, but when she stuffs her hands into her pockets, she finds a couple of candy bars and some hard candies and smiles.
The next day, Rachel finds out that Santana doesn't go to her school. She asks everyone she knows if they've ever even heard of someone by that name. Mostly, her classmates do what they always - blatantly ignore her or tell her to go away and be weird somewhere else. Undeterred, Rachel even asks a few teachers and the office secretary.
Noah Puckerman is the only person she finds who knows someone by the name of Santana, the daughter of one of his mom's friends. Rachel decides to start spending a lot more time with Noah.
Her ninth Halloween is going to be the best one yet. She has that nagging feeling in the back of her mind that it's going to be perfect, because for the first time ever, Rachel has other kids to go trick-or-treating with and her dads won't be there with them. Her parents aren't really fond of Noah and Santana, but they agree to let the three kids go out together as long as Santana's older brother Diego goes with them and they don't go to Northside (something about Santana being the kind of influence who leads kids away from their parents if they're in her own neighborhood.) It's decided that they'll trick-or-treat in Noah's neighborhood and that Diego will drive Noah home before he brings Santana and Rachel back to the Lopez house for a sleepover.
Rachel decides to be a witch because she's been watching Into the Woods repeatedly for weeks and Bernadette Peters is the best witch she's ever seen in her life. Her dress isn't an exact match to the one from the musical, but she does have a really bright red cape, so it's close enough for her. She remembers to wear sensible shoes this time, mostly because Noah says they aren't stopping if she can't keep up.
The boy walks on her left side, wearing a dinosaur costume that his mom picked out for him. It's green and has spikes that go all the way down the middle, from the top of his head to the tail. He complains because his mom made him wear it and it's a 'baby' costume, but that doesn't stop him from spending the entire night roaring loudly at the top of his lungs and calling himself the Puckasaurus.
On Rachel's other side, Santana is dressed as a vampire. She has a dress similar to Rachel's, as many child costume dresses in Lima seemed to be almost the same, purchased at the same stores and from the same companies. Santana even has a cape like Rachel does, but hers is black and has a high collar. The taller girl has plastic fangs in her mouth that make it hard for her to talk, and there are fake blood drops painted on to her chin.
Diego lingers behind them as they walk, continually telling them to hurry up so he can go to a party. They go door-to-door together and he leans against fences and rails along the way, catching up to them after every three or four houses. A couple of times, he pushes Santana around and Rachel glares at him.
There's a group of girls ahead of them who are definitely a few years younger than them, dressed as sparkly princesses and fairies. They're all glitter and wands and pink frills and lace, giggling in a group together and whispering secrets in each other's ears.
Rachel watches with a frown as Santana creeps up on them, grinning. She throws her cape up and hisses, menacingly threatening to drink their blood. As they yell and jump, Noah climbs over the fence next to them, roaring. In the chaos of the girls screaming and running off to their parents, Santana manages to grab a couple of bags of candy from the frightened girls, who don't even notice.
The pair high-five as they walk back towards Rachel. Santana hands each of them separate bags and keeps one for herself. "You guys shouldn't do that," Rachel says. "It's not very nice."
"Well then you can just give me back the back I got for you," Santana says smartly, holding out her hand.
Rachel's grip on the stolen bag tightens. "No, that's okay," she responds. "Those girls are gone anyway and it would be a shame if all this candy went to waste."
Noah smirks, dumping his stolen candy into the bag he originally brought. "Yeah, that's what I thought."
Her dads are right, she thinks; Noah and Santana are bad influences on her.
They've gone down several streets at this point and their bags, now full of candy that they didn't collect on their own, are fairly full. Rachel's going to be eating candy for weeks, binging on sugar when her dads aren't home and sneaking chocolate at every opportunity. Just thinking about it makes her mouth water and she satisfies herself by chewing on a chocolate toffee.
"Hey!" Diego calls out from down the block. "Come on, we're going home."
Rachel doesn't really like Diego. He's a tall and brooding teenager with shaggy hair. Every time he says something, he sounds like he's whining and Rachel can't stand it. More than that, she can't stand how he treats Santana. Diego always seems to be yelling at her or hitting her or throwing her around, muttering things at her in Spanish that Rachel doesn't need to understand in order to know that they're mean. And he might deny it and say that she's just a stupid kid, but Rachel just knows that that one time Santana almost got hit by a car is his fault because he made her cross the street when the light changed.
Santana crosses her arms. "No," she says, taking her plastic fangs out of her mouth. "We're not done yet."
"Trick-or-treating time is over, hermana," he smirks, grabbing her arm. "Come on, Puckerman. Berry."
Santana rips her arm away from him. "No way!" she shouts. "It's barely even dark out."
"God, Santana," he mutters, grabbing her again. "I said it's time to go home."
Santana struggles against his grip on her and Rachel takes a step behind Noah because Diego is tall and brooding and kind of scary when he's mad. Diego's jaw is firm and he looks to Rachel like he's about to do something horrible. He glances over at them and seems to notice that he has an audience in the two other kids.
"Fine," he sneers, glaring at them as he releases Santana. "If you want to stay out, stay out. See if I fucking care what happens to you. And we'll just see what mom does when you get home, puta."
Diego storms off, his long legs taking him down the block and around the corner before any of them even move. Rachel's been to Santana's house enough times and heard enough yelling and screaming and breaking glass to know that Santana is going to be in a lot of trouble when she gets home. And from the way Santana's rubbing her arm and staring after her brother, she knows it, too.
"Do you think we should all go back to Santana's house now?" Rachel asks, breaking the silence and realizing that she's holding on to Noah's arm. She takes a step away from him and towards the other brunette girl, thinking that they can catch up to Diego and his car is they hurry.
"Nah," Noah drawls. "Santana's gonna to be in trouble no matter what, so we might as well have some fun."
He smirks then, finding some gum in his bag and throwing it at Rachel, who only just manages to catch it. "Santana?" she asks, unsure.
The other girl turns around, nodding. "Yeah, let's do it," she declares.
"I don't know if I can carry any more candy," Rachel says. Despite being the same age as the other two, she's still a little bit smaller than they are and her candy is starting to weigh her down.
Noah shakes his head. "I have a better idea," he starts. "Mike Chang said that there's an old haunted house outside of Fletcher's Grove. We should go check it out."
"Fletcher's Grove?" Rachel questions, biting her lip. "That's far away," she told him. Her dad's favorite coffee shop was near the area, and Rachel remembered that it always took them a long time get there.
"It'll take like, thirty minutes," he says immediately. "You just don't want to go because you're a girl and you're scared."
"I am not!" she protests, putting her hands on her hips. "I just don't think I can walk that far with all my candy," she admits.
Santana moves up beside her, looping her arm through Rachel's. She nods her head across the street and shares a look with Noah. A large group of boys has stopped in front of a house, one of their homes maybe, and they're all climbing off of bicycles and throwing them against the garage before they run inside the house.
Santana smiles deviously. She takes Rachel's bag of candy from her and throws it over her shoulder. "Who says we have to walk?"
As they each grab a bike and run off before anyone notices, Rachel hopes that she isn't going to get in as much trouble as Santana. Noah laughs as he almost runs down a group of five-year-olds, roaring that they should beware the Puckasaurus, Rachel just knows that they're all going to be grounded for weeks.
Santana stops and tugs off her cape. She tells Rachel to do the same with her own cape, and then stuffs both of them into their candy bags, which she hangs off her shoulder. Rachel smiles in thanks and Santana gives her an approving nod. Rachel blushes and decides that it might be worth it.
Even on bikes, it takes them a good twenty minutes to get to Fletcher's Grove, an area just outside of town. There aren't very many houses in the area and the streetlights are spaced further and further apart. It's darker now and Rachel starts to get nervous. Noah's practically giddy as he rides ahead of them, the hood of his costume flying behind him as he laughs into the cool night air. She wants to ask Santana if they can just turn around and go home. She would ask Noah, but he never listens to her (he listens to Santana, though.) But Rachel spies Santana smiling, and she knows that after this, she might not get to see Santana for a while, so she goes along with them.
Eventually, Noah stops in front of a large house none of them have ever seen. It's brown and imposing, set back from the road a ways. Rachel wouldn't have even known it was there if Noah hadn't stopped them right in front of it. The bushes in front of it are thick and dense, and she can just make out the top of the house from where she is. There are two peaks sticking up over the trees and foliage, each with a dark window that makes her shudder.
"I'm not sure about this," she finally voices, watching the other two get off the bikes. She climbs off her own stolen bike and reluctantly puts down the kickstand. Santana hangs their bags from one of her handlebars and stares up at the same windows Rachel had been staring at.
"Come on," Noah says. He starts walking through the overgrowth with confident steps, but his face shows nerves that look about on par with how she feels. "Girls are such babies."
"We are not," Santana says, taking Rachel's arm and pulling her through the bushes after the boy. Sticks and leaves scratch at her limbs as Santana pulls her along and she has to stop when her dress gets caught. Santana waits for her patiently, holding out her hand for Rachel to take when she manages to free her costume. Rachel takes it gratefully.
When they finally clear the shrubs and sticks between the house and the road, they stop. Noah is already there, standing at the edge of a yard full of tall grass. The house is no less intimidating than it had been from the road; if anything, it's even scarier because there's nothing separating her from it. The light from the street barely penetrates through to them, but Rachel can trace the outline of the house clearly. It's tall and brown, but there's some trace of paint still chipping off it in the corners and near the edges. It's all big windows and shadows that make Rachel wonder how anyone could have ever lived in such a place.
"Good idea, Puckerman," Santana says. "How are we going to see?"
"I'm not Puckerman anymore. I'm the Puckasaurus," he groans. Noah unzips the front of his dinosaur costume, rifling around in it and pulling out a flashlight. He clicks it on and points it at the house, lighting up the front porch. There's an old rocking chair sitting next to the boarded-up door. Somehow, being able to see the house in all its rotting glory doesn't make Rachel feel better.
"Why do you even have that?"
He grins boyishly as he shrugs. "You never know."
Their first collective step onto the wooden porch makes Rachel want to turn away and run. She tries to hold her ground, though, because she wasn't going to be the one to prove Noah Puckerman right. She shudders a little bit when the porch creaks loudly, cutting through the silence of the night around them. Rachel feels Santana squeeze her hand and the two stand close together as Noah leads them.
The door is boarded up, but the wood is loose and it's easy for Noah to push a couple of pieces out of the way for them. "Ladies first," he mutters, holding some wood up for them to go through. Santana takes the flashlight from him before she pulls Rachel through the opening into the house.
They stand there for a moment, their hands still clasped, until Noah steps in behind them. There's dust everywhere, coating the floor and walls in several layers. As Santana shines the flashlight around the entrance hallway, Rachel sees a small table set against the wall next to them, an empty picture frame sitting atop it. There's a painting on the wall ahead of them, faded and worn as it hangs next to a staircase. She can't even tell what it's supposed to be.
Noah takes the flashlight from Santana and starts walking towards the stairs. "Let's go," he says, taking a couple steps up towards the second-story landing. Rachel and Santana are still holding hands and the taller girl wraps her free hand around Rachel's upper arm, squeezing it as they trail after Noah. Rachel doesn't know why Santana's holding on to her; it's all the smaller girl can do to put one foot in front of the other and not run screaming with every noise the floorboards make underneath them.
Noah reaches the top and swings the flashlight around wildly. He roars loudly. "I'm the Puckasaurus," he screams suddenly.
Rachel gasps. "Noah!" she hisses. "What if someone's here? Now they're going to know where we are. I'm too young and talented to die."
They hear a loud creak suddenly, from somewhere downstairs. Santana and Rachel seem to realize at the same moment that they're most definitely upstairs and none of them are moving enough to make any noise. They look at each other quickly before turning back to Noah, whose eyes widen. "It's just the wind," he says.
Santana snatches the flashlight from him, shushing both of them. "Shut up," she whispers. "They're going to hear you."
She flips the switch on the flashlight, giving Rachel's hand a squeeze as she does so. Rachel holds Santana's fingers between her own as tight as she can possible manage. It's completely dark and they stand in silence for a few long moments. Santana is close to her and she can almost feel the other girl's heartbeat against the side of her body.
A loud CRACK! echoes through the house suddenly, coming from somewhere below them. Someone screams (it was her maybe) and Rachel feels her hand being tugged on. The flashlight comes back on and Santana pulls her downstairs, Noah close behind them. "Run!" she yells.
Santana reaches the front door, creaks and groans and cracks reaching their ears and settling firmly in their minds. Santana struggles with some of the boards. "Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up," Rachel mutters.
"I'm trying," Santana says. Noah reaches them and steps in front of her, moving the wooden slabs out of the way quickly. He doesn't wait for them to pass through, slipping through the gap with ease and taking off. Santana pushes Rachel through before she gets out of the house herself, grabbing Rachel's hand again as they rush after a yelling Noah.
The three of them sprint back to their bikes, running through the large yard as fast as they can. Rachel's breathing is labored, and she struggles to keep up with the other two kids. The wind whistles through the trees and Rachel has never hated being short more than she does right now. She trips over her dress, tumbling into the dirt and bringing Santana down with her. The taller girl doesn't leave her, though; she has Rachel back on her feet before she can apologize and practically drags her back towards the road.
There are only two bikes left by the time they get there and the sight of Noah's swinging dinosaur tail is all they see of the third bicycle as he rounds a bend in the street. "Do you think it followed us?" she gasps, trying to pull herself up on her own bike. She doesn't make it and drops to the ground, Santana falling beside her.
Santana shakes her head, putting her hand on her side. "Nah," she says breathlessly. "It would have caught us by now."
They sit there for a moment, in two girl-shaped heaps on the side of the road, their two stolen bikes beside them. They're both breathless, taking in huge gulps of air as they stare at each other.
"What do you think it was?" Rachel asks.
Santana shrugs. "Ghost maybe? Or a witch," she mutters. Rachel's eyes widen and Santana stands up. "Maybe we should start moving," she suggests. Rachel nods and lets the other girl help her up.
They decide not to ride the bikes (they're both still a bit winded) and opt to walk beside them instead. The night is heavy around them and Rachel can see the moon in the sky. It's a firm reminder that not only have they run off on Halloween again, but that it's getting later and with each passing second, the time of their punishments lengthen.
"Do you think Noah will get home?" she wonders after a while.
"Probably," Santana says. "He's a boy, remember?"
Rachel grins. Santana reaches into one of the bags still hanging on the bike handle, pulling out the first two pieces of candy she can find and giving one to Rachel. "Thanks for not leaving me," she states, thinking that anyone else probably would have left her without a moment's thought.
"Yeah, well, I'll get in bigger trouble if I lose you," Santana says. Rachel's face falls and the other girl leans over and nudges her. "And we're friends or whatever."
Rachel nods, the smile coming back to her face. "I hate being short," she sighs.
"You're like a hobbit," Santana teases, grinning at her. "You're fun-sized, like all our chocolate bars."
Rachel giggles. "Thanks, I think," she responds, the other girl's grin infectiously spreading on to her face until they're laughing at each other. "Do you think your mom will still let me sleep over?"
"I don't know," Santana tells her honestly. "I hope so," she says quietly after a long moment.
When they finally get back to Santana's house (they ditched the stolen bikes somewhere down the street), Mrs. Lopez is madder than Rachel has ever seen her and she's sure that she's going to be sent home immediately. The woman scolds Rachel for only a moment before sending her upstairs with the promise that she'll be talking to Rachel's dads at length in the morning. Relieved that she gets to stay, Rachel immediately runs up to the bathroom. She takes the time to clean the dirt off of her face and hands, changing into her pajamas.
For a good half hour, she hears nothing but yelling downstairs, most of it coming from Mrs. Lopez and screamed in a language that Rachel doesn't speak. She knows anger when she hears it, though. Sometimes, Santana yells back and the next noises Rachel hears are what a face to the hand or a body to a wall sound like.
When Santana finally comes up to her room, Rachel is sitting patiently on her bed. Santana sniffles, looking anywhere but at the girl waiting for her. She grabs some clothes to sleep in before running to the bathroom. Rachel spends the time she's gone doing something that she knows will cheer Santana up - dumping all their candy on the bed and sorting it into piles. She automatically puts everything with nuts into her pile and most of the caramels into Santana's, leaving the rest in the middle of the bed. It's a really good haul, the biggest one she's ever seen. Even the fact that half of it belonged to other kids doesn't deter her.
When Santana comes back into the room, she has on a pair of pants and a t-shirt. She's clean and Rachel can smell her soap from across the room. Santana grins at the sight of all the candy on the bed, jumping up and grabbing one of the caramels Rachel put on her side of the bed. She doesn't say anything about what happened downstairs, so Rachel doesn't, either, deciding that she'd much rather just keep talking about things Santana likes, just so she smiles.
Rachel is surprised that Mrs. Lopez didn't take their candy from them as soon as they walked in the door and when Santana says that they hide some away in case the woman remembers later, Rachel quickly agrees. Santana puts a good portion of her candy into a trinket box that she stuffs in the bottom drawer of her dresser. When she's not looking, Rachel hides a couple of chocolate bars and some lemonheads in Santana's favorite shoes, knowing the taller girl will find them later.
When they crawl into bed eventually, Rachel lays on Santana's side with her, pressed to her side like she always does. Their legs bump each other and their fingers brush. "I hate Maria," Santana whispers eventually. "Why can't it just be me and my dad again?"
"I don't know," Rachel says honestly.
"I wish I had a real mom."
Rachel thinks about her dads then, her kind fathers who pay for her singing and dancing lessons. She thinks about Hiram, with his busy administration job that means that he can never make it to her recitals. He always promises to make it to the next one, but he never does and Rachel's come to just expect that he won't be there. Rachel thinks about Leroy, about how he comes to her recitals, but never has time to read her a bedtime story anymore because he's always doing paperwork. He takes her to school and he makes dinner, but he does little else.
"Sometimes, I wish I had a mom, too," she mutters.
Santana hums. "I'll trade you my step-mom for one of your dads," she says.
"No, thanks," Rachel giggles, nudging the other girl until she giggles, too.
They spend the next hour making up their own bedtime stories together and Rachel falls asleep with the feel of Santana's lips on her cheek.
When Rachel is ten, they celebrate Halloween a bit differently. Santana's dad and step-mom have a baby in the summer, an adorable little girl named Camila. The two girls like to push her stroller around the Lopez home and take turns pretending to be her mother. They have fun treating her like a doll, occasionally getting to feed or change her. They have fun with Camila, but unfortunately, the presence of a newborn means that Rachel doesn't get to go to Santana's house very often anymore, and she definitely can't stay overnight.
Rachel's dads won't allow her to go trick-or-treating with Santana and Noah anymore, either, not anymore. So at Rachel's fierce insistence, Hiram and Leroy agree to let Santana spend Halloween day at the Berry household (something about being better able to keep a better eye on the pair that way.)
She invites Noah, but he'd rather go trick-or-treating and get candy than keep hanging out with girls. Rachel decides not to tell him that her dads have promised her that she and her friends could have whatever candy was left over after all the trick-or-treaters are done coming to their house (and then some, because she knows he's bought extra just for them.)
When Santana gets dropped off in the afternoon, Leroy makes small talk with Maria, asking about her husband and the new baby. The two girls impatiently leave them standing in the hallway, going to the kitchen so that Rachel can show Santana the pumpkins that she picked out for them to carve. She got the biggest ones she could find and they're so large that she can't even lift them on her own.
Santana stands in front of the pumpkins, inspecting them. She runs her finger over each one before poking Rachel, who's standing beside them. "Nope," she laughs. "Still a hobbit."
The shorter girl rolls her eyes and frowns. Santana jabs a finger against her side again and she jumps, squeaking. "Fun-size, remember?" she says, smiling and trying to poke Rachel again.
When Leroy finally comes into the kitchen, the girls are standing in front of the refrigerator, peering inside it. Santana's holding a tube of cookie dough, tearing off pieces to eat, handing some of them to Rachel and keeping some for herself. Leroy shakes his head and grins as he takes the cookie dough away from her. "Santana, your mother said that you promised to be on your best behavior today," he says.
"Step-mother," she corrects. "And I didn't even do anything."
"Mm-hmm," he hums, unconvinced. Rachel giggles. "Raw cookie dough is bad for you, which is why you can only have a little bit at a time," he winks. "Just ask next time."
Rachel likes that her dad Leroy seems to get along with Santana. He's not like Hiram, who spends more time sighing and frowning at the pair of them than he does anything else. Whenever they get into trouble, Leroy usually just rolls his eyes and sets them straight. And he always does it with a smile.
"Can we carve our pumpkins now, daddy?" she asks politely. She shoots a glare at her friend when Santana pulls a face at her politeness.
"Yeah, just let me get some newspaper spread out on the coffee table. Why don't you go pick out which patterns you want to use?"
They nod and Rachel leads Santana to the living room. She turns on the television and sets it the kid's channel because it's showing all her favorite Halloween movies. The Nightmare Before Christmas is just starting and she smiles brightly.
They spend the next thirty minutes arguing and discussing the merits of all the different patterns they find while Leroy sets out some newspaper and plastic bags on the coffee table. While they continue to debate and talk, he goes ahead and cuts the tops of their pumpkins off. He's about to start cleaning them out himself when they announce that they've come to an agreement.
Rachel has chosen a grinning cat, only after she promises Santana that she can have the bigger pumpkin. The other brunette goes with a ghost rising out of the ground beside a grave. Leroy tells them that he'll do whatever pattern they want him to, and they hand him the hardest one they can find in the pattern book - a headless horseman holding up a smiling pumpkin head.
It takes them much longer to clean out their pumpkins than it should, mostly because Santana keeps grabbing handfuls of squishy pumpkin innards and dumping them into Rachel's pumpkin every time she manages to get a little more out. The smaller brunette retaliates by flinging pumpkin seeds at Santana until Leroy makes her stop because she's getting them all over the carpet. Santana smears sticky pumpkin strings up both of their arms and laughs hysterically when Rachel picks them off and pouts.
By the time they finally get started on the actual carving, The Nightmare Before Christmas is almost over and Leroy is almost done with his pumpkin. Rachel is slow and meticulous, eager for her cat to turn out perfect. Santana is impatient, muttering under her breath until Leroy tells her that he can speak Spanish and he knows what she's saying. She keeps bending their saws as she cuts and at one point, she stops and crosses her arms, glaring at her pumpkin like she wants it to cut itself.
Hocus Pocus starts playing and Santana turns her attention to that for a few minutes, just because she's so angry at pumpkins and stupid little orange-handled saws that break easily. "Santana, stop watching the movie and finish your pumpkin," Rachel says.
"No," Santana answers. "It's stupid. You finish."
"I did finish," Rachel tells her, turning her pumpkin around to show the other girl. "How's it look?"
Her curves are uneven and sometimes Rachel takes off a little more than she means to. One side of the cat's mouth dips down a good amount lower than the other side and there are a couple of pumpkin pieces still stuck inside some of the smaller segments. They've both seen better pumpkins and they know it. "It looks good," Santana says instead of the truth. "Better than mine," she adds, which is definitely the truth.
Santana's ghost only has one eye and her grave, which should be rounded at the top, is square. She's broken two saws and only about half of her pumpkin is done. "Do you want me to help you?" Rachel asks. Santana shrugs, which Rachel knows means 'yes,' and hands Rachel a fresh saw.
Leroy finishes his headless horseman and it's a perfect specimen. He shows it off to the girls, who are both a little in awe, and then leaves the room to clean up and find some candles. Rachel walks across the floor on her knees and settles next to Santana. She grabs her pumpkin and slowly starts going over some of Santana's messed up curves and lines. Santana watches her closely, sliding over until their knees are bumping and their hips touch. "See? You just have to go slow," Rachel says.
Rachel's work is only a little better than Santana's, but she doesn't break anything and she actually finishes, which is more than the taller girl can say. They sing along to the big song performance of the movie while she carves, giggling and trying to do their best Bette Midler impressions. Halfway through the song, and almost completely through the pumpkin carving, Santana leans over and drops a kiss to Rachel's cheek. Rachel just smiles and keeps cutting.
Leroy helps them put their pumpkins on the porch and light them with vanilla candles that make the entire house smell good, like pumpkin pie with a scoop of whipped topping. He orders them pizza on the condition that they don't tell Hiram and lets them eat upstairs in Rachel's room. Leroy passes them one of two full bowls of candy and tells them to eat their pizza first and he'll check on them later.
Rachel carries their plates of pizza and Santana follows her with the candy bowl, two cans of soda tucked into her jean pockets. When they reach Rachel's room, they decide to settle on the floor. Santana turns the television on, turning it to an adult channel that the smaller girl has never watched. She turns the volume up just in time for a masked man to come into the scene wielding a large knife.
"Santana, I don't want to watch a scary movie," Rachel exclaims, wincing at the sight of the man on her t.v. She covers up her eyes. "Change the channel."
"But it's Halloween," Santana says. "You're supposed to watch scary movies."
"No, you're supposed to watch Halloween movies. They don't have to be scary," Rachel responds, suddenly captivated by the sight of the man with the knife chasing the woman. She falls and he's upon her instantly, thrusting the knife into her stomach. Blood spurts across his mask and Rachel gasps, shuffling closer to Santana. "I don't want to watch this anymore," she frowns.
Santana nods absently, as entranced and unable to look away as she is. "Yeah, okay," she says, grabbing the remote and flipping back to something more kid-friendly.
They sift through the candy while they eat their pizza, picking out pieces and eating them in between bites of pepperoni and cheese. Rachel can hear the sound of trick-or-treaters outside, other kids running around in costumes and collecting their own treats. Santana drops her pizza crusts on to Rachel's plate because she knows that the other girl will eat them. She finds some taffy in the bowl, making quick work of it.
"You could have gone trick-or-treating with Noah," Rachel says. "I know you like to scare people and steal their things."
Santana picks a pepperoni off of one of Rachel's pizza slices and tosses it in her mouth. "Noah sucks now," she responds. "This is more fun anyway." Rachel smiles at her and Santana smirks in return. "Plus, I can't get in trouble here and Maria can't yell at me."
It's a lie, though, because they both know that Maria Lopez will always find a way to yell at Santana. Rachel takes it at face-value, though, because at least Santana gets one evening where she won't have to worry about that.
The two watch television idly as they finish eating. Leroy comes in shortly after and takes their plates from him. "Maria called, Santana," he starts, prompting the girls to stand up in anticipation. Rachel frowns, unhappy that her friend has to leave so soon. "I told her that you've been well-behaved and we'd be happy to have you stay the night."
"Really?" He nods and Santana gives him a quick hug. "Thanks, Mr. Berry. You're seriously the best."
Leroy laughs down at them kindly. "This is why I keep you around," he says. "You know how to flatter a guy."
"Mr. Berry, do you have any balloons?" Santana asks suddenly. Rachel looks at her in confusion and Leroy narrows his eyes.
"Why?"
She shrugs. "Just wondering."
He considers her for a moment, and she stares up at him with a blank expression. "Absolutely not," he says eventually. "You're not throwing water balloons at the kids in the street."
Rachel giggles and Santana can't help but grin. "It was just an idea."
The sound of the doorbell ringing interrupts them and Rachel hears Leroy laughing as he walks down the stairs. "And I was just calling that girl well-behaved."
"What do you wanna do now?" Rachel asks after her father is gone.
Santana thinks for a minute before her face lights up. "I know! We should play Bloody Mary," she says excitedly.
Rachel's face contorts into a frown, her brows furrowing and the corners of her mouth falling. Rachel heard about Bloody Mary from some kids at school and she knows that she definitely doesn't want to do anything to summon a horrible witch from the other side of the mirror.
Santana rolls her eyes when Rachel doesn't seem to share her excitement. "Come on, Rachel," she says. "It's just a stupid game. Nothing's gonna happen."
"Then why do we have to play it at all?"
"Just for fun?" Santana tries. "It's not like we have anything better to do."
It is only with great reluctance and the promise that they won't do or watch anything else scary for the rest of the night that Rachel follows Santana into the bathroom. Rachel stares at their reflections in the mirror, her nerves dancing inside her stomach. The bathroom's nightlight is dim and the girls she sees in the mirror are barely-there in the low light.
Santana takes her hand. "Bloody Mary," she says. Rachel just stares at herself in the mirror until her friend nudges her. "You have to say it, too."
"Bloody Mary," they say together, their voices low. Rachel swears that the nightlight flickers and she bites her lip. "I don't want to," she mutters. She bounces on the heels of her feet. "I don't want to do this."
She can see it already in her mind, a terrifying old woman, pale with dark sunken eyes and blackened teeth, grinning as she flies through the mirror towards them. She kills them maybe, or she drags them through the mirror into her world, or she cuts their faces open with a rusty knife and lets them bleed out all over the floor.
"Bloody Mary!" Santana says just as the nightlight flickers and dies.
Rachel shrieks, swearing that she sees a face she doesn't know in the mirror. She grabs the door handle, crying out as she runs all the way downstairs with Santana hot on her heels, the other girl grumbling in broken panicked Spanish all the way.
"Dad!" she yells out as they reach the bottom floor. He's standing at the door, dropping candy into the bucket of a trick-or-treater. Leroy eyes them curiously as they pant on the bottom step. "What's wrong?" he asks.
"We saw Bloody Mary," she replies quickly. She briefly notes that the trick-or-treater is a girl who goes to her school, the very tall Brittany Pierce. She's dressed a cat, black ears sticking up off the top of her head and a matching tail hanging down behind her.
"That's just a ghost story. It's not real," he says kindly, sending Brittany on her way.
Rachel looks at the girl next to her, who is staring at the empty space where Brittany was standing. "Santana?"
Santana shakes her head, looking down at where her hand is still holding Rachel's. She frowns, but she doesn't let go. "But the light went out," she says. "And I totally saw a face."
"The bulb probably just blew out," Leroy explains, smiling at them.
When Rachel tells Santana that they've only spooked themselves, Santana agrees with her because things like Bloody Mary just can't be real. Nevertheless, they decide to spend the rest of the night downstairs in the living room, huddled on the couch together under a collection of blankets Leroy brings them.
The trick-or-treaters thin out eventually and Leroy helps Santana and Rachel make a palette on the floor with some pillows and blankets. They go to sleep still holding hands and with the lamp in the corner on, just in case.
Hiram comes home late that night, long past the time all of the children in town have returned to their homes. Rachel wakes up when she hears him come in and she scoots closer to the girl lying next to her.
"What is she still doing here?" she hears Hiram ask of Leroy somewhere behind them in the hallway.
"I called Maria and offered to keep her for the night," Leroy answers.
"Leroy, you know how I feel about this," her daddy says. "She's a bad influence on Rachel."
"She's not a bad kid," her other dad responds. "She's just going through some things at home. Maria said she's already been suspended twice this year for fighting. Where does she think the kid gets it from?"
Rachel can practically see the lines of stress across Hiram's face. "And none of that is our business."
"Rachel's a good influence on her," Leroy says. "All they did was watch some movies, eat some candy, and spend the rest of the night scared on the couch because they played that old Bloody Mary game. Oh, she's such a wild child."
"Leroy," Hiram sighs.
"I know," she hears Leroy say before the two men walk upstairs.
Rachel feels Santana squeeze her hand and knows that the other girl is awake and has heard everything her dads said. "I can't wait for us to go to middle school together," she whispers. "It's going to be amazing."
And she honestly believes that it will be.
Santana nods. "Me, too" she says, smiling at the other girl.
Rachel lays her head on Santana's shoulder, deciding that her tenth Halloween is the best one yet.
When Rachel stars middle school, nothing goes to plan. It takes about half an hour before Rachel's elementary school social status catches up to her and the teasing starts all over again. It takes about two hours for Santana to realize that Rachel isn't popular, at all. Tem minutes after that, Rachel finds out that her friend has some secret obsession with popularity and being in charge. By the end of the day, Santana isn't talking to her and she isn't exactly sure what went wrong.
Rachel spends all night crying into Leroy's shoulder while Hiram sits next to them, the words "I told you so" being spoken mainly to his husband, but reaching both of them. When she calls Santana's house later, the other girl is quiet but apologetic.
"You're my best friend," Rachel says.
"I'm sorry," Santana responds immediately, her voice soft.
"Why?"
Santana says nothing for a while and Rachel wonders if she hung up. "I have to do this, Rach," she whispers. "It's - I just have to."
"What about me?"
"You're my best friend," Santana says, hanging up the phone.
By the end of their first month of middle school, Santana stops sending lingering looks her way and Rachel stops expecting them to be friends again. Santana spends all her time with Brittany Pierce and Rachel quietly watches them become more and more attached at the hip. She throws herself into music like never before.
Rachel tells her dads that she doesn't want to celebrate on October 31st; she's too old for costumes and trick-or-treating. She spends Halloween singing sad songs in her room instead, unable to find any joy on the normally fun holiday.
The next day, her dads talk about complaining neighbors and soundproofing rooms. Rachel finds a bag of candy on her windowsill with a note taped to it.
"We'll always have Halloween."
By the time her next Halloween rolls around, Rachel has long since given up on Santana altogether. She sees the other girl at school often, but she's usually with Brittany. The two have joined the middle school cheerleading squad and Rachel tries not to stare too hard at the two girls together during pep rallies and school assemblies. She doesn't have any friends like that, has no real friends at all, so she fights loneliness by dedicating herself to singing, dancing, and acting lessons.
She spends Halloween day upstairs in her room again. Her dad buys her a pumpkin, but she doesn't carve it, letting it sit on the table downstairs faceless and untouched. Rachel listens to the children out in the street trick-or-treating until she starts to feel crazy and needs to do something.
At night, she puts the television on the adult channel and watches the "horror classics" because she's twelve and she's not a child anymore. Eventually, that makes her feel crazy, too. Somewhere between another zombie apocalypse and yet another masked madman, Rachel asks to sleep in her dad's room for the night.
Lying between her fathers, Rachel brings the blanket up underneath her chin and tries to stop herself from imagining Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees creeping into the bedroom. She also tries not to think that Freddy Krueger is waiting for her in her dreams and she's doomed no matter what.
She's wrong, Rachel thinks suddenly, Halloween isn't ours anymore.
The next day, there's a mask in her locker. It's small, too small for her to wear, and its face is that of an evilly grinning pumpkin. There's no note, but Rachel doesn't need one. She throws it away, making a big show of slamming it into the trashcan near the lockers where Brittany and Santana are standing.
When she's thirteen, Rachel gets invited to a Halloween party that one of the girls in her dance class is throwing. It's a forced invitation prompted by the girl's mother, who insists that everyone the girl knows is welcome to come to their home for candy, games, and "spooky surprises."
Hiram tries to make her go, even goes so far as to buy her a costume, but she refuses. She locks herself in her room, ignoring the shouts that he's going to break her door down this instant if she doesn't open up. Rachel waits him out, because eventually, he has to go to work. When he finally leaves, she allows herself to cry. Because of course Hiram has to go to work. It's all he ever does.
When Leroy comes up and asks her if she's sure that she doesn't want to go to the party, Rachel cracks the door open and sighs.
"I can't."
He smiles sadly. "I understand, baby," he says.
Rachel goes to bed early that Halloween, tear tracks stained down her face.
TBC
