A/N: I don't own Glee, or the characters, and I don't own A Christmas Carol.
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Chapter 2 Holy Jacob Marley's Ghost!
Rachel woke up and looked around in confusion. She was back in her own bed. How in the love of Barbra had that happened? When did that happen? The last thing she remembered was taking a curtain call. Then….. Nothing, dark, black, nothing. She couldn't have dreamt the whole thing it was too real.
Lying there in the dark, Rachel wondered why she seemed so wide-awake. It was still dark out, and her bedroom was illuminated by only a sliver of light from the moon.
Rachel was feeling a little anxious, something was off but she couldn't figure out what.
Looking over to her dresser, she saw the beautiful crystal bell that Quinn had bought her for their six-month anniversary. The two of them had hung it from the ceiling. It was too beautiful not to see every day. Rachel got a little misty eyed looking at it. They had been so happy that day.
As she stared at it, Rachel noticed the bell had slowly started to swing side to side. Not sure she was seeing correctly, the brunette rubbed her eyes and looked again. Maybe it was an illusion from the moonlight. Nope, it was moving. With a feeling of dread and unease, Rachel saw it begin to pick up speed, and the bell began to ring.
It could be an earthquake, but Ohio rarely had earthquakes. The bell just kept ringing as Rachel stared at it. The sound was deafening. Just as suddenly as it started the bell stopped swinging and stopped ringing.
The tiny brunette screamed, and ducked under the covers as her door blew open with a loud bang.
"Damn Quinn for making me watch all those stupid zombie movies!" Rachel peered out from under the covers. She ducked immediately back under when she heard a clanking noise that sounded like someone dragging heavy chains.
Rachel trembled as she heard the sound growing louder from the first floor. It sounded like it was coming up the stairs straight for her bedroom door. "This is ridiculous," Rachel thought with false bravado, "I will not cower here like a child!" She sat up in her bed, but still clutched the blanket close to her chest as she stared at her bedroom door.
Suddenly a light as bright as the sun made Rachel shield her eyes. When she looked back her doorway was filled with the outline of person. The diminutive brunette jumped from her bed and yelled, "Don't come any closer; I swear you'll regret it!"
"Regret? You know nothing about regret, dwarf. Try blowing half of your yearly cheer budget on a human cannon and then not being allowed to blow Brittany out of it! If I actually ever felt regret, that would qualify!"
Rachel peered out from behind her hands and saw a tall woman in a red track suit holding a large megaphone. She had a long chain wrapped around her waist, and was dragging it along behind her. Rachel would recognize that scowl anywhere.
"Miss Sylvester?" The singer looked at the Cheerio's coach in confusion, "Just how did you make my crystal bell ring? I will have you know that was a precious gift from Qu.. from someone I love very much. You could have broken it. May I ask why you would sneak into my home in the middle of the night, pretending to be some demented ghost and scaring me out of half of my natural life by dragging around chains? "
"You know what, I checked out of our conversation about a minute back. I make it a habit to not talk to teenagers as it usually is a colossal waste of my time. Can you attempt to keep your sentences to four words or less for the rest of my visit?"
"Visit? More like home invasion you mean. Fine, I will just call the police, and they can sort out this nonsense," Rachel turned to her nightstand to grab her cellphone.
Sue raised her megaphone, and let loose with a terrible cry. She shook her chains and moaned causing an awful haunting sound.
Rachel clapped both hands over her ears, "What are you doing?"
"Listen carefully mini-Streisand wannabe, because I lived a life of selfish, self-centered behavior, I am forced to walk the Earth and watch other selfish diva's ruining their lives," With that, Sue let loose another loud, moaning cry through her megaphone. She shook the chains some more.
"Are you drunk? I mean we are already fully aware that you are completely psychotic, but have you finally gone completely around the bend?"
Sue stopped moaning and looked at Rachel, "I wish it were that easy, but I forged this chain link by link, with every selfish act, with every person I walked away from without helping, by every self-centered action I took in my life, and now I will wear it forever!" She shut her megaphone off with a loud squawk.
"Miss Sylvester? That's all well and good, but you are still alive!" Rachel shook her head and rolled her eyes, "Psychotic but very much alive," she half-whispered to herself.
"It's your story dwarf; tell it anyway you want to. It won't change the facts," The tall coach shrugged her shoulders, clearly bored.
Rachel's natural curiosity started to get the best of her, "Fine, if it will get you to leave so I can go back to sleep, tell me, what facts?"
"The fact that I spent a life doing little good for anyone besides Jean. I even led Becky astray, teaching her to be mean and selfish. I could have helped Q when she got pregnant but I didn't. I humiliated her further. My selfishness led Santana to be outed. I encouraged the Cheerio's to torture all you loser Gleeks, especially you. Actually, I don't regret that part, all of your talking makes my ears bleed!"
Rachel huffed in annoyance, and stamped her foot.
"Now I am forced to wander the afterlife. I misused my multitude of God-given gifts and immense talent. I wasted the time I was given, and spend eternity talking to epic losers like you!" Sue made to lift the chains to rattle them again, "Screw it, I'm tired." She walked over and sat down in an armchair in the corner of Rachel's room.
She looked over at the diva, "So listen up Bambi, my time here with you is limited, thank heavens. Now, that would be torture; forced to spend all of eternity talking with you!" Sue shuddered violently.
"Do you have a point to make?" Rachel shook her head in exasperation.
"Well yes I do, if you would shut up and quit distracting me! Now, I'm going to ask you to smell your armpit. Smell that stench, that's the smell of failure, and it's stinking up your bedroom! I am here to warn you that you get one chance, and one hope to escape my fate. Just one, and it's going to happen tonight."
"I absolutely will NOT smell my armpit. For your information, even if I did, it would not smell like anything but baby powder. You're disgusting! I am so glad Quinn got away from you. You're right! You are horrible and selfish, and you bring misery to everyone you meet. Not only all those things, but you're clearly delusional because you are still alive!" Rachel's voice was rising in anger, "Besides I am NOT going to fail! I will be a great success!"
"I guess that depends on what your definition of success is, dwarf! What good is being famous if you are all alone and miserable and everyone hates you? Be that as it may, and just FYI, I am doing this for Q, not for you! You suck and I hate you. I hate your awful animal sweaters and all that argyle, ugh, Q must have suffered brain damage during the labor and birth of Puckerman's satanic spawn. What she sees in you, I will never know."
Rachel's eyes glazed over, "I knew it! I knew I was going to be famous! Hey, you leave Quinn out of this! She has nothing to do with this."
"Of course she does, Q has everything to do with this. She is the reason for this little visit. You lost her, and you broke her because of all your selfish, self-centered behavior for the last month. She has always been there for you; supporting you, protecting you, loving you! Oh, I just threw up in my mouth a little. Where was I? Oh yeah, the one time she came to you and needed something you couldn't even put your own pettiness aside for five minutes. It's always about you, and your feelings, and your needs!"
Rachel looked down at her feet feeling an overwhelming sense of guilt and swallowed hard as tears clouded her vision. She had forgotten about breaking up with her lovely hazel-eyed girlfriend, "Ok, saying I believe you, which I don't, what do I have to do?"
Standing up, Sue picked up her megaphone and with a look of pure malicious delight she started yelling through it at Rachel, "You will be visited by Three Spirits tonight, without them you have no hope of redemption. Expect the first one tonight when the clock strikes one."
Sue walked towards the window which was slowly rising all by itself freaking Rachel out a little bit.
"You still haven't told me WHAT I have to DO!" Rachel started questioning Sue desperately.
Sue reached the window and turned around to face Rachel, "You may be one of the stupidest teens I've ever encountered - and that's saying something. I once taught a cheerleading seminar to a young Sarah Palin," With that she leaned back and fell out of the window.
Rachel ran to the window and looked out. Sue was sprawled on her back in the grass, "Perfect, of course there would be dog crap where I land! You know what Bambi, you think life is hard, it's not hard! Try death, now death is hard!"
Sue got up, and walked away clanking her chains.
Rachel slowly closed the window. She turned around and walked to her bed, getting back in and pulling the covers up around her shoulders, "This is a dream, this is a dream, this is just a weird stupid dream, it has to be, clearly I am not insane, so this has to be a dream, I'm going with crazy dream. It will be funny in the morning."
With that Rachel closed her eyes, and immediately fell fast asleep.
To be continued….. The Ghost of Christmas Past is next, guess who?
