Author's Note: All of the storyline I have planned with Shelby is based on my own personal experience of my own mother passing away with cancer. Cancer is a very personal and individual disease and how I will be portraying it is the truth for me, how it happened for my mother and my grief process.

Rachel

I ran out of the building, tears streaming down my face. I couldn't breath. That tightness in my chest, that was my heart shattering. Finn and Quinn. Quinn and Finn. Naked. In bed. Together. In our bed. In our apartment. I raced down the stairs, blinded by tears. When I got to the road I collapsed to the curb. I pulled out my phone and tried to think who I could call. Who would care. Who would be on my side. A loud sob escaped my throat as the phone screen lit up with the background photo of Finn and I. How could he do this to me? I scrolled through my contacts list, hit one, listened to it ring; "Can you please come pick me up, please?" I waited for him to confirm he would, pressed the end call button, pulled my knees up to my chin and sobbed.

I didn't look up when I heard the car pull up. I heard the sound of his foot steps getting closer. Some people would think it weird that I'd called him but he was the one person who never pretended to like me. He actually was my friend. Us Jews had to stick together.

"Hey, what you doing? Hot Jewish American Princesses don't sit in gutters." I could hear the smirk in his voice. I raised my head from my knees, "Shit. Rachel, what happened?"

"Can you take me home?" I asked on a sob.

"Rachel, you are home, you live here."

I shook my head, "No, I want to go to my Dads." I wanted to get away from here, away from them. Noah took another step closer to me. He was tentative as if he didn't want to spook me.

"Rachel. What happened?"

I swallowed and stared at the gutter, there was a penny hiding there. See a penny, pick it up, all day long you'll have good luck. There was no luck for me today. "Finn and Quinn."

"Finn and Quinn, what?"

Slowly, I raised my eyes to meet his concerned gaze as a tear dripped off my lashes, his brow creased and then realization dawned, "Finn and Quinn."

I nodded as a fresh batch of heartwrenching tears came. Noah sat down on the curb and I put my head on his shoulder as his arm went around my shoulders and he let me cry it out.

I walked into the bar in the middle of the day, my heels clicking on the polished hardwood floor. This whole place had Noah Puckerman written all over it, it was all polished wood and black leather. And there he was, Noah Puckerman in the flesh, he had his back turned to me, white cloth in hand polishing glasses. I walked to the bar and perched on a stool.

"So, what's good here?" I asked cheekily.

He spun and smirked at me; "Everything," He said with a wink as he stepped forward and leaned across the bar, "Hello, my hot Jewish American Princess."

"Hello, Noah."

He reached out and tugged on a strand of my hair, "Rachel Berry, you look good, or should I say Rachel Hudson," he paused, reached under the bar and pulled out a stack of playbills held together with a rubberband, "Because everytime I've come to one of your plays every one of these has sported the name Rachel Hudson."

I shifted uncomfortably, "Some things I can't quite let go of I guess."

"Just the name you're holding onto or the man it comes from?" Noah asked as he filled two shot glasses with Tequila. I wrinkled my nose.

I shrugged at his question; "Maybe a little of both. I'm not drinking that."

He smirked at me and nudged one of the shots towards me; "Everyone's gotta do a shot with me the first time they come to my bar. It's the rule."

Rolling my eyes I picked up the shot and threw it back as fast as I could, making face as it slid down my throat. I hated Tequila and Noah knew it. He nodded his approval and threw back his own, not even wincing.

"I'm proud of you, you know that Noah, what you've done here."

"Proud enough to let me into your panties?"

I shot him a look, "The answer to that's never going to change."

"Gotta keep trying."

"What does Finn do?" I asked quietly, innocently.

"Rachel, don't do this."

"Do what, what am I doing?"

He sighed and ran a hand over the mohawk that I'd been trying to get him to shave off for years; "You and me, we're always going to be caught up in this thing with Finn and Quinn but it's been five years, the situation's not going to change."

"Wait, I know why I'm caught up but why are you?"

He avoided my eye, looking anywhere but at me and he looked anything but innocent, no matter how he tried; "Noah! Tell me you aren't."

"Fine. I'm not."

"You're sleeping with Quinn!"

"Yeah, so what? I'll take whatever I can get from her. I know the deal, she'll never leave him for me. He has a 'respectable' job, whatever the fuck that is."

"Language, Noah. And since when is owning a bar not respectable?"

"Well, I'm not a teacher like the golden boy."

"Finn's a teacher?" He'd become a teacher. He'd be a great teacher. The teacher and the Broadway star, it would have gone well together.

"Yeah. He works at McKinley, teaches music, he runs Glee with Mr Schue now."

Silence settled over us as I pondered this information. I could see Finn as a music teacher, see him teaching the drums. I wondered if being back at McKinley made him think of the past...made him think of me, all the duets we sang, all the songs we sang to and for each other. Did it make him miss me? Did it make him regret the things that happened? Did it make him think of what he'd do differently if he could do it all over again?

"Do you think he ever really loved me?" I whispered, it was a question I'd never really asked before. Noah gave me a look of pity.

"Rachel..."

I shook my head, "No, don't answer that, it doesn't matter, not anymore. I saw Quinn the other day, I really want to punch her in her perfect nose."

Noah chuckled, "Well, as hot as a chick fight would be, I don't really want her face to get damaged, but any time you want to beat the crap out of Finn, I've got your back."

"Aren't you still friends with Finn?" I asked through a smile.

"Yeah, Finn's my boy. But you're my girl and I've got your back."

It was a line he'd said to me before after he'd taken me home when I'd walked in on Finn and Quinn and then he'd proven it a few days after Santana and I had made our tentative truce and the Glee club had started choosing sides.

The Glee club was divided. Everyone had decided that I must have done something wrong, something to push Finn back to Quinn. Finn and everyone sat on one side of the room, I sat on the other. Santana walked in and I expected her to sit on Finn's side but she surprised me and sat in a vacant seat next to me. Mr Schuester came and raised his brows at the seating arrangements but didn't say anything, just started to write up the week's assignment. Noah walked in late, as usual, he strode in a came to stand in front of the club, he nodded his head at me and then he started to speak; "Here's how this is going to go: no more Finn and Rachel duets. No Finn and Quinn duets. Rachel sings with me or Santana."

I looked at Santana and saw she was nodding along with what Noah was saying. Mr Schuester stopped writing on the board; "Puck, you can't dictate who sings with who."

Santana stood up and stood next to Noah; "I think we can."

"And if it doesn't happen like I just said, then Rachel, Santana and I walk. And we all know you'll be screwed without us."

"You can't leave because of one break up, that's mean." Tina said.

"I think it's mean that Finn had sex with Quinn when he married Rachel." Thank you, sweet, sweet Brittany, I thought as I watched as she got up and came over to my side of the room.

"Please," Mercedes scoffed; "Yeah, what Finn did was bad but we all know Rachel probably did something..."

"Finish that sentence, wheezy and you'll regret it." Santana sneered as she took a step forward. Her anger was terrifying but it was meant to protect me this time rather than torment me.

"So, enough of this shit," Noah stated, his voice pulling me out of memories of the past, "You gonna tell me what you're doing back in Lima? Shouldn't you be lighting up the lights of New York and be keeping Santana out of trouble?"

"I have something to tell you." I said my tone serious. His smirk left his face and all his attention was focused on me. "Shelby's sick."

"What?"

"Shelby. She was diagnosed with Breast Cancer last year. An aggressive form. It's spread to her Liver. There's nothing more they can do."

"Shit. Beth?"

"Shelby and my Dads have gotten closer since I found her and when she was diagnosed her and Beth moved in with them. Noah, she named them as Beth's gaurdian should anything happen to her."

He nodded, "Good, that's good."

"You wouldn't want to try to get her back?" I asked gently, I wasn't even sure if he'd be able to but the question had to be asked.

"No. I love her. But she deserves a great life, your Dads can give her that. And she's still got you."

"Yeah." Of course she had me. No matter where she'd come from, Beth was my little sister.

"What's she like?"

I smiled, in all the years Noah and I had been friends and he knew I had contact with Shelby and Beth, he'd never really asked what she was like. He talked about her and asked if she was ok but never actually what she was like.

"She's beautiful. She loves musical theatre but no surprise there but she's also stubborn and kind of badass, like you." I said the last part knowing it would make him happy to know she was a bit like him.

He smiled but didn't say anything and tugged at my hair again; "And what about you? You doing ok with this?"

I shrugged; "I don't know how I feel. I'm devastated that we're not going to have more time but I'm thankful for the time we've had. I just...when something like this happens or anything big happens good or bad, the first person I want to tell is still..." I cut myself off not really wanting to admit it out loud.

"Finn." Noah could still read me like a book. I nodded.

"Shouldn't I be over this by now?"

"Nah. I don't think you ever really get over the love of your life, even if they get over you."