Chapter 20: The Day the World Fell Away

Rachel awoke suddenly. It was early, still fully dark outside. Her heart was racing. Had she been dreaming? If so, she couldn't remember it.

She felt like she was late for something. She had that nagging feeling she got when she was supposed to be somewhere or doing something, but she knew that wasn't the case. The only shooting slated for the day was pick-up stuff with Finn and his rock wall climbing scene and she wasn't involved with any of it. Charlie was, but it was scheduled for evening – after dinner.

Rachel must have been dreaming and startled herself awake. She had done that a lot lately. She kept having the same dream over and over. She was rolling in water, in waves, and she couldn't break the surface. She had hoped that these would end when filming resumed, but perhaps they hadn't.

Or had Charlie woken her?

She turned in the bed, reaching. Her fingers brushed against Charlie's ribs. She was sleeping face-down and facing away from Rachel. Charlie didn't usually sleep so far away from her. In fact, she was usually draped all over her. Sleep was the one time Charlie was actually seriously clingy.

Maybe she was the one who had been tossing and turning in her sleep. It wouldn't be the first time Charlie had been prone to bouts with nightmares. Whether she remembered or not, Charlie would toss and even cry in her sleep. She did it much less now than when they first started sleeping in the same space together. Rachel liked to take credit for it, but she really didn't know why Charlie's sleep was more peaceful now than when they first met.

Rachel moved over next to her and put her arm across her lower back. Charlie immediately stirred and turned over into her.

"Are you alright?" Charlie mumbled, nuzzling her face into Rachel's shoulder.

"Sure," Rachel said, grazing her cheek with her lips. "Must have had a nightmare."

"Mmm, sorry," Charlie said. She kissed her under her jaw. Charlie felt flush and warm.

"You feel hot," Rachel told her. She put a hand against Charlie's cheek and her forehead.

"I think maybe I'm getting a cold," she told her. "I probably shouldn't be sleeping with you."

Rachel scoffed quietly and smiled.

She rolled out of bed and shuffled quietly out of the room. Sushi rolled along after her, excited that someone was up so early. Charlie frowned and stretched her hand out after Rachel, and then fell back to sleep. She woke up again when Rachel climbed back into the bed. She had switched on the bedside lamp.

"Charlie, sweetie, sit up," Rachel told her. Charlie rubbed her eyes and sat up groggily. Rachel pulled a clean t-shirt over her head and worked her arms through it. She handed her a piece of bread and jam.

"I don't want this," Charlie fussed.

"Just eat it anyway," Rachel told her patiently "You can't take aspirin on an empty stomach."

There wasn't much point in arguing with Rachel, she was going to get her way in the end anyway.

Charlie ate it reluctantly and then swallowed the two capsules Rachel tipped into her palm with the glass of juice she gave her. She snuggled herself back down into her pillow and Rachel pulled the blanket over her and kissed her on the forehead.

"Don't," Charlie whined. "Germs."

Rachel smirked and kissed her again. "Stop it or I swear I'll put my tongue in your mouth," she told her with a smirk rubbing her back. Charlie laughed into her pillow.

Rachel put the glass on the nightstand and turned off the light.

Rachel settled back down and Charlie curled tight up against her and they both slept.

·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·

The involuntary hiatus that had begun so long ago had ended and Finn Hudson had come out.

Rachel had shot with him on Friday, their first day back. To say things were tense was an understatement, but somehow they'd made it work. Rachel made a point to watch the dailies and she was pleased with what she saw. She even felt like Finn's detachment worked for his character rather than against them.

Monday had been easier. It wasn't relaxed but it was at least inching toward cordial with Rachel. So far he pretty much outright ignored Charlie and that suited her just fine. Tonight, however, she would really have no choice but to deal with him. She would be tethered to him, literally.

She wasn't looking forward to it at all. In fact, she kept hoping that someone would come long and say, "Oh, by the way, we've found someone else to step in for you this time out. Why don't you sit this one out?" It was for certain that she wouldn't shed a single tear.

·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·

"Here, try this," Rachel said, holding up her fork. Charlie pursed her lips, unhappily. She hated when Rachel did this.

"Rachel," Charlie groaned, leaning away from her fork. "Stop it. Don't feed me."

"Come on, you big baby," she coaxed. "Just taste it. It's really good."

Reluctantly Charlie opened her mouth and let Rachel feed her whatever concoction she and Tina had been working on in the kitchen.

Charlie chewed, carefully. She didn't want to get too committed only to find out it was awful. She usually wouldn't spit anything out because she didn't want to hurt Rachel's feelings, but it was easier sometimes to swallow things whole than it was to chew and taste.

Rachel was watching her, expectantly, a half smile on her face. For someone so laid back, Charlie was annoyingly picky about food sometimes.

"Well?" Rachel asked, impatiently.

Charlie shrugged, then smiled.

"Okay, that's not bad." she admitted.

It was rice and vegetables and sauce and spicy. There wasn't much to object to, so she gave it a thumbs up.

Tina leaned over and she and Rachel slapped palms over the dinner table. It was like the chef's equivalent of spiking a football. Their new thing was to make vegan dishes that Charlie and Sam, and sometimes Artie, would eat without whining first. They were currently on a hot streak.. Charlie was their worst critic – is she would eat it then the other two were almost a guarantee.

While they were chattering back and forth, Charlie took the opportunity to sneak a few kisses on Rachel's neck. Rachel ducked her head and giggled. Charlie squeezed her into a bear hug.

She had been trying unsuccessfully to get 30 minutes of alone time with the little brunette all day. Quite frankly she was nervous and unhappy about the shoot tonight and Rachel was her best hope of getting centered over it all

Rachel, however, had fussed at her all morning about coming down with a cold and ended up running late herself. When she came back later in the afternoon she was with Tina and Sam followed soon after. So instead of a quiet, soothing snuggle, Charlie was resorting to sneaking bits of attention here and there. Instead of relaxing her, that was just adding to her tension.

Now she sat quietly, pushing her food around her plate and seriously contemplating leaving early just to find some quiet alone time.

Rachel and Tina both watched her. Rachel flickered her eyes over to Tina and Tina shook her head. Rachel walked her plate into the kitchen and placed it in the sink. When she came back in, she bent and whispered into Tina's ear. Tina smiled and nodded.

Rachel walked up behind Charlie and bent down next to her ear.

"I need you for a minute, okay?" she said.

Charlie looked up at her and followed her down the hall and into the bedroom, both of them playing the shuffle game trying not to step on Sushi, who was now constantly under foot.

Rachel walked in first and Charlie followed her. Rachel pushed to door closed and turned the lock, She walked up behind Charlie, wrapped her arms around her waist and got up on her toes and pressed a wet kiss to the back of her neck. Charlie put both of her hands over Rachel's and ducked her head, smiling.

"You need some attention, " Rachel said and nudged her toward the bed. She pushed her face down and Charlie wriggled up into the middle. Rachel got on the bed and straddled her hips. She leaned back onto Charlie's butt and pushed her hands up under her shirt, letting her fingers dig into Charlie's muscles. Charlie melted into a puddle beneath her hands.

Rachel spent the next ten minutes kneading and working her fingers into Charlie's shoulders and her back. Charlie groaned happily. Finally, she reached back and grabbed Rachel's hand. Rachel slipped off her and Charlie rolled over on her back. Rachel snuggled up next to her.

"Thank you for doing that," Charlie told her.

Rachel smiled and kissed her neck.

"You still feel warm to me," she said. "Maybe you shouldn't go tonight."

Charlie frowned.

"Yeah, and how would that look?" she said, shaking her head. "Sorry pretty girl, that's just not an option."

"When you come home, I'll make you some chicken noodle soup." she told her. "Jewish penicillin."

"Can I have those little dumpling things in it?" Charlie asked.

"Matzoh balls?" Rachel said. "Yes if I can find some matzoh. Tina might have some."

Charlie hugged her.

"If she doesn't, however you make it is fine," she told her.

"The littlest things make you happy," Rachel said, leaning her chin on Charlie's chest and looking at her.

"You make me happy, Rachel," she told her. "Just you."

Charlie rolled over onto her side and pulled Rachel into her.

"What would it take for you not to love me?" she asked her.

Rachel tried to turn around, but Charlie wouldn't let her.

"Have you done something that you think will make me stop loving you?" Rachel asked, frowning.

"I don't think so, " Charlie said.

"Then why would you even ask me something like that?" Rachel said, confused.

"You know sometimes I don't tell you things," Charlie said quietly.

"I know that, Charlie, " Rachel said, stroking her arm. "You've always done that. You tell me things in your own time, in your own way."

"You know that wasn't a business call yesterday," she said.

"I know you called that lawyer we talked about, " she said. "As long as nothing is wrong, then you can keep that stuff as private as you need to."

"I know you, Rachel," Charlie said, shaking her head. "You can't really mean that."

"Charlie, are you in trouble?" she asked.

"No," Charlie said

"Are you in any danger?" she asked.

"No," Charlie said again.

"Then I really don't care what he wanted," Rachel said, sincerely. "You weren't upset. You were nervous, but you weren't scared and you weren't angry. That really is all I care about. Your mother's phone call upsets me more than that one did."

Well, that made two of them.

Charlie leaned her chin on Rachel's shoulder.

"What did your mother say to you Charlie?" Rachel asked.

"She wanted me to come home, " Charlie said. "She thought I would come home now and some more of her usual passive-aggressive 'all about me' bullshit."

"Why, Charlie," Rachel asked. "Why does she think that now?"

"Rachel, I don't know," Charlie said, exhaling deeply.

"See, now that's a lie," Rachel said and Charlie looked guilty. "It's not a business call, it's not a shade of the truth; it's flat-out lie."

"Yes and no," Charlie said, and Rachel rolled her eyes.

She tried to turn over again and this time Charlie let her. Rachel knew if Charlie had to look her in the eye sometimes it was harder to slip her questions.

"Yes and no? Seriously?" Rachel said. Charlie smirked and looked away.

"My mother has always wanted me to come home, it's not a new thing," Charlie said. "And the truth is my father has been out of that house for a very long time, so I really don't know why she thinks now would be any different than all this time."

Rachel shook her head.

"You're treading water, sweetheart, " she said, forcing her gaze. "You're walking all around the truth, but not really close to to it."

Charlie just looked everywhere but at Rachel.

If she told Rachel her father died and that she neither cared nor went to the funeral, how was that supposed to sound? Horrible, it would sound horrible. And then she'd have to explain it; to justify it. She had her reasons, very real, very valid reasons.

But if she pushed one domino, it would topple everything.

Rachel put her hands on Charlie's face.

"Look at me," she insisted gently.

Charlie finally latched eyes with her.

"If I asked you, will you let me listen to your mother's voice mail?" Rachel asked, staring at her intently. She could see Charlie go distant and she knew she was working it over, weighing the angles.

Finally, she just nodded.

Rachel smiled and ran her hand down the side of Charlie's face.

"Okay, but later, when I come home," she said."I didn't listen to all of it. I don't know what else she might have said and I can't think of this and go to work tonight. I just can't."

"It will be okay, " Rachel told her, stroking her cheek again. "We'll listen to it and then you can erase it if you want."

Charlie nodded. "I can do that," she said and believed it.

Maybe it was time to start tearing down the whole house of cards. Judy was as good a place to start as any.

·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·

Thanks to the hiatus, their regular stunt coordinator was on location with another project, and now they had a new guy. Charlie never really liked or trusted "new guys." She was wearing a climbing helmet. She made Finn carry one and wear it between takes, too.

Charlie wasn't really sure why she was even involved in this. She would have thought after all the problems between she and Hudson, they'd make some effort to keep them apart. She wasn't the only person who could hand-hold him through this stuff. The only reason he listened to her was because he was afraid not to. As it was, they'd avoided even making eye contact for most of the evening.

Now they were both dangling about 30 feet off the ground, spinning slowly in their climbing harnesses. In addition to the safety line, there was a light line tethering them together and they were both being "caught" by a belayer on the ground. They had already worked for a couple of hours and were just coming back off of a long break.

Charlie never claimed to be much of a climber. Truth be told, she probably knew just enough to be dangerous. But at least she knew something.

It probably started with Finn. He was a big guy, a really big guy. For much of the day he'd been swinging – not wildly so, but just slightly and, unbeknownst to him, every time he did, the strap one of anchors was rubbing against the rock. Slate and shale were the same rocks area Indians used for making knives and arrowheads. If you could catch an edge, it would cut like a razor. After the first hour, threads popped and it started to fray. Twenty minutes into their second session, it started to unravel. Fifteen minutes later, it gave way.

Finn dropped a good ten feet and then jerked hard and immediately tipped over. He struggled and actually managed to right himself. Charlie followed right behind him.

Finn dropped quickly and suddenly. The belayer on the ground, who had been, more or less, mindlessly dawdling found himself scrambling to stop a 200-plus pound man in a dead fall. He braked him hard, but Finn's weight and the momentum yanked him right off his feet. He pitched into the wall and the brake rope zipped up through the braking device and away.

Now Finn and Charlie were tethered only to each other with two of three tension anchors and their leash line between them and the ground.

When Charlie realized what was happening, her first instinct was to try to get them both to the wall. If they could find solid anchors, they could wait until someone could get to them. But, it would be tricky.

They were both still swinging. When Finn crossed in front of her, she reached out and shoved him hard toward the rock face. At first he yelled and scowled at her, thinking she was being a jerk, but when his fingers touched the wall, he seemed to finally catch the idea. Unfortunately, he was still too far away to do anything and his momentum was spent. He was just more or less hanging in his harness, waiting to drop.

Charlie now had all the momentum.

She swung into him and pushed off. This gave her a chance to come back into him again with more force.

"Finn, don't just hang there," she yelled at him. "Be ready. Pay attention."

When her rope came back toward him, she forced her hands into his lower back and pushed him, hard. She knew he'd get there, but the question was, could he stick?

Finn thudded into the rock face, hard. He bit his lip and his mouth filled with blood. But he was only thinking of catching hold, somewhere, anywhere. His hands scrabbled along the rock and when his fingers sunk into an indentation, he grabbed hold and braced himself. He jerked out and came back. With one hand anchored, he looked anxiously for others.

He found the toehold first. It was a solid bulge of rock. Now with two points of contact, he sucked himself against the wall tightly and quickly found the two others he needed. The handhold was shallow, but the toehold was deep and solid. He was three points with solid anchor. He could stay here and be sound. He even had a spring-loaded camming device he could work into a crevice if he needed to. Charlie had taught him how to use one. All things considered, Finn was gold.

Charlie, however, was a different matter. She was still spinning wildly and was now tipped almost upside own. She could hear Finn yelling, "Charlie, grab me." He couldn't see her and didn't seem to realize that she was in no position to grab anyone.

Then he remembered the leash linking them. He fished the SLCD anchor out of his pocket and his eyes searched for a crevice. If he could set it, he could use their leash to anchor Charlie to the wall. The only anchor he could see what above his hand. He'd actually have to find a way to climb up to get to it. He started gingerly looking for alternate holds that would let him get closer.

Charlie knew she was in real trouble immediately. The safety rope spooled through like a whip and that left the safety harness as her only hope. She dropped quickly, praying. There was a solid jerk and the safety harness caught her. She knew it would catch her, that wasn't the question. Would it keep her? She didn't tie the knot and she didn't know what the anchor was. The line itself was paying out randomly through a slipping braking device.

For all she knew, the harness could keep slipping right off the end of the rope.

She started pulling at the carabiner at her waist and trying to get the tether off that tied her to Finn. If she fell, she'd pull him right off the wall. She had no idea he was actually trying to use it to tie her off and she chucked it.

She twisted upright, trying to get a handhold or a foothold anywhere she could. Briefly her fingers dug into a decent handhold, but before she could anchor herself or find a better grip the harness slipped, and then caught again. That handhold she had was now a foot above her, she scrambled against the new expanse of rock face looking for another.

It was like glass – there was just nothing.

Again, she dropped and caught after a split second.

She released a shuddering breath. Jerk and catch, fall and stop; she could play this game all the way to the ground if the equipment cooperated. But boy, was it killer on the nerves. She was actually shaking.

She exhaled hard trying to steady herself.

When was the last time I kissed Rachel?

The thought randomly popped into her mind. It had to be today, tonight even. I kiss her all the time, but I mean really kissed her? Like take your breath away kissed her?

Did I say "love you" when I left tonight? She knows. I know, she knows, but still.

She's making me matzoh ball soup.

Shit, why was this happening? Why now?

"Charlie," a voice called up from the ground. "A minute, girl. We got you."

She could hear people moving back and forth. She didn't dare look to see what they were doing.

Charlie sighed, relieved. It was going to okay.

She gave a nervous laugh and looked up at the sky.

"Aragorn," she whispered.

They all heard it and looked up. It was the sound of a pin coming out. It made a distinctive ping sound when popped loose.

Then she was tumbling through the endless darkness into nothing.

~~oOo~~