Part Two|

It was ten o'clock at night and Will was a white guy in a Prius driving through a not-so-great part of Chicago. But he didn't care so much about the dangerous factor of it. He was more worried about confronting Rachel Berry in her home at ten o'clock at night.

His head felt light with anticipation when he pulled into the apartment building's parking lot. It was a plain building that looked on the weary side. Will actually found himself grateful that it was built like a double-decker motel, because he wouldn't of known how to explain himself to any receptionist in a lobby. 'Hello, I'm visiting one of my former students I slept with once at this time in the night. Don't mind me.'

So he parked the car and stepped out into the crisp night air, surveying the place. Seven doors on bottom, seven doors on top. That would make Rachel's the second to last on the top. And he was really about to see her. Rachel.

Plink. Plink. Plink. Will's footsteps echoed on the metal stairs and landing. Seven, he counted passing the doors, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Thirteen. He found himself in the same position he was about four hours earlier, frozen in place. The brown door had paint chipping off it and the cheap metallic knob looked a little rusty. Yet a woman as special as Rachel used it everyday, he marveled, and she was waiting behind it.

Will's fist felt heavy when he lifted it. He hesitated, gave a tentative three knocks, and let his eyes drift to the ground. Only a few seconds had passed, yet he was starting to feel impatient. What if she was asleep? What if she wasn't home?

But then he heard a click and saw the bottom corner he'd been looking at move and then it was done, the door was open.

Will looked up and a woman stood before him; he felt his eyes widen. She almost had the same reaction.

"Will," the woman whispered.

He didn't immediately recognize her as Rachel Berry. The Rachel Berry he knew had a childish look to her face. She had long brown hair kept silky and straight. She wore knee socks and miniskirts with sweaters. She had almost an arrogant, yet energizing vibe about her. This woman, even as she was startled by him, seemed so much more easygoing. Her face looked mature. She was squeezing her wet shoulder-length hair with a ratty towel. She wore a Les Miserables tee shirt and pajama pants. She looked thin and pale in contrast to how Will remembered her.

But it dawned on him that this stranger was, indeed, Rachel. His Rachel.

Before Will could say anything, she dropped the towel and she wrapped her arms around his waist, buried her small head against his chest. He held her tightly and kissed her damp hair, feeling her begin to shake. Will was afraid he would cry right there. After three long years of being consumed by that heavy guilt, he was actually holding the person who caused it all. The person he had wanted to hold for such a dreadfully long time.

"I missed you so much," he said, muffled into her hair.

"You have no idea," she quietly replied.

They stood there for awhile before Rachel broke away with a sad smile.

"Well um, this is where I live. Make yourself at home," she said, gesturing to the limp looking couch and coffee table that was her living room. "I'll be right back, I have to go turn off the sink."

Will watched her disappear around a corner and took the brief time to look around. The apartment was very small, the front room being a dinky kitchen with a little strip of carpet for the couch. A wall went out a little bit giving the living room two sides to pass off as a mock hallway, but it really was part of the bathroom. Two other doors behind the wall were the rest, and Will guessed one was her room and one was a closet or pantry.

Rachel returned from the bathroom. She sat on the other edge of the couch and pulled her knees up to her chest.

"How's Lima?" she asked, breaking the silence. "What have I missed?"

He sighed. "Well uh, not much actually. Finn's been helping me out with glee club, it's getting pretty big. We won Nationals again last year."

"Really?" she exclaimed, her eyes sparkling. "Will, that's fantastic."

"They're not as great as you guys were, you know," he said solemnly as he looked up from his hands.

Rachel smiled bashfully. "How is everyone, anyway?"

Will sighed again. "Oh, you know, off places being successful. Rach, the real question is how are you?" He took her hand and looked at her with kind eyes.

She nodded. "I'm fine. After I left, I started waitressing down here and I finished my diploma online. So, if you were wondering, no. I'm not a high school dropout."

He chuckled at this. "Of course not," he said, "Rachel Berry doesn't let anything get in her way."

She smiled again. "I currently waitress at the Parthenon downtown. It pays well, for waitressing. And I try to fit in as many auditions as possible," she continued.

"How's that going?" Will asked.

Immediately, Rachel flashed her old familiar 24-watt grin and he felt his chest begin to swell.

"I just finished playing Eponine down at the Chicago Theatre," she announced, pinching her shirt for gratification.

"Oh my god, Rach, that's so great!" he said. "I'm so happy for you, I'm so happy you're doing well."

Rachel's expression faded into a more serious one. She turned herself faced toward him and crossed her legs on the cheap couch cushion. "Will," she began slowly, "I'm sorry to say that my role in Les Mis isn't the reason I needed to talk to you."

This change of tone surprised Will, and confused him. As Rachel tried to choose her words, he looked hard at her face and tried to read it. What possibly could be wrong?

But before Will could decipher her expression, something moved in the corner of his eye, behind Rachel peeking out from the wall.

A little girl.

A tiny little blonde-haired girl standing there in a set of pink pajamas. She had drowsy eyes and sucked her thumb while she watched them shyly.

Will's face dropped.

Rachel saw this and turned around to find what he was looking at. She said nothing, motioning with her hand for the child to come into the room.

"You had a baby," he whispered, disbelieving.

Rachel pulled the toddler onto her lap silently. "This is Julie. Named after my third favorite Broadway legend Dame Julie Andrews."

"You had a baby," Will repeated.

"She'll be three next January," Rachel added quietly.

Millions of thoughts raced through his head and Will couldn't even begin to comprehend the fact that Rachel Berry was a mother. After all these years, she had been taking care of a child. A living, breathing, human.

"Rachel, I..." he trailed off. "Have you told your parents? I- I didn't realize that you're seeing someone."

That particular element hurt Will, in a way he didn't want to admit. Rachel played with Julie's miniature fingers, ashamedly.

"I haven't spoken to my dads since I ran away. And actually, I'm not seeing anyone. I left Julie's father before she was born." She looked up to meet his sad eyes.

"I left him back in Lima."

Will stared at her with a blank expression. "Rachel," he finally said, "please don't tell me Puck is-"

"She's yours, Will," Rachel hindered, a tear falling into Julie's hair.

His breath caught in his throat. He forgot how to breathe. Surely Will hadn't heard her correctly, surely he was mistaken. But wildly searching her face, he got a sinking feeling and he slowly started to understand.

He was a father.

The little girl sitting before him was of his own creation. Half of him. Will, while wasting three years of his life blindly directing a glee club and wallowing in his own drunken filth, had a daughter four hours away that he never even knew of. He had missed almost three years of her life. Will would never watch his daughter come into the world. Never would he hear her first words, see her first steps. Hell, he'd already missed two birthdays. Why in the world had Rachel done this to him?

"She...I'm..." he stammered, on the verge of panic.

"I'm so sorry, Will," she sobbed, covering her face. "I-"

"You- you're telling me," he interrupted stiffly, "you're telling me all this time I've had a kid? I have a kid..." he finished gently, feeling the words roll off his tongue for the first time.

She wiped her eyes. "I hate how this ended up. I can't even imagine what you're feeling right now."

Painstakingly, his eyes drifted from the baby's sleepy face and up to hers.

"Why did you do this to me?" he whispered sharply, feeling his eyes already start to well up. "How could you be so cruel?"

Rachel sniffled. "I...Will, I couldn't face you, how could I?" she trembled. "I thought you would hate me, I thought you would make me get rid of it."

Will looked deflated. "Rachel..."

"And I knew how everyone would treat me, I knew how my dads would react. I knew that you would always have this guilt over me, Will. I didn't want that," she finished.

His eyes burning, Will gave almost a sadistic laugh. "You don't think I have guilt? You don't think I spend every single worthless night drowning in liquor because of you? You don't think it's your face I see before I fall asleep, and when I wake up, you don't think our- our last conversation is replaying in my head constantly? Like a goddamn broken record, Rachel! I have had nothing but guilt since you left! I've known it was my fault from the beginning!"

Her hands were covering her face again and she wept silently, while Julie stared at Will with round brown eyes. She nudged Rachel.

"Daddy," she said.

Will's fiery glower softened.

"Did she just-"

"Is that daddy?" Julie asked Rachel, squirming in her lap. Rachel sniffled again and giggled a little at the look on his face.

"Yup," she told her. "That's daddy."

Will gazed at Rachel with a delighted expression. "How-"

"I show her pictures everyday, of course," she cut in. "She needs to know who her father is."

And that was when ol' Mr. Emotional finally started to cry, fat sticky tears, blubbering like a sissy. Julie, in all of her innocence, put her little arms around his neck and hugged him. This gave Will a start. He clutched his daughter's back and held her so tight like he could never let go.

When he looked up at Rachel from Julie's shoulder, she wiped a tear from his cheek. "She looks so much like you, Will," she said serenely. "Everyday I see her little face and it kills me inside because it's like looking right at you."

Will lifted the now-sleeping child up and cradled her against his warm chest. "Why do I suddenly feel like Forrest Gump?"

Rachel laughed loudly at this; he felt his heart beat just as noisily, perhaps.

"Rach," he began, "losing you was the worst thing that ever happened to me. I'm not doing it again, not either of you."

She leaned forward and kissed him tenderly on the mouth, and a bolt of electricity sped through their blood. Julie slept peacefully beneath their embrace. Somewhere in Chicago, in a shabby little apartment on the wrong side of town, all was right with the world.

~fin~