Last part, this one's pretty short. Remember tissues! And then when you're done reading this, go read Cris' and my joint project over on her page, "See if I Can Sleep"!

She's been missing him for two months now, and still, the sight of his grave seems unbelievable to her, her chest feeling tighter than it should.

Jesse St. James
February 15th, 1991 - November 19th, 2011

Her hand runs over the inscription as she feels tears get the better of her, and she lays down the blanket that she brought to sit on, setting the flowers down.

"You, um... you always got me crocuses, so I thought, maybe... this time it's my turn to bring some to you. A-and since blue was always your favorite color—"

She's already crying harder than she planned on, and she presses the heels of her palms into her eyes, hard enough to see stars as she sobs, her forehead coming to rest on the granite of his headstone his family didn't even take the time to engrave specially.

"God, Jesse, I don't know what to do. I-I made a mistake, the biggest mistake of my life, and— and I can't believe you're gone, and you're never coming back. I know it's been a while, but I just—"

Burying her face in her hands, she shakes her head, squeezing her eyes shut. "I miss you. Every second. Of every minute. Of every hour. Of every day. Jesse—"

Taking a shaky breath, trembling fingers trace the inscription on the headstone with his name, biting her lip as she fights to keep her emotions under control.

"You were my soulmate. And I messed it up. And there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think that maybe if I had just done something differently, and been less stupid, that maybe you would still be here today."

Closing her eyes with her exhale, her hands run gently over the grass beneath her, wishing she could hold him, touch him, feel him one last time.

"I-I got my NYADA letter in the mail the other day. I— um. I got in." She laughs a bit hollowly, her teeth dragging over her lip as she wipes at her eyes. "I'm going. To New York. And it won't ever be the same without you, but god, Jesse— I want you to be proud of me. I want you to look down from wherever you are and know that you didn't pick the wrong girl to marry. That... when you love something, you gotta go for it."

Hot tears fall to the blanket beneath her, and she starts sobbing again.

She stays by his grave until dusk, the encroaching darkness a careful reminder that she still has to drive home and can't stay here forever, curled up on top of the blanket over his grave to somehow be close to him.

The drive home, she listens to his mixtape, and by the time she reaches Lima, she almost can't see out of her eyes anymore, they're so puffy and swollen from crying.

"I'm... I'm going to live for him," Rachel tells Quinn one day after a long silence of them sitting side by side on the bleachers. Quinn got here first, but Rachel knows she doesn't mind the intrusion. "I... I think it's what he'd want me to do."

"Schue's still pissed about Regionals, you know."

Rachel slowly shrugs. "I know. But... I shouldn't be a whole team. You guys should be able to win without me."

"I think you're right," she says slowly. "About Jesse, I mean. I think he'd want you to be happy."

"Do you miss her?" Rachel whispers, wrapping her arms tightly around her waist.

"Every day."

Ten Years Later

"I'm just... so honored to be accepting this. I've wanted this since I was old enough to know what a Tony was, and—" she beams out at the audience through tear-stained eyes. "I want to thank my director, and the writers, and the entire cast and crew for making this show possible, and— most importantly, my late fiancé for always, always believing in me. I could have never done this without knowing you were watching over me, Jesse. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much, from the bottom of my heart."

The applause is loud and raucous, and Rachel barely keeps her tears in through the rest of the show. Her Tony Award— Best Leading Actress in a Musical— gleams brightly before her, and she wonders if heaven doesn't feel like this, if Jesse isn't watching over her right now, and smiling.

By the time she gets home, it's almost midnight, slipping inside her apartment quietly as she places her keys and her— surprisingly heavy— award down as gently as possible.

"Mommy!"

The cute little voice bounding up to her has her beaming as she leans down to pick her adopted daughter up, despite the stern voice in the back of her mind reminding her that it's way too late for a four-year-old to still be up.

Jody, her sitter, follows closely behind with a sigh as Rachel rocks Lily gently on her hip.

"Did everything go okay?"

"She... insisted on staying up for you to get home. There was... absolutely nothing I could do, I'm sorry."

"It's fine," she smiles, running a soft hand over Lily's cheek, her face tucked happily into the crook of her mother's neck, sleep coming over her quickly now that she's finally home. "Everything else go all right?"

"Yeah— we watched the Awards together, so Lily already knows—"

"Mommy won!" she announces proudly, Rachel beaming as she nods to Jody, who slips out quietly with a smile and a congratulations.

"Yes, Lils, mommy won," she beams, hoisting her up a little higher on her arm. "You're starting to get a little big for all this carrying around, don't you think?"

"No..."

Her nursery is easy enough to find, what with the star on the door, and the black and gold plating underneath, the words Lillian Grace St. James neatly inscribed.

"Mommy," Lily says softly as Rachel gently lays her down into the little bed and tucks her in, "I think daddy is proud of you."

For a moment, Rachel forgets to breathe, eyes wide as she stares down at her— no, their— daughter, slowly nodding as she reaches out to cup her cheek, blinking away tears.

"Yeah, baby. I think daddy is proud of me, too."

And because I just know I'm going to get a million questions about this— yes, Rachel adopted Lily to be "their" daughter; she didn't magically have a kid with someone else.