This chapter is dedicated to Cam05 for pointing out to me that I forgot to include Lauren in the last chapter and also neglected to specify that this takes place at the start of season three. For the purposes of this story (and this story only, because I don't know what will happen in the upcoming season), Blaine has transferred to McKinley and Lauren is not in the glee club anymore.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. My classes just started and I already have six things I should be doing instead of writing fanfiction, so I don't know how quickly I'll be able to update. I should be working on archaeology homework right now. I hope you guys like it and let me know what you think.

Chapter Two

"No place worth knowing yields itself at sight, and those the least inviting on first view may leave the most haunting pictures upon the walls of memory." - Algernon Blackwood, A Prisoner in Fairyland

It was well past sunset when Rachel awoke. She glanced around her as she sat up with a groan. Her head was pounding and she absentmindedly rubbed it as she stood. The moon was full, casting its bright glow over the cemetery and reminding Rachel that she was surrounded by the graves of those that had already passed from this world.

Moonlight illuminated the tombstones around her and she was acutely aware of being alive, aware of the fullness of her lungs as she inhaled and the movement of her muscles as she shifted her weight and rubbed her head. She was alive and around her there was only death, harsh gray stones set in green grass to mark the final resting places of people whose lungs would never know what it meant to breathe and whose muscles would never understand what it meant to move.

A cold breeze blew past her and Rachel shivered, pulling her coat tightly to her body as she scanned the graveyard. She ran a hand up over her face and through her hair. There was no one in sight, no one around her save for the buried bodies of the dead.

"I must be seeing things," she muttered to herself as she shook her head. She cast one last look at the gravestone in front of which she had collapsed. Santana Lopez. Yes, she had definitely been seeing things, because Santana Lopez was gone, taken from them long before her time.

A song bubbled up inside of Rachel, trying to push to the surface and come out of her. She tried to grasp it, pull it up from the recesses of her mind to the forefront. It held itself back, though, twisting away from her and retreating until she couldn't feel it anymore. She had been so close to catching it.

Rachel kicked at the grass in front of her in frustration. She was Rachel Berry; she was meant to sing. She was a diva and as such, she felt every emotion deeply, could trace the minutiae of every feeling that raced through her body; her response to those feelings was singing, singing until she was spent and had given up everything, until there was nothing left inside her to feel.

But Santana Lopez was dead, had been for almost a month, and Rachel couldn't find an appropriate song to express herself. Perhaps it was because she didn't know how she felt, she mused, or perhaps it was because she was feeling everything intensely all at once or perhaps it was because she was feeling nothing but a great void in the pit of her stomach and it was trying spread out and overtake her body or perhaps she was…

The grass rustled nearby, startling her. Rachel whirled around, but saw nothing. The wind howled and a faint whisper reached her ears; a soft voice carried and Rachel shuddered, unsure. She strained, trying to make out the words as she worriedly looked around her. Apprehension filled her and she struggled to make out where the sound was coming from. Rachel had a clear view of her surroundings (the moon was so very bright) and there was no one with her. She listened carefully.

She heard: "My name. It says my –"

A loud ringing noise surprised her and she jumped, bringing a hand to rest over her heart. The cemetery seemed to still suddenly, the wind dying down to nothing. No whispered reached her ears. Her ringtone echoed through the graveyard loudly and uncomfortably. Rachel shook her head, answering the call.

"Rachel Berry speaking."

"Rachel, sweetheart, where are you?" her father asked worriedly, his voice strained. "It's after eleven."

Rachel's eyebrows rose in shock. Had she really been at the cemetery for so long? It had felt like only minutes. She wondered how long she had been unconscious. "I'm sorry," she replied. "I've been studying with Kurt and I lost track of time. I apologize for my failure to update you on my whereabouts."

"We were both very worried. Your dad said that he got home from work and you weren't there. We've been trying to call you," Hiram said. "With everything that's happened recently," he started.

Rachel shook her head again, realizing he couldn't see her. "I know," she interrupted. "As I said, I apologize and I promise that I will do a better job of letting you know where I am so that you don't worry."

"Alright, sweetie. I'm just glad nothing happened to you," he responded. "You should come home now, Rachel. It's getting late and it's a school night."

Rachel cast one more glance over the graveyard she was standing in, her gaze lingering on the fresh patch of dirt in front of her. She was there, laid to rest in the cold unforgiving earth, left to decay until her remains were either completely lost to time or found by archaeologists and put in a museum. Images of her, motionless as she lay in a casket in the funeral parlor, her eyes closed and her hair framing her face neatly; dancing around the choir room with the rest of the glee club, filling up the room with her laughter and sarcasm; laying beneath the ground, surrounded by wood and dirt and bugs until Mother Nature reclaimed her physical body; smiling brightly as she sang in place next to Rachel, practically beaming as she looked out over the audience with pride.

"Rachel? Are you still there?"

She was crying, she realized. Tears were rolling down her face and falling on to her sweater. "Yes, I'm still here," she breathed hesitantly. And she was still there, on the phone and among the living while she would never be there again. "I'm leaving now," she told her father before hanging up the phone.

Rachel took a few deep breaths, calming herself down as she turned away from the grave she had come to visit. She turned away with purpose and strode confidently towards the gate that would take her out of the cemetery. As she pushed it open, she cast a final glance behind her.

She thought she saw something as she pushed the gate closed and fastened the latch – a movement in the trees, a figure standing across the graveyard, shrouded in darkness. Rachel gulped and turned away quickly, telling herself that it was only her imagination. "Perhaps I hit my head when I fell," she whispered to herself. Looking back and finding nothing unusual, she decided that yes, she was most definitely seeing things.

"I'm still here, too," she heard. It was soft, barely a whisper it seemed, but it rang throughout the cemetery, catching the breeze and whistling across the grass until it settled in her ears, rattling around inside her skull. As she left, Rachel decided that she was definitely hearing things, too.

She slept fitfully that night, dreaming of thick red blood flowing into sewer grates and anguished cries that reverberated off the walls of her room and lingered in her mind and in her room until she couldn't be sure if she was awake or asleep. She dreamt of blind hatred and raw passion and heartbreak and love and hurt until the feelings blurred in her consciousness and became interchangeable. She dreamt of losing and of being lost.

The next day, Rachel went back to the cemetery after school. She bought flowers on the way – pretty blue ones whose name she didn't bother to learn – and lingered for reasons she couldn't explain. She stayed there for hours, watching the petals of her flowers shake back and forth, blades of grass swaying beside her as a fall wind blew harshly. She pulled her coat close to her and waited until the sun went down.

Nothing happened and Rachel found that she was disappointed.

When she went back again two days later, the flowers were gone, torn remnants of blue petals strewn across the ground haphazardly. She bent over at the waist, picking up a few of the petals and caressing them with her fingers. They were soft between her fingertips and oddly comforting in her open palms.

"I said that I'm still here, too," someone said from behind her, their voice deep and gravelly. A throat cleared and the petals slid from Rachel's grasp.

She watched them fall to the ground silently, settling in the grass with what was left of the Forget-Me-Nots she had brought days before. She had looked up the flower when she got home and been touched by the sentiment she had never meant imbue.

"I really am losing my mind," Rachel muttered, sighing. "I simply must find an appropriate song to perform as soon as possible."

A hand grabbed her, spinning her around. A chill ran down through her arm, spreading from her shoulder and the pale hand still perched there. She was standing there, as she had been before, pale in the autumn sunlight. She still wore her black dress and Rachel could feel how cold her touch was even through her sweater.

"You're not real. I'm just seeing things," Rachel whispered, mostly trying to convince herself. She took a step back, putting her hands in her pockets and trying to shake off the very real feeling of the hand that had been on her. She remembered yesterday's therapy session – something about trauma and reactions and figments of the imagination and time to heal.

Her expression was pained and she shook her head. "What the fuck, Berry? What kind of sick joke is this?" she spat, gesturing to the burial plot beside them. "It says my name. Why does it say my name?"

Rachel's eyes screwed shut and she shook her head furiously, breathing heavily. "You're not real," she muttered again. "You're not real."

"The fuck I'm not," she said and Rachel felt coldness spreading through body again.

Hands grabbed her shoulders harshly, shaking her. Rachel gasped, trying to pull away. They were so cold, the chill seeping through her clothes and burrowing into her body until she shivered. They were cold, but they were definitely firm and they were definitely touching her, holding her tightly as they tugged on her.

"You're not real," she tried again, her voice shaking. "You're dead."

She stopped shaking. Rachel could feel her blood circulating, reaching into the cold parts of her body and trying to bring them warmth again. She tentatively opened her eyes, expecting to find no one.

But she was still there, her body collapsed on the ground and her face a mixture of shock and disbelief. "It's not true," she muttered. She was sobbing, but her face was dry. There were no tears. "Why are you doing this?"

Rachel sputtered. "I'm not doing anything," she responded, wondering why she was even bothering with something that wasn't real. "You're dead," she said again, firmly.

Hands reached out again, grabbing her suddenly and pulling Rachel to the ground until she was facing her, kneeling in front of each other in the dirt. "I'm right here," she cried, her voice rising as she gripped Rachel tightly.

Rachel fought to keep her eyes open, aware of the fact that she was being touched again when she shouldn't have been. It felt real to her, the fingers grasping at her arms and the body so close to her own. It felt real and it shouldn't have felt like anything and Rachel did close her eyes then.

She was shaken again, briefly. "No, you look at me," she heard and her eyelids flitted open.

Her face was full of torment and distress, her eyebrows furrowed and her lips quivering as she sobbed dry tears, and Rachel remembered the night everything changed, the night when that anguished look would burn itself to the inside of her retinas. The person, apparition, figment of her imagination, the whatever it was before her had a cleaned up and covered cut above her eye that hadn't been there before, barely concealed scratch marks on her forearms that she hadn't had in life. There would be marks on her body beneath the dress, Rachel knew – cut marks and bruises and scratches. The pain on her face was just as it had been the night Rachel Berry had watched Santana Lopez die.

"You're dead," was all she could say, the words a soft whisper.

The hands holding her tightened, squeezed her arms with a force that made her cry out softly. "But I'm here," Santana told her and Rachel felt herself nodding. She was still here, they both were.