Title: Resolution

Synopsis: Rachel Berry doesn't want to live anymore. She tries to die quietly, but a stranger named Santana Lopez won't let her. AU Pezberry, in which they have never met until the moment Rachel is ready to die.

Rating: M for suicidal themes, language, and sex.

A/N: I was watching a preview for a film and got the random inspiration of a suicidal Rachel Berry. Rachel is always the person saving everyone else - what if she needs to be saved? This fic puts that research question front and center. Just two people who happen to cross paths and the very human struggle of surviving in a passionless modern day and age.

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1. Endings

"It's precisely the disappointing stories, which have no proper ending and therefore no proper meaning, that sound true to life." - Max Frisch

The laugh that exploded from her lungs was full of loathing. Of course. First, she had lost her job on Broadway because she wouldn't let the producer fuck her, and now she'd lost the guy who claimed to love her because he found someone 'less ethnic,' someone his mother would approve of. She was a little Catholic girl with blonde hair and blue eyes, a fake tan with the fake breasts to match. That's how it worked, didn't it? There were no modern love stories, no successes, no knight in shining armor. It was struggling to make a pay check and finding solace in love that you convinced yourself actually existed. Depression had begun to claim Rachel Berry six months ago. The doctor prescribed her Zoloft and called it a day. The Zoloft barely helped. So here she was, in the middle of December, shivering outside her apartment and listening to New York's late night hustle and bustle. She could almost hear the regret in Finn's voice, but she'd learned he was very good at pretending.

"Send me a wedding invite," Rachel had never been very good with sarcasm. "I'll send you my new address just as soon as I give a shit." Before he could respond, she hung up the phone and deleted his number. It's not like she'd really believed that love lasted forever, but she'd hoped. It was just a mistake to pin those hopes on someone who couldn't understand what day of the week it was unless he looked at his Power Rangers calendar. Her stomach churned with a kind of sick feeling, and suddenly she felt empty. Tapped out. There was nothing left.

On her way home, it was as if every step hollowed out her insides. Occasionally people would bump into her, careening with laughter inspired by friends or by Jack Daniels, other times they would grab at her and ask for money. What a pathetic state of the world. Most were homeless, others were too privileged and drinking themselves to death as if they had a reason to be sorrowful. In the city that never sleeps, there were a million lost souls and half of them wanted to die.

It was a cynical viewpoint. Rachel wondered if the girl she had been in high school - optimistic, full of dreams - was really as deluded as she seemed in retrospect or if she was just a miserable person now. It disgusted her. There was no sorrow, there was only pessimism and discontent. A sort of sucking emptiness biting at her heels with every step. She didn't even feel the cold anymore, and as she moved down her block and unlocked the door to her sub-par apartment, Rachel knew she was going to try to die tonight. She didn't want to go out with a bang, didn't want to make anyone worry about her. She wanted to go out with a whisper, wanted to fall asleep and never wake up.

She wondered if her fathers would recognize her now. Dark circles under her eyes, she stared at the stranger in the hallway mirror. She kicked her shoes off, threw her coat carelessly at her feet. Feet dragging, Rachel Berry made her way to the bathroom to figure out what it was that she could use to meet her goal. Not allowing a moment to examine the dead expression in her eyes, she wondered how she would explain this in heaven. It wasn't because of Finn, or because of losing her job that she wanted to die. It was because she'd simply realized there was no meaning and no purpose to existing. She was only taking up space, air, muddling through crowds of mindless Americans on a day to day basis. They were all trying to convince themselves that they mattered, that they had some unique purpose for existing. She smiled, full lips curving in an ironic expression. Rachel laughed, sighed, and opened the medicine cabinet. She didn't take time to look at the pill bottles. She really didn't care what the labels said; as long as it was prescription, taking too much of it should do the job. Rachel didn't lack in medication, either. Pain pills, anxiety pills, anti-depressants shelved from 'trying them out' and finding none of them made her believe in a happy future.

People, Rachel thought, didn't die when their bodies died. At some point, it was their souls and hearts that gave out first. The body followed. She walked her corpse to the bed, sat down, and dumped the pills out. Beside her bed, a stale glass of water sat, and she took a fistful of medication, swallowed. Another. Swallowed again.

It took her a half-an-hour to get sleepy. There was some nausea and vertigo, and then darkness. A flash of regret, worry; what would her fathers feel when they found out what had happened to her? In her head, she sent them sweet apologies, told them she'd taken the only way out.

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One didn't 'wake up' when they were dead. At least, she was pretty sure people didn't wake up anywhere. Rachel Berry was no expert on the afterlife, but she was pretty sure they didn't rouse to the sound of a machine sucking at them, gagging on a tube. Tears in her eyes, she felt whatever atrocious machine it was rolled away from her bed as the nurses and doctors crowded around her. Hands pressed at her wrists, one against her jaw.

"Rachel," the voices were so far away. Further away than she'd ever imagined. The former Broadway star felt as if she was down a very long tunnel, water rushing her way. "Rachel, if you can hear me I need you to squeeze my hand," men in white, women in blue. Rubber gloves, the smell of sanitizer and lemon. "You're going to feel very sick in a moment."

Less than, actually. Rachel doubled over and her stomach forced out every last bit of its contents into the bag next to the hospital bed.

"You're lucky your neighbor called the police," another doctor was speaking distantly as a nurse wiped Rachel's mouth delicately and helped her lay back down. "You were only a few moments away from succeeding at what you were trying to do." Funny, even in the hospital they didn't even want to talk about death. Rachel would have laughed if she didn't feel so damn sick. She couldn't help but feel relieved for a moment. At least her fathers wouldn't think they had failed her in some way. It was nobody's fault. The horrible emptiness was gone, but Rachel felt she'd been a few moments from paradise, and that neighbor had pulled her back into the wretched and very real depths of Hell. "Can you speak?" The doctor was feeling her throat again, his rubber gloves unpleasantly grazing her skin.

Rachel nodded, worked her sore throat for a moment. "Yes."

The doctor nodded in affirmation, wrote something down on a clipboard. "I'm afraid that we're going to have to keep you for evaluation," the funny thing, Rachel thought as this man spoke, that he didn't sound afraid at all. Nor did he sound sorry. He sounded like he was reading a list of ingredients off to his wife. She'd laugh if she could have.

The former Broadway star felt tired, and closed her eyes. Beside her, a nurse tried to rouse her, but she smacked away the hand at her shoulder. She heard the woman clear her throat uncomfortably. "If you're not going to let me die, at least let me sleep."

The doctor muttered something to another nurse, and they began to wheel her out. Maybe this was death, or a punishment. Or, most likely, it was a sad reality. Rachel Berry hadn't succeeded at maintaining Broadway stardom or achieving a happy ending with the man she wanted it with, so why would she succeed at ending her life?

God, she was a dark person these days. As the nurses closed the door to her room, she noticed the bareness of the space, but most of all thought it ridiculous they also felt the need to remove anything she could potentially "finish the job" with. She didn't think anyone would be dumb enough to try and kill themselves with a registered nurse keeping an eye on them. It took her a while, but she managed to fall asleep.

As Rachel woke the next morning, she wondered if anyone had recognized her, and if she'd see her face in the tabloids under the title "Broadway Star hasn't recovered from downward spiral! Attempts suicide!" There wasn't anyone visible watching her, but she knew there was a nurse looking in on her at the very least. It seemed a strange treatment, to leave a suicidal person alone. To make them feel watched. Rachel felt a sort of quiet disdain for all of this, and sighed. There must be something to get her life back from this horrible state. Her eyes shut, and she hoped she would feel less miserable if she gave it a few moments.

The sound of footsteps roused her from momentary silence and something like inner-peace. "When can I get out of here?" Rachel asked before opening her eyes. A male nurse, gave her a half-smile.

"Not sure, Miss."

Rachel sighed.

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2. Introductions

"Basic human contact - the meeting of eyes, the exchanging of words - is to the psyche what oxygen is to the brain. If you're feeling abandoned by the world, interact with anyone you can." - Martha Beck

When they finally allowed Rachel to go home, with a slew of new medications to try out, she felt as if she'd made no progress at all. She hadn't managed to die, and had only added her hospital bill to the bills she would have to pay. The former Broadway star made her way into the elevator, seeing familiar faces step in and out on the different floors. There were four apartments to a floor, and Rachel had known most everyone. She was sure she looked a wreck, but everyone was too polite to ask her what had happened to her. She kept her brown eyes cast to the ground, and when her floor finally came up, she stepped out and did her best to hurry to her apartment. Funny thing was, sleeping in a hospital should make you want to not sleep for a couple days, but right now all Rachel could picture was her warm, comfortable bed. She fumbled with the key, sighed heavily as she dropped them, and bent to pick them up.

"Do you need help with that?" A voice sounded behind her. It was smooth, but somehow had an earthy rasp to it. Something indescribable. One thing was certain, Rachel had never heard that voice before. She turned around to find a concerned gaze looking in her direction. The person who stood in the formerly unrented apartment doorway had thick, black hair, sun-kissed skin, and darker eyes than Rachel thought she may have ever seen. Her mouth went dry at the sight of her new neighbor.

"N-no. I'm fine," Rachel mumbled, managed to unlock her door, and found herself glancing back. "Are you just moving in?" The question spilled from her lips, and she saw the new neighbor smirking slightly.

"Yeah. I moved in yesterday," those dark eyes searched Rachel, made her feel vulnerable. "I'm Santana."

Nodding quickly, Rachel glanced at the floor. A safer place than anywhere else to look at the moment, "Rachel," she bit her bottom lip, eyebrows knotted together in thought, "it was nice to meet you."

"You too," the clear but subtle amusement in Santana's voice was the last thing Rachel heard before she shut the door.

For that one moment, she'd forgotten how desperately she hated being on this planet.

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When it hit the tabloids, Rachel was the last to find out. One had been dropped at her door, her picture plastered all over the front. The article was titled, "Suicidal Broadway Star: Former Assistant Tells All!" Janey. Rachel knew she should've never hired that mousey girl. She hadn't trusted her from day one. Yet Rachel had quite realistically had nobody else to count on. The professional situation had ended badly, mostly because Janey had been caught trying to steal numbers and contact information from Rachel Berry's quite extensive black book. Rachel wondered if anyone had seen it, and she hoped not, because as soon as she tore down the tabloid from her door, she'd seen photocopies of her hospital records. Quite the violation of privacy by the hospital, but Rachel couldn't bring herself to care. She left the wrinkled paper by her door, and closed it.

Just as Rachel sank into bed, a knock sounded at the door. Grumbling, out of the range of whoever was knocking at the door, she buried her face in the pillow. "Go away." There was no one who had reason to knock at her door. So, of course, someone was knocking at her door. This time, Rachel raised her head from her pillow and yelled, "Go away!"

Another knock.

Furious, Rachel threw her sheets haphazardly from her frame, and stomped rather dramatically toward the door. She all but tossed the door from its hinges.

An amused smirk greeted her first, along with a throaty chuckle. Dark eyes grazed the short-statured diva, the way her shoulders must have been thrown forward, nostrils flaring.

"S-..Santana," the sight of the new neighbor caused her to forget that she was really angry at someone interrupting her walllowing session. She must have been a sight, short stature and nostrils flaring. The sharpness fell from her tone, the tension easing in her shoulders. "I'm sorry I thought you might be ... "

"No you didn't," her new neighbor gave a privately knowing smile before she motioned behind Rachel. "Can I come in?" She lifted a magazine in her hand, the one that had previously been taped to the door, as a gesture. Santana seemed to be considerate in that she wished to talk about the discarded untruth, but not out in the hallway though they were the only two residents on the floor.

Rachel's eyes darted to the magazine once more, swallowed, then nodded. A gentle whiff of perfume followed Santana's entrance. Something slightly musky and sweet. And maybe a hint of shampoo. "You uh .. have my magazine."

"You didn't seem to want it," Santana was smirking in a gentle way. Those incredibly intense dark eyes seemed to be urging Rachel into opening up. There was a directness, but also a softness. "Cover story sucks," she arched a manicured eyebrow.

Rachel cleared her throat, "Yes, well, it's all quite untrue, isn't it?" The shorter girl suddenly made herself busy, cleaning up this and that, disappearing into the kitchen and returning with water for her neighbor. "Please, have a seat. And uh...give me that." She stepped forward and snatched the magazine out of Santana's hands.

"Is it true?"

"No."

"Hm," Santana, obviously not sold on Rachel's denial. "We don't know each other that well."

"We don't. However you seem quite nice and such," the brunette responded, avoiding those dark eyes at all costs. "So you uhm .. just moved here?"

"To the building, yeah. New York, no. I lived over in Brooklyn with my ex-girlfriend, until she broke up with me for another dancer."

Rachel nodded simply, quietly, and sipped at her drink. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"It's alright," the concession was simple, and a silence fell between them. The Latina seemed interested in Rachel, watching her with a quiet gaze. She studied her in a way that suggested more to what she wanted to say. "Tell me about you," her tone, or rather her voice, sounded silky. Comforting. She could see how, in a different situation, it might sound naturally seductive.

"I used to be on Broadway, but I just lost the job recently."

Nodding, Santana eyed the trash can in which the magazine now lay buried. "So I read."

"The director," Rachel rolled her eyes, "hit on me. Since the show hadn't opened yet, he figured I was fool enough to sleep with him." Proudly, Rachel puffed out her chest slightly and took a breath, which deflated the prior.

"Figures."

Nodding, the shorter girl found the courage somewhere to look up at the kind eyes examining her.

"Are you okay?"

Rachel wanted to laugh, or cry, because nobody had asked her that in the longest time. She didn't really have very many friends in New York. Kurt, her best friend, hadn't made it out here yet. She would talk to him on the phone as often as possible, but that wasn't very often these days. "I don't know what it means to 'be okay,' honestly," she did laugh, sardonically. Almost bitter.

After some time, Rachel realized she was still the only one standing. Santana had been sitting on the couch, looking kindly and intimately at Rachel, mere inches away from her. It was the proximity that spoke to some premature familiarity. A physical comfort overcame Rachel at the nearness of this new and apparently trusted acquaintance. If she had not trusted her, she wouldn't have spoken so honestly about not being okay. Then again, maybe it was the fact someone had noticed just enough to ask. The brunette sat carefully beside Santana, stared at her hands for a few moments.

"My boyfriend broke up with me the same day I lost my job. I'd been depressed for so long, I just, wanted it all to stop," Rachel whispered the words like a confession, closed her eyes. She felt a warm and timid touch at her wrist. The warmth of it was like being bathed in sunshine for the first time since winter began. Complying to the gesture, she moved her hand ever so slightly to allow the hand to slip over her own. It felt nice there. "So I took too many pills. I figured it would work. I only felt bad that my fathers wouldn't understand why."

The silence wasn't oppressive, like she might have expected it to be. She felt the pad of Santana's thumb stroking her hand, a gesture that ignited a need deep within her. Human contact. It had been so long. Rachel opened her eyes, felt them drawn immediately to the dark ones staring directly back at her. A flame had started, in her heart and elsewhere. It had been so long since anyone had really talked to her, touched her skin, comforted her. Her cheeks flushed and she found she could not maintain the heavy eye contact for very long. Her eyes dropped again.

Rachel took a breath that was decidedly shaky and felt fingers urging her palm open and the pads of Santana's fingers tracing over her wrist. "So I guess that's the story. You know more than anyone else." She felt she should find it strange to be talking so intimately with someone who she had only really just met, but she couldn't find it strange at all. While the intensity of fingertips at her pulse on her wrist was new, it didn't feel invasive. Santana had earned instantaneous trust. She felt a tug at her wrist, and just as her eyes came open she saw her neighbor pulling her forward. Arms wrapped around her before she could register anything else, and the warmth of them made Rachel breathe in sharply. Her hands hovered in the air around Santana's waist, unsure of whether she should be touching this person, but she found her hands falling to the curve of her hips and clutching. Hesitantly burying her face against the taller woman's collarbone, the first thing she noticed was the smell of her. It was a sort of earthy musk, mixed with something Rachel recognized as Juicy Couture perfume. Her eyes fluttered shut and she breathed. For the first time, she felt like she was really breathing. As the palms at her back began to smoothe over her shoulderblades, she could sense every muscle within her awareness relaxing. Had she been slightly more receptive and less timid, she would've felt the goosebumps erupting across her back.

She breathed, something between a sigh and a hum. Santana's dark hair feathered across her view as she opened her eyes, and Rachel decided she had to ask the woman where she got her shampoo from.

"Thank you," Rachel whispered, and found herself half-pressed against the Latina's torso.

There was a near-audible smirk in the answering voice, "My pleasure."

3. Rising

"The atoms become like a moth, seeking out the region of higher laser intensity." - Steven Chu

Within a month of their burgeoning friendship, Santana had suddenly become the focus of Rachel's attention. Likewise, it seemed that the Latina found any excuse to spend time together. They spent every Sunday night together tuning in to Real Housewives of Atlanta and other shows on Bravo, having reached the conclusion that they had reached the level of addicts.

Since that first meeting, there had been a sudden and intense bonding, a natural trust that seemed to develop between them. Late nights sipping at their wine had lead to sharing of secrets only told to the closest and most trusted people in their lives. Santana had a natural intensity to everything she did, and often times Rachel found herself watching the woman doing the simplest things - sometimes the way her eyes burned with concentration made Rachel feel as if she couldn't look away.

Rachel's introspection ended somewhat unceremoniously as her name was called. She had spent the last week going to auditions for off-Broadway and Broadway plays that were in production, starting from the bottom all over again. What she hadn't expected, however, as she gazed out at the small handful of people watching her audition, was Santana. Somehow, the woman had found out about today's audition and there she was, in the third row back with a quiet smile on her face the second she realized Rachel had spotted her.

A nervous fluttering manifested in her stomach. As Rachel closed her eyes, she could feel the warmth of those eyes upon her and her voice filled her. She began performing the song she'd prepared to showcase her talents, what other than "Defying Gravity" from Wicked. Suddenly there was no audience at all, only Santana watching her. A friend, a trusted person who had become far closer than she'd ever planned.

Her nervousness gave her a focus, gave her an intensity of concentration that knotted her eyebrows. Her voice became its own entity, became a manifestation of everything she'd been reconciling within herself since her suicide attempt. By the end of the performance, tears had filled her eyes, and the small audience and the producers were on their feet, whistling. Rachel saw them, bowed her head with clasped hands, and let out an emotional laugh as she moved off the stage once the uproar had calmed.

As she caught a shaky breath backstage, grinning from ear to ear as she still heard the occasional whisper and murmur of the audience and the producers, and felt her heart pounding. She didn't know if it had been Santana's presence, but suddenly she was floating. She could remember what it felt like to be happy and she had the Latina to thank for it. As she came from backstage and rounded her way to the theater seats, she found Santana standing calmly a few feet from her, waiting.

Rachel crashed into her. Her arms wrapped around the taller girl, and she had all but thrown herself into Santana's embrace. She buried her face in dark black hair, breathed in the familiar perfume, and let the tears fall. She wasn't feeling emotional because of the fact she'd likely nailed her first job. The shorter diva was crying because she had been through hell and back, and what was more, she'd recovered with the help of someone who cared about her. She clung shakingly to the Puerto Rican, and felt fingers knotting delicately through her hair.

"You okay?" The warm voice was like a flame, catching near her ear and spreading heat through her neck. Rachel nodded. She didn't want to let go, but nonetheless she slipped from Santana's grasp and stood clutchingly to her, eyes locked on the taller woman.

Rachel laughed, final tears slipping from her eyes, "I guess I forgot how good it feels to just perform. And have someone who was watching."

Santana answered with a warm chuckle, and her fingers moved over Rachel's jaw for the first time since they'd become friends. The spark of skin brushing over skin made Rachel's heart jump as if she'd been shocked. She took a breath, found those penetrating dark eyes staring down at her. Rachel wasn't the only one who looked a little breathless. Just as Rachel's mouth fell agape and she was about to speak, a producer rushed over to her and animatedly began to shake her hand, effectively moving her away from the embrace she had lost herself in.

"Miss Berry, knowing both your past achievements and your Tony nomination, I can say personally that you are a shoe-in for this role. We would be honored, simply honored to have you with us. Now," the stout man's buggy eyes darted around, "I can't make any official statements of course but ... we will be calling you soon." Excitedly he shook her hand, and his colleagues called him over for the next audition, though everyone's attention still seemed to be on the phenomenal performance Rachel had just delivered.

"Come on, Miss Berry, let me take you out for dinner." Santana smirked down at her, warmly, and nudged her. They linked arms immediately after, and Rachel clung to the arm offered her and pressed her face against Santana's toned bicep.

###

The smile that answered Rachel when she had thanked Santana for being there was welcome enough. "I couldn't believe you were just sitting there."

"I saw the schedule on your fridge the night before," Santana explained through a mouthful of cheesy ravioli pasta. Dabbing the corner of her mouth, she swallowed and looked up at Rachel. "I figured I'd never seen you really perform before so I wanted to see you audition. You were ... " Santana shook her head, seemingly speechless.

Rachel flushed, glanced down, "Thank you," her voice was now softer than before, and she felt those dark eyes boring into her intensely.

"I'm lucky to know you," Santana's voice was quiet, and it caused Rachel's blush to grow into a deeper red. The slight seductive tone made her heart throb a bit, and the diva could not help but look up at the eyes that were searching her.

Sipping at her wine, she turned her gaze to the table to ease the pure emotion surging through her chest, and the perplexed feeling that followed every time Santana focused on her. This friend had become the one person Rachel depended on for everything - human contact, comfort, assurance, support. She had become, effectively, the closest person to Rachel.

Dinner finished out in relative silence, and they left arm in arm, both full of to many words to speak.

###

When they arrived, there was a feeling that neither wanted to part company. So Rachel ended up in Santana's apartment, swaddled in mounds of blankets alongside the Latina, watching movies. The shoulder pressed against her own was warm, and she couldn't help but rest her head in the curve of Santana's neck and shoulder. Naturally as it could, Rachel's arm slipped around Santana's stomach and she breathed. It always seemed that she was able to breathe easier when she was with this woman. This person who had become more important than she could word in such a short amount of time.

"I'm lucky to know you, too." Rachel whispered as Santana disentangled herself just long enough to turn the lamp off and return to Rachel's side, pulling Rachel back into her arms and pressing her forehead to the top of Rachel's head. Her breath caught as she felt the brush of lips against her temple, Santana breathing warmly against her skin. Eyes fluttering shut, Rachel wrapped her arms around Santana's neck and pulled her body so it was flush against Santana's. Friends. Or more. She didn't really care what the implications were to their intimate exchanges, spending more time embracing than most average friends. She could feel Santana's touch at her waist, her fingers slipping up Rachel's back and pulling her in tight.

Heart swelling, Rachel knew if she opened her mouth all the wrong words would fall out. So instead she buried her head against Santana's neck. They operated above rules, above norms. They only answered to gravity, a force that was far more intense the closer they found themselves to one another. Santana took one arm far enough away to wrap them both in the blankets once more though they had enough warmth to keep them comfortable between them.

Too many urges pulled at Rachel's attention, so she settled for brushing her fingers over the back of Santana's neck and feeling the Latina's breath hitch against her chest.