Rachel Berry had never run away from anything in her life. She had been the only child to stand still when someone used the "I'm coming to get you" line in tag, simply retorting that there was no point running from the inevitable, none of her "friends" had known what inevitable meant, they just shrugged their shoulders and explained the rules again until eventually they stopped asking her to play altogether.

When Noah Puckerman began the High School tradition of slushy facials she had been on the top of his list of gleeks, followed closely by Kurt and Artie, both who received their own special form of bullying in the form of dumpsters and porta potties. Instead of avoiding him in school as the two boys had taken to doing, she began to carry a change of clothes and a towel, shutting her eyes beforehand and then efficiently cleaning herself off in the nearest school bathroom. In the week they had been dating, Noah had questioned why she never hid from the football team, who'd jumped on the bandwagon long after he'd come to his senses, and for the second time she simply answered "There's no point running from the inevitable" which was met with a pitiful glance and an apologetic pat on the back instead of the curious eyes of kindergarten kids who were hasty to being their game.

The first time Finn's caught cheating was during senior year with a blonde cheerio who they all agreed, and had no qualms telling her, looked freakishly like Quinn, the only difference being the crooked nose which had clearly been broken during her childhood. Mr Schue had told her that he would understand if she wanted to take some time away from Glee but she had walked proudly back into the choir room, her head held high, after the loud and truthfully, scary, argument that she'd been having with Finn in the corridor after Jacob Ben-Israel had caught his frisky make out session with the junior on tape and had plastered it all over his blog for the entire school to see. She'd sat in her usual chair in the front of the room, ignoring the horrified stares of her fellow Gleeks as Finn had followed her, a red handprint splayed across one cheek, landing heavily in the chair next to her, a sheepish grin etched onto his face as he slung his arm around the back of her chair. Mercedes had jumped to her feet with a cry of her trademark "Aww hell to the no" whilst Santana piped up with a "Your just going to let cream puffs get away with it that easily?" before muttering something unintelligible in Spanish. She'd only whispered "There's no point in running from the inevitable" before turning her pleading eyes to Mr Schue, begging him to force the attention back to him and their impending loss at Nationals if they couldn't even decide on a set list for Regionals.

In her last year of college at NYU she lands an audition for a role in an off-Broadway production and she's ecstatic. She calls her dad's to share the news and together they tell her how proud they are of her before letting her go so that she can let everyone else know too. She rings Kurt who insists on dressing her for the audition through the high pitched squeals whilst Blaine tells her how much she's going to rock. Pucks there too, he's been hanging around with Blaine a lot since his transfer from OSU to NYU this year and for some strange reason they've become as close as her and Kurt have. He tells her that she'll blow them away with her awesome voice and the tiny skirts she still wears on the odd occasion. It doesn't cross her mind that she hasn't rang Finn, he smelt of cheap perfume when he finally showed up for their date last night. The week flies by and suddenly she's in the waiting room listening to some bitch tell her that she's too small to have a voice big enough for this role and instead of punching her like Puck taught her to do to any "whore" who told her she was anything but awesome, she waited her turn and belted out her favourite Barbra song. She didn't get the role but it was satisfying enough to watch the painted red lips fall open in amazement. When Blaine asks her how she's feeling after her first bitter taste of rejection she simply states "I'll get another audition. There's no point running from the inevitable"

Rachel Berry was no quitter.

So when Kurt wakes up to the empty apartment he and Rachel share only to find a note taped to his favourite jar of coffee saying

There's no point running from the inevitable

I'm sorry, Rach.

he prays to the God he so adamantly believes is make believe that this is some kind of joke and that she's just overslept and when he wakes her up she'll start one of her marathon rants about how mad her directors going to be, this is her first role on Broadway and its Maria just like she'd predicted it'd be all those years ago. Only when he storms into her room fully intent on waging a war with Blaine and Puck, the reason behind this stupid prank, it's empty and deep down he knew it would be…there was no star when she signed her name. Her bed is made, the duvet is folded back neatly and her pillows are placed symmetrically on either side of the double bed. Strangely enough though there aren't any sheets, her usual purple ones aren't strewn across the floor where they're usually found on the days they've designated as washing days. There are no clothes or shoes thrown haphazardly around the floor and the glass of water that he knows she took to bed last night isn't on the nightstand, neither is the script that she keeps there for nights she can't sleep, he later finds out that she gave her script back to the director and told him she was resigning due to personal issues and that the role of Maria now belonged to the obnoxious and arrogant understudy.

He almost pulls the doors off of her wardrobe as he yanks them open and finds for the first time he misses the sight of her clothes, granted her fashion sense has improved since he knee socks and animal sweaters. The hangers are bare though, later he'll find half of her clothes folded neatly in a bag labelled charity, including her remaining animal sweaters and a large red jersey with the number 20 emblazed on it which goes missing a few days later, she'd left it next to the bin in which the photos that had adorned her walls are ripped into pieces and he'll wonder how he missed the fact that she was falling apart but for now he's still slumped in front of her wardrobe as his shoulders begin to shake and he tries to key in the number of someone who'll know what to do because Rachel Berry's no quitter and he can't help but question what made her abandon the life she'd worked so hard for.

"P…Puck, she's gone…He finally convinced her… she's gone"

And that's when sobs overcome him and he finally accepts that his best friend has left him. He can hear Puck shouting questions he can't answer at him down the phone that he's let fall to the floor but he can't find the strength to answer him and instead he just cries and thinks about the stacks of herbal tea in the kitchen and the hot little black dress he's designed for her first official cast party, the one she'd gushed about followed by an hour of her telling him how proud she was of his creations and how far he'd come and how she had the perfect shoes to go with his greatest design to date. She'd promised that this Friday they'd order in Chinese and watch musicals until the early hours of the morning, just the two of them, between their respective jobs and Finn and Blaine and Puck it had been a while since they'd had any time just hanging out together like old times, before things got difficult and now she was gone and he was pretty sure it had something to do with the woman who'd showed up on their doorstep in a fit of rage because apparently Finn was not an "exclusive" kind of guy. Kurt had rolled his eyes in disgust at the barely there clothes and the cheap hair dye that hadn't covered the dark roots that were growing at the crown of her head.

Why did they always have to be blonde?

He could remember all too clearly having to talk Rachel out of dying her lovely chestnut locks blonde, after coming home to find her sitting on the bathroom floor in tears with a home dye kit spread out in front of her and the shower running. The hair dye was still in the bathroom cupboard, safely tucked away behind the millions of hair products that he owned, that's unless she'd taken that with her. It hits him again that she's gone, they haven't spent 2 days apart since Nationals in New York that first year and he wants to kill Finn for suggesting that they move back to Lima, for planting the idea that if they were back in Ohio maybe he'd stop cheating on her and if he didn't, oh well, she deserved it anyway, she should be good enough for him.

"Kurt?"

Blaine's voice breaks him out of the memories and the logical part of him thanks Puck for keeping hold of the spare key that Rachel had insisted they have in case of emergencies because he feels too weak to be able to put one foot in front of the other and his vision is still blurred by the tears, he doesn't even have the strength to call out to Blaine who he knows is probably searching the house methodically whilst he can hear Puck cursing quietly as he stomps his way straight to Rachel's room.

"Fuck"

That's the first word that leaves his mouth when he finds Kurt falling apart in her room and it makes him sob even more because if Rachel were here he'd be apologizing and saying sugar instead of shit which is what he's repeatedly muttering under his breath as he rips all of her draws open, searching everywhere like he's suddenly going to find her hiding under the bed and he finds it endearing because suddenly he's not the only one who feels lost without her.

"Surely she hasn't gone back to Lima with him?"

He hears Blaine question before he's enveloped by his boyfriend, he hasn't moved from the floor in front of the wardrobe yet and he doesn't think he can walk around their apartment, his apartment, without missing her.

"I'll rearrange his fucking face if she's in Lima" Puck grumbles as he pulls his phone out, dialling a number he knows by heart. It only rings three times before Kurt hears the faint echo of a "hello" and he's drawn into the one sided conversation, trying to get as many clues as to what the other voice is saying.

"Hey, Mr Berry, It's Noah"

"Has Rach..."

"So you've spoken to her?"

"She's not?"

"Fuck" his fist comes crashing down against the wood of her dressing table which is no longer filled with her make-up and perfumes, causing both he and Blaine to flinch slightly, he'd forgotten how out of control Pucks temper can get.

"What're my chances of a guilt trip and the puppy dog eyes working?"

"Didn't think so"

"Thanks Mr Berry, say Hi to the other Mr B."

"Yeah I will. Bye"

He hangs up, turning away from them as he runs his hands over his shaved head, the Mohawk long gone.

"She's not in Lima" Pucks voice sounds rough, the sentence short and clipped and he still hasn't turned around to face them "She's asked her Dads not to tell anyone where she is. Fuck they didn't even know she was leaving New York until they got a phone call this morning from a fucking airport!"

"So she's definitely not in Lima?" Blaine questions, his eyebrows rising in confusion.

"Apparently not. I'll get my Ma on the case but wherever she is, doesn't sound like she'd coming back." He turns round to face them then, Kurt's still crying although his sobs have changed to a constant stream of silent tears as he grips onto Blaine who's looking just as upset as his boyfriend. Puck looks no better though; Kurt can see the lost look on his face and the fists that are clenched at his sides. "Looks like it's just us three from now on"

That sentence breaks all three hearts.

I know I need to stop writing new stories when I've still got so many unfinished but most of this ones penned out already (: This'll be the last one though, pinky promise. (: