Hi friends! Back with the last chapter here. (Or who knows. Maybe I'll update again if you give me suggestions of little snippets I could add in..) But yes, for right now, this is the end of this story. Disclaimer: I don't own glee, the characters, yadda yadda..

The Hudson home was a modest split level on the outskirts of Toledo in a small town called Lima. Rachel, of course, had quite a bit of trouble pronouncing the names of her new home. However, that was the least of her problems.

The blue exterior greeted her warmly as she walked up the path that first day. Mrs. Hudson was an avid gardener and had planted several different types of flowers and flowering shrubs in the yard, which made it look like a house that Rachel had always envisioned as picturesque 'America'. A mailbox near the street read 'Hudson' and the front door had a brass knocker with an engraved 'H' in the middle. She had to smile a little at the unique touches that were so different than her German-Jewish customs.

Inside the home was even more quaint than the outside. Sure, it lacked the historical charm and mahogany woodwork that her own childhood home in Berlin had, but it was a home with carpets and running water and even a television, so she would be grateful.

The radio in the family room was large and made of rich cherry wood and sat neatly next to the window and a few armchairs upholstered in a traditional, striped fabric. The couch was warm and inviting and there was even a lit fire in the hearth. Pictures of Finn as a child and young man dotted the walls, as well as family photos and Finn's military photograph framed neatly on the mantle. She had not realized that all of her own family photos were long gone. It was only in her memory.

From the living room, she walked into the dining room and on through to the kitchen. It was much different than her own, because of the running water and many electrical appliances. She was more used to a rustic way of life, such as baking breads in an oven heated by fire and not electricity. This was an entirely different world that she had to get used to all over again. Lucky for Hanna, she was very young and could not truly understand these differences.

As for Hanna, she was welcomed with open arms. The second Carol Hudson saw little Hanna standing solemnly on the porch in her powder blue coat, she wrapped her arms around her and took her straight inside for a glass of warm milk. They were given a guest room fitted with two twin beds with soft, white sheets and a thick comforter. The pillows were softer than clouds, she thought.

Still, Hanna always found her way into Rachel's bed at night. The two of them could not be separated for anything. They woke up at night sometimes, hearing the heavy breathing of the camp in unison and still they woke earlier than the sun, in the habit of preparing for roll call. Rachel stayed awake at night sometimes, listening for the sounds so familiar to her, only to hear Hanna's short, wheezing breath in the night.

But no, they did not have to get up before the birds or sun and stand in the snow. They did not have to eat potato soup or crusty bread anymore. Their coffee was strong and they had bowls of milk and treats like cookies and they learned well how to make things like casseroles and jello molds with fruit hidden cleverly inside. Hanna loved such things because of the coloring. Bright, happy, and warm.

Carol and Christopher treated them all very well and Hanna and Rachel grew to love them. However, Rachel still felt the hole in her heart ache each time she thought of home and she wondered if she would ever return. Her parents did not have graves. They would never receive a funeral. Her parents hadn't deserved that, and at night, in the quiet and dark, she would sob to herself and wait to fall asleep with tear stained cheeks.

But she would wake in the morning to the smell of coffee and bacon and eat homemade biscuits next to the love of her life and remember that this is what it is now. This was her life now, and she would be happy with the blessings she had received.

For months, she had tried to come to terms with the fact that her race had been nearly annihilated. She would never come to terms with that. Six million of her people. Hundreds of thousands from her own city. Gone in less than a decade. Wiped out. Boom.

Her little neighbor Niklas from down the street, she would learn later, died only two days before liberation. Her next door neighbor, old Mrs. Minkoff, was gone and so were her cats. She would later find out that the entire street that her family had once lived on was gone. No trace. Her own home had been inhabited by an SS Officer and his family shortly after they were taken. Her things tossed out, like rubbish on the curb. Her family portraits, her dresses and shoes. Her mother's jewels taken and her father's gun sold. Someone else was running their hand along the mahogany bannister and stepping on the last, creaky stair before reaching the top. Someone else gazed out of her bedroom window at the lonely street below and at the skyline of beautiful Berlin.

But months passed and then it was 1947 and she had been out two years. Finn bent down on one knee and held out an elegant ring, asking "Will you marry me?"

So she said "yes, of course", and with happy tears in her eyes, she put the ring on her finger and married that man. That man who had saved her life and the life of Hanna. Hanna, who really was the only person she could understand anymore.

Hanna, who still slept with that raggedy old teddy. Hanna, who was now twelve and still learning to read and speak English. Hanna, who preferred spending time at home and who got scared so easily. Hanna who was strong.

Hanna always thought it was funny to get new shoes. You see, she had never been gifted with such finery in her life. Not much was known about her before the camps, because she herself did not remember much. But getting new shoes, Carol Hudson soon learned, was not in her list of memorable moments. She cried when they bought her a pair of penny loafers from the department store and cried again when they purchased her a new winter coat when the powder blue one grew too small. Rachel, of course, understood the necessity of the situation, but Hanna's assumption was that you wore something until it literally fell apart. She greatly appreciated the generosity of the Hudson family, especially when Finn announced that in their new home, she would get her very own room.

Hanna remembered having siblings a very long time ago. A younger brother, Chaim, 2, an older brother, Saul, 10, and an older sister, Freida, 14. She would not find out until much later in life that Chaim and Freida had died in the camps, but Saul had been able to escape to Israel during the war. Her mother, Esther, was killed in 1941 off a train track just before she and Rachel met and she never knew what happened to her father, Abraham.

Their wedding was simple and elegant, with only a few close friends of the Hudsons. Her dress was white and tea length with sleeves to cover her arm. Her family and friends knew about her past, but the tattoo was only a painful reminder of what she was once. She had a name, and she was not a number any longer.

They lived happily after the wedding, and moved into a small house down the street from Finn's parents, and for her honeymoon, Finn took her to New York City. She sang for him then, for the first time in years. Something in her told her to sing to him, because maybe he might understand a little bit more about her. When she returned home, she sang the lullaby, Durme Durme, that she had often sung to Hanna in the camps, for the whole family. Hanna slept by her side that night and asked her to sing it again and again, because something in her heart was still hurting and she needed it to stop.

Rachel later announced that she was pregnant. Her son, Chaim Christopher Hudson, was born in 1949, four years after their liberation. He was named for Hanna's brother, lost among thousands of innocents. Chaim was her light, he was her life. Her little miracle and her reminder of her triumphs. Though, Chaim did not understand growing up why Rachel was sometimes inconsolable and sad. Why she did not get out of bed, or why she did not speak for days. Only Hanna understood and only Hanna could relate.

Hanna would return home from school and lie in her mother's bed, staring at the ceiling for hours. She was sixteen, and instead of going out with her friends or dating boys, she was lying in bed and remembering the days when she would get candies from the camp doctors or hold tightly to her mink teddy and sob. Her friends at school accepted her, but many others did not. Her eye with its discoloration warded off any new people, and any explanation she had would not make sense. She couldn't tell about it, not yet. How could she say what happened? No one had the same experiences as her. No one could feel the pain she felt when she had returned to the barracks that day with a large blue splotch blossoming over the brown of her eye. Rachel always tried to tell her that she was more beautiful because of that. She was stronger because of that.

When normal shoes wear out, people donate them or get rid of them. Hanna and Rachel kept them hidden in the basement of the house, along with the only artifacts and mementos of their lives before. Their uniforms, the gray and blue stripes with their prison numbers sewn haphazardly into them, were stored in cardboard boxes. Rachel's yellow star from her clothes before. Her shoes from the camp. Her unsent letters to Finn. Little pieces of candy from the camp's doctor for Hanna. A cloth used to clean the silver and crystal goblets, and a small child's shirt stained red with wine from a Christmas party. Their shoes were all there, lined up neatly on the floor, as if they were waiting for someone to come and get them.

Shoes weren't the only things they kept. Food was another issue entirely. The two women were always hungry. Their plates were cleaned after each meal, and Finn did not understand. Carol and Christopher frequently told them that there was always plenty of food, but still, the women couldn't leave it on their plates. In the earliest days, Hanna kept slices of bread in between her pillow and the bed, or brought in fruits to eat in the middle of the night. For a long while, she would only eat with Rachel or alone, never in front of others.

But their lives moved on, and when Hanna graduated from college in 1957, Finn and Rachel could not be happier. She had earned her degree in teaching and moved to Philadelphia to begin teaching at a Jewish primary school. Hanna was happier now in her life than she had ever been, and it seemed like things would work out perfectly, especially when she met David. David was kind and gentle and understood why Hanna was so quiet. He was from Albany, New York and a year after meeting, the two married in 1960. One year later, their twins, Esther and Freida, were born. Two years after that, they and a son and named him Finn after her father.

Many years later, when Chaim was grown and Rachel was old, Finn looked at her with sad eyes. "You need to go back, don't you?"

Rachel shrugged a bit and wiped her damp eyes. "I must pay my respects."

So in 1989, when Rachel and Finn were both 66 years old and little Hanna was not so little, the three of them set off for Germany and Poland.

She remembered where her street was, and it looked so different. Much different from the street she grew up on. There was graffiti on the walls, but the European Hornbeam trees still stood tall and her house hadn't changed much in the decades she'd been gone.

One knock at the door and an old woman answered. "Yes?"

Rachel explained her situation. The old woman gave her a perplexed look and nodded a bit. "Please, come in." She said quietly, leading the three to her living room. Rachel smiled, gazing at the walls and floors and everything felt so familiar.

"You're Rachel. And this is Hanna, right?"

"How do you know my name?" Hanna asked, setting the teacup down gently.

"Why, don't you remember me?" The old woman asked, grinning. "It's Annegret. Anne. From the house where you cleaned."

"Anne." Rachel sighed. "That can't be possible."

"Oh, but it is. You see, my family moved here after the war. Well, just my mother and my siblings and I. My father.. He committed suicide shortly after The Führer did." She said quietly, rummaging through a drawer in the cupboard. "I knew immediately whose house I was in. I was fourteen and my mother was throwing out things that she didn't want. I saw a photograph.. It was of you, Rachel." She said, holding it up. There she was, in all of her sepia splendor. The date was 1936 and she stood solemnly with her parents. The last family photograph. "I just had to save it. I saved others as well. Some letters.. Some books of yours. I had to. In the hopes that someday, you would return. And you did."

Rachel couldn't hold it any longer. She began sobbing, staring at the photographs of her mother and father in her hands. And then, a little photograph of Finn fell from the stack and she recognized it as the one she had left behind when she was taken. It had a little note written on the back in Finn's writing. He smiled, holding it up.

"And Hanna.. I have something for you." She said, leaving the room for a little while and returning with something behind her back. She held it out to Hanna and smiled. It was a matching mink teddy bear with a pink satin bow around its neck. Hanna held it and her eyes widened. Her own raggedy teddy was stored safely in a glass case on her mantle in her home. His own green satin ribbon was sagging and tearing from the years of wear. He now had his matching sister with him.

Then, she handed over photographs of Hanna's family. Her brothers, Chaim and Saul, and her beautiful sister, Freida, smiled up at her from the pages. Saul, she learned, had been living in Israel until his death six years ago. Her mother and father smiled up happily at her and she stood up to hug Anne tightly. This woman, who had been wrapped up in a world of hatred, had been so kind to them.

The three of them left later that evening after Rachel had toured her house again, running her hands along the quilts her mother had made and the books her father had read. They boarded a train that would take them to Poland, to Ośweiçim, where they would come to terms with the horrors they'd endured in a public ceremony.

They bared their arms for photographs and toured the camp once again, all the while reliving the painful memories and horrible reminders. Their bunk was still there, untouched and as if they would be coming back for it soon. Hanna ran her fingers along the carved pictures she had made in the wood next to where she slept, smiling a little. Rachel, though, found the stash of hidden paper and letters she had stored in the hopes of coming back for them. She left them there, though, as a reminder.

She stepped through the iron gate into the house they had cleaned so many times, looking around with wonder. It was overgrown and decaying, but still held the same splendor and scariness that it had so long ago. The tire swing still hung out front, and though the silver was mostly gone from looters, there still remained a few tiny goblets that only small hands could clean.

And when they were done, the two women stood in front of the gates of hell and made their peace, praying silently for the families and people who had entered and not left. She said the Kaddish several times and lit candles for their families who could not be there today.

Rachel held Hanna's hand and looked at her. "Even in the worst of circumstances, I am glad I met you, my little daughter, Hannelore."

Okay. I hope you all have enjoyed this story. It was enjoyable to write. As I said, if you want, give me some suggestions on what I should do next or if you'd like a bit more in this story. Also, I'd like to say that really it's not my best work but I am happy with this. It's a story close to my own heart and I think it really needed to be shared. I wrote this mainly in remembrance of the victims of the atrocities committed by the Third Reich and the Nazis. I wrote this in remembrance of those who did not come home, but also of those who lived their lives after these events. Remember that names and events are sometimes fictional in this, and all of what happened here was from my own research and imagination. However, that is not to say that certain things in here didn't take place. There was medical testing like Hanna's and women were raped, but assuredly, this story is fiction.

Thank you for reading, even after a two year hiatus. I owe you guys! Let me know some new story suggestions and I'll get to work hopefully!