5x03 reaction fic. Kurcheltana - NYC. (mentions of Finchel. small mentions of Klaine/Dantana) TW: death, grief. 3000~ words.

It's almost funny how a few certain life experiences can fundamentally change a person's very core and their view on the world. Births, marriages, jobs, friendships, relationships, deaths. The good ones and the bad ones. The long term and the short lived ones. The greatest days of our lives and the saddest. The little decisions made on the off chance that turn out to be life changing, and the big decisions that don't always work out as planned, for better or worse.

The trio had all been through a lot to get where they were now.

Kurt; whose bullying resulting in a transfer to a school his parents could hardly afford at the time. Whose step-brother struggled a lot to overcome a lot of adversities to become a rock and true guardian to his little yet older brother so that he could feel safe and loved in his rightful place, no matter what it cost him. Even if it meant getting a slushie in the face every now and then. 'We're brothers from another mother.'

Santana; who constantly struggled with her very being for years, deflecting that anger and confusion onto others through her vicious, vicious words until one particular friend broke down her barriers and helped her accept and embrace who she was because he was terrified that one day it wouldn't be enough and she'd turn that anger on herself. 'Finn really cared about you.'

And Rachel; the shining star of McKinley High, Lima, OH. The girl who gave her heart to her person, truly and without doubt to the man who believed in her from the very start, who liked her for everything she is, including the things even she didn't like. Those were the things he liked the most. When she choked on the moment it mattered most, he was there to hold her and dry her tears. He still believed in her. 'You're my hero, you know that, right?' 'You're mine.'

All three were immeasurably strong for their age, with a maturity that's hard to find and important to treasure when you do.

Life in the loft had been strained and heavy-hearted in the months that followed. Even though he never lived there, the absence of his presence was felt almost tangibly throughout the space. After their trip to McKinley for the memorial they'd leaned on each other even harder. It felt more real than the funeral had.

But it had been closure, in a way and they were all grateful to Mr Schue for it.

Now they had to go on in the city that never sleeps and stops for no one. They were just three stars among plenty of other stars whose lights had been dimmed by the loss of their Quarterback.

Sometimes, they would go an entire day without speaking to each other, because they didn't know what to say.

Sometimes, Rachel would stay in her room all day, and if you listened closely, you could hear her crying softly, clutching her necklace tightly to her chest, as if it made her closer to him. Perhaps it did. She didn't sing ridiculously early in the mornings or in the shower or whilst cooking anymore like she used to. Kurt missed that.

Sometimes, Kurt and Santana would sit in front of the TV watching re-runs of The Facts of Life, like they used to. But it wasn't the same, it was hard to laugh.

They carried on working at the diner paying their way. Kurt and Rachel carried on going to school. Rachel carried on attending her Funny Girl rehearsals.

They carried on. They were strong.

Santana kept her promise of not returning to Ohio. At least not for a long while.

She concentrated not on everything she had lost - Brittany, the love of her grandmother, Finn – but instead focused on everything she had to gain - finding her dream in the Big Apple, spending the "best years of her life" with her two favourite people, her budding relationship with that extremely pretty girl from the diner, Dani and of course her lifetime supply of yeast-i-stat.

Kurt continued to celebrate the way his brother lived, replaying his most treasured memories of them before he went to sleep. He tried not to dwell on the why was this happening. He spent longer hours at to channel his creative talents. Even though they didn't pay him, the atmosphere was incredibly relaxing and Isabelle was the true definition of a fairy godmother.

But it was hard. Sometimes he felt so sad and so empty he couldn't even cry. It was a sadness that transcended even tears. During these times he would sit on the edge of his bed, staring ahead, unfocused. Then the bright red tones of the photographs framed by his bedside would catch his eye and he would remember how blessed he felt to have known Finn the way he did in the time they shared together.

He would pick up the frame, lightly touching the tassels that rested in-between their pictures, before squeezing his eyes shut and letting the silent tears fall a little. Then he would call Blaine and he would know everything would be okay eventually.

Rachel was perhaps the strongest of them all. Each morning she would wake up and for a second she'd feel light and content before the crushing weight of her grief returned with the harsh reality that this was still very real. Just as her ambition and motivation did push ups whilst she slept, so did her will to carry on living.

So she fought back. Make today amazing she would tell herself. She would shower and get dressed, (making sure her necklace was still firmly clasped around her neck) and accept whatever breakfast Kurt had made for her (he knew she would skip the meal otherwise). She would leave for her classes then, using her acting classes as an escape to another story, another world. One less personal and much less painful where she could stop being herself for just a few moments. After that, she'd head straight to the theatre for an evening rehearsal for Funny Girl, welcoming the familiar songs as she and Fanny Brice became one before returning home and offering a wave and a half smile to Kurt and Santana if they'd got home before her.

When she wasn't at the theatre, she could be found at the Spotlight diner, graciously drifting between the tables of the regulars and the tourists with the pinnacle standard of customer service.

Sometimes it worried Kurt and Santana how strong she seemed. They knew she had to break at some point, if she hadn't already. Their roommate was renowned for being the drama queen; she spent three weeks after choking on her NYADA audition singing sad songs and bursting into tears every time someone said the words "future" or "dreams", after all. But this was different, so so different.

No one expected this, so how could they have predicted how they were going to react?

They all remembered the day where she finally broke.

It was a year to the day when Finn had 'set her free' at the train station in Lima. On certain days that were particularly prominent in their long and complex history Rachel would often sneak into Kurt's room in the middle of the night, and climb into bed with him.

The first few times it happened Kurt woke with a fright, but he welcomed it now. Anything to be closer to his friend, anything to help her.

This time before she crawled under the covers, she paused. Her eyes caught on the reflection from a photo frame. A photo frame she hadn't seen before placed on Kurt's bedside. The photo frame held two pictures from graduation, one of Kurt, one of Finn, separated by the tassels from the caps they'd worn. 2012.

Her hands glazed over the frame before she brought it towards her to get a better look in the shallow moonlight offered from Kurt's window. She didn't hear the choked sob that escaped her throat until Kurt began to stir behind her.

"Rachel?" He asked, his voice low and full of sleep. "What are you doing?-" He asked, reaching for her arm. He paused when he realised she was holding the frame. "I- I'm sorry. I only keep it out when you're- when you're not around." He said.

"Don't be sorry. You both look so handsome. It was a brilliant day." She replied, her voice more emotional than she planned as she tried to regulate her breathing.

She tried to limit the amount of time she spent listening to recordings of his voice, holding the sweater he left from his last visit to New York, inhaling the faint scent that still lingered, or looking at pictures of him, or them, or the whole New Directions family.

But she couldn't stop staring at the goofy smile on his face.

She couldn't stop.

Kurt was reaching for her arm again now, pulling her tight towards him. She could hear broken cries, desperate and uncontrollable. She didn't know where they were coming from, she couldn't think, she couldn't breathe. As she clutched tighter at the fabric of his shirt she realised the sounds were coming from her.

And then she started crying harder. She could feel the desperate emptiness she'd fought against for so long overwhelming her. She couldn't shut it out this time. She felt nauseous, she began rocking forward, leaning harder into Kurt's embrace.

He responded by tightening his grip on her so hard his shoulders were starting to ache. Rachel's cries were bordering on screams as she swayed blindly looking for a bottom to this endless pit of heartache that was taking over her.

"I miss him. I miss him. I miss him." She chanted, over and over.

"I know, sweetie, I know. I miss him too." Kurt replied, pulling back to kiss her head as hot tears spilled down his cheeks too.

"He was my person." She said then, in a voice so broken that it made Kurt feel as lost and hopeless as he knew she did. "He was my home. We were meant to be together. Happily ever after."

"Oh, Rachel." Was all he could manage, his own voice breaking.

They rocked harder, Rachel's grip on Kurt now so tight he thought she might break some bones.

"Why? Why is this happening? I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't-" She bawled. "No, no. No, I won't do it. I can't." She rambled; Kurt didn't know how to make her stop.

Santana appeared at the doorway then, woken by her cries. She locked eyes with Kurt, his eyes red rimmed and puffy, and she knew this was the night. She wordlessly ran over to them, shifting Rachel more towards the centre of the bed, and wrapped her arms around them both.

Rachel leaned into the touch, crying harder but more silently. They stayed like that for what felt like hours, days almost, until Rachel seemed to have exhausted herself and her cries subsided.

She collapsed sluggishly into Kurt's side, sniffling a little. Kurt breathed a sigh of relief as Santana got up to get a glass of water for her and a box of tissues for them all.

Upon her return, Rachel accepted the water with a weary smile and wiped under her eyes delicately before reaching out to pull Santana onto the bed again.

"I love you guys, you know that, right? More than anything. You are my family. I-" Kurt kissed her head again, as they all wrapped up underneath the warmth of the blanket.

They fell asleep, hands tangled, pretty soon after that.

The atmosphere was drained in the following days. That extent of pain after staying so strong for so long can really exhaust a person. They all hoped it could only get better from here.

They could pinpoint the moment when things started to look up again.

It was a Friday evening; three weeks after the night of Rachel's breakdown. Santana had managed to finish a couple of hours early from the diner so she could take Dani out to a quaint little coffee shop a few blocks away. After getting their coffees to go, they walked through Central Park to watch the sunset, and it was almost a little too cliché for Santana Lopez aka Snix aka straight up bitch – but Dani made her heart warm at the thought of romantic walks in the park, breathing in the slightly less polluted New York air in that section of peace amongst the chaos. And watching the daylight come and go was kind of their thing.

Rachel and Kurt had both got home early, their bosses letting them go because "hey it's Friday we could all do with some down time". They had heard that a lot in the past few months. "Don't work so hard." "It's okay to give yourself a break and focus on you."

They were not about to refuse though, so they stayed in and decided against ordering take-out for the fourth time this week. Instead, Kurt decided to use the last of the eggs and flour he had to make his go-to pick-me-up food; pancakes.

"Hey, this kind of looks like a little kitten." Rachel said, a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth, pointing to a small burn mark that indeed did look like a tiny kitten on her pancake.

Kurt walked leaned over to look as she lifted her plate to show him. "So it does." He replied, smiling in response.

"Do you remember that week where Finn prayed to that grilled cheese sandwich and then sang an REM song about it?" Rachel asked, laughing a little.

"Grilled Cheesus." Kurt replied, a smile tugging at his own lips, lost in the memory too.

"He was convinced for months that that sandwich was the sole thing that got him to second base with me." She laughed, raising her glass to her mouth.

"Are you kidding?" He looked over to her as she began to laugh a little more.

"No, he tried to remake the 'face of the lord' on that sandwich countless times until he realised if he asked me and not some 'Cheesy Lord', that I'd give him anything." Her smile faltered towards the end of the sentence. Nothing that I wouldn't do.

"Sweet, misguided brother."

"He was smart, just in a very non-traditional way." She repeated the words she'd told Mr Schue just over a month ago, laughed a little through the tears that were threatening to spill in her eyes.

"I agree with you there. One time he ended a phone call with me because he was afraid Quinn and her family would think he was pooping in their house."

Rachel cackled a little at that. "It was thanks to your 'makeover' that I dressed up in a cat suit to impress him and he called me a sad clown hooker." She wiggled her finger at him whilst biting her lip before hiding her face in her hands and shaking her head in embarrassment.

"He was my knight in shining armour!" Kurt defended; he was long over the embarrassment of his short lived crush his step-brother. "He always was."

"Even that time he practically made you slushie yourself in the face so he didn't have to?" She asked.

Kurt laughed. "Yeah. Yeah even then. Do you know how long it took me to get those ice crystals out of my hair?"

Rachel snorted before schooling her features. They shared a look and then both burst out laughing. She ruffled his hair before he slapped her hand away.

"It feels like year's ago."

"It was years ago." He replied.

"Remember our first yearbook photo? That was hell. Finn told me he couldn't rock either the Hitler moustache or the buck teeth. It was a disaster." She said, impersonating his voice a little.

"Oh god. Yeah. I remember. You know I went out of my way that week to find the most hideous clothes I could just so Mr Schue wouldn't put me in that picture." Kurt stated, with mock seriousness.

"Kurt." She paused, deadpanning. "Everything you wore that year was hideous."

"It was not!" He exclaimed, though he admittedly silently that she was right, a little bit. "Nothing was as hideously disturbing as that time Finn showed up to school in a shower curtain, Rachel. A shower curtain!"

This time the laughter wouldn't stop. It was that kind of laughter that comes from the pit of your stomach and makes your cheeks hurts and your eyes well up.

It was a slightly chilly evening when Santana and Dani both arrived at the loft a couple of moments later. The cold had paled their faces and the wind had left a high blush on their cheeks.

And that's how they found Kurt and Rachel, hands clasped tightly together on the table, leaning into each other with their eyes crinkled from laughter.

It was musical, it was genuine and slightly crazy with its volume was growing by the second.

Kurt noticed Santana standing in the doorway and immediately ran over, giving her an earnest and dimpled smile, pulling Santana immediately into his arms – an unusual gesture but one that was more frequent these days, he kissed her cheek before letting her go and moving to embrace Dani too.

Santana looked past Kurt to see Rachel sat at the table, her head in her hands and wiping a tear from her cheek. Rachel looked towards the door and Santana processed that she really was crying because of laughter. She offered Santana a toothy smile and extended her hand in invitation for a hug too.

Still somewhat confused, she walked forward and linked her fingers with Rachel's, who then wrapped both her arms around Santana's waist tightly, her giggles shaking her a little.

They joined the two at the table, making it just in time for dessert. Kurt and Rachel shared a look of concealed smiles before she grabbed his hand and started laughing again.

Rachel had always had a contagious laugh, especially when she really laughed. It had bothered Santana a great deal during their time at McKinley, she found it pitchy and grating and overall annoying – but right now she wanted to record this moment and replay it forever.

It had been ten minutes and she was still no clearer on what had happened to induce this reaction than when she walked in. When they eventually calmed a little, they recounted the story, retelling the memories they'd shared with each other, with Santana offering new ones for them to laugh about.

That night, when they crawled into bed after hours of reminiscing all the hilarious and heroic moments of Finn Hudson; Quarterback, brother, friend, lover, they all felt a lot lighter from everything they'd shared.

Because they knew it was finally okay to laugh again. It was okay to open up their hearts to love and happiness and joy again. It was okay to live again.

Because whilst Rachel was forced to be a star without him, she would never, ever forgot him.

Because that's how much she loved him.

That's how much they all loved him.