Disclaimer: I don't own Glee or any of its characters, though I do own the amazing Maria Arioso.

A/N: The prequel to Just A Kiss. How Rachel ended up in Lima. I felt like I should give a little bit of a background, so here it is. If you've never read the story, it's on my profile :) If you'd like to follow me on Tumblr, the link is ALSO on my profile page. By the way, reviews make me smile :)

Ordinary Day

TheSilentPen

Today was supposed to be an ordinary day.

Today should've felt like an ordinary day.

Because it'd been five years… so wasn't it… supposed to feel as though it'd never happened?

'But it still feels just as bad,' she buried her face in her hands, 'as it did five years ago.'

Rachel Berry peered up at the clock from between her fingers, watching the second hand chase the day away. Her head throbbed and brown eyes slid shut slowly as the seconds ticked away. In the back of her mind, she could only faintly hear the droning going on at the front of the classroom where her teacher, Señor Cortez, was speaking about the differences between the different dialects of Spanish.

'It's supposed to be a run of the mill day,' Rachel thought to herself, her hands shaking furiously as she struggled to calm herself, lowering her hand and grasping her pencil to try to take notes, 'It's supposed to mean nothing by now.'

She clutched heavily at the utensil in her hand, lowering her gaze to stare at the blank notebook page before her.

'Is it… wrong,' she bit her lip, 'to be so… affected by it still? …Do I need therapy?'

"Rachel."

Brown eyes snapped up. Señor Cortez stood in front of the whiteboard at the head of the room, random scribblings of multiple accents taking up two of the panels. His hand stood poised to write as he looked to his student from behind the rounded rims of his glasses

"Sí, Profe?" She tried to still the shaking in her hand as she gave him a weak smile.

"¿Vas a hablar con la clase," he tapped the empty spot, "sobre la pronunciación de los españoles?"

Rachel fought against the haze that had come to her mind, trying to speak out. She spoke the way the Spanish spoke. She had ever seen Señor Cortez started teaching her three years ago when she first came in as a small, timid freshman.

But her mind, at the time, ran a total blank. Her head pounded with emotion as she stared blankly at the board.

Señor Cortez, at the front of the classroom, seemed a bit alarmed by Rachel's lack of verbosity. Usually, she was bright and cheerful in his class, if only because she knew a number of the people there. But this… He tightened his fingers around the marker's barrel.

This wasn't Rachel. This wasn't his best student.

The rest of the class seemed just as mystified by Rachel's emotionlessness and lack of answer. Nineteen eyes turned to look at the diva, a pair of bright blues looking especially worried, cutting Rachel from her stupor.

"C paired with e or i and z," Rachel motioned, voice soft, "sounds like th in Spain pronunciation."

"Gracías, Rachel," Señor Cortez looked curiously at the young girl. Rachel Berry never answered anything in English, not so long as she had ever been his student. But still, there was nothing that he could do as a teacher. His students' lives were none of his business unless they wished for his help.

Señor Cortez was extremely fond of Rachel Berry. It pained him to see the girl that once seemed so strong, so independent, seem so incredibly broken.

Rachel turned back to her desk, looking down at the verbs scrawled carelessly across the page and closing her eyes slowly.

Beside her, Maria Arioso tapped her pen impatiently, staring between the clock and her best friend, waiting for the damned period to end. She brought a heavily ringed finger to sweep choppy, bright red hair back behind a single pierced ear as she bit at the thin hoop in her lip.

The bell rang, shaking Rachel from her stupor as she went mechanically through the motions of putting her things into her backpack.

The Irish girl slammed her notebook closed, hurried pushing her pencil and notebook in before grabbing her Spanish book. Blue eyes flickered over to Señor Cortez, who nodded quickly at the girl as he placed a gray fedora upon his head before quickly evacuating the room.

Maria slammed her notebook down on Rachel's table, making her friend jump and look up at her with tired brown eyes. It made Maria's blood run cold.

Rachel had never looked so resigned before. Not even when she first came to San Diego as a tiny (although the height aspect hadn't changed much, Maria mused to herself), plaid wearing, timid little twelve year old.

But here she was, eyes so worn and old. Almost as though she'd lived lifetimes before she'd come to rest here in this classroom.

There was no sparkle of mischief, no glimmer of annoyance, or angered hue of red in those brown orbs. An endless oblivion of utter melancholy and weariness, instead, poured forth from them and seeped into every crease of the girl's young face.

"Rach, what the fuck is wrong?" Maria asked, bracing herself on the desk, staring down at her best friend. A tinge of worry colored the edge of her voice.

"I'm fine, Maria," the singer's voice was a mere whisper. She stood, slinging her backpack over her shoulder, reaching for the white binder on the desk in front of her.

The Irish girl slammed her fist down on top of the binder, making Rachel frown. Maria leaned forward, jabbing a finger into Rachel's chest, blue eyes narrowing. "Bullshit, Berry."

"It's not bullshit if it's true, Arioso," Rachel hissed, suddenly hostile. She was annoyed. Annoyed, confused, and all she wanted to do was go home and bury herself in her sheets until the next day came around. Then she wouldn't have to think about this miserable day for another year.

The redhead placed herself between Rachel and the door, arms crossed defiantly. "Berry, you aren't leaving this room till I find out what crawled up your ass and died. So make yourself fucking comfortable."

"My Dad is going to be here soon to get me. I have a dance lesson."

"As much as I love Hiram," Maria's blue orbs flashed, "screw him and the damned dance lesson if I don't find out what's wrong."

Rachel scrutinized her friend, searching for a crack to attack, a weakness to use against her. But the Irish Italian stood firm, stance fixed and chin raised high in confidence. She wouldn't be leaving the room, of that Rachel was certain.

"Please just leave it, Maria," the singer's shoulders slumped and trembled. "I really don't want to talk about it."

"Just tell me, Rachel," Maria grabbed her friend's trembling figure, looking at her concernedly. "You know I care. And it makes me feel like shit when you keep things from me, because we've always been honest with each other."

All Rachel could do was look to her best friend, marvelous brown orbs dulling as the fell toward the floor of the classroom.

"Today is… was supposed to be my Dads' anniversary."

Shock, sad understanding, and dread flooded Maria's veins in a cruel cocktail of emotion.

Of course. The divorce. The taboo subject that had been haunting Rachel's mind since she first arrived in San Diego five years ago.

Maria had seen Rachel suffer. The nightmares she watched Rachel cringing beneath, crying out into the darkness during their sleepovers. The desperate way her best friend clung to her, sobbing like a pathetic child.

In those moments, Rachel, her best friend, her confidant, her first love, disappeared and turned into a unknown, frightened little girl. A little girl who whimpered about crushed glass, bloody floors, agonized screams, and a heartless Father who abandoned his child to tend to his own mental wounds.

Maria hated Leroy Johnson for everything he'd done to Rachel. And to a certain extent, she hated Hiram Berry for allowing Rachel to remain so traumatized.

Couldn't they have sent Rachel to stay with her Grandmother? To stay with someone while they worked out their differences, whatever they were? Couldn't they have thought of their daughter before themselves?

Weren't parents supposed to be selfless?

There existed an unspoken agreement between the two girls to never talk about the divorce. To never talk about Lima, Ohio, and everything that had happened there. And Maria left it at that.

She didn't care to know about the past. All that mattered was that she had Rachel with her now. And if Rachel wanted to forget goddamned Lima and her fucking moronic Father….

Well, Maria wouldn't argue.

This was the first time that Maria heard Rachel discuss it without a nightmare prompting anything.

The redhead took the singer into her arms, holding her close as Rachel shook, she trying to restrain the sobs fighting to burst forth from her lips.

"Rach?" Maria's voice was soft against the brunette's ear.

"Y-yeah?" the girl sniffled, choking off a sob.

"I know you're trying to be all macho and badass," Maria smiled softly. "But it's alright to cry, ya know? It's not like anyone's gonna come in. It's alright to lose it."

Rachel nodded slowly, shoulders heaving a little more violently. Maria felt the torso of her electric blue tank top soak through slowly as her friend cried silently into the soft, textured material. Petite hands came up to grasp at the shirt as Maria rubbed a ringed hand across a tense back.

Several minutes later, the two girls sat across from each other, Rachel dabbling at her sore eyes while Maria's lips took on a sympathetic curve.

"It can't go on like this forever, Rachel," the Italian bit at her pierced lip. "It's been destroying you for so long. The nightmares reduce you to nothing, and every time you look at the fucking picture in your room, you look like you're losing your mind."

"There's nothing I can do," Rachel crumpled the Kleenex in her hand. "Because I don't have any idea what to do. The memories… the fragments never seem to go away, no matter how much goddamn therapy Papa crams in or when I put away that picture with Dad in it."

Reddish browns fell resignedly to the ground. "There's no end to it."

The friends sat there for a while, each thinking deeply about the situation. Each wanting to put an end to whatever ghosts of the past that haunted Rachel's mind.

A way to finally let her get on with her life.

And suddenly, an idea flashed through Maria's mind. "That's fucking it."

Earthy orbs looked at the ginger. "What?"

"There's no end," the girl murmured. "Damn I'm brilliant…"

"Maria, any time, please?"

"You don't get it, Rach?" Maria sprung to her feet, beaming. "You can't move on because you haven't resolved anything. In your own heart, there's really no end to your Dads' divorce. In order to start something new, you need to end something else."

"My Dads have been divorced for five years, M," the singer sighed, shaking her head. "There was a definite end to that sort of situation. They ended their relationship and I got taken here."

"But was there really an end for you, Rachel?" Maria questioned, tapping her fingers against the desk she leaned against. "Think about it, do you really know why you are here? What happened between your Dads? After all, I remember when you first came here. You made them seem like the perfecting fucking couple. It didn't seem like you knew why the fuck they ended it… Unless you do know why."

Rachel paused, mouth agape before she promptly shut it. No, she really didn't have a clue why things had ended as they did. She didn't know why her fathers had suddenly fallen out of love.

It just seemed like one day, Rachel got out of bed and her Fathers hated each other. And soon one fight turned into many fights, and her loving Fathers were nothing more than just an illusory mask designed to fulfill her immature wishes of a perfect childhood.

"No," she said softly. "No… I don't know why."

"Then go ask Mr. B," Maria said, clapping her hands together. "He probably has all the answers. You can kill the nightmares on the car ride home."

"He's not going to talk about it," Rachel countered. It was true, because Rachel asked about her Father numerous times, and Hiram always seemed to avoid the subject. If they were driving, he would turn up the volume of the radio or pretend to be focused on the road. At home, he would drown himself in a case study. He would do anything to avoid talking about Leroy Johnson. "He won't even say Dad's name."

"Then I think you know what you're gonna have to do, Rach," Maria said solemnly.

And yes, Rachel did in fact know what she was going to have to do. It was something that she'd tried to do so many times before, yet failed to do.

Call Leroy Johnson and get to the bottom of everything.

She'd googled his name her Sophomore year of High School. There was only one Leroy Johnson (nee Berry) living in the area of Lima Ohio, and so it was easy to find him. He'd come up on her first search, name written in bold blue letters that burned Rachel's irises to look at.

She'd stood there and put her hand on the receiver. Put her hand to dial the number, poised to hit the last digit so she could hear the deep baritone that haunted her mind in agonized screams during those horrid nightmares.

But she never could do it. Something within her broke every time she tried, and so she'd long since given up.

That night, Rachel waited. Waited until Hiram was asleep before flicking her iPhone on and entering the memorized number, hesitating on the call button. She trembled slightly, almost ready to give up once more till Maria's voice sounded strong in her head.

'In order to start something new, you need to end something else.'

And, fuck, this would be the end she so desperately needed. The one she'd yearned for in her heart for so long.

And so she pressed at the button, holding the phone to her ear and listening to the numbers dial, and the constant ringing.

'Hello?'

The deep, low voice of Leroy Johnson made her freeze and tear up. It reminded her of laughter, of musicals, of ice cream, and of moments spent cuddled against a muscled chest, listening to the latest stories.

Rachel took a heavy breath, closing her eyes .

"Dad? …It's your daughter, Rachel…"

"…I was… wondering… if we could talk."

That night, Rachel dreamt of sparkling hazel eyes , streaks of mousey auburn hair, and a timid child's voice ringing soft in her ears.

When she woke up, she sat up in bed and stared up at the ceiling, trying to remember for the life of her why those things seemed so important.

And she couldn't remember, no matter how much she thought of them, why they were.

A/N: It'd be wonderful if you'd leave some thoughts. I'd like to hear them *Smile*