In Cold Blood Lovers

Chapter 1: Grief

It's been 12 days.

12 days since Hiram and LeRoy Berry were shot. 12 days since Rachel Berry had slept. And 12 days since the death of LeRoy was written off as a spontaneous hate crime.

Rachel laid in her childhood bedroom staring off into the distance. She cried the first days, in fact she didn't stop. But as she grew on she had no more tears to cry. Just a numb, emptiness inside. What was the point in crying anymore? Her dad, the one who taught her to dance, who had given her her love for music, had held her while she cried over a breakup, was gone. For good.

They still haven't caught the guys, ya know? Rachel begged them to keep looking, but the police shrugged it off and told her there wasn't much they could do. Now because of those shitbags Hiram was in a coma with severe injuries, and may never even walk again. Meanwhile Leroy didn't make it. He died in the hospital mid-surgery. Rachel hadn't even made it to Lima by that point.

Rachel sat up wiping the strands of hair away from her eyes. She hadn't showered since the day she heard the news and she smelled horrible. Rachel took a deep breath and slid off her bed reaching for her dad's jacket off her wooden chair. She held it close to her chest and her eyes began to sting.

"Dad?" Rachel choked out, "Dad, I know something happened and I promise you I'll figure it out, I promise, d-dad..." with that Rachel collapsed to the ground full on sobbing now.

Kurt quickly pulled her into his arms from behind and held her tight.

"Shh, it's okay. I got you, Rach. I've got you..." Kurt whispered softly in her ear. He understood the pain of losing a parent, but losing is dad too? He could never imagine his life without him.

Kurt squeezed tighter around her shoulders until the shaking stopped. Rachel sniffled and wiped her nose on the sleeve of her sweater.

She pushed out of Kurt's grasp and stood up as her knees wobbled, walking over to her desk scrambling through papers.

"I need to keep looking." Rachel said barely above a hush.

Kurt still sat on the floor looking up. Furrowing his brows in confusion, Kurt didn't get it. This is the first time he's seen her in 12 days. Rachel shut him out. She shut everyone out and stayed in her room, coming out for food occasionally.

"Look for what, Rach?" Kurt pondered pushing himself up from the floor.

"Something. Some kind of evidence proving that this wasn't just some random gay bash." Rachel didn't move her eyes from the papers strewn across her desk. What had she been doing up here?

Kurt sighed because he knew the hysterical searching for reasons to blame stage of grief all too well.

Kurt placed his hand on her shoulder, "But, Rach, what if it was just a hate crime?"

Rachel stopped shuffling the papers and Kurt spoke again.

"I mean they're very common in New York an-"

"No." Rachel harshly cut him off. Kurt just stood there surprised, a little hurt by his friend's reaction. He removed his hand from her shoulder. Rachel began to talk again.
"No mugger carries around a machine gun, Kurt." Rachel starts pinning pictures and notes on her cork board, "It's something bigger than this I'm telling you."

Kurt sighs, "Honey, I know your hurting but I know this stage of grie-"

Rachel swiftly turns around to defend herself, "I'm not grieving, Kurt! This is serious, okay? And as my best friend you should believe me on this. Don't try to convince me that I'm going crazy."

The two both stood there in silence gazing at each other, hurt in their eyes.

"Just please, leave..." Rachel crosses her arms and looks down to the floor. Kurt knew she wasn't actually mad at him, so he respected her request.

"Okay, if that's what you need right now." Kurt sighed and walked towards the exit placing his hand on the door frame, "See you at the funeral, Rach..."

Now Rachel was left alone with guilt and sorrow. She lashed out at her best friend and pushed everyone away. She was hurting even more now than she was before. Rachel tried to take her mind off of things by going to take a shower.

She raked her hands through her soaking wet hair and let out a shaky breath.
"I will figure this out, dads."