Unforgettable
Title: Unforgettable
Pairing: Rachel/Quinn, mentions Santana/Brittany
Rating: R
Length: ~9,000
Summary: A Broadway reject, Rachel enters the world of entry-level work and realizes it's a lot like high school. Too much like high school.
Author's Note: Stole the general idea from The Devil Wears Prada.
Rachel honestly couldn’t believe what she was getting ready to do. Really, she couldn’t believe it. She was walking into a career center to sit down with some angry woman she spoke with on the phone about finding a job that didn’t involve Broadway somehow. And it made her heart sink.
Rachel had been in New York for eight years, four of those at Julliard. The entire time she auditioned for every single thing she could find to audition for and had fairly good luck for a beginner. She got small parts and a few lines and actually got a solo in one of the shows. But it wasn’t enough. Her dads supported her through Julliard and were helping support her now as she still auditioned and got tiny roles, most of them off-off-Broadway, and tiny paychecks. She had resorted to waiting tables for a while as well as doing her shows but the restaurant closed and she’d been jobless for six months. After she found out the show she was currently on was also closing she swallowed her pride and decided to enter the workforce at a steady job.
The woman Rachel was sitting across from even looked angry when she wasn’t speaking. She looked to be mid-forties, her hair bright red but obviously dyed to try and hold on to a little youth, she had too much makeup on and her mouth held permanent frown lines. Rachel could tell she hated her job and the brunette sighed at the thought of having to do something she hated every single day for the rest of her life.
“Ms. Berry,” the woman said, looking over Rachel’s paperwork, “can you do anything other than sing?”
Rachel raised her eyebrows. “I didn’t go to Julliard for a business degree.”
The woman scowled. “Can you type?”
“Of course I can type. It’s essential in today’s society, anyone who is unable to do so…”
“It says here you worked in the Julliard library,” the woman cut her off. “What was your position?”
“I put books on shelves. What else is there to do in a library?”
The woman scowled. “Organization skills,” she mumbled as she wrote on Rachel’s paper. She glanced up and Rachel tried to offer a smile. “Has attitude of superiority.”
Rachel sighed again.
The woman went to her computer and started typing and scrolling. Rachel sat patiently and looked around the small cubicle. The only sign that someone worked there was a picture of a cat tacked to the wall. A printer started making noise and the woman behind the desk handed Rachel a few sheets of paper.
“Three jobs that fit your skills,” the woman said.
Rachel didn’t miss the, “or lack thereof” mumbled afterward.
“Thank you,” the brunette said politely as she looked through the sheets.
“I should warn you about that third one, no one’s lasted more than two weeks.”
Rachel gave a small nod and headed out of the office and hailed a cab to her tiny apartment. There was an overdue rent notice taped to her door and she tried to get it unlocked quickly to get inside to avoid the landlady. The little old woman had a sixth sense, Rachel swore. She always knew when to catch Rachel in the hallway to yell at her. Mostly it was in Chinese and Rachel had actually begun to understand what the woman was saying which was a little unnerving.
“You!” the shrill voice echoed through the hall and Rachel groaned.
“Good afternoon Mrs. Ma.”
The woman started shouting in Chinese and Rachel nodded her head as a finger was pointed up at her (yes, Mrs. Ma was shorter than she was) and the shrill voice went on and on about paying rent on time. When the old lady finally stopped and crossed her arms over her chest Rachel sighed.
“I assure you, I’ll have the rent by the end of the week.”
“You better! I tired of no rent! Always late! You on time for ev'ryting else but rent!”
“I apologize, really.”
“You always sorry!”
“I’ll give you tickets to my show,” Rachel offered. She knew the old woman had a soft spot for theater, Rachel always slipped a couple tickets in with her late rent and she would hear the woman whistling the tunes the day after the show.
A flicker of a smile appeared on Mrs. Ma’s face. “Okay! You give tickets and I give you rest of week!”
“Thank you so much, I promise I’ll have it by Friday.”
Mrs. Ma grunted and shuffled down the hallway, Rachel grabbed the late rent notice and slammed her shoulder into the door to get it open. She spent the rest of the afternoon setting up job interviews, the first one was eleven thirty the next morning. After the interviews were set up she called her dads and tried to hide her tears as she asked for rent money.
“I’m getting a job, Daddy,” she said. “This is the last time, I promise.”
“Rachel, you know we’ll help you.”
“I’m an adult, I should be helping myself.”
“I’ll put the money in your account tomorrow morning, sweetie.”
Rachel said a quiet thank you and told her Daddy about her week and the jobs she had applied for, all receptionist positions at various companies. He said typical dad things, telling her it would only be temporary because his little girl would get her big break soon enough and she’d become a household name. Rachel grinned and played along with him, going over details of her Tony Award acceptance speech.
-*-*-*-*-*-
Rachel’s first two interviews went horribly, horribly wrong. She was late to the first one because her phone had somehow been lost in her closet of an apartment and she didn’t hear the alarm go off. She was an hour late and basically fired before the interview even started. She didn’t bother fighting it, she just left.
She got to the second one fifteen minutes early and the interviewer commended her on it, all the while his eyes darting up and down her figure. Rachel shifted uncomfortably in her seat as he asked questions, his eyes never leaving her chest. He actually licked his lips as she stood up to leave.
“Off the record,” he said with a disgusting grin, “I could help you out in getting this if you would want to have drinks tonight. Maybe come back to my place after and…help me out.”
Rachel slapped him across the face and diva stormed out of the office. She got three high fives from other female employees on her way out the door.
Her last hope, the job the woman said no one had lasted more than two weeks in, was at three-thirty. Rachel stepped off the elevator and stopped at the front desk. She was directed through the cubicles and she found herself looking at two desks, one empty and one with very tired looking young brunette woman behind it.
“Excuse me,” Rachel said, approaching the young woman. “I have an appointment for interview at three-thirty.”
The young woman pointed to the desk on the other side of the door. “That’s your desk,” she said. “No personal photos, no personal phone calls or e-mails. No decorations, just keep the desk the way it is.”
Rachel furrowed her eyebrows. “I have yet to interview.”
“Look sweetie, all I know is that the boss said to hire the three-thirty. I don’t know what you did or who you are but she said to hire you. Go see Janice in personnel, she’ll have everything you need.”
Rachel blinked a few times and nodded. She made her way through the office until she saw Janice’s name plate. The woman already had everything on her desk waiting. Rachel shrugged and signed and initialed where she needed to. She returned back to the two desks in front of the office and stood patiently in front of the other young woman’s desk as she went through her file cabinet. She pulled out a laminated of paper and handed it over.
“This is your schedule.”
“My…schedule?” Rachel looked down at the paper. “Pick up dry cleaning?! These are personal errands, not work tasks!”
“You’re the newbie around here, you get to pick up her dry cleaning and get her coffee and all the other shit that I’ve had to do for a year. Maybe now I can get some damn sleep. I’m Annie, by the way.” Annie rummaged through the top drawer of her desk and handed Rachel a dry cleaning ticket. “You’ll need that in the morning.”
Rachel sighed. Desperate times called for desperate measures. “Rachel Berry. You know I’ve worked on Broad-“
“Yeah, I don’t care. Sit at your desk, start memorizing the clientele book in your top drawer. Don’t answer the phone.”
Rachel dropped her shoulders and dragged her feet to her desk. The clientele book was a thick black binder. Each client had a section that was at least five pages long and there looked to be at least twenty-five sections, if not more. Rachel started with “A”.
An hour later she had made it through two names and she was studying the third when Annie jumped up from her desk and cleared her throat. Rachel put the binder on a free space on her desk and stood as well. She smoothed out her white shirt and glanced around, she could see no one.
She felt it before she heard it, the icy cold presence she hadn’t felt in over eight years. A smooth, low voice emitted a chuckle from right behind her.
“Well, well, well, if this isn’t a blast from the past.”
Rachel slowly turned, knowing full well what she was going to be met with. She was right. Now in front of her was a blonde wearing dangerous black stilettos, black slacks, and a white button-down shirt with a black blazer. Her hair was up in a tight bun and she was wearing her signature smirk.
“Hello, Quinn,” Rachel said, trying to keep her voice from trembling.
“You know, Man Hands, when I saw your name on the list of interviewees I was a little surprised. I distinctly remember you prancing around school stating you’d be a star before you turned twenty.”
“I believe we’re mature enough to move beyond the name-calling and events of…”
“Whatever, Treasure Trail. God, it feels really good to say that again.” Quinn smirked. “Go down to Starbucks and get me a blended coffee. You’ve got five minutes.”
Quinn didn’t wait for Rachel to respond before she stepped into her office. The brunette blinked and Annie quickly handed her a credit card and a slip of paper with Quinn’s beverage order scrawled on it.
“Go! It’ll take you seven minutes on a good day, you have to hurry.”
Rachel nodded and absentmindedly started to walk toward the front of the office. She took the elevator down and checked her watch a few times. She went to the Starbucks in the lobby and groaned. There were five people ahead of her.
“She’ll have to get over it,” Rachel mumbled.
It took ten minutes to get Quinn’s coffee. When she made her way back up to the office, Annie looked at her like it was the last time they’d ever see each other. Rachel didn’t bother knocking on Quinn’s office door before she went in. The blonde glared at her from behind the desk.
“Either my clock is wrong or you were gone for ten minutes, Berry. Since my clock is never wrong, that means you’re incapable of telling time. What part of ‘five’ didn’t you understand? Has living in some mold-infested closet of an apartment damaged your brain?”
“There was a…”
“I don’t want to hear your excuses. You work for me, you do what I tell you to do.”
Rachel carefully set the cup on the coaster on Quinn’s desk. “You can’t treat people like this, Quinn.”
“Fine, then you’re fired.”
Rachel squeaked. Quinn smirked.
“You need this job, Berry. I’m not an idiot, I do my research. I know what you’ve been up to and where you’ve worked. I know you went through the cliché of waiting tables while trying to get discovered and it didn’t work. I know you need me.”
“Can you please treat me with a little respect?”
Quinn snorted. “The social ladder still applies. Take it or leave it.”
“This isn’t high school.”
“No, this is corporate. Get used to it.”
Knowing she wasn’t going to win, Rachel dropped her shoulders and went back to her desk. Once there she threaded her fingers through her hair and stared at her keyboard. She was so sure she’d left high school behind. After this she half expected for Dave Karofsky to walk down the hall and toss a slushie at her.
“No fucking way,” she heard from another familiar voice in front of her desk. “I thought Fabray was shitting me when she said you were here.”
Rachel looked up into the eyes of Santana Lopez whose outfit matched Quinn’s with the addition of square thick-rimmed glasses.
“Santana.”
“This is priceless. Seriously, I have dreamed of this day since like, sophomore year.”
“Is there something you want other than to stand there and mock me?”
“Not really.”
Rachel rolled her eyes and grabbed the binder on her desk and flipped to the page where she’d left off. Santana chuckled and went into Quinn’s office and the only thing Rachel wanted to do right then was cry. She fought back the tears and started reading although not much of the information really sunk in.
Her mind mostly drifted back to high school and how after Quinn had the baby she bounced back with a vengeance. The torture never ended. Quinn called her names and completely belittled and humiliated her in public every chance she got. Rachel tried desperately to build a positive reputation but it was no use. Quinn was hell-bent on destroying her as revenge, claiming Rachel had destroyed her life first. The brunette tried desperately to apologize but Quinn was like a cat. She was going to play with her prey and torture it before finally putting it out of its misery. Rachel left Lima before her graduation ceremony to avoid the inevitable kill shot which she was sure would take place on that day and she never looked back. Until now.
Quinn left her alone for the rest of the day; Rachel took the clientele book with her to the small theater and kept reading in her dressing room between her appearances on the stage. She stopped by the ATM on the way home to find that her Daddy had deposited enough money for rent and then some in her account. When she got home she wrote out her rent check and stuck two tickets to the finale of her show into the envelope and slid it under Mrs. Ma’s door. She read the files in the binder memorizing names, numbers, and case history until she could barely keep her eyes open.
-*-*-*-*-*-
Rachel was startled out of her dreams by her phone blaring its annoying standard ringtone.
She groaned when she looked at the clock, it was barely six-thirty.
“Hello?” she answered with a groan.
“You’re picking up her dry-cleaning, right?” Annie’s voice came from the other end of the line. “You need to get there early if you want to make it there, get Starbucks, and be in the office by seven fifty-five. She likes a scalding hot caramel macchiato with a double shot of espresso. Scalding, got it? If it’s anything less than ‘burn the fuck out of your hand through the cup’ then it’s wrong. Seriously, you should have blisters on your hand by the time you get upstairs.”
“You’re kidding me, right?”
“Hey, if you want to get yelled at then bring in a lukewarm coffee, I don’t care. I’m trying to help you out here. When you get there, leave the coffee on the desk and her dry cleaning in the closet. I’ll be there to walk you through the rest.”
“Fine.”
Annie hung up and Rachel dragged herself out of bed. She got her shower over and done with, grabbed the clientele book, and checked to make sure she had the company credit card and dry cleaning ticket in her wallet. She picked up Quinn’s business suits and made it into the office building at seven-thirty. As expected, the line for Starbucks was horrendous. Rachel shifted Quinn’s heavy dry cleaning and the clientele binder from one arm to the other as she waited. Her watch ticked 7:50 and there were still two people in front of her. The staff was working quickly, she could see that, but she really wished they would work faster. Finally, she spouted off her order and the young man behind the counter chuckled.
“So you’re Fabray’s new victim?”
Rachel nodded.
“Get here right at seven-twenty and you’ll make it on time next time. And she always wants her afternoon blended coffee at the same time so if you come down at ten ‘til three and get it then you’ll have it by the time she asks you for it.”
Rachel handed over the credit card and the boy swiped it and handed over the coffee. Rachel winced at the fact that it was indeed scalding hot. She quickly made her way to the elevators and punched the button several times even though one of the thirteen other people standing there had already hit it. The ride up to the fourteenth floor was horribly slow, they stopped on every other floor. By the time Rachel got into the office it was five after eight. She dropped the binder off at her desk and took a deep breath before going into Quinn’s office.
If looks could kill, Rachel would’ve dropped dead the moment she stepped foot in Quinn’s office. The brunette quickly put the coffee on the blonde's desk and prepared for the river of insults as she located the closet and put Quinn’s dry cleaning in it. When she shut the door and turned around she was practically pinned to the closet door, Quinn’s face was inches away from her own.
“Tomorrow, you will be early.”
“Quinn, I didn’t know…”
“I don’t want to hear it,” the blonde hissed. “Coffee will be on my desk when I get here tomorrow, RuPaul.”
“You’re a bitch.”
Quinn smirked. “And you’re pathetic.” She quickly whipped around and went back to her desk leaving Rachel cowered against the closet door. “Get out of my office and do something useful.”
Rachel exhaled and quickly left the office before Quinn could say anything else. She spent the better part of the next hour re-typing the schedule Annie had given her to be more specific. She made notes on it throughout the morning when Annie would mention what time Quinn liked something. Quinn dropped her lunch order on Rachel’s desk as she passed by late that morning. Rachel called in the order immediately, as per Annie’s suggestion. She left plenty early in order to get lunch on time but was still three minutes late because the elevator got stuck and she had to take the stairs for the remaining four floors.
“Make yourself look presentable before you come into my office. You look disgusting. If one of my clients came in right now I’d fire you, Stubbles.”
“I ran up four flights of stairs so I could get this to you,” Rachel said, tossing the plastic container on Quinn’s desk, “when was I supposed to stop off and get a makeover?”
“Ten years ago,” Quinn said with a triumphant smirk. “At least you got rid of the argyle. And I swear to God if you show up in this office wearing that hideous bright blue pantsuit I will set you on fire.”
“I don’t understand, Quinn. Why are you insisting on treating me…”
“You can go now.”
“I was…”
Quinn narrowed her eyes and set her jaw. “I said, you can go now.”
Rachel balled her fists up at her sides and turned on her heel to storm out. She pretended not to hear Quinn’s hiss of “pathetic” before she slammed the office door shut.
“She needs to get that stick out of her ass!” Rachel shrieked the moment the door closed.
Annie looked up at her from the desk and chuckled.
“What? You think it’s funny that she treats people like that?”
“I went through it for a year,” Annie said. “You’ve only been at it for two days, I don’t really have any sympathy.”
“What makes her think she has the right to do this?”
Annie shrugged. “She can’t be fired. Her mother’s brother is the senior partner in this firm. Quinn had a job the day she graduated law school. She’s ruthless and vindictive, she’s won more cases in the last year than all of the other junior attorneys combined. As a reward for that and for her bloodline she gets an office and us to walk all over.”
Rachel dropped to her desk and sighed. “Not much has changed since high school.”
“No way, you went to high school with her?!”
Rachel nodded. “So much drama,” she mumbled. “She had a baby when we were sophomores, you know? Her then boyfriend’s best friend was the father but she lied and said it was her boyfriend’s. The entire thing was one giant mess. She ended up giving the baby up for adoption.”
“She keeps a picture of her,” Annie said. “In her desk.”
Before Rachel could say anything further, Quinn exited her office with a case file.
“Clean up my desk,” she spat at Rachel. “And I will know if you’ve gone through anything so don’t even try it. Annie," Quinn turned to the other desk, "Santana and I have to be in court in an hour, make sure the car is waiting when I get downstairs and pull the Bowman file.”
Annie nodded and quickly picked up the phone, Quinn shot Rachel a glare as she passed by. Rachel ventured into Quinn’s office and glanced around before chewing nervously on her lower lip. She cautiously opened the center drawer of Quinn’s desk, its contents were standard: pens, pencils, highlighters, white-out, a nail file, and post-its. She opened the top drawer to the right and found what she was looking for. A framed 5x7 of a blonde girl about ten years old. The girl looked remarkably like Quinn but definitely had Puck’s eyes. Rachel shut the drawer quickly and grabbed the plastic container with the half-eaten salad and dropped it into the trashcan by Quinn’s desk. Rachel jumped when Quinn re-entered her office with Santana following close behind.
“Shut up, Juno,” Santana barked, “we’re not doing another pro bono case. I didn’t become a lawyer to be fucking helpful. B and I have rent to pay.”
Quinn stopped when she saw Rachel standing next to her desk with her hands clasped in front of her.
“What the hell are you doing in here, Smurfette?” Santana hissed. “Get out.”
Rachel nodded and as she stepped toward the door, Quinn caught her shoulder.
“Find what you were looking for, Berry?” she growled into Rachel’s ear.
“I’m not sure what you are insinuating but-“
“Drop the act. I haven’t seen you look that guilty since you tried to destroy my life.”
“Ten years is quite some time to hold a grudge, Quinn.”
The blonde chuckled. “I let go of that a long time ago. This is all just for fun.”
Rachel shrugged out of Quinn’s grip and Santana made sure to knock into her shoulder on the way out of the office.
For the first time since high school, Rachel cried herself to sleep that night with words from Quinn echoing through her head.
-*-*-*-*-*-
Rachel barely survived her first week. By Friday night she was tired, irritable and downright bitchy. The fact that it was her last night on stage made things worse. After the final curtain call she did agree to go out for drinks with her co-stars at their favorite bar. Rachel ordered straight tequila shots, one after another.
By one in the morning most of the cast had left and Rachel had given up on tequila shots and was nursing cranberry juice and club soda and an order of breadsticks to settle her stomach. She looked around to find someone she could go home with, anyone really. She spotted cascading blonde locks over a pale-blue blouse and straightened out her appearance before approaching the woman.
“Can I buy you a drink?” Rachel said, a flirty smile plastered on her face.
The woman turned around and Rachel groaned.
“Never mind,” Rachel grumbled. “See you Monday.”
“I’m offended, Berry,” Quinn slurred. “Am I not good enough for you or what?”
“What, do you want me to ask you for a quick fuck just so I can get shot down and you can make some snide comment?”
“Huh, alcohol gives you a backbone. I knew you had one somewhere, no one is that pathetic all the time.”
“Fuck you, Quinn.”
“You wish.”
Rachel went back to the other side of the bar and stared ordering more shots, all the while shooting grimaces at Quinn who was sipping on her martini.
Saturday morning Rachel woke up with her head throbbing and her stomach churning. She groaned and rolled over to get out of bed as she always did but instead of the cheap linoleum of her apartment she put her feet down on plush carpet. She looked around the room, it was beige and she was sitting on an unfamiliar bed. She looked at the other occupant and immediately wondered if she would die upon impact after jumping out the window.
“The fuck are you doing here?” Quinn groaned, breaking Rachel from her thoughts. “I told you to leave last night.”
“I was just on my way out.”
“Good. Don’t forget to pick up my dry cleaning Monday morning.”
“Did we have sex?”
“Get out, Treasure Trail. I have shit to do today and I don’t need you following me around asking worthless questions like ‘was it good for you?’ Oh, and if you tell anyone about this I’ll fire you and burn down your apartment building.”
“So we did have sex?”
“You’re kidding me right now, right? Look, I know you’re dirt poor or whatever so grab a twenty out of my wallet and get a fucking cab and go to your shitty apartment to deal with your hangover.”
Rachel sighed and searched the floor for her clothes. The fact that she was naked had only just then hit her, she should’ve looked to that for the first clue. She quickly dressed and left Quinn’s apartment, not taking the money, and checking to make sure she had her own wallet for when she would hail a cab. She honestly didn’t have a clue as to where she was but it was a rather nice looking neighborhood, Quinn definitely paid plenty for her apartment. She sighed when she knew she wasn’t going to be able to find her way to her own neighborhood and she hailed a cab.
Turns out, Quinn didn’t live too incredibly far away from Rachel. She could’ve walked had she’d known where she was. The first thing she did was take a shower, there were bruises and bite marks all over her body, one particularly deep purple bruise on the inside of her thigh. They weren’t marks of passion, they were marks of loathing. It had very clearly been hate sex on Quinn’s part. Rachel hissed when the hot water hit her back and it burned and she knew she was going to see scratches when she looked in the mirror. Snippets of the night before flashed in her brain through the weekend and Rachel tried to ignore the fact that she wasn’t sickened by them.
-*-*-*-*-*-
Rachel was up at six on Monday, not to exercise but to get Quinn’s dry cleaning. She was in the office building right at seven-twenty and Quinn’s coffee was on her desk and Rachel was hanging the dry cleaning in the closet just as the blonde walked in.
“RuPaul.”
“Quinn.”
Rachel watched out of the corner of her eye as Quinn inspected her coffee. She touched the cup and flinched a little.
“I was ensured that the coffee was scalding. I’m fairly certain the barista will need to have a skin graft after handling the cup.”
Quinn arched her eyebrow and pursed her lips. “Are you trying to kill me?”
“Just following orders.”
“You seem to like to do that.”
“I’m not sure that me complying with your request of ‘harder’ is considered in the same realm of orders as the ones you give to me in the workplace.”
Quinn narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest defensively. Rachel smirked in triumph.
“I’ll be at my desk,” the brunette said.
Rachel sat with the clientele binder on her desk trying to memorize yet another profile when a box of folders was dropped on her desk. She looked up at Quinn, trying her best to give a look that told the blonde she didn’t have time for her bullshit. It didn’t work.
“Take these files to basement storage,” Quinn said. “And don’t worry, he doesn’t bite.”
Rachel furrowed her eyebrows. “Who doesn’t bite?”
“You’ll see.”
Quinn retreated back into her office, Rachel looked over at Annie who was rummaging around in one of her desk drawers. She pulled out a surgical mask and Rachel was even more confused than she was before. She got up and grabbed the mask from Annie and studied it, the other girl had an almost panicked look on her face.
“Asbestos,” she said. “Well, they think. Supposedly they got rid of it but no one’s really worried about it enough to check up on it because the only ones that go down there are the replaceable ones. And Pauley.”
“Pauley?”
“He’s a hobo. He’s harmless…but I suggest picking up a Danish or something before you go down there to keep him occupied. He likes to follow the new girls around.”
Rachel nodded a few times and grabbed the box of files and the set of keys that Annie gave her and headed for the elevator. As per Annie’s suggestion, she stopped off at the Starbucks and got a cream cheese Danish before locating the stairs to the basement. She put on the mask before she headed down. It was dark and smelled funny, even through the mask. She found a large switch and flipped it, the fluorescent lights flickered on and buzzed a little. Rachel made her way through the basement until she found the storage room with the law firm’s name on the door. She left the Danish on the ground on the napkin it came with before unlocking the door and fumbling for the light switch.
The boxes were all arranged in alphabetical order, Rachel found where Bowman was supposed to fit in and had to lift several boxes in order to get it to go in. She needed a step stool to get the top few and she was covered in dust by the time she was finished. There was a loud bang and she shrieked and jumped. She turned to see the storage room door had slammed shut and let out a breath of relief. Her panic returned, however, when she turned the knob on the door and it came off in her hand.
“Oh no,” she whined. “No, no, no.”
She dug in her pocket and pulled out her phone. There was no signal. She pounded on the door and yelled for help but to no avail.
“Wonderful,” she murmured. “I’m going to die down here and my body will most likely be discovered by a hobo.”
She started walking around the room looking at the boxes of client files. She came to a filing cabinet and quirked an eyebrow. She tugged at the middle drawer and was surprised to find it unlocked. She fingered through the files and recognized the names of employees. A lightbulb went off in her brain and she thumbed through the entire drawer with no luck. She opened the top drawer and smirked when she found what she was looking for. There was a large red “CONFIDENTIAL” stamp on the front of the file, Rachel opened it.
The brunette wasn’t looking for anything incriminating, really. She just wanted to see what a certain blonde had been up to in the last eight years. There were Quinn’s credentials which were rather impressive, Rachel had to admit. She graduated top ten in her class from Yale School of Law. Of course she’d gotten this job because her uncle was one of the senior partners but judging by the looks of the file the blonde could’ve gotten a great job anywhere she wanted. Rachel flipped through the papers and furrowed her eyebrows at one heading labeled “arrest record”. Just as she pulled the sheet out there was a rustle at the door. Rachel quickly stuffed the folder back into the filing cabinet and started shouting. She ran to the door and banged on it loudly until the doorknob turned.
“Thank you so much,” the brunette gasped.
“Not a problem, miss,” the man in tattered clothes said with a smile. “Y’left your pastry out here.”
“Oh, that’s for you,” Rachel said with a grin. “Annie told me you might enjoy it.”
“So y’know who I am, do ya?”
“Pauley?”
“Yes ma’am.” The man picked up the Danish and started nibbling at it. “How’d ya manage to get yourself locked in there?”
“I have no idea,” Rachel admitted. She shut the light to the storage room off and made sure the door was locked and the keys were in her pocket.
Rachel stopped at the stairs and Pauley finished off the Danish and gave her another smile.
“Thank you,” Rachel said again. “Have a nice day.”
“You too, miss,” he said. He turned and began walking down the hall.
Rachel didn’t bother turning the light off before she ascended the stairs. She stopped at one of the bathrooms in the lobby to try and clean some of the dust off of her clothes and pull off her mask. She rinsed her face and when she looked presentable again she headed back upstairs. She was met at the elevator door by Annie who clutched her chest and shrieked a little.
“God, I thought you weren’t coming back! Quinn is pissed.”
“When isn’t she pissed?”
“Whatever, come on.”
Rachel followed Annie back through the office and Annie shoved her toward Quinn’s door. Rachel rolled her eyes and went in, Quinn’s head snapped up from her desk and she glared at the brunette.
“Where the hell have you been?”
“I got locked in the storage room.”
“I called you four times.”
“I don’t get signal down there, it’s a basement. Surely you could’ve figured that out.”
“Save the snark, Stubbles. I’m going to be at the courthouse through lunch. Here’s my order,” Quinn handed Rachel a slip of paper, “be there at noon and wait in the lobby.”
“You were worried about me, weren’t you?”
“Oh my God, are you seriously still that narcissistic? I just wanted to make sure I’d have my lunch. You’re replaceable, Berry. Get over yourself already.”
Rachel could pretend all she wanted that Quinn’s words didn’t hurt but they did. They stung. Her lower lip trembled as she nodded and left the blonde's office. She dropped to her desk and called in Quinn’s lunch and went back to the clientele book. Quinn left her office shortly thereafter, she rolled her eyes at Rachel on the way out and the brunette again ignored the hissed “pathetic” under Quinn’s breath.
-*-*-*-*-*-
Rachel became almost robotic in her job. She did whatever Quinn asked of her without sniping back, she’d lost the interest in it. It didn’t stop Quinn from still insulting her every chance she got. Rachel went back to the storage room and found Quinn’s file again. She sighed when the arrest record was simply several accusations of contempt in court. There was nothing she could use against the blonde to get her to treat her any better.
The brunette kept auditioning, sometimes giving up lunch to make an audition. She still wasn’t getting any parts. She discussed it with Annie who looked mildly interested. Quinn would roll her eyes and scoff every time she heard Rachel talk about it.
“You’ll never get any parts, Man Hands. Give up now and stop humiliating yourself. Where the hell is my blended coffee?”
That sent Rachel into a daze and that Friday she sought out her favorite bar again. She ordered drinks and was glad she could finally actually not have to worry about paying for them, even if she was sure her job was going to kill her. She opened her tab and was unsure what number shot she was on before the bartender cut her off.
“Your tab’s been paid,” he said. “Call a cab and get yourself home, you’ve had too much.”
“Come on, Yeti,” a voice attached to a body that was dragging her out of the bar said. “I’m not going to let you sit here and fucking drink yourself to death just because you feel sorry for yourself and your pathetic existence.”
“Screw you,” Rachel slurred. “What do you care?”
“I don’t.” Quinn dragged Rachel outside into the sharp, cold air and dropped the brunette to a bench.
“You paid my tab.”
“I don’t want you going broke and living in the storage room with Pauley. Your appearance is already hideous enough, adding not showering on top of that would really make me have to fire you.”
The cab ride was fuzzy, Rachel perked up a little when she stepped into an apartment that wasn’t her own.
“I wouldn’t normally care if you choked on your own vomit,” Quinn said, tossing her onto the couch, “but that bartender saw me leave with you. I’m sure your two gay dads would press charges or some bullshit like that if I left you alone.”
Rachel rolled her eyes and grabbed the front of Quinn’s blouse and pulled her in for a hard, searing kiss. The blonde’s fingers combed through her hair as she bit down on Rachel’s lower lip. Rachel’s stomach lurched and she felt herself being dragged again until she hit cool tile and promptly emptied the contents of her stomach into a porcelain bowl. Slender fingers pulled her hair back into a ponytail while she retched and soft hands rubbed circles on her back. The sensation lulled her to sleep.
The next morning Rachel awoke in the same bed she’d found herself in a few months prior only this time she was fully clothed. There was a warm body holding her from behind, Quinn’s breath was on the back of her neck. When she woke, the blonde didn’t snipe at Rachel to get out. Instead she cooked breakfast and offered Rachel a plate of pancakes. The morning was silent and awkward, Rachel finally said a quiet thank you and left. She walked the few blocks to her own apartment and for once, when her landlady saw her in the hallway she didn’t get yelled at.
“Good job, you pay rent on time this month again!”
“I’ve still got a good job, the one I told you about,” Rachel said.
“When you next play? I want ticket!”
“I’m not acting anymore, Mrs. Ma. I’ve been auditioning but nothing’s come up yet.”
“That no good,” the old woman said, shaking her head. “You keep trying. But pay rent on time!”
Rachel offered a half-hearted smile. “I will.”
Monday morning was just the same as every morning. Quinn found something to complain about and Rachel hung her head and sat at her desk waiting for her next order. She found herself at the same bar the next Friday but she stuck to cranberry juice and club soda.
“Good, now I don’t have to make you go to AA meetings,” Quinn said as she hopped up on the barstool next to the brunette. “I don’t want some drunken Smurfette working for me, makes me look charitable or something. Although I’m pretty sure keeping you around as long as I have is an act of charity in itself.”
“Whatever,” Rachel mumbled.
An hour later, Quinn’s fingernails were digging into Rachel’s back and the brunette definitely wasn’t half-hearted in fucking the living daylights out of her boss.
The pair fell into a routine rather quickly. During the work week, Quinn was a bitch to Rachel. She was abrasive and had a sparkle in her eye when she verbally assaulted the brunette. Friday nights she was still a bitch and still abrasive but the sparkle in her eye was replaced with lust as she moved from verbally assaulting Rachel to physically assaulting her with her teeth, tongue, fingers, and lips. Saturday mornings were always quiet over breakfast until Rachel left.
It was dysfunctional, sure, but Rachel didn’t care. Her life wasn’t where she wanted it to be so she figured she might as well see where whatever this was with Quinn led to. It wasn’t a relationship, it wasn’t even friends with benefits. That required a friendship to be in place. It was just filling primal needs, Rachel decided. She let Quinn abuse her and in turn she got really good sex and kept her job. She let Quinn order her around knowing full well that in the bedroom she’d get what she wanted.
Rachel eventually stopped auditioning altogether. She was sick of the rejection and her heart wasn’t in it anymore. Working for Quinn and her increasingly daunting tasks was taking its toll. Rachel noticed Annie doing less and less and her doing more and more. Quinn would send her home with boxes of cases to organize and take notes on for the clientele book. She brought her to court to take notes and fetch her whatever she wanted during the day.
-*-*-*-*-*-
The brunette wasn’t shocked when she came into work to find Annie cleaning out her desk one Friday morning. The young woman was sniffling and mumbling to herself, Rachel passed by her desk quickly to put Quinn’s coffee on her desk. When she came back out, Annie just rolled her eyes at her.
“I should’ve seen it coming,” she said. “It’s no secret she’s been playing favorites.”
“Favorites?” Rachel snorted. “She hates me.”
“She gives you work, you’re her favorite.”
“Annie…”
“Look, she pulled me into her office yesterday and told me I was worthless to her now and I could either resign and have a chance at getting another job or she’d fire me. Whatever, I hate it here anyway.” She sniffled again and handed over a set of office keys to Rachel. “Good luck.”
Rachel growled. “She’s not getting away with this.”
“Getting away with what, Treasure Trail?”
Rachel whipped around and narrowed her eyes at the blonde behind her.
“You’re a heartless bitch, Quinn Fabray!”
“What’s your point?”
Rachel clenched her jaw and let every ounce of anger she’d built up over the seven months she’d been at the law firm flow out of her. She clenched her fists and felt the heat rise to her face, Quinn raised her eyebrows expectantly.
“You can’t treat people like this! Annie is a human being, she’s not worthless! You’re a complete and total bitch! Just because you gave up or destroyed everything you ever cared about in your life doesn’t give you license to not show any ounce of compassion for others!”
There was a flash of hurt in Quinn’s eyes before she regained her steely façade and smirked. “Why should I do that? Why should I show compassion?” She glanced up and down Rachel and snorted. “You’re beneath me, Berry. You don’t count. You want to know why you can’t get shit for parts on Broadway? It’s not because you’re not good enough, it’s because you don’t matter. You’re forgettable. I’ll say it again, you don’t count.”
Rachel couldn’t believe she did what she did until after she’d done it. She reached up and smacked Quinn right across the face and there was an audible gasp from everyone that had turned their attention to the pair.
“I’ll bet you’ll remember that,” Rachel hissed. “And you’ll remember this, too. I fucking quit, you bitch. I quit this job and I quit being your little weekend bedtime plaything.”
Rachel threw the keys back onto Annie’s desk and went to her own. She grabbed her purse out of the desk drawer. She felt Quinn’s glare on her the entire march to the staircase.
When the door to the stairwell slammed behind her she gasped for air and let the events of the past few minutes catch up with her. As she headed down the stairs the tears rolled freely. Her heart ached but she refused to acknowledge why. She just hailed a cab and went home and cried.
-*-*-*-*-*-
Mrs. Ma started slipping open audition ads under her door over the next few days. Rachel kept them all in a stack and stared at them. She looked for a new job and found one waiting tables at a bar nearby. She didn’t audition for weeks until Mrs. Ma told her again that she would love to have more tickets to shows. Rachel figured she owed it to the old lady and since she was really old, the brunette didn’t know how many more shows the woman would be able to attend.
Quinn’s words echoed through her head as she stepped on stage for her first audition in months. Rachel was forgettable. She didn’t count. Her heart ached at every thought of the blonde. She didn’t know at what point she’d fallen for her but she had. She wasn’t sure at what point her body started to ache for her touch, but it did. Every Friday night her mind would drift from the bar she was working in to a different bar. To a blonde sitting and sipping martinis. She didn’t miss her job. She missed Quinn.
Her name was called and she quickly shook the thoughts out of her head and introduced herself to the casting directors. She launched into her monologue, it was perfect as always. Her go-to song of choice, “On My Own”, was flawless. She saw the look on the casting director’s face when he said “we’ll let you know” that told her she would never hear from them.
”You’re forgettable. I’ll say it again, you don’t count.”
“I’m not forgettable,” Rachel growled. It earned her a quizzical look from the man in the audience. “I’m not forgettable,” she said louder. “Don’t look at me like I’m forgettable. I’m not. I count. You think you’ve seen a hundred of me but I assure you, sir, you have not.”
“Ms. Berry,” he said, rubbing his temples. “I’ve heard thirty-three women sing ‘On My Own’ today. I’ve heard twenty-two of them do the same monologue. You sound just the same as all of them.”
“What do you want to hear from me, then?”
“Something that hasn’t been sung to death, preferably. Give me something that no one’s heard before. That is how you get parts, Ms. Berry.”
Rachel stared down at the stage and her mind kept flashing to a blonde only this time it was a younger blonde. She was wearing a white babydoll t-shirt and black pants. Rachel was wearing the same. They were spinning, Quinn had tears in her eyes and broke down after the performance.
“You’re not alone,” Rachel sang softly, “together we stand, I’ll be by your side you know I’ll take your hand…”
She closed her eyes and belted out the ballad with everything she had. Every emotion, every feeling good and bad poured into the lyrics. She held the last note and it echoed off the walls of the theater and she felt a few tears slip from her eyes. She let out the rest of her breath and slowly let her eyes flutter open. She was met with a smile from the casting director who made a few notes.
“That is how you audition, Ms. Berry. I’ll call you.”
Two weeks later Rachel walked onto the stage in the same theater with a minor role. She spoke and got a few solo lines in one of the numbers but it was better than nothing. Mrs. Ma practically jumped for joy when Rachel handed her two tickets to the show.
She kept auditioning, her go-to song officially switched to a capella “Keep Holding On”. Her roles started getting bigger and bigger as a few more months went by. Her name was appearing in reviews and she was actually getting asked to do roles. She quit her job at the bar because her checks coming in were more than enough. She was happy…mostly.
Rachel’s thoughts still drifted quite frequently, especially when she started hallucinating and seeing Quinn in the crowds at her shows every Friday night. She didn’t kid herself, she had to have been imagining it. Quinn didn’t care enough to come see her. Quinn had never cared. Rachel was just a toy, she’d always been a toy. Something for Quinn to play with and rip apart and toss away.
One of her several stage dreams came true when she landed the role of Éponine in Les Misérables. Her name was on a billboard. She flew her dads in to see the show a few weeks after it had started. They helped her find a new apartment, a bigger apartment. Rachel saw the disappointment in Mrs. Ma’s eyes but the brunette promised her she’d keep getting her tickets to any show she wanted.
“You always remember you started here,” the old woman said. “I could have thrown you out for all the singing and late rent!”
“I will, I promise,” Rachel said with a grin.
She wasn’t sure when it had turned cold again, but it had. The summer had been spent trying to enjoy life and letting her heart heal a little. It had, just a little. She was still hallucinating, though. Every Friday she let her imagination run wild on stage and would see Quinn in the audience. It didn’t matter, though. It couldn’t matter. Quinn had to be forgettable. But she wasn’t.
-*-*-*-*-*-
Rachel took a deep breath after the final curtain call of that night. She’d hallucinated Quinn again, front row center. The mirage of the blonde had kept her eyes on Rachel all night. The brunette had almost missed a cue because of the intense stares but she pushed through it and recovered beautifully. She quickly went to her dressing room and started changing out of costume and she wasn’t sure what possessed her to do it, but when she was finished she hailed a cab and ended up at her once-favorite bar.
The bartender gave her a smile and told her that all of her drinks were on the house that night, Rachel smiled and thanked him and ordered a cranberry juice and club soda. She tried not to let her eyes drift beyond her drink but it was difficult. The hours ticked by and she gave up. She left the bartender a hefty tip and started to slide off the bar stool when slender fingers gripped onto her shoulder.
“You know I’m responsible for your entire career, right Man Hands? I was the one that made you want to be unforgettable if you recall.”
Rachel whipped around, Quinn was smirking at her.
“I launch Rachel Berry’s career and what do I get? Tickets? Flowers? A thank you card? Nope. God, you’re an ungrateful, furry little midget.”
“And you’re a hateful bitch. What else is new?”
Half an hour later Rachel was digging her fingernails into Quinn’s back and on the edge of ecstasy. Quinn was growling into her ear as the blonde pushed the smaller girl over the edge. Once the high subsided, Quinn stayed where she was, lips ghosting the lobe of Rachel’s ear.
“I love you, Rachel,” the blonde whispered. “I love you and I’m sorry.”
Rachel smiled a little and turned to face the blonde. She pressed a kiss to Quinn’s cheek and tasted salt.
“I love you, too.”
“Could this work?” Quinn choked out.
Rachel was almost shocked at the vulnerability in the blonde’s voice. Almost. She knew Quinn was capable of it but she didn’t know if she’d be capable of it with her.
“Yes,” Rachel responded. “I think it can.”
“I don’t hate you.”
“I believe you made that clear when you told me you loved me.”
Quinn shook her head. “I hated you and loved you for a long time. A really, really long time.”
“It doesn’t matter,” the brunette mumbled. She turned to face her new found lover and wrapped her arm around Quinn’s waist.
“I care…I can care. I care about you. I love you.”
“I love you too,” Rachel assured her again. “I do…I love you.”
“I waited,” Quinn whispered. “Every Friday.”
“I wasn’t hallucinating then?”
The blonde shook her head. “I didn’t want to be forgotten.”
“You’re the most unforgettable person I’ve ever known, Quinn.”
Rachel stayed on Saturday. Breakfast wasn’t silent or awkward, neither was lunch. They had a late dinner after Rachel’s show and went to the brunette’s apartment that night. The days and nights turned into weeks. They fought and Quinn called her Treasure Trail and Rachel called her a heartless bitch. The fights ended with “I love you’s” and “I’m sorry’s” hours or a day later. Quinn was caring, Rachel was confident.
The weeks turned into months and nights split in apartments ended. They made sure to get a comfortable couch because the fights still happened but they were inevitable. Rachel was an unstoppable force, Quinn was an immovable object.
The relationship was a lot of things. It was rocky, it was passionate, it was a little unconventional. It was anything but forgettable.
Pairing: Rachel/Quinn, mentions Santana/Brittany
Rating: R
Length: ~9,000
Summary: A Broadway reject, Rachel enters the world of entry-level work and realizes it's a lot like high school. Too much like high school.
Author's Note: Stole the general idea from The Devil Wears Prada.
Rachel honestly couldn’t believe what she was getting ready to do. Really, she couldn’t believe it. She was walking into a career center to sit down with some angry woman she spoke with on the phone about finding a job that didn’t involve Broadway somehow. And it made her heart sink.
Rachel had been in New York for eight years, four of those at Julliard. The entire time she auditioned for every single thing she could find to audition for and had fairly good luck for a beginner. She got small parts and a few lines and actually got a solo in one of the shows. But it wasn’t enough. Her dads supported her through Julliard and were helping support her now as she still auditioned and got tiny roles, most of them off-off-Broadway, and tiny paychecks. She had resorted to waiting tables for a while as well as doing her shows but the restaurant closed and she’d been jobless for six months. After she found out the show she was currently on was also closing she swallowed her pride and decided to enter the workforce at a steady job.
The woman Rachel was sitting across from even looked angry when she wasn’t speaking. She looked to be mid-forties, her hair bright red but obviously dyed to try and hold on to a little youth, she had too much makeup on and her mouth held permanent frown lines. Rachel could tell she hated her job and the brunette sighed at the thought of having to do something she hated every single day for the rest of her life.
“Ms. Berry,” the woman said, looking over Rachel’s paperwork, “can you do anything other than sing?”
Rachel raised her eyebrows. “I didn’t go to Julliard for a business degree.”
The woman scowled. “Can you type?”
“Of course I can type. It’s essential in today’s society, anyone who is unable to do so…”
“It says here you worked in the Julliard library,” the woman cut her off. “What was your position?”
“I put books on shelves. What else is there to do in a library?”
The woman scowled. “Organization skills,” she mumbled as she wrote on Rachel’s paper. She glanced up and Rachel tried to offer a smile. “Has attitude of superiority.”
Rachel sighed again.
The woman went to her computer and started typing and scrolling. Rachel sat patiently and looked around the small cubicle. The only sign that someone worked there was a picture of a cat tacked to the wall. A printer started making noise and the woman behind the desk handed Rachel a few sheets of paper.
“Three jobs that fit your skills,” the woman said.
Rachel didn’t miss the, “or lack thereof” mumbled afterward.
“Thank you,” the brunette said politely as she looked through the sheets.
“I should warn you about that third one, no one’s lasted more than two weeks.”
Rachel gave a small nod and headed out of the office and hailed a cab to her tiny apartment. There was an overdue rent notice taped to her door and she tried to get it unlocked quickly to get inside to avoid the landlady. The little old woman had a sixth sense, Rachel swore. She always knew when to catch Rachel in the hallway to yell at her. Mostly it was in Chinese and Rachel had actually begun to understand what the woman was saying which was a little unnerving.
“You!” the shrill voice echoed through the hall and Rachel groaned.
“Good afternoon Mrs. Ma.”
The woman started shouting in Chinese and Rachel nodded her head as a finger was pointed up at her (yes, Mrs. Ma was shorter than she was) and the shrill voice went on and on about paying rent on time. When the old lady finally stopped and crossed her arms over her chest Rachel sighed.
“I assure you, I’ll have the rent by the end of the week.”
“You better! I tired of no rent! Always late! You on time for ev'ryting else but rent!”
“I apologize, really.”
“You always sorry!”
“I’ll give you tickets to my show,” Rachel offered. She knew the old woman had a soft spot for theater, Rachel always slipped a couple tickets in with her late rent and she would hear the woman whistling the tunes the day after the show.
A flicker of a smile appeared on Mrs. Ma’s face. “Okay! You give tickets and I give you rest of week!”
“Thank you so much, I promise I’ll have it by Friday.”
Mrs. Ma grunted and shuffled down the hallway, Rachel grabbed the late rent notice and slammed her shoulder into the door to get it open. She spent the rest of the afternoon setting up job interviews, the first one was eleven thirty the next morning. After the interviews were set up she called her dads and tried to hide her tears as she asked for rent money.
“I’m getting a job, Daddy,” she said. “This is the last time, I promise.”
“Rachel, you know we’ll help you.”
“I’m an adult, I should be helping myself.”
“I’ll put the money in your account tomorrow morning, sweetie.”
Rachel said a quiet thank you and told her Daddy about her week and the jobs she had applied for, all receptionist positions at various companies. He said typical dad things, telling her it would only be temporary because his little girl would get her big break soon enough and she’d become a household name. Rachel grinned and played along with him, going over details of her Tony Award acceptance speech.
-*-*-*-*-*-
Rachel’s first two interviews went horribly, horribly wrong. She was late to the first one because her phone had somehow been lost in her closet of an apartment and she didn’t hear the alarm go off. She was an hour late and basically fired before the interview even started. She didn’t bother fighting it, she just left.
She got to the second one fifteen minutes early and the interviewer commended her on it, all the while his eyes darting up and down her figure. Rachel shifted uncomfortably in her seat as he asked questions, his eyes never leaving her chest. He actually licked his lips as she stood up to leave.
“Off the record,” he said with a disgusting grin, “I could help you out in getting this if you would want to have drinks tonight. Maybe come back to my place after and…help me out.”
Rachel slapped him across the face and diva stormed out of the office. She got three high fives from other female employees on her way out the door.
Her last hope, the job the woman said no one had lasted more than two weeks in, was at three-thirty. Rachel stepped off the elevator and stopped at the front desk. She was directed through the cubicles and she found herself looking at two desks, one empty and one with very tired looking young brunette woman behind it.
“Excuse me,” Rachel said, approaching the young woman. “I have an appointment for interview at three-thirty.”
The young woman pointed to the desk on the other side of the door. “That’s your desk,” she said. “No personal photos, no personal phone calls or e-mails. No decorations, just keep the desk the way it is.”
Rachel furrowed her eyebrows. “I have yet to interview.”
“Look sweetie, all I know is that the boss said to hire the three-thirty. I don’t know what you did or who you are but she said to hire you. Go see Janice in personnel, she’ll have everything you need.”
Rachel blinked a few times and nodded. She made her way through the office until she saw Janice’s name plate. The woman already had everything on her desk waiting. Rachel shrugged and signed and initialed where she needed to. She returned back to the two desks in front of the office and stood patiently in front of the other young woman’s desk as she went through her file cabinet. She pulled out a laminated of paper and handed it over.
“This is your schedule.”
“My…schedule?” Rachel looked down at the paper. “Pick up dry cleaning?! These are personal errands, not work tasks!”
“You’re the newbie around here, you get to pick up her dry cleaning and get her coffee and all the other shit that I’ve had to do for a year. Maybe now I can get some damn sleep. I’m Annie, by the way.” Annie rummaged through the top drawer of her desk and handed Rachel a dry cleaning ticket. “You’ll need that in the morning.”
Rachel sighed. Desperate times called for desperate measures. “Rachel Berry. You know I’ve worked on Broad-“
“Yeah, I don’t care. Sit at your desk, start memorizing the clientele book in your top drawer. Don’t answer the phone.”
Rachel dropped her shoulders and dragged her feet to her desk. The clientele book was a thick black binder. Each client had a section that was at least five pages long and there looked to be at least twenty-five sections, if not more. Rachel started with “A”.
An hour later she had made it through two names and she was studying the third when Annie jumped up from her desk and cleared her throat. Rachel put the binder on a free space on her desk and stood as well. She smoothed out her white shirt and glanced around, she could see no one.
She felt it before she heard it, the icy cold presence she hadn’t felt in over eight years. A smooth, low voice emitted a chuckle from right behind her.
“Well, well, well, if this isn’t a blast from the past.”
Rachel slowly turned, knowing full well what she was going to be met with. She was right. Now in front of her was a blonde wearing dangerous black stilettos, black slacks, and a white button-down shirt with a black blazer. Her hair was up in a tight bun and she was wearing her signature smirk.
“Hello, Quinn,” Rachel said, trying to keep her voice from trembling.
“You know, Man Hands, when I saw your name on the list of interviewees I was a little surprised. I distinctly remember you prancing around school stating you’d be a star before you turned twenty.”
“I believe we’re mature enough to move beyond the name-calling and events of…”
“Whatever, Treasure Trail. God, it feels really good to say that again.” Quinn smirked. “Go down to Starbucks and get me a blended coffee. You’ve got five minutes.”
Quinn didn’t wait for Rachel to respond before she stepped into her office. The brunette blinked and Annie quickly handed her a credit card and a slip of paper with Quinn’s beverage order scrawled on it.
“Go! It’ll take you seven minutes on a good day, you have to hurry.”
Rachel nodded and absentmindedly started to walk toward the front of the office. She took the elevator down and checked her watch a few times. She went to the Starbucks in the lobby and groaned. There were five people ahead of her.
“She’ll have to get over it,” Rachel mumbled.
It took ten minutes to get Quinn’s coffee. When she made her way back up to the office, Annie looked at her like it was the last time they’d ever see each other. Rachel didn’t bother knocking on Quinn’s office door before she went in. The blonde glared at her from behind the desk.
“Either my clock is wrong or you were gone for ten minutes, Berry. Since my clock is never wrong, that means you’re incapable of telling time. What part of ‘five’ didn’t you understand? Has living in some mold-infested closet of an apartment damaged your brain?”
“There was a…”
“I don’t want to hear your excuses. You work for me, you do what I tell you to do.”
Rachel carefully set the cup on the coaster on Quinn’s desk. “You can’t treat people like this, Quinn.”
“Fine, then you’re fired.”
Rachel squeaked. Quinn smirked.
“You need this job, Berry. I’m not an idiot, I do my research. I know what you’ve been up to and where you’ve worked. I know you went through the cliché of waiting tables while trying to get discovered and it didn’t work. I know you need me.”
“Can you please treat me with a little respect?”
Quinn snorted. “The social ladder still applies. Take it or leave it.”
“This isn’t high school.”
“No, this is corporate. Get used to it.”
Knowing she wasn’t going to win, Rachel dropped her shoulders and went back to her desk. Once there she threaded her fingers through her hair and stared at her keyboard. She was so sure she’d left high school behind. After this she half expected for Dave Karofsky to walk down the hall and toss a slushie at her.
“No fucking way,” she heard from another familiar voice in front of her desk. “I thought Fabray was shitting me when she said you were here.”
Rachel looked up into the eyes of Santana Lopez whose outfit matched Quinn’s with the addition of square thick-rimmed glasses.
“Santana.”
“This is priceless. Seriously, I have dreamed of this day since like, sophomore year.”
“Is there something you want other than to stand there and mock me?”
“Not really.”
Rachel rolled her eyes and grabbed the binder on her desk and flipped to the page where she’d left off. Santana chuckled and went into Quinn’s office and the only thing Rachel wanted to do right then was cry. She fought back the tears and started reading although not much of the information really sunk in.
Her mind mostly drifted back to high school and how after Quinn had the baby she bounced back with a vengeance. The torture never ended. Quinn called her names and completely belittled and humiliated her in public every chance she got. Rachel tried desperately to build a positive reputation but it was no use. Quinn was hell-bent on destroying her as revenge, claiming Rachel had destroyed her life first. The brunette tried desperately to apologize but Quinn was like a cat. She was going to play with her prey and torture it before finally putting it out of its misery. Rachel left Lima before her graduation ceremony to avoid the inevitable kill shot which she was sure would take place on that day and she never looked back. Until now.
Quinn left her alone for the rest of the day; Rachel took the clientele book with her to the small theater and kept reading in her dressing room between her appearances on the stage. She stopped by the ATM on the way home to find that her Daddy had deposited enough money for rent and then some in her account. When she got home she wrote out her rent check and stuck two tickets to the finale of her show into the envelope and slid it under Mrs. Ma’s door. She read the files in the binder memorizing names, numbers, and case history until she could barely keep her eyes open.
-*-*-*-*-*-
Rachel was startled out of her dreams by her phone blaring its annoying standard ringtone.
She groaned when she looked at the clock, it was barely six-thirty.
“Hello?” she answered with a groan.
“You’re picking up her dry-cleaning, right?” Annie’s voice came from the other end of the line. “You need to get there early if you want to make it there, get Starbucks, and be in the office by seven fifty-five. She likes a scalding hot caramel macchiato with a double shot of espresso. Scalding, got it? If it’s anything less than ‘burn the fuck out of your hand through the cup’ then it’s wrong. Seriously, you should have blisters on your hand by the time you get upstairs.”
“You’re kidding me, right?”
“Hey, if you want to get yelled at then bring in a lukewarm coffee, I don’t care. I’m trying to help you out here. When you get there, leave the coffee on the desk and her dry cleaning in the closet. I’ll be there to walk you through the rest.”
“Fine.”
Annie hung up and Rachel dragged herself out of bed. She got her shower over and done with, grabbed the clientele book, and checked to make sure she had the company credit card and dry cleaning ticket in her wallet. She picked up Quinn’s business suits and made it into the office building at seven-thirty. As expected, the line for Starbucks was horrendous. Rachel shifted Quinn’s heavy dry cleaning and the clientele binder from one arm to the other as she waited. Her watch ticked 7:50 and there were still two people in front of her. The staff was working quickly, she could see that, but she really wished they would work faster. Finally, she spouted off her order and the young man behind the counter chuckled.
“So you’re Fabray’s new victim?”
Rachel nodded.
“Get here right at seven-twenty and you’ll make it on time next time. And she always wants her afternoon blended coffee at the same time so if you come down at ten ‘til three and get it then you’ll have it by the time she asks you for it.”
Rachel handed over the credit card and the boy swiped it and handed over the coffee. Rachel winced at the fact that it was indeed scalding hot. She quickly made her way to the elevators and punched the button several times even though one of the thirteen other people standing there had already hit it. The ride up to the fourteenth floor was horribly slow, they stopped on every other floor. By the time Rachel got into the office it was five after eight. She dropped the binder off at her desk and took a deep breath before going into Quinn’s office.
If looks could kill, Rachel would’ve dropped dead the moment she stepped foot in Quinn’s office. The brunette quickly put the coffee on the blonde's desk and prepared for the river of insults as she located the closet and put Quinn’s dry cleaning in it. When she shut the door and turned around she was practically pinned to the closet door, Quinn’s face was inches away from her own.
“Tomorrow, you will be early.”
“Quinn, I didn’t know…”
“I don’t want to hear it,” the blonde hissed. “Coffee will be on my desk when I get here tomorrow, RuPaul.”
“You’re a bitch.”
Quinn smirked. “And you’re pathetic.” She quickly whipped around and went back to her desk leaving Rachel cowered against the closet door. “Get out of my office and do something useful.”
Rachel exhaled and quickly left the office before Quinn could say anything else. She spent the better part of the next hour re-typing the schedule Annie had given her to be more specific. She made notes on it throughout the morning when Annie would mention what time Quinn liked something. Quinn dropped her lunch order on Rachel’s desk as she passed by late that morning. Rachel called in the order immediately, as per Annie’s suggestion. She left plenty early in order to get lunch on time but was still three minutes late because the elevator got stuck and she had to take the stairs for the remaining four floors.
“Make yourself look presentable before you come into my office. You look disgusting. If one of my clients came in right now I’d fire you, Stubbles.”
“I ran up four flights of stairs so I could get this to you,” Rachel said, tossing the plastic container on Quinn’s desk, “when was I supposed to stop off and get a makeover?”
“Ten years ago,” Quinn said with a triumphant smirk. “At least you got rid of the argyle. And I swear to God if you show up in this office wearing that hideous bright blue pantsuit I will set you on fire.”
“I don’t understand, Quinn. Why are you insisting on treating me…”
“You can go now.”
“I was…”
Quinn narrowed her eyes and set her jaw. “I said, you can go now.”
Rachel balled her fists up at her sides and turned on her heel to storm out. She pretended not to hear Quinn’s hiss of “pathetic” before she slammed the office door shut.
“She needs to get that stick out of her ass!” Rachel shrieked the moment the door closed.
Annie looked up at her from the desk and chuckled.
“What? You think it’s funny that she treats people like that?”
“I went through it for a year,” Annie said. “You’ve only been at it for two days, I don’t really have any sympathy.”
“What makes her think she has the right to do this?”
Annie shrugged. “She can’t be fired. Her mother’s brother is the senior partner in this firm. Quinn had a job the day she graduated law school. She’s ruthless and vindictive, she’s won more cases in the last year than all of the other junior attorneys combined. As a reward for that and for her bloodline she gets an office and us to walk all over.”
Rachel dropped to her desk and sighed. “Not much has changed since high school.”
“No way, you went to high school with her?!”
Rachel nodded. “So much drama,” she mumbled. “She had a baby when we were sophomores, you know? Her then boyfriend’s best friend was the father but she lied and said it was her boyfriend’s. The entire thing was one giant mess. She ended up giving the baby up for adoption.”
“She keeps a picture of her,” Annie said. “In her desk.”
Before Rachel could say anything further, Quinn exited her office with a case file.
“Clean up my desk,” she spat at Rachel. “And I will know if you’ve gone through anything so don’t even try it. Annie," Quinn turned to the other desk, "Santana and I have to be in court in an hour, make sure the car is waiting when I get downstairs and pull the Bowman file.”
Annie nodded and quickly picked up the phone, Quinn shot Rachel a glare as she passed by. Rachel ventured into Quinn’s office and glanced around before chewing nervously on her lower lip. She cautiously opened the center drawer of Quinn’s desk, its contents were standard: pens, pencils, highlighters, white-out, a nail file, and post-its. She opened the top drawer to the right and found what she was looking for. A framed 5x7 of a blonde girl about ten years old. The girl looked remarkably like Quinn but definitely had Puck’s eyes. Rachel shut the drawer quickly and grabbed the plastic container with the half-eaten salad and dropped it into the trashcan by Quinn’s desk. Rachel jumped when Quinn re-entered her office with Santana following close behind.
“Shut up, Juno,” Santana barked, “we’re not doing another pro bono case. I didn’t become a lawyer to be fucking helpful. B and I have rent to pay.”
Quinn stopped when she saw Rachel standing next to her desk with her hands clasped in front of her.
“What the hell are you doing in here, Smurfette?” Santana hissed. “Get out.”
Rachel nodded and as she stepped toward the door, Quinn caught her shoulder.
“Find what you were looking for, Berry?” she growled into Rachel’s ear.
“I’m not sure what you are insinuating but-“
“Drop the act. I haven’t seen you look that guilty since you tried to destroy my life.”
“Ten years is quite some time to hold a grudge, Quinn.”
The blonde chuckled. “I let go of that a long time ago. This is all just for fun.”
Rachel shrugged out of Quinn’s grip and Santana made sure to knock into her shoulder on the way out of the office.
For the first time since high school, Rachel cried herself to sleep that night with words from Quinn echoing through her head.
-*-*-*-*-*-
Rachel barely survived her first week. By Friday night she was tired, irritable and downright bitchy. The fact that it was her last night on stage made things worse. After the final curtain call she did agree to go out for drinks with her co-stars at their favorite bar. Rachel ordered straight tequila shots, one after another.
By one in the morning most of the cast had left and Rachel had given up on tequila shots and was nursing cranberry juice and club soda and an order of breadsticks to settle her stomach. She looked around to find someone she could go home with, anyone really. She spotted cascading blonde locks over a pale-blue blouse and straightened out her appearance before approaching the woman.
“Can I buy you a drink?” Rachel said, a flirty smile plastered on her face.
The woman turned around and Rachel groaned.
“Never mind,” Rachel grumbled. “See you Monday.”
“I’m offended, Berry,” Quinn slurred. “Am I not good enough for you or what?”
“What, do you want me to ask you for a quick fuck just so I can get shot down and you can make some snide comment?”
“Huh, alcohol gives you a backbone. I knew you had one somewhere, no one is that pathetic all the time.”
“Fuck you, Quinn.”
“You wish.”
Rachel went back to the other side of the bar and stared ordering more shots, all the while shooting grimaces at Quinn who was sipping on her martini.
Saturday morning Rachel woke up with her head throbbing and her stomach churning. She groaned and rolled over to get out of bed as she always did but instead of the cheap linoleum of her apartment she put her feet down on plush carpet. She looked around the room, it was beige and she was sitting on an unfamiliar bed. She looked at the other occupant and immediately wondered if she would die upon impact after jumping out the window.
“The fuck are you doing here?” Quinn groaned, breaking Rachel from her thoughts. “I told you to leave last night.”
“I was just on my way out.”
“Good. Don’t forget to pick up my dry cleaning Monday morning.”
“Did we have sex?”
“Get out, Treasure Trail. I have shit to do today and I don’t need you following me around asking worthless questions like ‘was it good for you?’ Oh, and if you tell anyone about this I’ll fire you and burn down your apartment building.”
“So we did have sex?”
“You’re kidding me right now, right? Look, I know you’re dirt poor or whatever so grab a twenty out of my wallet and get a fucking cab and go to your shitty apartment to deal with your hangover.”
Rachel sighed and searched the floor for her clothes. The fact that she was naked had only just then hit her, she should’ve looked to that for the first clue. She quickly dressed and left Quinn’s apartment, not taking the money, and checking to make sure she had her own wallet for when she would hail a cab. She honestly didn’t have a clue as to where she was but it was a rather nice looking neighborhood, Quinn definitely paid plenty for her apartment. She sighed when she knew she wasn’t going to be able to find her way to her own neighborhood and she hailed a cab.
Turns out, Quinn didn’t live too incredibly far away from Rachel. She could’ve walked had she’d known where she was. The first thing she did was take a shower, there were bruises and bite marks all over her body, one particularly deep purple bruise on the inside of her thigh. They weren’t marks of passion, they were marks of loathing. It had very clearly been hate sex on Quinn’s part. Rachel hissed when the hot water hit her back and it burned and she knew she was going to see scratches when she looked in the mirror. Snippets of the night before flashed in her brain through the weekend and Rachel tried to ignore the fact that she wasn’t sickened by them.
-*-*-*-*-*-
Rachel was up at six on Monday, not to exercise but to get Quinn’s dry cleaning. She was in the office building right at seven-twenty and Quinn’s coffee was on her desk and Rachel was hanging the dry cleaning in the closet just as the blonde walked in.
“RuPaul.”
“Quinn.”
Rachel watched out of the corner of her eye as Quinn inspected her coffee. She touched the cup and flinched a little.
“I was ensured that the coffee was scalding. I’m fairly certain the barista will need to have a skin graft after handling the cup.”
Quinn arched her eyebrow and pursed her lips. “Are you trying to kill me?”
“Just following orders.”
“You seem to like to do that.”
“I’m not sure that me complying with your request of ‘harder’ is considered in the same realm of orders as the ones you give to me in the workplace.”
Quinn narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest defensively. Rachel smirked in triumph.
“I’ll be at my desk,” the brunette said.
Rachel sat with the clientele binder on her desk trying to memorize yet another profile when a box of folders was dropped on her desk. She looked up at Quinn, trying her best to give a look that told the blonde she didn’t have time for her bullshit. It didn’t work.
“Take these files to basement storage,” Quinn said. “And don’t worry, he doesn’t bite.”
Rachel furrowed her eyebrows. “Who doesn’t bite?”
“You’ll see.”
Quinn retreated back into her office, Rachel looked over at Annie who was rummaging around in one of her desk drawers. She pulled out a surgical mask and Rachel was even more confused than she was before. She got up and grabbed the mask from Annie and studied it, the other girl had an almost panicked look on her face.
“Asbestos,” she said. “Well, they think. Supposedly they got rid of it but no one’s really worried about it enough to check up on it because the only ones that go down there are the replaceable ones. And Pauley.”
“Pauley?”
“He’s a hobo. He’s harmless…but I suggest picking up a Danish or something before you go down there to keep him occupied. He likes to follow the new girls around.”
Rachel nodded a few times and grabbed the box of files and the set of keys that Annie gave her and headed for the elevator. As per Annie’s suggestion, she stopped off at the Starbucks and got a cream cheese Danish before locating the stairs to the basement. She put on the mask before she headed down. It was dark and smelled funny, even through the mask. She found a large switch and flipped it, the fluorescent lights flickered on and buzzed a little. Rachel made her way through the basement until she found the storage room with the law firm’s name on the door. She left the Danish on the ground on the napkin it came with before unlocking the door and fumbling for the light switch.
The boxes were all arranged in alphabetical order, Rachel found where Bowman was supposed to fit in and had to lift several boxes in order to get it to go in. She needed a step stool to get the top few and she was covered in dust by the time she was finished. There was a loud bang and she shrieked and jumped. She turned to see the storage room door had slammed shut and let out a breath of relief. Her panic returned, however, when she turned the knob on the door and it came off in her hand.
“Oh no,” she whined. “No, no, no.”
She dug in her pocket and pulled out her phone. There was no signal. She pounded on the door and yelled for help but to no avail.
“Wonderful,” she murmured. “I’m going to die down here and my body will most likely be discovered by a hobo.”
She started walking around the room looking at the boxes of client files. She came to a filing cabinet and quirked an eyebrow. She tugged at the middle drawer and was surprised to find it unlocked. She fingered through the files and recognized the names of employees. A lightbulb went off in her brain and she thumbed through the entire drawer with no luck. She opened the top drawer and smirked when she found what she was looking for. There was a large red “CONFIDENTIAL” stamp on the front of the file, Rachel opened it.
The brunette wasn’t looking for anything incriminating, really. She just wanted to see what a certain blonde had been up to in the last eight years. There were Quinn’s credentials which were rather impressive, Rachel had to admit. She graduated top ten in her class from Yale School of Law. Of course she’d gotten this job because her uncle was one of the senior partners but judging by the looks of the file the blonde could’ve gotten a great job anywhere she wanted. Rachel flipped through the papers and furrowed her eyebrows at one heading labeled “arrest record”. Just as she pulled the sheet out there was a rustle at the door. Rachel quickly stuffed the folder back into the filing cabinet and started shouting. She ran to the door and banged on it loudly until the doorknob turned.
“Thank you so much,” the brunette gasped.
“Not a problem, miss,” the man in tattered clothes said with a smile. “Y’left your pastry out here.”
“Oh, that’s for you,” Rachel said with a grin. “Annie told me you might enjoy it.”
“So y’know who I am, do ya?”
“Pauley?”
“Yes ma’am.” The man picked up the Danish and started nibbling at it. “How’d ya manage to get yourself locked in there?”
“I have no idea,” Rachel admitted. She shut the light to the storage room off and made sure the door was locked and the keys were in her pocket.
Rachel stopped at the stairs and Pauley finished off the Danish and gave her another smile.
“Thank you,” Rachel said again. “Have a nice day.”
“You too, miss,” he said. He turned and began walking down the hall.
Rachel didn’t bother turning the light off before she ascended the stairs. She stopped at one of the bathrooms in the lobby to try and clean some of the dust off of her clothes and pull off her mask. She rinsed her face and when she looked presentable again she headed back upstairs. She was met at the elevator door by Annie who clutched her chest and shrieked a little.
“God, I thought you weren’t coming back! Quinn is pissed.”
“When isn’t she pissed?”
“Whatever, come on.”
Rachel followed Annie back through the office and Annie shoved her toward Quinn’s door. Rachel rolled her eyes and went in, Quinn’s head snapped up from her desk and she glared at the brunette.
“Where the hell have you been?”
“I got locked in the storage room.”
“I called you four times.”
“I don’t get signal down there, it’s a basement. Surely you could’ve figured that out.”
“Save the snark, Stubbles. I’m going to be at the courthouse through lunch. Here’s my order,” Quinn handed Rachel a slip of paper, “be there at noon and wait in the lobby.”
“You were worried about me, weren’t you?”
“Oh my God, are you seriously still that narcissistic? I just wanted to make sure I’d have my lunch. You’re replaceable, Berry. Get over yourself already.”
Rachel could pretend all she wanted that Quinn’s words didn’t hurt but they did. They stung. Her lower lip trembled as she nodded and left the blonde's office. She dropped to her desk and called in Quinn’s lunch and went back to the clientele book. Quinn left her office shortly thereafter, she rolled her eyes at Rachel on the way out and the brunette again ignored the hissed “pathetic” under Quinn’s breath.
-*-*-*-*-*-
Rachel became almost robotic in her job. She did whatever Quinn asked of her without sniping back, she’d lost the interest in it. It didn’t stop Quinn from still insulting her every chance she got. Rachel went back to the storage room and found Quinn’s file again. She sighed when the arrest record was simply several accusations of contempt in court. There was nothing she could use against the blonde to get her to treat her any better.
The brunette kept auditioning, sometimes giving up lunch to make an audition. She still wasn’t getting any parts. She discussed it with Annie who looked mildly interested. Quinn would roll her eyes and scoff every time she heard Rachel talk about it.
“You’ll never get any parts, Man Hands. Give up now and stop humiliating yourself. Where the hell is my blended coffee?”
That sent Rachel into a daze and that Friday she sought out her favorite bar again. She ordered drinks and was glad she could finally actually not have to worry about paying for them, even if she was sure her job was going to kill her. She opened her tab and was unsure what number shot she was on before the bartender cut her off.
“Your tab’s been paid,” he said. “Call a cab and get yourself home, you’ve had too much.”
“Come on, Yeti,” a voice attached to a body that was dragging her out of the bar said. “I’m not going to let you sit here and fucking drink yourself to death just because you feel sorry for yourself and your pathetic existence.”
“Screw you,” Rachel slurred. “What do you care?”
“I don’t.” Quinn dragged Rachel outside into the sharp, cold air and dropped the brunette to a bench.
“You paid my tab.”
“I don’t want you going broke and living in the storage room with Pauley. Your appearance is already hideous enough, adding not showering on top of that would really make me have to fire you.”
The cab ride was fuzzy, Rachel perked up a little when she stepped into an apartment that wasn’t her own.
“I wouldn’t normally care if you choked on your own vomit,” Quinn said, tossing her onto the couch, “but that bartender saw me leave with you. I’m sure your two gay dads would press charges or some bullshit like that if I left you alone.”
Rachel rolled her eyes and grabbed the front of Quinn’s blouse and pulled her in for a hard, searing kiss. The blonde’s fingers combed through her hair as she bit down on Rachel’s lower lip. Rachel’s stomach lurched and she felt herself being dragged again until she hit cool tile and promptly emptied the contents of her stomach into a porcelain bowl. Slender fingers pulled her hair back into a ponytail while she retched and soft hands rubbed circles on her back. The sensation lulled her to sleep.
The next morning Rachel awoke in the same bed she’d found herself in a few months prior only this time she was fully clothed. There was a warm body holding her from behind, Quinn’s breath was on the back of her neck. When she woke, the blonde didn’t snipe at Rachel to get out. Instead she cooked breakfast and offered Rachel a plate of pancakes. The morning was silent and awkward, Rachel finally said a quiet thank you and left. She walked the few blocks to her own apartment and for once, when her landlady saw her in the hallway she didn’t get yelled at.
“Good job, you pay rent on time this month again!”
“I’ve still got a good job, the one I told you about,” Rachel said.
“When you next play? I want ticket!”
“I’m not acting anymore, Mrs. Ma. I’ve been auditioning but nothing’s come up yet.”
“That no good,” the old woman said, shaking her head. “You keep trying. But pay rent on time!”
Rachel offered a half-hearted smile. “I will.”
Monday morning was just the same as every morning. Quinn found something to complain about and Rachel hung her head and sat at her desk waiting for her next order. She found herself at the same bar the next Friday but she stuck to cranberry juice and club soda.
“Good, now I don’t have to make you go to AA meetings,” Quinn said as she hopped up on the barstool next to the brunette. “I don’t want some drunken Smurfette working for me, makes me look charitable or something. Although I’m pretty sure keeping you around as long as I have is an act of charity in itself.”
“Whatever,” Rachel mumbled.
An hour later, Quinn’s fingernails were digging into Rachel’s back and the brunette definitely wasn’t half-hearted in fucking the living daylights out of her boss.
The pair fell into a routine rather quickly. During the work week, Quinn was a bitch to Rachel. She was abrasive and had a sparkle in her eye when she verbally assaulted the brunette. Friday nights she was still a bitch and still abrasive but the sparkle in her eye was replaced with lust as she moved from verbally assaulting Rachel to physically assaulting her with her teeth, tongue, fingers, and lips. Saturday mornings were always quiet over breakfast until Rachel left.
It was dysfunctional, sure, but Rachel didn’t care. Her life wasn’t where she wanted it to be so she figured she might as well see where whatever this was with Quinn led to. It wasn’t a relationship, it wasn’t even friends with benefits. That required a friendship to be in place. It was just filling primal needs, Rachel decided. She let Quinn abuse her and in turn she got really good sex and kept her job. She let Quinn order her around knowing full well that in the bedroom she’d get what she wanted.
Rachel eventually stopped auditioning altogether. She was sick of the rejection and her heart wasn’t in it anymore. Working for Quinn and her increasingly daunting tasks was taking its toll. Rachel noticed Annie doing less and less and her doing more and more. Quinn would send her home with boxes of cases to organize and take notes on for the clientele book. She brought her to court to take notes and fetch her whatever she wanted during the day.
-*-*-*-*-*-
The brunette wasn’t shocked when she came into work to find Annie cleaning out her desk one Friday morning. The young woman was sniffling and mumbling to herself, Rachel passed by her desk quickly to put Quinn’s coffee on her desk. When she came back out, Annie just rolled her eyes at her.
“I should’ve seen it coming,” she said. “It’s no secret she’s been playing favorites.”
“Favorites?” Rachel snorted. “She hates me.”
“She gives you work, you’re her favorite.”
“Annie…”
“Look, she pulled me into her office yesterday and told me I was worthless to her now and I could either resign and have a chance at getting another job or she’d fire me. Whatever, I hate it here anyway.” She sniffled again and handed over a set of office keys to Rachel. “Good luck.”
Rachel growled. “She’s not getting away with this.”
“Getting away with what, Treasure Trail?”
Rachel whipped around and narrowed her eyes at the blonde behind her.
“You’re a heartless bitch, Quinn Fabray!”
“What’s your point?”
Rachel clenched her jaw and let every ounce of anger she’d built up over the seven months she’d been at the law firm flow out of her. She clenched her fists and felt the heat rise to her face, Quinn raised her eyebrows expectantly.
“You can’t treat people like this! Annie is a human being, she’s not worthless! You’re a complete and total bitch! Just because you gave up or destroyed everything you ever cared about in your life doesn’t give you license to not show any ounce of compassion for others!”
There was a flash of hurt in Quinn’s eyes before she regained her steely façade and smirked. “Why should I do that? Why should I show compassion?” She glanced up and down Rachel and snorted. “You’re beneath me, Berry. You don’t count. You want to know why you can’t get shit for parts on Broadway? It’s not because you’re not good enough, it’s because you don’t matter. You’re forgettable. I’ll say it again, you don’t count.”
Rachel couldn’t believe she did what she did until after she’d done it. She reached up and smacked Quinn right across the face and there was an audible gasp from everyone that had turned their attention to the pair.
“I’ll bet you’ll remember that,” Rachel hissed. “And you’ll remember this, too. I fucking quit, you bitch. I quit this job and I quit being your little weekend bedtime plaything.”
Rachel threw the keys back onto Annie’s desk and went to her own. She grabbed her purse out of the desk drawer. She felt Quinn’s glare on her the entire march to the staircase.
When the door to the stairwell slammed behind her she gasped for air and let the events of the past few minutes catch up with her. As she headed down the stairs the tears rolled freely. Her heart ached but she refused to acknowledge why. She just hailed a cab and went home and cried.
-*-*-*-*-*-
Mrs. Ma started slipping open audition ads under her door over the next few days. Rachel kept them all in a stack and stared at them. She looked for a new job and found one waiting tables at a bar nearby. She didn’t audition for weeks until Mrs. Ma told her again that she would love to have more tickets to shows. Rachel figured she owed it to the old lady and since she was really old, the brunette didn’t know how many more shows the woman would be able to attend.
Quinn’s words echoed through her head as she stepped on stage for her first audition in months. Rachel was forgettable. She didn’t count. Her heart ached at every thought of the blonde. She didn’t know at what point she’d fallen for her but she had. She wasn’t sure at what point her body started to ache for her touch, but it did. Every Friday night her mind would drift from the bar she was working in to a different bar. To a blonde sitting and sipping martinis. She didn’t miss her job. She missed Quinn.
Her name was called and she quickly shook the thoughts out of her head and introduced herself to the casting directors. She launched into her monologue, it was perfect as always. Her go-to song of choice, “On My Own”, was flawless. She saw the look on the casting director’s face when he said “we’ll let you know” that told her she would never hear from them.
”You’re forgettable. I’ll say it again, you don’t count.”
“I’m not forgettable,” Rachel growled. It earned her a quizzical look from the man in the audience. “I’m not forgettable,” she said louder. “Don’t look at me like I’m forgettable. I’m not. I count. You think you’ve seen a hundred of me but I assure you, sir, you have not.”
“Ms. Berry,” he said, rubbing his temples. “I’ve heard thirty-three women sing ‘On My Own’ today. I’ve heard twenty-two of them do the same monologue. You sound just the same as all of them.”
“What do you want to hear from me, then?”
“Something that hasn’t been sung to death, preferably. Give me something that no one’s heard before. That is how you get parts, Ms. Berry.”
Rachel stared down at the stage and her mind kept flashing to a blonde only this time it was a younger blonde. She was wearing a white babydoll t-shirt and black pants. Rachel was wearing the same. They were spinning, Quinn had tears in her eyes and broke down after the performance.
“You’re not alone,” Rachel sang softly, “together we stand, I’ll be by your side you know I’ll take your hand…”
She closed her eyes and belted out the ballad with everything she had. Every emotion, every feeling good and bad poured into the lyrics. She held the last note and it echoed off the walls of the theater and she felt a few tears slip from her eyes. She let out the rest of her breath and slowly let her eyes flutter open. She was met with a smile from the casting director who made a few notes.
“That is how you audition, Ms. Berry. I’ll call you.”
Two weeks later Rachel walked onto the stage in the same theater with a minor role. She spoke and got a few solo lines in one of the numbers but it was better than nothing. Mrs. Ma practically jumped for joy when Rachel handed her two tickets to the show.
She kept auditioning, her go-to song officially switched to a capella “Keep Holding On”. Her roles started getting bigger and bigger as a few more months went by. Her name was appearing in reviews and she was actually getting asked to do roles. She quit her job at the bar because her checks coming in were more than enough. She was happy…mostly.
Rachel’s thoughts still drifted quite frequently, especially when she started hallucinating and seeing Quinn in the crowds at her shows every Friday night. She didn’t kid herself, she had to have been imagining it. Quinn didn’t care enough to come see her. Quinn had never cared. Rachel was just a toy, she’d always been a toy. Something for Quinn to play with and rip apart and toss away.
One of her several stage dreams came true when she landed the role of Éponine in Les Misérables. Her name was on a billboard. She flew her dads in to see the show a few weeks after it had started. They helped her find a new apartment, a bigger apartment. Rachel saw the disappointment in Mrs. Ma’s eyes but the brunette promised her she’d keep getting her tickets to any show she wanted.
“You always remember you started here,” the old woman said. “I could have thrown you out for all the singing and late rent!”
“I will, I promise,” Rachel said with a grin.
She wasn’t sure when it had turned cold again, but it had. The summer had been spent trying to enjoy life and letting her heart heal a little. It had, just a little. She was still hallucinating, though. Every Friday she let her imagination run wild on stage and would see Quinn in the audience. It didn’t matter, though. It couldn’t matter. Quinn had to be forgettable. But she wasn’t.
-*-*-*-*-*-
Rachel took a deep breath after the final curtain call of that night. She’d hallucinated Quinn again, front row center. The mirage of the blonde had kept her eyes on Rachel all night. The brunette had almost missed a cue because of the intense stares but she pushed through it and recovered beautifully. She quickly went to her dressing room and started changing out of costume and she wasn’t sure what possessed her to do it, but when she was finished she hailed a cab and ended up at her once-favorite bar.
The bartender gave her a smile and told her that all of her drinks were on the house that night, Rachel smiled and thanked him and ordered a cranberry juice and club soda. She tried not to let her eyes drift beyond her drink but it was difficult. The hours ticked by and she gave up. She left the bartender a hefty tip and started to slide off the bar stool when slender fingers gripped onto her shoulder.
“You know I’m responsible for your entire career, right Man Hands? I was the one that made you want to be unforgettable if you recall.”
Rachel whipped around, Quinn was smirking at her.
“I launch Rachel Berry’s career and what do I get? Tickets? Flowers? A thank you card? Nope. God, you’re an ungrateful, furry little midget.”
“And you’re a hateful bitch. What else is new?”
Half an hour later Rachel was digging her fingernails into Quinn’s back and on the edge of ecstasy. Quinn was growling into her ear as the blonde pushed the smaller girl over the edge. Once the high subsided, Quinn stayed where she was, lips ghosting the lobe of Rachel’s ear.
“I love you, Rachel,” the blonde whispered. “I love you and I’m sorry.”
Rachel smiled a little and turned to face the blonde. She pressed a kiss to Quinn’s cheek and tasted salt.
“I love you, too.”
“Could this work?” Quinn choked out.
Rachel was almost shocked at the vulnerability in the blonde’s voice. Almost. She knew Quinn was capable of it but she didn’t know if she’d be capable of it with her.
“Yes,” Rachel responded. “I think it can.”
“I don’t hate you.”
“I believe you made that clear when you told me you loved me.”
Quinn shook her head. “I hated you and loved you for a long time. A really, really long time.”
“It doesn’t matter,” the brunette mumbled. She turned to face her new found lover and wrapped her arm around Quinn’s waist.
“I care…I can care. I care about you. I love you.”
“I love you too,” Rachel assured her again. “I do…I love you.”
“I waited,” Quinn whispered. “Every Friday.”
“I wasn’t hallucinating then?”
The blonde shook her head. “I didn’t want to be forgotten.”
“You’re the most unforgettable person I’ve ever known, Quinn.”
Rachel stayed on Saturday. Breakfast wasn’t silent or awkward, neither was lunch. They had a late dinner after Rachel’s show and went to the brunette’s apartment that night. The days and nights turned into weeks. They fought and Quinn called her Treasure Trail and Rachel called her a heartless bitch. The fights ended with “I love you’s” and “I’m sorry’s” hours or a day later. Quinn was caring, Rachel was confident.
The weeks turned into months and nights split in apartments ended. They made sure to get a comfortable couch because the fights still happened but they were inevitable. Rachel was an unstoppable force, Quinn was an immovable object.
The relationship was a lot of things. It was rocky, it was passionate, it was a little unconventional. It was anything but forgettable.