fic, stars have lost their glitter, pg
Title: Stars Have Lost Their Glitter
Rating/Warnings: PG
Disclaimer: Don’t own the characters. Title taken from a Judy Garland song
Characters: Rachel, Emma, Finn, Jesse
Word Count: 3800
Summary: Blind!Rachel AU. Continuing the story started in Dance in the Dark, and the continued in Under the Milky Way.
The winter break ends too soon, and before she’s really had enough time to compose herself and figure out what Finn’s gift to her means, she’s back at school and has to face the possibility that she’ll need to talk to him about it sooner than she’s really ready. Rachel knows that he hadn’t compiled it with anything malicious in mind-- it’s only natural to want to try and find ways to help your friends, to point them in the direction of things that you know will interest them and to give them things you think they’ll like.
She has no doubt that that’s what Finn thought he was doing when he gave her the information. So she’s not really angry.
She’s nervous.
She visits her doctor twice a year, usually just for a perfunctory exam and she knows that her fathers keep a track of all the latest developments and clinical trials, but at her request none of them pass the information along to her anymore. There were just too many disappointments, and she couldn’t deal with that on top of the stress of starting high school. So it’s the first time in about three years she’s read any literature on the topic, and it’s very clear to her that there have been definite developments in the field in her years of self-imposed information black-out, and now she’s second guessing that resolution.
What ifs are now running through her mind on a constant loop, a nerve-wracking persistent internal soundtrack to her every day life, (What if I’d done this years ago? What if I have to take time off school to do it? What if I'm not a candidate anymore? What if my parents can’t afford it?) but the two biggest ones, the ones that she keeps coming back to are: “What if one of them works?” and “What if I try and it doesn’t?”
She mulls them over in her mind, savouring them. She wonders what it would be like to finally see, wonders what colours actually look like. She was so young when she lost her vision that she hasn’t any recollection she can take refuge in to feed her imagination, and colours are such an abstract idea in the first place...
But every time she comes around to that line of thought it inevitably leads her to the second ‘What if’, which just depresses her. It’s partly why she instigated the information embargo in the first place. She doesn’t like failure, even when it’s something out of her control. It’s why she plans and organises and sets herself targets and goals. She’s pulling straight As in all of her classes because she’s smart and she works hard for it because she knows that if she does that work and makes that effort it will get her the results she wants. None of the treatments available can give her those definitive odds, and the last thing she wants to do is set herself up for disappointment.
She wants to talk about it with someone, someone impartial, who won’t just tell her to ‘give it a shot’ because ‘what’s the harm’. There is no topic off limits with her parents, they have an open book policy in their house. She’s free to ask any question of them she wants, bring up any topic for conversation and they’ll impart no judgement but give her advice if she asks for it. But right now she doesn’t really know what to say to them, and try as hard as they want they can’t be impartial on this topic. They want to find a cure for her, they always have. It’s not to say they haven’t supported her decision to not try and find one-- they did, but she’s always suspected that they harbour some sort of deep-seated guilt about the way she became blind in the first place, not that it was at all their fault either, but they would move cross oceans and topple cities if it made her life easier.
So when she arrives at school on the first day back, early as usual, she seeks out the guidance councillor’s office first. Miss Pillsbury had been extremely helpful to her back when she was first getting herself established at the school. There are understandably issues that need to be addressed when the first blind student enrols at a public school, and Miss Pillsbury tackled all of them with ease, grace and extreme efficiency, something Rachel both admired and greatly appreciated. She still actively liaises with Rachel’s teachers to help smooth out any problems they or Rachel may run across and is someone that Rachel considers an invaluable acquaintance.
She’s basically the adult that Rachel trusts most, outside her own family. And she’s the only one Rachel knows who can be impartial, or at least will do her best to help her figure out her own feelings on the issue, which is exactly what she needs help with right now.
“Rachel!” The councillor says cheerfully, her sensible heels clicking quietly against the tiled floor of the corridor. “What a lovely surprise!”
“Good morning, Miss Pillsbury.” Rachel says, adjusting her grip on her cane. “Did you have a nice break?”
“It was lovely, thank you for asking.” Miss Pillsbury says, and Rachel hears the subtle grind of metal on metal as she fits her key into the office door to unlock it. “And how about yourself? Did your parents take you anywhere?”
“Just to visit family in Cleveland.”
“Well come on in and tell me all about it! I can put a pot of tea on if you’d like?”
“Oh. That would be nice. But I actually had something else to talk about, if that’s alright. I know it’s early and you probably have things to do.” She says, nervous.
If Miss Pillsbury is offended, her voice doesn’t show it. “Of course, my door is always open for you, Rachel.”
She follows the woman into the room, which is as neat and precisely set out as usual, Miss Pillsbury likes things in order, so Rachel never has any problem navigating about this office. It smells of faint lemony disinfectant and hand sanitiser, but tempered by the neat smell of pressed textbooks and it always reminds her of the library. Two steps into the office and she grasps the back of the chair she usually sits in, hard-backed yet strangely comfortable. She listens as Miss Pillsbury unlocks her desk drawer and deposits her handbag quickly, before plugging in the kettle in the corner of the room and pulling out tea cups form a cupboard.
“So, Rachel.” Miss Pillsbury says, finally sliding her own chair and sitting down on the other side of the desk. “What’s on your mind? If you don’t mind me saying, you do look a little preoccupied.”
Her cheeks flush a little, and she resists the urge to apologise and leave before she dumps all her problems on this poor, unsuspecting kind teacher. She steels her resolve by reminding herself that this is Miss Pillsbury’s job, to guide her and give her advice when she’s having problems.
So she explains everything from the start, from Finn finding out about Noah and Quinn’s betrayal and him growing closer to her after Sectionals. Then she tells her about the folder that he gave her, about the pages and pages of information about new developments and treatments, some of which could potentially be helpful to her in her situation, but that it also confuses her. She finds it difficult to explain in parts, but Miss Pillsbury to her credit doesn’t interrupt, and lets Rachel talk until the kettle boils in the corner of the room, and she is forced to stand up and finish making the tea.
“Did you talk to your parents about it?’ She asks and pours the hot water into the two cups. Almost instantly Rachel can smell the soft tang of brewing tea fill the air. There is a sharp zest of lemon and orange pekoe in the air, which smells refreshing and helps clear her mind a little.
“No.” Rachel says. “I wanted to talk to someone else first. I don’t know what to think.”
“What do you mean?”
Rachel hesitates, trying to corral her thoughts into something that she can find words to express. “I’m confused.” She says finally, fisting her hands around nothing in her lap, wishing she could hold her cane, so instead she separates them and holds onto the handles of the chair. The hardness of the handles steadies her a little, and she continues on. “I was blind-sided by it, to be honest. Before the holidays we’d won the sectionals competition, and more people were talking to me, inviting me to things, especially Finn. I think he likes me, and I don’t think he gave it to me to be mean, not like how some of the other students are... But as soon as I figured out what he’d given me I freaked out a little, because I had convinced myself that that wasn’t an option anymore, for me...”
She trails off, acutely aware of the guidance councillor’s silence, and feels it intruding upon her monologue.
The pause continues for another few more seconds, before Miss Pillsbury’s chair creaks as she leans forward and she says: “Can I make an observation, Rachel?”
“Yes.” Because this is exactly why she’d sought the teacher out. A third party, someone outside of the situation may be able to shed light on the situation, help her see the full picture as it were.
“I think you’re confused because this was unexpected. You’re like me, you like to be able to plan ahead for all possibilities, we may have our different reasons for doing it, but it means that our world can be upset quite easily by the things we don’t anticipate, haven’t planned for. This isn’t about Finn giving you the information, it’s about you realising the information is out there, and not knowing what to do about it.”
Rachel makes a small noise of agreement in her throat, then swallows. “So what do I do then?”
“Well,” Miss Pillsbury says in her prim cheerful all-business tone. “If I were in your situation, I’d want to get that control back.”
“Do you mean I should tell Finn that I don’t want him to give me any more information about possible treatments?”
“No...” Miss Pillsbury says cautiously. “Not unless you want to. Because I think you do want to know, which is adding to your confusion. No, sweetheart, I think that what you need to do is look into your options yourself. Go to the library, research it yourself.”
***
Finn finds her later, during the break between first and second period. “I was looking for you this morning.” He says quickly to her, pushing her locker door back so that it isn’t between them as they talk. “I waited here, by your locker, but you never came.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Finn.” She says and turns to face him because she’s been told its considered polite to be facing in the direction of someone talking with you. “I had to visit with Miss Pillsbury, I didn’t know you’d be here.”
She smiles a little at him, then turns back to her locker to continue switching out her books for her next class.
“No, that’s cool, I should’ve organised to meet you instead of assuming you’d just be here...” He pauses for a moment, then says “What were you seeing Miss Pillsbury about?”
Her fingers pause for a moment skimming along the edge of her math textbook, “It was just a general housekeeping sort of meeting.” She lies as evenly as she can and hopes that he can’t tell she’s being purposefully misleading. Non-verbal communication may not be an option for her, but she knows that body language and facial expressions can completely betray her if she’s not careful. So she tries to keep the muscles in her face as relaxed and, she assumes, as neutral looking as possible. “We usually meet early in the term in case there have been any changes to my schedule, or around the school that I’d need to know about in advance.”
“Oh, of course. I should’ve figured it was something like that.” She can hear a smile in his voice, so she assumes that he didn’t notice the lie. She smiles back, and closes her locker.
“Walk me to class?” She asks.
“Sure. I’d love to.” He says, and fits her hand back into the crook of his elbow then walks her to her math.
***
It takes about a week before she finds the time to act on Miss Pillsbury’s advice and regain the control of information. The school library isn’t particularly well stocked, and the books it does carry cater mostly to the sorts of topics that are covered by the classes offered, not to wider reading in general and definitely not for the sort of specialised topic that she’s interested in.
No, what she needs is databases and periodicals, which she knows from researching her history essays that the local county library has quite a sizable collection. It isn’t as extensive as the local college library, but as she’s not yet a college student, she can’t check anything out there yet.
The librarians at the local library have been helping her with her research for years, one of her fathers is friends with a member of the board, and they have been expanding their range of aids for the blind, there are document readers, even ones that help her read sheet music (and the library’s range of sheet music is also nothing to thumb one’s nose at) and the staff there have taken the time and effort to demarcate the stacks with braille signs to help guide her in the right direction.
Edith, one of the younger, newer librarians helped Rachel set up the library’s document reader on one of the more private tables near the piano, where she methodically searches through periodical index after periodical index, looking for studies and research into her particular form of blindness. Understandably there has been quite a few advances in the past decade, but she focuses first on things published in the last few years. Luckily the vocabulary and the super specific jargon that these medical journals are notorious for does not phase her as much as it would many others,
After a little while though she senses someone moving behind her, which is strange because the table Edith set her up at isn’t in the main thoroughfare. The only reason someone would be moving back there would be to start playing the piano...
A few seconds after this thought occurs to her, someone starts playing the upright piano behind her and her fingers pause on the indented Braille words of the Spring 2009 issue of Journey of Ophthalmology so she can listen. She can hear how deftly the fingers navigate the instrument, starting off with simple chromatic scales, moving to a major pentatonic scale, which tells Rachel the person sitting at the piano stool has had several years of professional training, before he launches into a familiar Lionel Richie ballad, the chords familiar and comforting, resonating happily in her mind.
The man’s voice when he finally begins to sing is beautiful, strangely familiar, and not just because this particular song has long been a favourite of hers. No, she’s heard the singer’s voice somewhere before, and she has to wrack her memory to pinpoint where she’s heard him before. He twists around in her seat to angle her ears better towards his voice, and when he finally reaches the chorus of the song she places it.
She’s heard his voice singing Amy Winehouse and Duffy songs, though for those songs it was blended in with the rest of the chorus of Vocal Adrenaline. More recently she heard a snippet of one of his solos on a news article covering the nearby county school of Carmel’s Nationals winning Glee Club making it once again to the Regional Show Choir competition. New Directions were not mentioned, but Rachel had taped the program just in case they had.
Jesse St. James. Here in the flesh, at her local library. It’s the closest she’s ever been to a celebrity (of sorts) and she feels a flush rising in her cheeks, what should she say? Should she say anything? He is a National Show Choir champion, perhaps he’ll be able to give her some advice if she strikes up conversation.
He reaches a piano solo and elaborates a little on the chords, improvising on the original notes, but in such a way that enhances the melody. “You’re Rachel Berry.” He says over his notes, and she reacts a little in shock. He had caught her listening? And he knew who she was?
She feels her cheeks heat up even more than they had before. “Yes.” She says, embarrassed.
“Do you know the song?” He asks, and she nods her head a little and smiles in his direction. “Sing with me.”
He launches into the next chorus, and she joins him in singing the words. They harmonise together magically, him singing a tone above her own voice and blending perfectly with her as he does. She loves Finn’s voice, but Jesse is most certainly a much better vocalist, and it’s only enhanced by the clear training and practice that he has put into developing his talent, just as she herself has done.
They finish the last note together, with the last notes of the piano resonating throughout the silent library, before applause erupts around them. It catches Rachel by surprise, the second time this afternoon, but it quells quickly, and she hears Jesse stand from the piano stool and take the seat by her side at the table.
“You’re a wonderful singer, I hope you know that.” He says, and she smiles.
“I know, but it’s always lovely to be told.” Rachel says. “You have a beautiful voice as well, I recognised it straight away. Jesse St. James”
“Please. Call me Jesse.” He takes her hand gently in his own. It isn’t dry like Finn’s, and it does not have the hard guitar callouses that Puck’s hand does. She can feel the same softness there of a man who knows the importance of moisturiser. Her fathers are both men like that; she finds it rather pleasant. “Rachel, I hope you don’t find this forward, considering this is our first real meeting face-to-face and we are each other’s competition, but I’d love to take you for coffee sometime. I want to get to know you, anyone with a voice as heavenly as your own is most certainly worth a chai latte and a scone.”
A date?
“Now?” She asks, and her free hand drifts across to the journals scattered across the table. It will take her a while to pack up, and she’d need help.
“Oh, no, I can see you’re busy here, and I wouldn’t want to interrupt what is clearly some very involved research.” He says elegantly. “But if you give me your number, I will call you later and we can find a time more convenient for the both of us to meet up.”
She feels the weight of his hand in hers, and hopes that she isn’t developing clammy palms like she sometimes can. “I’d like that.” She says finally, then rattles off her number after he pulls out his smart phone. Her own cell phone is not as fancy as the ones her friends use, with indented individual buttons rather than a touch screen, and it’s mostly controlled by voice commands. She programs his number in return, and he leaves her with nothing more than a gentle squeeze of the hand, promising to call her the following afternoon.
“It was lovely to meet you, Rachel.” He says, and he disappears as quickly as he arrived.
***
“So Rachel.” Finn says, in the middle of a conversation they’re having about song selections for regionals. “Did you look at that folder I gave you?”
She knew it was only a matter of time before he brought it up, and she’d figured if she just ignored it, or didn’t bring it up herself that maybe he would just forget it. He is pretty forgetful, after all, and maybe it was a little mean-spirited of her to bank on that particular character flaw, but something had to go her way, right?
“I read it.” She concedes eventually.
She can hear him start to say something, then he hesitates mid-syllable. It’s probably more of that non-verbal communication coming up again, her face doesn’t feel particularly relaxed, but then he caught her off guard.
“Did I do the wrong thing?” He asks, nervously. “I’m sorry, I should’ve asked you about it, it’s just that being around you all the time made me curious, and I was thinking to myself what it would be like for you, and how difficult it could be, and I just wanted to see if I could find some way to make life easier for you, if I could...”
“Finn.” She interrupts, and reaches across the table, searching for his hand. She knows he isn’t very far away, but she miscalculates the distance and accidentally pokes him in the tummy before he grabs her hand and squeezes gently. “I know why you gave it to me. And... I appreciate the thought, but...”
“But you don’t want me to do that anymore?”
“No... That sort of thing, it’s something I want to do on my own, or with my Dads at least. ”
“All right... I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I was just trying to help.”
“I know. And I appreciate the thought--”
She is about to continue on with an attempt to steer the conversation back to Glee and a topic that she feels safer discussing, but her phone begins to vibrate across the desk, ringing loudly. It disturbs the both of them enough for Finn to drop her hand. The ring-tone trills with the Lionel Ritchie song she played at the library the week before. Hello, is it me you’re looking for?
Rachel stills the vibrating phone with the hand Finn dropped, snatching it up from the desk. “Excuse me, I have to answer this.” She says and pushes her chair back. She doesn’t hear Finn following behind, and answers with the slightest of smiles when she’s out of the room.
***
Author’s note: Thank you for all the reviews and alerts, they feed my muse so the more of them I get the more enthused I am to write :D
I’m already anticipating complaints of No Puck This Chapter, s’cool, I can take em. I can PROMISE that he will have a much more important role in parts to come, but that this story is definitely turning into The Rachel Show, with special guest stars, rather than The Puckeberry show, or The Finchel Show, or The St Berry show. I hope you’ll want to read it anyway!
I’m always open to any insights or criticism you may have, I’m doing my best to reply to anyone who leaves a comment!
Rating/Warnings: PG
Disclaimer: Don’t own the characters. Title taken from a Judy Garland song
Characters: Rachel, Emma, Finn, Jesse
Word Count: 3800
Summary: Blind!Rachel AU. Continuing the story started in Dance in the Dark, and the continued in Under the Milky Way.
The winter break ends too soon, and before she’s really had enough time to compose herself and figure out what Finn’s gift to her means, she’s back at school and has to face the possibility that she’ll need to talk to him about it sooner than she’s really ready. Rachel knows that he hadn’t compiled it with anything malicious in mind-- it’s only natural to want to try and find ways to help your friends, to point them in the direction of things that you know will interest them and to give them things you think they’ll like.
She has no doubt that that’s what Finn thought he was doing when he gave her the information. So she’s not really angry.
She’s nervous.
She visits her doctor twice a year, usually just for a perfunctory exam and she knows that her fathers keep a track of all the latest developments and clinical trials, but at her request none of them pass the information along to her anymore. There were just too many disappointments, and she couldn’t deal with that on top of the stress of starting high school. So it’s the first time in about three years she’s read any literature on the topic, and it’s very clear to her that there have been definite developments in the field in her years of self-imposed information black-out, and now she’s second guessing that resolution.
What ifs are now running through her mind on a constant loop, a nerve-wracking persistent internal soundtrack to her every day life, (What if I’d done this years ago? What if I have to take time off school to do it? What if I'm not a candidate anymore? What if my parents can’t afford it?) but the two biggest ones, the ones that she keeps coming back to are: “What if one of them works?” and “What if I try and it doesn’t?”
She mulls them over in her mind, savouring them. She wonders what it would be like to finally see, wonders what colours actually look like. She was so young when she lost her vision that she hasn’t any recollection she can take refuge in to feed her imagination, and colours are such an abstract idea in the first place...
But every time she comes around to that line of thought it inevitably leads her to the second ‘What if’, which just depresses her. It’s partly why she instigated the information embargo in the first place. She doesn’t like failure, even when it’s something out of her control. It’s why she plans and organises and sets herself targets and goals. She’s pulling straight As in all of her classes because she’s smart and she works hard for it because she knows that if she does that work and makes that effort it will get her the results she wants. None of the treatments available can give her those definitive odds, and the last thing she wants to do is set herself up for disappointment.
She wants to talk about it with someone, someone impartial, who won’t just tell her to ‘give it a shot’ because ‘what’s the harm’. There is no topic off limits with her parents, they have an open book policy in their house. She’s free to ask any question of them she wants, bring up any topic for conversation and they’ll impart no judgement but give her advice if she asks for it. But right now she doesn’t really know what to say to them, and try as hard as they want they can’t be impartial on this topic. They want to find a cure for her, they always have. It’s not to say they haven’t supported her decision to not try and find one-- they did, but she’s always suspected that they harbour some sort of deep-seated guilt about the way she became blind in the first place, not that it was at all their fault either, but they would move cross oceans and topple cities if it made her life easier.
So when she arrives at school on the first day back, early as usual, she seeks out the guidance councillor’s office first. Miss Pillsbury had been extremely helpful to her back when she was first getting herself established at the school. There are understandably issues that need to be addressed when the first blind student enrols at a public school, and Miss Pillsbury tackled all of them with ease, grace and extreme efficiency, something Rachel both admired and greatly appreciated. She still actively liaises with Rachel’s teachers to help smooth out any problems they or Rachel may run across and is someone that Rachel considers an invaluable acquaintance.
She’s basically the adult that Rachel trusts most, outside her own family. And she’s the only one Rachel knows who can be impartial, or at least will do her best to help her figure out her own feelings on the issue, which is exactly what she needs help with right now.
“Rachel!” The councillor says cheerfully, her sensible heels clicking quietly against the tiled floor of the corridor. “What a lovely surprise!”
“Good morning, Miss Pillsbury.” Rachel says, adjusting her grip on her cane. “Did you have a nice break?”
“It was lovely, thank you for asking.” Miss Pillsbury says, and Rachel hears the subtle grind of metal on metal as she fits her key into the office door to unlock it. “And how about yourself? Did your parents take you anywhere?”
“Just to visit family in Cleveland.”
“Well come on in and tell me all about it! I can put a pot of tea on if you’d like?”
“Oh. That would be nice. But I actually had something else to talk about, if that’s alright. I know it’s early and you probably have things to do.” She says, nervous.
If Miss Pillsbury is offended, her voice doesn’t show it. “Of course, my door is always open for you, Rachel.”
She follows the woman into the room, which is as neat and precisely set out as usual, Miss Pillsbury likes things in order, so Rachel never has any problem navigating about this office. It smells of faint lemony disinfectant and hand sanitiser, but tempered by the neat smell of pressed textbooks and it always reminds her of the library. Two steps into the office and she grasps the back of the chair she usually sits in, hard-backed yet strangely comfortable. She listens as Miss Pillsbury unlocks her desk drawer and deposits her handbag quickly, before plugging in the kettle in the corner of the room and pulling out tea cups form a cupboard.
“So, Rachel.” Miss Pillsbury says, finally sliding her own chair and sitting down on the other side of the desk. “What’s on your mind? If you don’t mind me saying, you do look a little preoccupied.”
Her cheeks flush a little, and she resists the urge to apologise and leave before she dumps all her problems on this poor, unsuspecting kind teacher. She steels her resolve by reminding herself that this is Miss Pillsbury’s job, to guide her and give her advice when she’s having problems.
So she explains everything from the start, from Finn finding out about Noah and Quinn’s betrayal and him growing closer to her after Sectionals. Then she tells her about the folder that he gave her, about the pages and pages of information about new developments and treatments, some of which could potentially be helpful to her in her situation, but that it also confuses her. She finds it difficult to explain in parts, but Miss Pillsbury to her credit doesn’t interrupt, and lets Rachel talk until the kettle boils in the corner of the room, and she is forced to stand up and finish making the tea.
“Did you talk to your parents about it?’ She asks and pours the hot water into the two cups. Almost instantly Rachel can smell the soft tang of brewing tea fill the air. There is a sharp zest of lemon and orange pekoe in the air, which smells refreshing and helps clear her mind a little.
“No.” Rachel says. “I wanted to talk to someone else first. I don’t know what to think.”
“What do you mean?”
Rachel hesitates, trying to corral her thoughts into something that she can find words to express. “I’m confused.” She says finally, fisting her hands around nothing in her lap, wishing she could hold her cane, so instead she separates them and holds onto the handles of the chair. The hardness of the handles steadies her a little, and she continues on. “I was blind-sided by it, to be honest. Before the holidays we’d won the sectionals competition, and more people were talking to me, inviting me to things, especially Finn. I think he likes me, and I don’t think he gave it to me to be mean, not like how some of the other students are... But as soon as I figured out what he’d given me I freaked out a little, because I had convinced myself that that wasn’t an option anymore, for me...”
She trails off, acutely aware of the guidance councillor’s silence, and feels it intruding upon her monologue.
The pause continues for another few more seconds, before Miss Pillsbury’s chair creaks as she leans forward and she says: “Can I make an observation, Rachel?”
“Yes.” Because this is exactly why she’d sought the teacher out. A third party, someone outside of the situation may be able to shed light on the situation, help her see the full picture as it were.
“I think you’re confused because this was unexpected. You’re like me, you like to be able to plan ahead for all possibilities, we may have our different reasons for doing it, but it means that our world can be upset quite easily by the things we don’t anticipate, haven’t planned for. This isn’t about Finn giving you the information, it’s about you realising the information is out there, and not knowing what to do about it.”
Rachel makes a small noise of agreement in her throat, then swallows. “So what do I do then?”
“Well,” Miss Pillsbury says in her prim cheerful all-business tone. “If I were in your situation, I’d want to get that control back.”
“Do you mean I should tell Finn that I don’t want him to give me any more information about possible treatments?”
“No...” Miss Pillsbury says cautiously. “Not unless you want to. Because I think you do want to know, which is adding to your confusion. No, sweetheart, I think that what you need to do is look into your options yourself. Go to the library, research it yourself.”
***
Finn finds her later, during the break between first and second period. “I was looking for you this morning.” He says quickly to her, pushing her locker door back so that it isn’t between them as they talk. “I waited here, by your locker, but you never came.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Finn.” She says and turns to face him because she’s been told its considered polite to be facing in the direction of someone talking with you. “I had to visit with Miss Pillsbury, I didn’t know you’d be here.”
She smiles a little at him, then turns back to her locker to continue switching out her books for her next class.
“No, that’s cool, I should’ve organised to meet you instead of assuming you’d just be here...” He pauses for a moment, then says “What were you seeing Miss Pillsbury about?”
Her fingers pause for a moment skimming along the edge of her math textbook, “It was just a general housekeeping sort of meeting.” She lies as evenly as she can and hopes that he can’t tell she’s being purposefully misleading. Non-verbal communication may not be an option for her, but she knows that body language and facial expressions can completely betray her if she’s not careful. So she tries to keep the muscles in her face as relaxed and, she assumes, as neutral looking as possible. “We usually meet early in the term in case there have been any changes to my schedule, or around the school that I’d need to know about in advance.”
“Oh, of course. I should’ve figured it was something like that.” She can hear a smile in his voice, so she assumes that he didn’t notice the lie. She smiles back, and closes her locker.
“Walk me to class?” She asks.
“Sure. I’d love to.” He says, and fits her hand back into the crook of his elbow then walks her to her math.
***
It takes about a week before she finds the time to act on Miss Pillsbury’s advice and regain the control of information. The school library isn’t particularly well stocked, and the books it does carry cater mostly to the sorts of topics that are covered by the classes offered, not to wider reading in general and definitely not for the sort of specialised topic that she’s interested in.
No, what she needs is databases and periodicals, which she knows from researching her history essays that the local county library has quite a sizable collection. It isn’t as extensive as the local college library, but as she’s not yet a college student, she can’t check anything out there yet.
The librarians at the local library have been helping her with her research for years, one of her fathers is friends with a member of the board, and they have been expanding their range of aids for the blind, there are document readers, even ones that help her read sheet music (and the library’s range of sheet music is also nothing to thumb one’s nose at) and the staff there have taken the time and effort to demarcate the stacks with braille signs to help guide her in the right direction.
Edith, one of the younger, newer librarians helped Rachel set up the library’s document reader on one of the more private tables near the piano, where she methodically searches through periodical index after periodical index, looking for studies and research into her particular form of blindness. Understandably there has been quite a few advances in the past decade, but she focuses first on things published in the last few years. Luckily the vocabulary and the super specific jargon that these medical journals are notorious for does not phase her as much as it would many others,
After a little while though she senses someone moving behind her, which is strange because the table Edith set her up at isn’t in the main thoroughfare. The only reason someone would be moving back there would be to start playing the piano...
A few seconds after this thought occurs to her, someone starts playing the upright piano behind her and her fingers pause on the indented Braille words of the Spring 2009 issue of Journey of Ophthalmology so she can listen. She can hear how deftly the fingers navigate the instrument, starting off with simple chromatic scales, moving to a major pentatonic scale, which tells Rachel the person sitting at the piano stool has had several years of professional training, before he launches into a familiar Lionel Richie ballad, the chords familiar and comforting, resonating happily in her mind.
The man’s voice when he finally begins to sing is beautiful, strangely familiar, and not just because this particular song has long been a favourite of hers. No, she’s heard the singer’s voice somewhere before, and she has to wrack her memory to pinpoint where she’s heard him before. He twists around in her seat to angle her ears better towards his voice, and when he finally reaches the chorus of the song she places it.
She’s heard his voice singing Amy Winehouse and Duffy songs, though for those songs it was blended in with the rest of the chorus of Vocal Adrenaline. More recently she heard a snippet of one of his solos on a news article covering the nearby county school of Carmel’s Nationals winning Glee Club making it once again to the Regional Show Choir competition. New Directions were not mentioned, but Rachel had taped the program just in case they had.
Jesse St. James. Here in the flesh, at her local library. It’s the closest she’s ever been to a celebrity (of sorts) and she feels a flush rising in her cheeks, what should she say? Should she say anything? He is a National Show Choir champion, perhaps he’ll be able to give her some advice if she strikes up conversation.
He reaches a piano solo and elaborates a little on the chords, improvising on the original notes, but in such a way that enhances the melody. “You’re Rachel Berry.” He says over his notes, and she reacts a little in shock. He had caught her listening? And he knew who she was?
She feels her cheeks heat up even more than they had before. “Yes.” She says, embarrassed.
“Do you know the song?” He asks, and she nods her head a little and smiles in his direction. “Sing with me.”
He launches into the next chorus, and she joins him in singing the words. They harmonise together magically, him singing a tone above her own voice and blending perfectly with her as he does. She loves Finn’s voice, but Jesse is most certainly a much better vocalist, and it’s only enhanced by the clear training and practice that he has put into developing his talent, just as she herself has done.
They finish the last note together, with the last notes of the piano resonating throughout the silent library, before applause erupts around them. It catches Rachel by surprise, the second time this afternoon, but it quells quickly, and she hears Jesse stand from the piano stool and take the seat by her side at the table.
“You’re a wonderful singer, I hope you know that.” He says, and she smiles.
“I know, but it’s always lovely to be told.” Rachel says. “You have a beautiful voice as well, I recognised it straight away. Jesse St. James”
“Please. Call me Jesse.” He takes her hand gently in his own. It isn’t dry like Finn’s, and it does not have the hard guitar callouses that Puck’s hand does. She can feel the same softness there of a man who knows the importance of moisturiser. Her fathers are both men like that; she finds it rather pleasant. “Rachel, I hope you don’t find this forward, considering this is our first real meeting face-to-face and we are each other’s competition, but I’d love to take you for coffee sometime. I want to get to know you, anyone with a voice as heavenly as your own is most certainly worth a chai latte and a scone.”
A date?
“Now?” She asks, and her free hand drifts across to the journals scattered across the table. It will take her a while to pack up, and she’d need help.
“Oh, no, I can see you’re busy here, and I wouldn’t want to interrupt what is clearly some very involved research.” He says elegantly. “But if you give me your number, I will call you later and we can find a time more convenient for the both of us to meet up.”
She feels the weight of his hand in hers, and hopes that she isn’t developing clammy palms like she sometimes can. “I’d like that.” She says finally, then rattles off her number after he pulls out his smart phone. Her own cell phone is not as fancy as the ones her friends use, with indented individual buttons rather than a touch screen, and it’s mostly controlled by voice commands. She programs his number in return, and he leaves her with nothing more than a gentle squeeze of the hand, promising to call her the following afternoon.
“It was lovely to meet you, Rachel.” He says, and he disappears as quickly as he arrived.
***
“So Rachel.” Finn says, in the middle of a conversation they’re having about song selections for regionals. “Did you look at that folder I gave you?”
She knew it was only a matter of time before he brought it up, and she’d figured if she just ignored it, or didn’t bring it up herself that maybe he would just forget it. He is pretty forgetful, after all, and maybe it was a little mean-spirited of her to bank on that particular character flaw, but something had to go her way, right?
“I read it.” She concedes eventually.
She can hear him start to say something, then he hesitates mid-syllable. It’s probably more of that non-verbal communication coming up again, her face doesn’t feel particularly relaxed, but then he caught her off guard.
“Did I do the wrong thing?” He asks, nervously. “I’m sorry, I should’ve asked you about it, it’s just that being around you all the time made me curious, and I was thinking to myself what it would be like for you, and how difficult it could be, and I just wanted to see if I could find some way to make life easier for you, if I could...”
“Finn.” She interrupts, and reaches across the table, searching for his hand. She knows he isn’t very far away, but she miscalculates the distance and accidentally pokes him in the tummy before he grabs her hand and squeezes gently. “I know why you gave it to me. And... I appreciate the thought, but...”
“But you don’t want me to do that anymore?”
“No... That sort of thing, it’s something I want to do on my own, or with my Dads at least. ”
“All right... I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I was just trying to help.”
“I know. And I appreciate the thought--”
She is about to continue on with an attempt to steer the conversation back to Glee and a topic that she feels safer discussing, but her phone begins to vibrate across the desk, ringing loudly. It disturbs the both of them enough for Finn to drop her hand. The ring-tone trills with the Lionel Ritchie song she played at the library the week before. Hello, is it me you’re looking for?
Rachel stills the vibrating phone with the hand Finn dropped, snatching it up from the desk. “Excuse me, I have to answer this.” She says and pushes her chair back. She doesn’t hear Finn following behind, and answers with the slightest of smiles when she’s out of the room.
***
Author’s note: Thank you for all the reviews and alerts, they feed my muse so the more of them I get the more enthused I am to write :D
I’m already anticipating complaints of No Puck This Chapter, s’cool, I can take em. I can PROMISE that he will have a much more important role in parts to come, but that this story is definitely turning into The Rachel Show, with special guest stars, rather than The Puckeberry show, or The Finchel Show, or The St Berry show. I hope you’ll want to read it anyway!
I’m always open to any insights or criticism you may have, I’m doing my best to reply to anyone who leaves a comment!