fic: life's a show 5/?
Title: Life's a Show
Author: takeanotherturn
Rating: PG-13
Length: 2400
Spoilers: Up to and including all of season 3.
Summary: Everyone thought that Rachel would be the one to be discovered. They all thought that Rachel would be the one to become a star. They were wrong.
Held in the award winning rose gardens of the Lima Heights Country Club, Mike and Tina's wedding was simple but elegant and had exactly the amount of theatricality one would expect when the bride, groom and wedding parties were all trained, if not professional, dancers. Needless to say, the five minute choreographed dance break as they made their way back down the aisle was spectacular.
Quinn had been seated in between Sam and Mercedes, who'd bought her very handsome boyfriend of five months, Derrick, along. It was a situation that could've easily been absurdly awkward but thankfully Sam and Mercedes had parted as friends and were genuinely happy to see each other again.
Once the ceremony had concluded, they moved inside to the grand ballroom for the reception, where a sumptuous Chinese banquet was laid out waiting. After several fights over the seating arrangements, Mike and Tina had given up and decided to just have the guests serve themselves from the buffet and sit wherever they wanted.
It gave Quinn the opportunity to roam the room and catch up with the people she hadn't seen since high school and, yes, if she was honest, search for Rachel, who Tina claimed was there but Quinn was yet to catch a glimpse of her. It shouldn't have been so hard to find her, even in the crowd of two hundred or so guests; despite her diminutive stature there was a larger than life quality to Rachel Berry that had always made her stand out in a crowd. No matter how many people were around, Quinn had always been able to seek Rachel out but not anymore, it seemed that she had seemed to have lost that ability over the years, and it frustrated her to no end.
She was on her way back to her seat at the table where Santana, Brittany, Sam, Alyson, Mercedes and Derrick were waiting when she bumped into Mr. Schuester.
“Quinn, hi!” he greeted her enthusiastically, pulling her into a hug. “It is so great to see you!”
Quinn smiled and pulled back. “Hey, Mr Schue.”
“Please, you can call me Will now.”
She could but she wouldn't. There was just something that felt so wrong about calling teachers by their first names, even long after you'd stopped being their student.
“I'm so glad that I ran into you. You know, I just wanted to tell you how proud I am of you, how proud we all are of you, and congratulate you on all your success.”
“Thank you, although I feel like I should be the one congratulating you,” she said, nodding to an obviously pregnant Emma who was standing nearby chatting to Mike's mother. “You must be excited.”
“Excited, overjoyed, terrified,” Will confessed, unable to wipe the smile off his face. He was finally going to be a dad!
“Don't worry, you're going to be a great father. After all, you've had plenty of practice with us. Do you know what you're having?”
“A little boy. We're thinking about naming him Christopher, you know, after Finn's dad.”
Quinn raised an eyebrow. Naming your son after the dead father of your former student? Weird. Then again she'd heard that Finn had been Mr Schue's best man at his wedding so... “That's...nice.” Really, what else could she say? “Um, I've been meaning to ask, how's Coach Sylvester doing?”
She'd heard that her old mentor had given birth to a little girl with Down's Syndrome shortly after Quinn had left for Yale but that was all she knew.
“Well, it's Principal Sylvester now for one thing,” Will informed her. “And at school she's just the same old Sue, although, thankfully, now she's dedicated to terrorizing the marching band rather than the Glee club,” he chuckled. “But she's actually turned out to be a really good mom. Her daughter, Robin, is almost six years old now and she's just the sweetest little girl, if you can believe it.”
“You know, I actually can.” Sure, Quinn had first hand knowledge of how utterly psychotic Sue could be but she had also seen the way she'd taken Becky Jackson under her wing and by all accounts she'd practically raised her late sister Jean who'd turned out pretty well. “I wish I had time to pay them a visit.”
“How long are you in town for?”
“I'm leaving tomorrow morning, I'd like to stay longer but I have a photoshoot that I need to get back for.”
Will's smile faltered. “Oh. That's a shame, I was going to ask if you could come and speak to the Glee club. We didn't even place at Sectionals this year, so morale's pretty low right now. I thought a visit from you might be able to lift their spirits and inspire them to not give up on their dreams.”
“Sorry. But maybe I could drop by another time? My mom has been guilt-tripping me about not coming to visit her enough so I'm sure I'll be back in town soon.”
“That would be really great! I mean, Finn helps out a lot with them but I think they could really benefit from hearing from someone like you.”
You mean someone who's actually managed to succeed in life? Quinn pushed down the comment and just smiled humbly at her old teacher. “Well, I'll see what I can do.”
“Will?”
Will's head swiveled around to his wife then back to Quinn. “Looks like duty calls. It was really good seeing you again, Quinn.”
“You too, Mr. Schue.”
And with that they went their separate ways. Quinn knew that she could have asked him about Rachel, she'd wanted to, but knowing how close the man was with Finn she highly doubted that she'd get an unbiased answer and she really didn't think she could get through hearing another variation of how selfish Rachel had ruined poor Finn's life without slapping someone.
Quinn snagged a flute of champagne from the tray of a passing waiting and returned to her seat.
“Got yourself a stalker there, Q?” Santana observed as Quinn sat down.
Quinn looked over her shoulder to find Jeffery, Mike's fifteen year old cousin, staring at her from another table. Jeffery was a huge fan of hers and he'd already taken a picture with him and given him an autograph but he was still following her around like a love sick puppy.
She turned back, rolling her eyes. “He's harmless,” she said dismissively and sipped at her champagne. “So what did I miss?”
“Well, I have been amusing myself by watching Finnept's drunken ass hit on girls that are either way too hot or way too young for him and get shot down every time,” Santana said, smirking as she pointed to the open bar where Finn had seemingly taken up permanent residence. Quinn had been avoiding it for that very reason. “And Trouty here was just about to explain to my girl 'Cedes what Puckerman did to land himself in the clink.”
Alyson and Derrick looked so lost that Quinn had to smile to herself. She really had missed this. The day Quinn had left for Yale she'd been so certain that there wasn't a thing that she'd ever miss about Lima, Ohio, now she realized that she'd been wrong.
Quinn sat back, fully content to listen as the others talked and be caught up on the lives of her old friends. Mercedes was currently the star attraction on a cruise ship called the Blue Pearl and sang to a packed house every night. Derrick played the bass in her backing band and had admired her for moths before finally mustering up the courage to ask her on a date. Rory Whatshisname had been deported back to Ireland after overstaying his student visa and was banned from reentering the country so he couldn't make it to the wedding. Neither could Joe Hart who was busying doing missionary work in Haiti. Sugar Motta had ended up marring a linebacker who played for the Bengals and was rumored to be starring in the upcoming season of Real Housewives of Cincinnati. Kurt Hummel had dropped out of NYADA shortly after breaking up with Blaine to pursue a career in fashion and the boytoy he'd been parading around like a show pony all afternoon was an eighteen year old male model from Sweden who apparently didn't speak a word of English.
“Hold up,” Santana interrupted the conversation as Matt Rutherford took to the microphone to dedicate a song to newly married couple. “He can actually sing? I didn't know he could sing. Did you guys know he could sing?”
Brittany just shrugged her shoulders and said, “I didn't even know he could talk.”
From his opening note it became apparent that Matt could sing, he could sing very well in fact.
“Oh, I love this song!” Alyson exclaimed, grabbing Sam by the hand and pulling him out of his seat and onto the crowded dance floor.
The other two couples quickly followed suit, leaving poor dateless Quinn all on her lonesome, which she was perfectly fine with until she spotted Artie Abrams rolling her way. He'd already managed to corner her earlier in the evening to pitch his new movie to her. Apparently couldn't possibly go ahead with the production without her in the starring role.
Artie had ended up following his dream too and after majoring in Cinema at Denison University, he'd moved to Los Angeles to become a director. The majority of his projects were trashy, ultra low budget fare and his work tended to tread the line between homage and straight up rip-off a little too closely for Quinn's liking. To date the biggest thing he'd done a TV movie for the SyFy channel titled Octoshark vs. Godzilla which was just as bad as the title would lead one to believe. Quinn was pretty sure that her agent would have an apoplectic fit if she'd even suggested the idea of working with him. She'd managed to fob him off before with the standard “I'll have my people call your people” line and she really didn't want to sit through another one of his impassioned speeches about how she was just so perfect to play the part of the interstellar dominatrix, Lena Xentra, in his newest project.
Quinn looked for an escape and found it in her dutiful stalker fan, Jeffery. “Hey, Jeffery, aren't you going to be a gentleman and ask me to dance?”
Jeffery perked up, looking like all his Christmases had come at once. “Really?” he squeaked.
Quinn nodded and he shot to his feet, wiped his sweaty palms down the front of his jacket then offered her his hand. “M'lady,” he attempted chivalrously. “Would you care do dance?”
“Why thank you, kind sir,” Quinn said, taking his hand and allowing herself to be lead to the dance floor and away from Artie, who's feelings she'd hopefully managed to avoid hurting too badly.
-
Jeffery definitely lacked his cousin's dancing feet but he always apologized whenever he stepped on her toes and Quinn was having a fun time regardless.
There was a lull in the music as Mr Schuester came on stage to take the mic over from Mercedes and that's when it happened.
“This is so typical of you, Rachel!” Finn's raised voice could be heard all the way from the bar at the opposite side of the room. Hearing Rachel's name, Quinn immediately turned in that direction and craned her neck in attempt to see over the crowd.
“You're like this... this vampire! Yeah, you're an emotional vampire! You just suck everything that's good out of a person until there's nothing left!” Finn's beratement continued as Quinn excused herself from Jeffery and started pushing her way through shocked onlookers.
Quinn finally managed to reach the bar just as Finn was yelling “Yeah, that's right, just run away like you always do!” and caught a glimpse of Rachel's retreating form as she headed towards the ladies bathroom.
Figures Quinn thought as she moved to follow her, throwing a glare at Finn as she passed him by.
-
Rachel was so focused on fixing her ruined make-up that she didn't even notice when Quinn entered the bathroom.
Quinn was grateful for the opportunity to observe Rachel with her guard down. She was taken aback by how incredibly small and almost fragile, like she'd shatter under the slightest amount of pressure, Rachel appeared. It was like every ounce of self-confidence had been sucked right out of her.
“You know we really have to stop meeting like this.”
At the sound of Quinn's voice, Rachel spun around guiltily and plastered a huge smile on her face as she tried her best to look like she hadn't been crying. “Quinn, hi! Wow, you look so beautiful!” she exclaimed, pulling Quinn into a brief hug.
“So do you,” Quinn said, returning the compliment. “Where have you been? I've been looking for you all day.”
“Oh?” Rachel looked surprised. “I'm sorry, I suppose I may have been keeping a rather low profile,” she said, flapping her hand dismissively.
“Because of Finn?”
Rachel flinched and looked down at her feet. “Among other things,” she uttered in a low tone.
“Look do you want to get out of here?” Quinn asked, taking pity on her.
Rachel's head shot up and she looked at her inquisitively, unsure of what to make of Quinn's offer.
“We could go somewhere quiet and talk, the party's starting to wind down anyway.” That was a lie, Tina hadn't even thrown her bouquet yet. “And you wouldn't have to worry about bumping into Finn again.”
Worrying her bottom lip between her teeth, Rachel considered Quinn's offer. If she agreed it meant that she'd have to answer questions, the kind of questions she'd spent the whole day trying to avoid, and to MTV Movie Award Winner Quinn Fabray of all people.
“Okay,” she finally assented and Quinn could barely contain her elated smile. Finally she was going to get some answers.
“Okay.”
Author: takeanotherturn
Rating: PG-13
Length: 2400
Spoilers: Up to and including all of season 3.
Summary: Everyone thought that Rachel would be the one to be discovered. They all thought that Rachel would be the one to become a star. They were wrong.
Held in the award winning rose gardens of the Lima Heights Country Club, Mike and Tina's wedding was simple but elegant and had exactly the amount of theatricality one would expect when the bride, groom and wedding parties were all trained, if not professional, dancers. Needless to say, the five minute choreographed dance break as they made their way back down the aisle was spectacular.
Quinn had been seated in between Sam and Mercedes, who'd bought her very handsome boyfriend of five months, Derrick, along. It was a situation that could've easily been absurdly awkward but thankfully Sam and Mercedes had parted as friends and were genuinely happy to see each other again.
Once the ceremony had concluded, they moved inside to the grand ballroom for the reception, where a sumptuous Chinese banquet was laid out waiting. After several fights over the seating arrangements, Mike and Tina had given up and decided to just have the guests serve themselves from the buffet and sit wherever they wanted.
It gave Quinn the opportunity to roam the room and catch up with the people she hadn't seen since high school and, yes, if she was honest, search for Rachel, who Tina claimed was there but Quinn was yet to catch a glimpse of her. It shouldn't have been so hard to find her, even in the crowd of two hundred or so guests; despite her diminutive stature there was a larger than life quality to Rachel Berry that had always made her stand out in a crowd. No matter how many people were around, Quinn had always been able to seek Rachel out but not anymore, it seemed that she had seemed to have lost that ability over the years, and it frustrated her to no end.
She was on her way back to her seat at the table where Santana, Brittany, Sam, Alyson, Mercedes and Derrick were waiting when she bumped into Mr. Schuester.
“Quinn, hi!” he greeted her enthusiastically, pulling her into a hug. “It is so great to see you!”
Quinn smiled and pulled back. “Hey, Mr Schue.”
“Please, you can call me Will now.”
She could but she wouldn't. There was just something that felt so wrong about calling teachers by their first names, even long after you'd stopped being their student.
“I'm so glad that I ran into you. You know, I just wanted to tell you how proud I am of you, how proud we all are of you, and congratulate you on all your success.”
“Thank you, although I feel like I should be the one congratulating you,” she said, nodding to an obviously pregnant Emma who was standing nearby chatting to Mike's mother. “You must be excited.”
“Excited, overjoyed, terrified,” Will confessed, unable to wipe the smile off his face. He was finally going to be a dad!
“Don't worry, you're going to be a great father. After all, you've had plenty of practice with us. Do you know what you're having?”
“A little boy. We're thinking about naming him Christopher, you know, after Finn's dad.”
Quinn raised an eyebrow. Naming your son after the dead father of your former student? Weird. Then again she'd heard that Finn had been Mr Schue's best man at his wedding so... “That's...nice.” Really, what else could she say? “Um, I've been meaning to ask, how's Coach Sylvester doing?”
She'd heard that her old mentor had given birth to a little girl with Down's Syndrome shortly after Quinn had left for Yale but that was all she knew.
“Well, it's Principal Sylvester now for one thing,” Will informed her. “And at school she's just the same old Sue, although, thankfully, now she's dedicated to terrorizing the marching band rather than the Glee club,” he chuckled. “But she's actually turned out to be a really good mom. Her daughter, Robin, is almost six years old now and she's just the sweetest little girl, if you can believe it.”
“You know, I actually can.” Sure, Quinn had first hand knowledge of how utterly psychotic Sue could be but she had also seen the way she'd taken Becky Jackson under her wing and by all accounts she'd practically raised her late sister Jean who'd turned out pretty well. “I wish I had time to pay them a visit.”
“How long are you in town for?”
“I'm leaving tomorrow morning, I'd like to stay longer but I have a photoshoot that I need to get back for.”
Will's smile faltered. “Oh. That's a shame, I was going to ask if you could come and speak to the Glee club. We didn't even place at Sectionals this year, so morale's pretty low right now. I thought a visit from you might be able to lift their spirits and inspire them to not give up on their dreams.”
“Sorry. But maybe I could drop by another time? My mom has been guilt-tripping me about not coming to visit her enough so I'm sure I'll be back in town soon.”
“That would be really great! I mean, Finn helps out a lot with them but I think they could really benefit from hearing from someone like you.”
You mean someone who's actually managed to succeed in life? Quinn pushed down the comment and just smiled humbly at her old teacher. “Well, I'll see what I can do.”
“Will?”
Will's head swiveled around to his wife then back to Quinn. “Looks like duty calls. It was really good seeing you again, Quinn.”
“You too, Mr. Schue.”
And with that they went their separate ways. Quinn knew that she could have asked him about Rachel, she'd wanted to, but knowing how close the man was with Finn she highly doubted that she'd get an unbiased answer and she really didn't think she could get through hearing another variation of how selfish Rachel had ruined poor Finn's life without slapping someone.
Quinn snagged a flute of champagne from the tray of a passing waiting and returned to her seat.
“Got yourself a stalker there, Q?” Santana observed as Quinn sat down.
Quinn looked over her shoulder to find Jeffery, Mike's fifteen year old cousin, staring at her from another table. Jeffery was a huge fan of hers and he'd already taken a picture with him and given him an autograph but he was still following her around like a love sick puppy.
She turned back, rolling her eyes. “He's harmless,” she said dismissively and sipped at her champagne. “So what did I miss?”
“Well, I have been amusing myself by watching Finnept's drunken ass hit on girls that are either way too hot or way too young for him and get shot down every time,” Santana said, smirking as she pointed to the open bar where Finn had seemingly taken up permanent residence. Quinn had been avoiding it for that very reason. “And Trouty here was just about to explain to my girl 'Cedes what Puckerman did to land himself in the clink.”
Alyson and Derrick looked so lost that Quinn had to smile to herself. She really had missed this. The day Quinn had left for Yale she'd been so certain that there wasn't a thing that she'd ever miss about Lima, Ohio, now she realized that she'd been wrong.
Quinn sat back, fully content to listen as the others talked and be caught up on the lives of her old friends. Mercedes was currently the star attraction on a cruise ship called the Blue Pearl and sang to a packed house every night. Derrick played the bass in her backing band and had admired her for moths before finally mustering up the courage to ask her on a date. Rory Whatshisname had been deported back to Ireland after overstaying his student visa and was banned from reentering the country so he couldn't make it to the wedding. Neither could Joe Hart who was busying doing missionary work in Haiti. Sugar Motta had ended up marring a linebacker who played for the Bengals and was rumored to be starring in the upcoming season of Real Housewives of Cincinnati. Kurt Hummel had dropped out of NYADA shortly after breaking up with Blaine to pursue a career in fashion and the boytoy he'd been parading around like a show pony all afternoon was an eighteen year old male model from Sweden who apparently didn't speak a word of English.
“Hold up,” Santana interrupted the conversation as Matt Rutherford took to the microphone to dedicate a song to newly married couple. “He can actually sing? I didn't know he could sing. Did you guys know he could sing?”
Brittany just shrugged her shoulders and said, “I didn't even know he could talk.”
From his opening note it became apparent that Matt could sing, he could sing very well in fact.
“Oh, I love this song!” Alyson exclaimed, grabbing Sam by the hand and pulling him out of his seat and onto the crowded dance floor.
The other two couples quickly followed suit, leaving poor dateless Quinn all on her lonesome, which she was perfectly fine with until she spotted Artie Abrams rolling her way. He'd already managed to corner her earlier in the evening to pitch his new movie to her. Apparently couldn't possibly go ahead with the production without her in the starring role.
Artie had ended up following his dream too and after majoring in Cinema at Denison University, he'd moved to Los Angeles to become a director. The majority of his projects were trashy, ultra low budget fare and his work tended to tread the line between homage and straight up rip-off a little too closely for Quinn's liking. To date the biggest thing he'd done a TV movie for the SyFy channel titled Octoshark vs. Godzilla which was just as bad as the title would lead one to believe. Quinn was pretty sure that her agent would have an apoplectic fit if she'd even suggested the idea of working with him. She'd managed to fob him off before with the standard “I'll have my people call your people” line and she really didn't want to sit through another one of his impassioned speeches about how she was just so perfect to play the part of the interstellar dominatrix, Lena Xentra, in his newest project.
Quinn looked for an escape and found it in her dutiful stalker fan, Jeffery. “Hey, Jeffery, aren't you going to be a gentleman and ask me to dance?”
Jeffery perked up, looking like all his Christmases had come at once. “Really?” he squeaked.
Quinn nodded and he shot to his feet, wiped his sweaty palms down the front of his jacket then offered her his hand. “M'lady,” he attempted chivalrously. “Would you care do dance?”
“Why thank you, kind sir,” Quinn said, taking his hand and allowing herself to be lead to the dance floor and away from Artie, who's feelings she'd hopefully managed to avoid hurting too badly.
-
Jeffery definitely lacked his cousin's dancing feet but he always apologized whenever he stepped on her toes and Quinn was having a fun time regardless.
There was a lull in the music as Mr Schuester came on stage to take the mic over from Mercedes and that's when it happened.
“This is so typical of you, Rachel!” Finn's raised voice could be heard all the way from the bar at the opposite side of the room. Hearing Rachel's name, Quinn immediately turned in that direction and craned her neck in attempt to see over the crowd.
“You're like this... this vampire! Yeah, you're an emotional vampire! You just suck everything that's good out of a person until there's nothing left!” Finn's beratement continued as Quinn excused herself from Jeffery and started pushing her way through shocked onlookers.
Quinn finally managed to reach the bar just as Finn was yelling “Yeah, that's right, just run away like you always do!” and caught a glimpse of Rachel's retreating form as she headed towards the ladies bathroom.
Figures Quinn thought as she moved to follow her, throwing a glare at Finn as she passed him by.
-
Rachel was so focused on fixing her ruined make-up that she didn't even notice when Quinn entered the bathroom.
Quinn was grateful for the opportunity to observe Rachel with her guard down. She was taken aback by how incredibly small and almost fragile, like she'd shatter under the slightest amount of pressure, Rachel appeared. It was like every ounce of self-confidence had been sucked right out of her.
“You know we really have to stop meeting like this.”
At the sound of Quinn's voice, Rachel spun around guiltily and plastered a huge smile on her face as she tried her best to look like she hadn't been crying. “Quinn, hi! Wow, you look so beautiful!” she exclaimed, pulling Quinn into a brief hug.
“So do you,” Quinn said, returning the compliment. “Where have you been? I've been looking for you all day.”
“Oh?” Rachel looked surprised. “I'm sorry, I suppose I may have been keeping a rather low profile,” she said, flapping her hand dismissively.
“Because of Finn?”
Rachel flinched and looked down at her feet. “Among other things,” she uttered in a low tone.
“Look do you want to get out of here?” Quinn asked, taking pity on her.
Rachel's head shot up and she looked at her inquisitively, unsure of what to make of Quinn's offer.
“We could go somewhere quiet and talk, the party's starting to wind down anyway.” That was a lie, Tina hadn't even thrown her bouquet yet. “And you wouldn't have to worry about bumping into Finn again.”
Worrying her bottom lip between her teeth, Rachel considered Quinn's offer. If she agreed it meant that she'd have to answer questions, the kind of questions she'd spent the whole day trying to avoid, and to MTV Movie Award Winner Quinn Fabray of all people.
“Okay,” she finally assented and Quinn could barely contain her elated smile. Finally she was going to get some answers.
“Okay.”