How You Came To Leave (Part V)
Part I: An' Another Thing
Part II: Last to Know
Part III: Wicked Game
Part IV: Talking to the Moon
Part V: Look What You’ve Done
What should I do, well, you choose (Jet- Look What You've Done)
It’s still dark by the time you get to the park. You lie on the ground, counting the stars above you. You’re a couple of blocks from the high school, but you have at least three or four hours before first period begins. If you listen carefully, you can hear the faint hum of traffic in the distance; for now though, it’s just you and your thoughts in a place of solitude. You find it almost ironic how you have come to seek solitude in different places. When you seek refuge here in Lima, you resort to a park, or something representing nature. When you’re in Los Angeles, it’s different - you run to the nearest Starbucks, a habit you picked up both from Heather and from being in college.
The temperature has dropped low enough that you’re starting to feel the cold through your clothes, but you make no effort to get up. Here, it is the quiet type of solitude that poets write about; the type artists go to find themselves when they realize they have lost what made them good. It’s close to desperation, and even here, when you’re alone a few hours before daybreak, you find yourself seeking redemption for mistakes you don’t know how to amend.
Above you, the night sky seems so clear. You rarely see the stars when you are in Los Angeles, so you take this moment if only because you don’t know how many more moments you will get - when everything that has happened in the past hasn’t happened yet, when instead, you are still a young high school student with the whole world before you. A time when you didn’t have to worry about recruits or commitments or even consequences, because what really mattered was a girl’s smile, and that alone was enough to redeem your past.
You sigh and your breath evaporates into the air; you reach out to touch the strands even as it disappears. Just like that, and the only trace you had been breathing disappears to the naked eye. You wonder how many more moments have disappeared just like that- moments that are there one instant but gone the next, moments that you want to believe matter but the course of History deem to be trivial. Galileo fell in love with the stars but the only trace of the relationship was in his letters to his daughter. You wonder if people ever looked at the greatest lovers of all time -Anthony and Cleopatra, Tristan and Isolde- you wonder if people ever looked at them and thought moments those lovers shared were trivial. Like their story wasn’t special, like the confessions they whispered to each other were only just words.
Your literature professor at Berkeley once told you that it takes decades, sometimes even centuries, before a romance can be considered epic. Entire generations can go by before someone realizes that a relationship is still being talked about. Sometimes it comes across as almost trivial - you don’t even realize why you are referring to two strangers until a writer is kept up one night, tormented by an idea he can’t find the words to express. Sometimes, if the writer is really lucky, the words will eventually come. But in other times, the words never make it onto paper, and even the most epic romances die before they can be born again.
Maybe Heather was right, after all, when she claimed that your relationship with Rachel was doomed from the start. Wagner wrote a letter to his lover Mathilda; the opera lasted seven hours, and yet she still didn’t know how he truly felt. Kafka fell for his husband’s wife and spent the next twenty years trying to rationalize human emotions. Heather swept into your life with a blinding smile and promises of life outside Lima, and for what? Rachel? Still to this day you don’t understand why Heather and Berkeley were so transfixed on terminating a relationship that you maintain wouldn’t have affected your athletic career in the first place.
You think back to what Rachel had said to you a few days ago, when she accused Heather of knowing exactly which words to whisper to get you to leave. You wonder what would be Rachel’s reaction if she knew that Heather’s final push for ending the relationship had nothing to do with your collegiate prospects and everything to do with the singer. You wonder if Rachel would ever forgive you; more importantly, you aren’t completely convinced Rachel would ever forgive herself.
If there’s one thing you hate more than fighting with Rachel, it’s fighting with Rachel when it’s raining outside. The weather seems to amplify the tension between you. It was a petty argument, one you know will blow over in a couple of days at most anyway, but you could do without it. There’s a part of you that just wants to skip ahead straight to the apology, and with that in mind, you turn around to head back to the choir room.
Heather’s voice rings out behind you, and you turn around to find the blonde walking briskly through the rain. You roll your eyes even though she’s too far away to see you.
“We need to talk,” she tells you as soon as she’s close enough to be heard. This time you make no effort to hide your irritation.
“You could at least buy me coffee before you break up with me,” you drawl. Heather scowls at you, and you understand this isn’t the time to make jokes. You realize that you’ve never really seen this side of Heather - a quiet, desperate side, a side that speaks of vulnerability that for the first time you believe to be actually real.
The silence remains on the way to Starbucks, and even there, once you’re in line, Heather seems uncharacteristically tense. She keeps fidgeting with anything she can touch, an endless back and forth, left to right, up and down. It’s too uncontrolled to be nervous energy, too unpredictable to be excitement, and you wonder what has got Heather so on edge.
“It’s no secret how I feel about your talent,” she begins, and she’s looking anywhere but at you. “You have to know that, Quinn. The more I’ve seen you, the more in awe I become. You are arguably one of the most talented cheerleaders I’ve ever seen. You’re smart, you’re driven, you’re ambitious, and there’s just that hint of ruthlessness to you that makes you stand out from others. But I’ve told you all this before. Like I said, it’s no secret how I feel about your potential.”
You nod, letting her continue. Heather continues drumming her finger on the table, and apparently Rachel has affected you in more ways than one because you find yourself mildly irritated by the lack of rhythm.
“So what’s the big deal?” You ask eventually. Heather bites her lip, and that is when you realize this conversation isn’t tearing her apart as much as she would have you believe.
“Your singer is going to make it big, that’s a given,” Heather answers indirectly. “She’s going to make it to Broadway, maybe even West Coast too, depending on how the market is and how she handles her career. But New York, Broadway, hell even Julliard, all that is a given. No one is going to deny that.”
“I’ll be sure to tell her you said that,” you say. Heather gives a half-hearted scoff into the coffee.
“If it was anyone else…” She trails off, looking into the coffee. “If it was anyone else, Berkeley wouldn’t care. But there’s just too much at risk, do you get that? We can’t know what she’s going to say about you, and your image as a student-athlete is just too valuable to us. How do we know she won’t discuss your past on Ellen? Do you have any idea what that would do to us?”
“It’s just there’s no guarantee, you know?” She continues. “There’s no guarantee in this, and it’s just not something we can gamble on. The risk isn’t worth it. We simply can’t afford it. So just, end it, please? We’re really not asking for much. Think of yourself, think of your reputation, think of your future, just… Please, Quinn? Please be rational about this?”
“I can’t believe what you’re asking me to do,” you stutter. Heather shrugs.
“We’re not really asking, actually.” She looks at you in the eyes for the first time. “If you don’t end it, we withdraw our scholarship proposal. You will lose everything, Quinn. You will lose your chance at Berkeley, at getting out of this town, at making something of yourself. All of that, simply because you didn’t want to end this ill-advised high school fling? Is she really worth that much to you?”
“You’re black-mailing me,” you accuse in a last-minute desperation to save both your relationship and your career. “That’s illegal!”
“No,” Heather hisses as she gets up to leave. “I’m simply telling you as it is. Either you dump her or we take away your scholarship. You choose.”
You think there is a certain amount of poetic justice in the fact the rain continues to fall. At least there is a continuity in that; it gives you the false illusion there is still something in your life you can control. There is still a part of your life that hasn’t been tainted. You stand outside, letting the rain fall over you, and Heather’s words keep playing over in your head.
But there is one thing that stands out, and you begin to question, not for the first time, just how Heather and Berkeley in general even knew Rachel had Broadway aspirations if they had never talked to her.
You take another deep breath, and once more you find yourself transfixed by the sight of it evaporating into the air. Above you, the sky begins to change color, signaling the break of dawn. You know if you listen carefully enough, the sound of traffic will become greater as it approaches rush hour; sleep-deprived varsity athletes will be making their way to the school for early morning practices, unaware of their surroundings until the caffeine kick-starts their system.
“Heard you bailed on Treasure Trail last night,” Santana’s voice breaks your monologue. You lift your head and she’s standing a few feet from you in jeans and a sweatshirt you will bet blind belongs to Brittany.
“You spend an unhealthy amount of time investing in my personal life,” you drawl, and Santana laughs quietly. The sound is comforting, soothing, and you welcome it even if it ruptures the tranquility around you. You close your eyes, letting the surroundings take control of your emotions once more.
You feel more than anything Santana lay down next to you, and you shift just enough to feel her body next to yours. She radiates warmth, and it’s enough to remind you, you’re still alive. And that has to count for something, somewhere.
“I never quite understood your fixation with the stars,” Santana says quietly. You glance over at her but her eyes are closed, and for a moment, you’re not sure if she’s talking about the stars in the sky above you or the celebrities in Los Angeles. You stiffen immediately, suddenly terrified that Santana is here to use you, that all she wants is celebrity gossip.
“I mean,” she continues, “I always knew you were a nerd, but still. I’d have thought you would have outgrown your Chemistry obsession by now. It’s been years since you graduated high school. How long does it take you to get over astrology?”
“I took a Physics class at Berkeley,” you confess. Santana scoffs next to you. “It was comforting, it reminded me of home, in some ways.”
“So this is home?” Santana asks. You look over again but her eyes are still shut, and you could almost be fooled into believing she’s falling asleep, that this is just a slumber party conversation. You know, though, from the way her body is tense that she’s very much awake.
“Sometimes,” you answer. “Sometimes I think Lima is home. Other times...” You trail off, hoping that Santana gets what you’re trying to say.
For the longest time you think she really is going to drop it. She just lies there next to you, watching as the sky changes color, watching as the day begins to rewrite itself. The light begins to change around you, and the mist dances across the park. It’s almost magical, and you want to tell Santana to open her eyes, to witness the beauty around you. You watch as the sun filters through the mist. Suddenly, specks of gold cover the grass around you.
“It’s like we’re cheating time, you know,” you say so quietly, you’re not sure Santana can even hear you. “That’s the beauty of astrology. You can cheat time, in some ways. You can go back and it just helps everyone understand things better. It’s the only time you can legitimately look at something and just, learn from it. People say you can learn from History but it’s all so subjective, isn’t it? There’s always so many different accounts, so many perspectives on a single event. But Physics, Astrology, it’s not like that. There’s only one constant, one perspective.”
“History is, I mean, it’s beautiful, isn’t it?” You’re rambling but you can’t bring yourself to stop. “There’s beauty in the way thousands of years later we’re still learning about a conversation Plato had with Socrates, and imagine, imagine where we would be if Plato hadn’t written down those words? And it’s good and all that, but really, without astrology… What if the only thing we had left to believe in were the stars, after all?”
Santana continues to lie next to you, but you can tell, from the way she’s adjusting her breath, that she’s formulating her answer. It’s a habit she picked up, strangely, from Tina, who would always rehearse her answer in her head before she spoke. When Tina stuttered, it was usually because she was being pressured into speaking before she was ready.
“Your office in Los Angeles faces South,” Santana says quietly. “I asked Kelsey why that was when I was visiting you. She said it’s because you wanted the office with the view, which to a certain extent I can believe. Except the view you have is of downtown, which means that what you see is people, cars, traffic. Instead of peace, you see constant movement.”
“The other important thing about your office,” she tells you, and she opens one eye to look at you, “is that it faces away from where you would need to be to see most constellations.”
“So, just, stop, ok?” Santana says as she sits up. “Stop making these eloquent speeches about how you can only find yourself when you’re staring at the stars because the only thing you do when you’re in California is find every way possible to avoid having to look at them. The stars didn’t go away just because you didn’t want to look at them anymore.”
“Santana…” You start, and she looks at you; for the first time you’re at lost at what to say to her.
“It’s ok,” she murmurs quietly, even though it’s not. It’s not even close to ok that she can read you so easily but you seem to have lost that touch completely. “It’s ok, Quinn, I know, I understand.”
She lies back down, and after a moment, you lie back down next to her. When you look over, her eyes are closed again, and this time, you know she’s sleeping. You close your eyes as well and just let the sound of the traffic in the distance come over you, feel the mist float around your bodies as rays of sunlight continue to dance around you. Without really realizing it, you reach over and grasp Santana’s hand.
“Don’t tell me you’re getting sentimental on me now, Fabray,” Santana drawls, but there’s a smirk playing on her face.
“Shut up,” you mutter, blushing.
“Love you too,” Santana grins. “Now let me get a little more sleep. Then we can get breakfast. You’re paying, for the record.”
“Do you think I’m beautiful?” You suddenly ask Santana.
“Well,” Santana drawls, “I think you’re pretty without any make-up on. You’re not that funny when you tell the punch line wrong, though.”
“You’re an ass,” you snap, but there’s no bite behind it. Santana stares back at you.
“I thought we agreed back in high school I was the one with the self-esteem issues regarding looks, and you got insecurities in relationship,” she says jokingly, but you know from the way she’s angled herself to look at you that she’s actually paying attention to the conversation.
“I was thinking about my relationship with Rachel,” you confess, and Santana nods, letting you continue. “And I was running through some of my conversations with her in my head, and I think she only called me beautiful once the only time we were involved.”
“She isn’t…” Santana shifts again, and you realize suddenly she is uncomfortable having this conversation. “For all the rambling she does, Berry doesn’t give epic speeches. That was more your thing, or Sue, on the rare occasions her soul decided to make an appearance. Berry throws words together but sometimes I think she uses them because she likes the way they sound, not because of what they mean.”
“Do you think speeches should mean something?” You ask. Santana falls quietly, taking her time to answer.
“I think people don’t make speeches for the sake of making speeches,” she eventually answers. “And I think that holds true for everybody, be it politicians or Treasure Trail. You don’t just talk, you know, when you’re making a speech? You’re always trying to convince them of something, whether it’s to vote for you or that you’ve never felt that way about someone else, ever… It’s the same thing. It’s a personal connection, and no one exposes themselves like that just for the sake of being vulnerable.”
You’re suddenly wide awake. The rain is still falling outside, but you know it’s not the sound of thunder in the distance that woke you up. You listen more intensely, and eventually you figure out what yanked you out of a restless slumber.
There is someone in your room.
You stay very still, holding your breath, but you can sense someone in your room, moving around in the dark. Lima isn’t known for its high crime rate, but you are still terrified that there is a thief in your room. You want to scream but then you catch a particular scent, and you realize the person breaking into your room is Rachel. You haven’t seen her since your conversation with Heather, when she gave you the ultimatum - your relationship with Rachel or your scholarship at Berkeley.
You eventually give up the act and open your eyes, and Rachel is off to the side, watching you from the side of the bed. The streetlight filters through your room, and you can see specs of water on Rachel’s hair - obviously the rain hasn’t let up since earlier that day.
“Rachel?” You mumble. “What are you doing here? What time is it?”
“You injured your left ankle when you were 14 during cheerleading practice and sometimes it still bothers you,” Rachel says. “I know this because in Glee you almost always favor your right foot during a dance routine, even though everyone knows you’re left-footed.”
You stare at her, confused.
“You claim to hate soy milk but you drink it anyway, both because you know I like the taste of it, and you know I can taste it on your lips when we kiss. You always toast your bagel twice, except on Saturdays, and on that day you don’t toast it at all. You hate the taste of eggnog, but you like the memories you associate with it. You claim your notes aren’t color-coded, but actually they are- you use different colors depending on how interesting you find the subject. You say you don’t like Philosophy but you envy the way Plato always seemed to find the right words.”
“Rachel…” You start, but she shakes her head, signaling you to let her continue.
“I fell in love with you for the first time twice,” she says as she takes a step closer. “The first time was when you were 15. You were on the field, and it was a little after the Cheerios had finishing practice. You were with Brittany and Santana, and you were just dancing around with each other. You had this smile on your face, and you just looked so happy. And I wanted you to smile at me like that, because you looked like you had the whole world before you.”
“The second time I fell in love with you,” Rachel continues, “was about six weeks and four days ago. We were in the middle in some choreography with Glee and you weren’t actually paying attention, and you were about half a step behind in the choreography. You compromised by added a move to fall back in sync, and in that moment, as you turned, the sun caught your hair, and I guess there are really has to be God because it’s not humanly possible for someone to be that beautiful. You’re so beautiful it hurts to look at you sometimes.”
“Plato spent his whole life thanking the heavens he was born under the same stars as Socrates,” she continues. “And I want that kind of relationship. I know I’m Jewish but I want to look up at the stars and know they’re somehow involved in the two of us being together. People can go their whole lives without experiencing what we have at seventeen, and I just… I can’t let that go. So this is me saying I’m sorry. I don’t want to fight with you anymore, Quinn. I just want to be with you.”
“I love you,” she breathes, “I love you so much that it’s almost ridiculous at times and I’m terrified you don’t get that. I love you in that weird, messy, I want to hold a stereo above my head and serenade you at two in the morning kind of way, like people saw on Dawson’s Creek. But it’s not just that, I want you in my life. I want you in my bones, in my veins. I want to be able to look back at us in forty years and know that nothing will ever come close to us. I want a moment that is everything, because that’s what you are to me.”
“It’s ridiculous how much I love you sometimes,” she says, and the smile she gives you signals her speech is over.
“Your turn,” she says, and you raise an eyebrow, confused. Rachel laughs. “It’s your turn to tell me something that’s ridiculous.”
“Sometimes,” you whisper as you pull her on top of you, “Sometimes, I’m afraid our love is so powerful that it will end up destroying us.”
Santana is still watching you when the flashback stops playing in your mind, and in that moment, with your best friend’s eyes upon you, you realize exactly what you should do. Some part of you had known all along.
“Lopez, I love you!” You exclaim as you get up.
“You still owe me breakfast, Fabray!” She yells to your departing back.
You frantically ring Rachel’s doorbell, ignoring the fact it’s only a little after dawn, that she could still be asleep, or, the worse scenario, that she isn’t there at all. You aren’t the only one who has developed the habit of running away when you don’t know how to deal with your emotions. Eventually, though, your prayers seem to be answered, and you hear her footsteps as she comes to the door.
“You sprained your right wrist when you were 11, and as a result, you developed a habit of holding a microphone with your left hand,” you say as soon as she opens the door.
It’s not the best opening line you’ve ever delivered, and judging by Rachel’s look, she feels just as skeptical about this early morning confession as you do.
“You color coded your notes by how likely you thought something will be on a test. You’re a vegan, but you sometimes get a craving for nachos. You like spending your Thursday nights watching silent movies and drinking lukewarm beer, and the reason for that is because it brings an element of comfort, of continuity, that everyday life lacks. You believe in the good in people because the other alternative means that there isn’t something good about a person, and that’s so much worse.”
You bite your lip, suddenly unsure of how to continue. For the first time in a very long time, you’re struggling to find the right words. Speeches, words, have always come so easily to you that you can’t help but feel unbalanced by the fact they’re failing you.
“You have this ring,” you continue, “and it’s silver, and it has a diamond on it? You got it after we won sectionals junior year. You claimed it was to celebrate the success, you said to Will you got that ring because it represented being a part of something greater than yourself. But you told me there was another meaning to it, you said you did it because there was a part of you that was wed to Glee Club. Streisand once said that she was married to Broadway, and it took winning sectionals again to understand what she meant by that. It’s the kind of unquestioning loyalty that maybe only collegiate athletes understand.”
“Plato spent his whole life thanking the heavens he was born under the same stars as Socrates,” you tell her. “And Rousseau spent his entire career defending reason to reasonable men, and in the long run, without those philosophers, society wouldn’t be the way it is now.”
“But here’s the thing,” you find yourself chewing your lip, letting the words sort themselves out in your head. “I wouldn’t have gotten where I am today if it wasn’t for you. I wouldn’t have gotten Berkeley, or Los Angeles, or anything, if I had never met you. I wouldn’t have become someone if it wasn’t for you.”
You take a deep breath, fighting back tears. You lose, though, when you see Rachel take half a step towards you, and there’s so much sadness, defeat in her eyes. She’s looking at you like she doesn’t know how to fix you anymore, and that, that is what scares you more than anything.
“Four years ago,” you say through your tears, “Four years ago, I had a choice between going to Berkeley or staying with you, and I chose Berkeley. And that was the worse choice I’ve ever made because I should have chosen you. It’s you, Rachel, it’s always been you. So this is it, ok? This is me doing what I should have done four years ago. This is me choosing you.”
Rachel opens her mouth to say something, but you shake your head. There’s one more thing you have to say.
“I told you once I was afraid our love was so powerful that it would end up destroying us,” you say, “and that actually still stands. Because I’ve never felt something for someone the way I feel about you. But why does it have to destroy us? What if it could make us better, instead?”
“The Ancient Greeks scribbled words like ‘fate’ and ‘doomed’ and entire Roman empires fell apart, and Shakespeare used the phrase ‘star-crossed’ because there’s a certain amount of beauty in that, but what if we could do what all those before us failed to do? What if we could beat the odds?” You move closer to her. “You and me, we could be epic. We could be the ones to defy the odds. So how about it? How about we give ourselves a second chance?”
Silence. Complete and total silence. It’s almost deafening, and in this moment, you’ve never wished more for the rain. You hear traffic in the distance, and the clock is ticking away in the hallway. You focus on it. Each chime is a reminder of a moment you won’t get back. Tick. Tick. Tick. Another second, another moment. It’s unnerving, unsettling, because in all the time you’ve known her, you can only remember Rachel being this silent once, and that was the day you left Glee Club.
Her silence from that day still keeps you at night.
Is this it, you wonder, did you have this coming? Is this payback for all those years? Is Rachel finally evening the score?
“Say something,” you plead. “Please, just say something. Yell at me, scream insults at me, demand I leave, tell me I’m right and our love can be saved, just please, please say something, say anything.”
Rachel’s eyes drop from your face to the floor.
“I’m dating Finn.”
Not stealing if you acknowledge it:
- Obviously, I don't own Glee
- "Plato thanked the heavens he was born under the same stars as Socrates" is written by Montesquieu
- Rousseau claimed that he "isn't defending science, he is defending reason to reasonable men"
- The banter between Santana and Quinn over her looks is the opening line from "Teenage Dream" by Katy Perry
- "The Ancient Greeks scribbled words like "fate" and "doomed" and entire Roman empires fell apart" is originally written in "Bad Catholics" (Chase/Cameron House MD fic, I forget the name of the author)
- Rachel/Quinn noticing each other's traits is a play-off something I read by heartwasalegend, so credit goes to them
- The ring Quinn is referring to ("silver with the diamond") is a play on the ring the Glee cast girls allegedly bought together, but whose symbolism was never defined
Part VI: Knife Going In
Part VII: I'm Not Calling You a Liar
Part VIII: Told You S o
Part IX: I Gave You All
Part X: I Adore You
Part XI: Love Is No Big Truth
Part XII: Escape
Part XIII: No Longer What You Require
Part XIV: This Will All Make Perfect Sense Someday
Part XV: Our Love
Part II: Last to Know
Part III: Wicked Game
Part IV: Talking to the Moon
Part V: Look What You’ve Done
What should I do, well, you choose (Jet- Look What You've Done)
It’s still dark by the time you get to the park. You lie on the ground, counting the stars above you. You’re a couple of blocks from the high school, but you have at least three or four hours before first period begins. If you listen carefully, you can hear the faint hum of traffic in the distance; for now though, it’s just you and your thoughts in a place of solitude. You find it almost ironic how you have come to seek solitude in different places. When you seek refuge here in Lima, you resort to a park, or something representing nature. When you’re in Los Angeles, it’s different - you run to the nearest Starbucks, a habit you picked up both from Heather and from being in college.
The temperature has dropped low enough that you’re starting to feel the cold through your clothes, but you make no effort to get up. Here, it is the quiet type of solitude that poets write about; the type artists go to find themselves when they realize they have lost what made them good. It’s close to desperation, and even here, when you’re alone a few hours before daybreak, you find yourself seeking redemption for mistakes you don’t know how to amend.
Above you, the night sky seems so clear. You rarely see the stars when you are in Los Angeles, so you take this moment if only because you don’t know how many more moments you will get - when everything that has happened in the past hasn’t happened yet, when instead, you are still a young high school student with the whole world before you. A time when you didn’t have to worry about recruits or commitments or even consequences, because what really mattered was a girl’s smile, and that alone was enough to redeem your past.
You sigh and your breath evaporates into the air; you reach out to touch the strands even as it disappears. Just like that, and the only trace you had been breathing disappears to the naked eye. You wonder how many more moments have disappeared just like that- moments that are there one instant but gone the next, moments that you want to believe matter but the course of History deem to be trivial. Galileo fell in love with the stars but the only trace of the relationship was in his letters to his daughter. You wonder if people ever looked at the greatest lovers of all time -Anthony and Cleopatra, Tristan and Isolde- you wonder if people ever looked at them and thought moments those lovers shared were trivial. Like their story wasn’t special, like the confessions they whispered to each other were only just words.
Your literature professor at Berkeley once told you that it takes decades, sometimes even centuries, before a romance can be considered epic. Entire generations can go by before someone realizes that a relationship is still being talked about. Sometimes it comes across as almost trivial - you don’t even realize why you are referring to two strangers until a writer is kept up one night, tormented by an idea he can’t find the words to express. Sometimes, if the writer is really lucky, the words will eventually come. But in other times, the words never make it onto paper, and even the most epic romances die before they can be born again.
Maybe Heather was right, after all, when she claimed that your relationship with Rachel was doomed from the start. Wagner wrote a letter to his lover Mathilda; the opera lasted seven hours, and yet she still didn’t know how he truly felt. Kafka fell for his husband’s wife and spent the next twenty years trying to rationalize human emotions. Heather swept into your life with a blinding smile and promises of life outside Lima, and for what? Rachel? Still to this day you don’t understand why Heather and Berkeley were so transfixed on terminating a relationship that you maintain wouldn’t have affected your athletic career in the first place.
You think back to what Rachel had said to you a few days ago, when she accused Heather of knowing exactly which words to whisper to get you to leave. You wonder what would be Rachel’s reaction if she knew that Heather’s final push for ending the relationship had nothing to do with your collegiate prospects and everything to do with the singer. You wonder if Rachel would ever forgive you; more importantly, you aren’t completely convinced Rachel would ever forgive herself.
If there’s one thing you hate more than fighting with Rachel, it’s fighting with Rachel when it’s raining outside. The weather seems to amplify the tension between you. It was a petty argument, one you know will blow over in a couple of days at most anyway, but you could do without it. There’s a part of you that just wants to skip ahead straight to the apology, and with that in mind, you turn around to head back to the choir room.
Heather’s voice rings out behind you, and you turn around to find the blonde walking briskly through the rain. You roll your eyes even though she’s too far away to see you.
“We need to talk,” she tells you as soon as she’s close enough to be heard. This time you make no effort to hide your irritation.
“You could at least buy me coffee before you break up with me,” you drawl. Heather scowls at you, and you understand this isn’t the time to make jokes. You realize that you’ve never really seen this side of Heather - a quiet, desperate side, a side that speaks of vulnerability that for the first time you believe to be actually real.
The silence remains on the way to Starbucks, and even there, once you’re in line, Heather seems uncharacteristically tense. She keeps fidgeting with anything she can touch, an endless back and forth, left to right, up and down. It’s too uncontrolled to be nervous energy, too unpredictable to be excitement, and you wonder what has got Heather so on edge.
“It’s no secret how I feel about your talent,” she begins, and she’s looking anywhere but at you. “You have to know that, Quinn. The more I’ve seen you, the more in awe I become. You are arguably one of the most talented cheerleaders I’ve ever seen. You’re smart, you’re driven, you’re ambitious, and there’s just that hint of ruthlessness to you that makes you stand out from others. But I’ve told you all this before. Like I said, it’s no secret how I feel about your potential.”
You nod, letting her continue. Heather continues drumming her finger on the table, and apparently Rachel has affected you in more ways than one because you find yourself mildly irritated by the lack of rhythm.
“So what’s the big deal?” You ask eventually. Heather bites her lip, and that is when you realize this conversation isn’t tearing her apart as much as she would have you believe.
“Your singer is going to make it big, that’s a given,” Heather answers indirectly. “She’s going to make it to Broadway, maybe even West Coast too, depending on how the market is and how she handles her career. But New York, Broadway, hell even Julliard, all that is a given. No one is going to deny that.”
“I’ll be sure to tell her you said that,” you say. Heather gives a half-hearted scoff into the coffee.
“If it was anyone else…” She trails off, looking into the coffee. “If it was anyone else, Berkeley wouldn’t care. But there’s just too much at risk, do you get that? We can’t know what she’s going to say about you, and your image as a student-athlete is just too valuable to us. How do we know she won’t discuss your past on Ellen? Do you have any idea what that would do to us?”
“It’s just there’s no guarantee, you know?” She continues. “There’s no guarantee in this, and it’s just not something we can gamble on. The risk isn’t worth it. We simply can’t afford it. So just, end it, please? We’re really not asking for much. Think of yourself, think of your reputation, think of your future, just… Please, Quinn? Please be rational about this?”
“I can’t believe what you’re asking me to do,” you stutter. Heather shrugs.
“We’re not really asking, actually.” She looks at you in the eyes for the first time. “If you don’t end it, we withdraw our scholarship proposal. You will lose everything, Quinn. You will lose your chance at Berkeley, at getting out of this town, at making something of yourself. All of that, simply because you didn’t want to end this ill-advised high school fling? Is she really worth that much to you?”
“You’re black-mailing me,” you accuse in a last-minute desperation to save both your relationship and your career. “That’s illegal!”
“No,” Heather hisses as she gets up to leave. “I’m simply telling you as it is. Either you dump her or we take away your scholarship. You choose.”
You think there is a certain amount of poetic justice in the fact the rain continues to fall. At least there is a continuity in that; it gives you the false illusion there is still something in your life you can control. There is still a part of your life that hasn’t been tainted. You stand outside, letting the rain fall over you, and Heather’s words keep playing over in your head.
But there is one thing that stands out, and you begin to question, not for the first time, just how Heather and Berkeley in general even knew Rachel had Broadway aspirations if they had never talked to her.
You take another deep breath, and once more you find yourself transfixed by the sight of it evaporating into the air. Above you, the sky begins to change color, signaling the break of dawn. You know if you listen carefully enough, the sound of traffic will become greater as it approaches rush hour; sleep-deprived varsity athletes will be making their way to the school for early morning practices, unaware of their surroundings until the caffeine kick-starts their system.
“Heard you bailed on Treasure Trail last night,” Santana’s voice breaks your monologue. You lift your head and she’s standing a few feet from you in jeans and a sweatshirt you will bet blind belongs to Brittany.
“You spend an unhealthy amount of time investing in my personal life,” you drawl, and Santana laughs quietly. The sound is comforting, soothing, and you welcome it even if it ruptures the tranquility around you. You close your eyes, letting the surroundings take control of your emotions once more.
You feel more than anything Santana lay down next to you, and you shift just enough to feel her body next to yours. She radiates warmth, and it’s enough to remind you, you’re still alive. And that has to count for something, somewhere.
“I never quite understood your fixation with the stars,” Santana says quietly. You glance over at her but her eyes are closed, and for a moment, you’re not sure if she’s talking about the stars in the sky above you or the celebrities in Los Angeles. You stiffen immediately, suddenly terrified that Santana is here to use you, that all she wants is celebrity gossip.
“I mean,” she continues, “I always knew you were a nerd, but still. I’d have thought you would have outgrown your Chemistry obsession by now. It’s been years since you graduated high school. How long does it take you to get over astrology?”
“I took a Physics class at Berkeley,” you confess. Santana scoffs next to you. “It was comforting, it reminded me of home, in some ways.”
“So this is home?” Santana asks. You look over again but her eyes are still shut, and you could almost be fooled into believing she’s falling asleep, that this is just a slumber party conversation. You know, though, from the way her body is tense that she’s very much awake.
“Sometimes,” you answer. “Sometimes I think Lima is home. Other times...” You trail off, hoping that Santana gets what you’re trying to say.
For the longest time you think she really is going to drop it. She just lies there next to you, watching as the sky changes color, watching as the day begins to rewrite itself. The light begins to change around you, and the mist dances across the park. It’s almost magical, and you want to tell Santana to open her eyes, to witness the beauty around you. You watch as the sun filters through the mist. Suddenly, specks of gold cover the grass around you.
“It’s like we’re cheating time, you know,” you say so quietly, you’re not sure Santana can even hear you. “That’s the beauty of astrology. You can cheat time, in some ways. You can go back and it just helps everyone understand things better. It’s the only time you can legitimately look at something and just, learn from it. People say you can learn from History but it’s all so subjective, isn’t it? There’s always so many different accounts, so many perspectives on a single event. But Physics, Astrology, it’s not like that. There’s only one constant, one perspective.”
“History is, I mean, it’s beautiful, isn’t it?” You’re rambling but you can’t bring yourself to stop. “There’s beauty in the way thousands of years later we’re still learning about a conversation Plato had with Socrates, and imagine, imagine where we would be if Plato hadn’t written down those words? And it’s good and all that, but really, without astrology… What if the only thing we had left to believe in were the stars, after all?”
Santana continues to lie next to you, but you can tell, from the way she’s adjusting her breath, that she’s formulating her answer. It’s a habit she picked up, strangely, from Tina, who would always rehearse her answer in her head before she spoke. When Tina stuttered, it was usually because she was being pressured into speaking before she was ready.
“Your office in Los Angeles faces South,” Santana says quietly. “I asked Kelsey why that was when I was visiting you. She said it’s because you wanted the office with the view, which to a certain extent I can believe. Except the view you have is of downtown, which means that what you see is people, cars, traffic. Instead of peace, you see constant movement.”
“The other important thing about your office,” she tells you, and she opens one eye to look at you, “is that it faces away from where you would need to be to see most constellations.”
“So, just, stop, ok?” Santana says as she sits up. “Stop making these eloquent speeches about how you can only find yourself when you’re staring at the stars because the only thing you do when you’re in California is find every way possible to avoid having to look at them. The stars didn’t go away just because you didn’t want to look at them anymore.”
“Santana…” You start, and she looks at you; for the first time you’re at lost at what to say to her.
“It’s ok,” she murmurs quietly, even though it’s not. It’s not even close to ok that she can read you so easily but you seem to have lost that touch completely. “It’s ok, Quinn, I know, I understand.”
She lies back down, and after a moment, you lie back down next to her. When you look over, her eyes are closed again, and this time, you know she’s sleeping. You close your eyes as well and just let the sound of the traffic in the distance come over you, feel the mist float around your bodies as rays of sunlight continue to dance around you. Without really realizing it, you reach over and grasp Santana’s hand.
“Don’t tell me you’re getting sentimental on me now, Fabray,” Santana drawls, but there’s a smirk playing on her face.
“Shut up,” you mutter, blushing.
“Love you too,” Santana grins. “Now let me get a little more sleep. Then we can get breakfast. You’re paying, for the record.”
“Do you think I’m beautiful?” You suddenly ask Santana.
“Well,” Santana drawls, “I think you’re pretty without any make-up on. You’re not that funny when you tell the punch line wrong, though.”
“You’re an ass,” you snap, but there’s no bite behind it. Santana stares back at you.
“I thought we agreed back in high school I was the one with the self-esteem issues regarding looks, and you got insecurities in relationship,” she says jokingly, but you know from the way she’s angled herself to look at you that she’s actually paying attention to the conversation.
“I was thinking about my relationship with Rachel,” you confess, and Santana nods, letting you continue. “And I was running through some of my conversations with her in my head, and I think she only called me beautiful once the only time we were involved.”
“She isn’t…” Santana shifts again, and you realize suddenly she is uncomfortable having this conversation. “For all the rambling she does, Berry doesn’t give epic speeches. That was more your thing, or Sue, on the rare occasions her soul decided to make an appearance. Berry throws words together but sometimes I think she uses them because she likes the way they sound, not because of what they mean.”
“Do you think speeches should mean something?” You ask. Santana falls quietly, taking her time to answer.
“I think people don’t make speeches for the sake of making speeches,” she eventually answers. “And I think that holds true for everybody, be it politicians or Treasure Trail. You don’t just talk, you know, when you’re making a speech? You’re always trying to convince them of something, whether it’s to vote for you or that you’ve never felt that way about someone else, ever… It’s the same thing. It’s a personal connection, and no one exposes themselves like that just for the sake of being vulnerable.”
You’re suddenly wide awake. The rain is still falling outside, but you know it’s not the sound of thunder in the distance that woke you up. You listen more intensely, and eventually you figure out what yanked you out of a restless slumber.
There is someone in your room.
You stay very still, holding your breath, but you can sense someone in your room, moving around in the dark. Lima isn’t known for its high crime rate, but you are still terrified that there is a thief in your room. You want to scream but then you catch a particular scent, and you realize the person breaking into your room is Rachel. You haven’t seen her since your conversation with Heather, when she gave you the ultimatum - your relationship with Rachel or your scholarship at Berkeley.
You eventually give up the act and open your eyes, and Rachel is off to the side, watching you from the side of the bed. The streetlight filters through your room, and you can see specs of water on Rachel’s hair - obviously the rain hasn’t let up since earlier that day.
“Rachel?” You mumble. “What are you doing here? What time is it?”
“You injured your left ankle when you were 14 during cheerleading practice and sometimes it still bothers you,” Rachel says. “I know this because in Glee you almost always favor your right foot during a dance routine, even though everyone knows you’re left-footed.”
You stare at her, confused.
“You claim to hate soy milk but you drink it anyway, both because you know I like the taste of it, and you know I can taste it on your lips when we kiss. You always toast your bagel twice, except on Saturdays, and on that day you don’t toast it at all. You hate the taste of eggnog, but you like the memories you associate with it. You claim your notes aren’t color-coded, but actually they are- you use different colors depending on how interesting you find the subject. You say you don’t like Philosophy but you envy the way Plato always seemed to find the right words.”
“Rachel…” You start, but she shakes her head, signaling you to let her continue.
“I fell in love with you for the first time twice,” she says as she takes a step closer. “The first time was when you were 15. You were on the field, and it was a little after the Cheerios had finishing practice. You were with Brittany and Santana, and you were just dancing around with each other. You had this smile on your face, and you just looked so happy. And I wanted you to smile at me like that, because you looked like you had the whole world before you.”
“The second time I fell in love with you,” Rachel continues, “was about six weeks and four days ago. We were in the middle in some choreography with Glee and you weren’t actually paying attention, and you were about half a step behind in the choreography. You compromised by added a move to fall back in sync, and in that moment, as you turned, the sun caught your hair, and I guess there are really has to be God because it’s not humanly possible for someone to be that beautiful. You’re so beautiful it hurts to look at you sometimes.”
“Plato spent his whole life thanking the heavens he was born under the same stars as Socrates,” she continues. “And I want that kind of relationship. I know I’m Jewish but I want to look up at the stars and know they’re somehow involved in the two of us being together. People can go their whole lives without experiencing what we have at seventeen, and I just… I can’t let that go. So this is me saying I’m sorry. I don’t want to fight with you anymore, Quinn. I just want to be with you.”
“I love you,” she breathes, “I love you so much that it’s almost ridiculous at times and I’m terrified you don’t get that. I love you in that weird, messy, I want to hold a stereo above my head and serenade you at two in the morning kind of way, like people saw on Dawson’s Creek. But it’s not just that, I want you in my life. I want you in my bones, in my veins. I want to be able to look back at us in forty years and know that nothing will ever come close to us. I want a moment that is everything, because that’s what you are to me.”
“It’s ridiculous how much I love you sometimes,” she says, and the smile she gives you signals her speech is over.
“Your turn,” she says, and you raise an eyebrow, confused. Rachel laughs. “It’s your turn to tell me something that’s ridiculous.”
“Sometimes,” you whisper as you pull her on top of you, “Sometimes, I’m afraid our love is so powerful that it will end up destroying us.”
Santana is still watching you when the flashback stops playing in your mind, and in that moment, with your best friend’s eyes upon you, you realize exactly what you should do. Some part of you had known all along.
“Lopez, I love you!” You exclaim as you get up.
“You still owe me breakfast, Fabray!” She yells to your departing back.
You frantically ring Rachel’s doorbell, ignoring the fact it’s only a little after dawn, that she could still be asleep, or, the worse scenario, that she isn’t there at all. You aren’t the only one who has developed the habit of running away when you don’t know how to deal with your emotions. Eventually, though, your prayers seem to be answered, and you hear her footsteps as she comes to the door.
“You sprained your right wrist when you were 11, and as a result, you developed a habit of holding a microphone with your left hand,” you say as soon as she opens the door.
It’s not the best opening line you’ve ever delivered, and judging by Rachel’s look, she feels just as skeptical about this early morning confession as you do.
“You color coded your notes by how likely you thought something will be on a test. You’re a vegan, but you sometimes get a craving for nachos. You like spending your Thursday nights watching silent movies and drinking lukewarm beer, and the reason for that is because it brings an element of comfort, of continuity, that everyday life lacks. You believe in the good in people because the other alternative means that there isn’t something good about a person, and that’s so much worse.”
You bite your lip, suddenly unsure of how to continue. For the first time in a very long time, you’re struggling to find the right words. Speeches, words, have always come so easily to you that you can’t help but feel unbalanced by the fact they’re failing you.
“You have this ring,” you continue, “and it’s silver, and it has a diamond on it? You got it after we won sectionals junior year. You claimed it was to celebrate the success, you said to Will you got that ring because it represented being a part of something greater than yourself. But you told me there was another meaning to it, you said you did it because there was a part of you that was wed to Glee Club. Streisand once said that she was married to Broadway, and it took winning sectionals again to understand what she meant by that. It’s the kind of unquestioning loyalty that maybe only collegiate athletes understand.”
“Plato spent his whole life thanking the heavens he was born under the same stars as Socrates,” you tell her. “And Rousseau spent his entire career defending reason to reasonable men, and in the long run, without those philosophers, society wouldn’t be the way it is now.”
“But here’s the thing,” you find yourself chewing your lip, letting the words sort themselves out in your head. “I wouldn’t have gotten where I am today if it wasn’t for you. I wouldn’t have gotten Berkeley, or Los Angeles, or anything, if I had never met you. I wouldn’t have become someone if it wasn’t for you.”
You take a deep breath, fighting back tears. You lose, though, when you see Rachel take half a step towards you, and there’s so much sadness, defeat in her eyes. She’s looking at you like she doesn’t know how to fix you anymore, and that, that is what scares you more than anything.
“Four years ago,” you say through your tears, “Four years ago, I had a choice between going to Berkeley or staying with you, and I chose Berkeley. And that was the worse choice I’ve ever made because I should have chosen you. It’s you, Rachel, it’s always been you. So this is it, ok? This is me doing what I should have done four years ago. This is me choosing you.”
Rachel opens her mouth to say something, but you shake your head. There’s one more thing you have to say.
“I told you once I was afraid our love was so powerful that it would end up destroying us,” you say, “and that actually still stands. Because I’ve never felt something for someone the way I feel about you. But why does it have to destroy us? What if it could make us better, instead?”
“The Ancient Greeks scribbled words like ‘fate’ and ‘doomed’ and entire Roman empires fell apart, and Shakespeare used the phrase ‘star-crossed’ because there’s a certain amount of beauty in that, but what if we could do what all those before us failed to do? What if we could beat the odds?” You move closer to her. “You and me, we could be epic. We could be the ones to defy the odds. So how about it? How about we give ourselves a second chance?”
Silence. Complete and total silence. It’s almost deafening, and in this moment, you’ve never wished more for the rain. You hear traffic in the distance, and the clock is ticking away in the hallway. You focus on it. Each chime is a reminder of a moment you won’t get back. Tick. Tick. Tick. Another second, another moment. It’s unnerving, unsettling, because in all the time you’ve known her, you can only remember Rachel being this silent once, and that was the day you left Glee Club.
Her silence from that day still keeps you at night.
Is this it, you wonder, did you have this coming? Is this payback for all those years? Is Rachel finally evening the score?
“Say something,” you plead. “Please, just say something. Yell at me, scream insults at me, demand I leave, tell me I’m right and our love can be saved, just please, please say something, say anything.”
Rachel’s eyes drop from your face to the floor.
“I’m dating Finn.”
Not stealing if you acknowledge it:
- Obviously, I don't own Glee
- "Plato thanked the heavens he was born under the same stars as Socrates" is written by Montesquieu
- Rousseau claimed that he "isn't defending science, he is defending reason to reasonable men"
- The banter between Santana and Quinn over her looks is the opening line from "Teenage Dream" by Katy Perry
- "The Ancient Greeks scribbled words like "fate" and "doomed" and entire Roman empires fell apart" is originally written in "Bad Catholics" (Chase/Cameron House MD fic, I forget the name of the author)
- Rachel/Quinn noticing each other's traits is a play-off something I read by heartwasalegend, so credit goes to them
- The ring Quinn is referring to ("silver with the diamond") is a play on the ring the Glee cast girls allegedly bought together, but whose symbolism was never defined
Part VI: Knife Going In
Part VII: I'm Not Calling You a Liar
Part VIII: Told You S o
Part IX: I Gave You All
Part X: I Adore You
Part XI: Love Is No Big Truth
Part XII: Escape
Part XIII: No Longer What You Require
Part XIV: This Will All Make Perfect Sense Someday
Part XV: Our Love