Twilight's Falling, Act Three: The Last Bus Home (inc author's notes)
DISCLAIMER: Glee belongs to Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan, and FOX studio, with blink-and-miss-them references to some of my other fandoms. Story adapted from the episode 'Night Route' written by Jill Blotevogel. No profit is being made from this work, and no copyright infringement is intended.
SPOILERS: For the Twilight Zone episode ‘Night Route’.
RATING/WARNING: PG-13. Swearing, sexual references, supernatural themes and character death.
SUMMARY: On her nightly run, aspiring singer and actress Rachel Berry finds a bus appearing where no bus stop stands, with a driver who invites her aboard, again and again. But if she chooses to take the night bus, where will it take her?
Third Act: The Last Bus Home (Based on the 2002 episode ‘Night Route’)
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Whoosh!
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Whoosh!
Rachel Berry took an extra step for momentum, and then leaped to the top of the foot-high wall that surrounded the playground without breaking her rhythm. She’d stopped using her iPod on her runs for greater safety when she started her night route, and had grown to prefer running to her own natural soundtrack - the light thumping of her feet, and the whistle of her breath.
Jumping off the wall, she took two steps across the pavement - and stopped dead, throwing herself backwards to keep her balance. She glared at the black car that had slammed on the brakes right in her path, and reached out to thump on the hood in indignation.
To her aggravation, the driver ignored her, and drove away.
“Hey! They’re called headlights, dirtbag!” Rachel called after the car.
Making a harsh noise in her throat in frustration, Rachel took a deep breath and shook her head. Double-checking both sides of the street, she started off again, loping across the deserted road at an easy pace, and rounded the corner of the T-junction.
Thwap
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Whoosh!
Thirty more paces, and she’d be home.
Twenty more paces.
Fifteen more - stop.
Rachel stopped almost dead on the spot in astonishment. What the heck was a bus doing across the street from her building? There wasn’t a bus stop there; in fact, there wasn’t a bus stop on this street for at least three junctions in any direction.
Curious now, she walked across the street, eyeing the bus. It looked like a typical city bus, with ‘route 63’ in the slot above the rear window. Beneath the window was a plain black and white advertisement, reading ‘Need a New Life?’ As she walked along the side on the footpath, the ad seemed to continue, the same simple white text on a black background, with ‘Need New Life Insurance?’
Rachel heard the doors hiss open, and curiously looked inside. The man sitting behind the wheel was in his early thirties, with a head of tight blonde curls, and ruthless cheekbones.
His smile was friendly, though, as he asked, “Are you coming with us, Rachel?”
Rachel’s eyes widened, and she quickly looked at his nametag, which read ‘Schuester’.
She’d never seen him before.
So how did he know her name?
Rachel prided herself on being calm in a crisis - essential for work in the theatre - but on top of her near-accident, this was too much. Overcome by a sudden feeling of utter dread, she sprinted in front of the bus and tore across the street, her hands slapping the front doors of her building and absorbing the schok as she all but slammed into them.
Breathing hard from a mix of sudden physical exertion and fear, Rachel whirled and put her back against the doors as she took one last look at the bus.
But the street was empty.
Walking down the shallow steps, Rachel looked both ways on the street. Even though the street stretched for a good mile in each direction, there was no sign of the bus. She hadn’t heard it leave, nor could she have taken more than a minute to cross the street. Where was it?
Shivering now, Rachel all but fled into her building. She was lucky enough to find an elevator on the ground floor, and rubbed her upper arms briskly with her hands as she rode up to the fifth floor.
Letting herself into her apartment, she called out, “I’m home!”
Nothing but a silent and dark apartment greeted her.
Sighing in resignation, Rachel tossed her keys into the little glass bowl on the sideboard that stood against the wall next to the front door, and walked into the kitchen. Looking at the small whiteboard on the upper refrigerator door, she read out loud, “Dinner with Takeuchi at Madrid Courtyard. Wish me luck! Curly, here I come!”
Rachel sighed again, and opened the refrigerator for the milk. She’d been a vegan in high school, but college had been too expensive to buy her own food, and vegetarian was the best she could do. She’d thought about trying to go back to it after graduation, but she’d moved in with Jesse instead, and he barely tolerated vegetarian dishes as it was. She did rather like dairy though, so it wasn’t all bad, and she tried to keep her use of eggs to a minimum.
Checking the urn on the counter, she refilled it and set it to heat. Between her tea consumption and Jesse’s coffee addiction, they’d found it easier to simply set up a full-sized urn and keep it going more or less constantly.
Waiting for the water to boil, she wandered past the counter and into the open-plan dining room, idly looking at the collection of photos on the wall. There were her fathers, and two or three others of her with them. Jesse holding the National Show Choir trophy from his sophomore year in high school, and another from his swing cast of the Fame revival. A picture from their engagement party, and one of them in the garden of the lovely B&B that Jesse had taken her to several months ago as a surprise. Another was from last summer, taken on the steps outside Lincoln Center and showing her with Jesse and Finn, their neighbour down the hall. Finn Hudson, tall and lanky and home-spun gorgeous, had swiftly become her best friend in the building - her best friend altogether, really.
Struck by a sudden thought, Rachel headed to the pantry, to make sure they still had some of those chocolate-chip cookies he loved, or whether she needed to call Jesse and ask him to pick some up on the way home.
Smiling in satisfaction as she located an unopened packet, Rachel heard the urn sound it’s alarm.
Pouring her mug full, she took her chamomile tea through the dining room to the living room, but something - some sense of wrongness - made her stop. Clutching her mug in both hands now, Rachel slowly walked backwards, trying to pin down what had alarmed her.
Stopping in front of the photos, Rachel turned and gazed at the same photos she’d been looking at just a few minutes ago.
Rachel blinked, and looked again.
The engagement photo, and the shot of the B&B - was she imagining things, or had she disappeared from the pictures?
Stepping closer, Rachel looked again, and sighed. No, she was still there. She was just a bit blurry, that was all.
Heading into the living room, she didn’t see her image waver and disappear from all the photos taken in the last three years.
*
“So, are you sure you and your band don’t mind playing the reception?” Rachel asked.
“No problem, Rach. Granted, we don’t usually do weddings, but for you we’ll make an exception,” Finn Hudson grinned, before taking a chocolate-chip cookie. “Lunch was great, by the way. You’re such an awesome cook!”
Rachel smiled in gratification and looked down. “I just wish Jesse thought so. He always complains I’m starving him on bunny food.”
Finn set down his coffee cup, and looked at her with a serious expression. “Do you realize how often you say things like that, Rach? Are you sure that you’re not rushing into this whole wedding thing?”
Rachel glared at him. “Finn!”
“I’m just saying, Jesse asked you to marry him when your self-esteem was in the toilet, and you still haven’t gotten it out of the bathroom. I think maybe you might be latching onto this wedding stuff because you feel that Jesse’s the only thing in your life that’s working.”
“You’re being ridiculous, Finn - I’m marrying Jesse because I love him! Alright, yes, I am in a slump career-wise, but I’m only twenty-four!” Rachel continued bracingly, “I still have lots of time left to make my mark on Broadway. There’s no reason I should resign myself to simply being the helpmeet of a well-known actor.”
Finn raised his eyebrows, and retorted, “Just tell me this, Rachel - would you have said yes if you’d gotten the part in that revival of A Chorus Line?”
“I made the call-back for Chorus?” Rachel muttered under her breath. “I... don’t know. I can’t remember.”
Finn bit his lip, and took another sip of coffee, before setting it down with a tiny sigh. “Okay, back to the wedding. Remind me where your bridal registry is set up? And please tell me Jesse dropped that dumb idea about all the guests submitting pictures of their dates for approval, so he can have a properly anaesthetic wedding.”
“Aesthetic, Finn; concerned with beauty or the appreciation of beauty,” Rachel absently corrected. One of these days she was going to track down whoever had convinced Finn he was stupid and strangle them. There was nothing wrong or lacking with Finn’s intellect, but his low self-esteem about his intelligence meant he constantly made mistakes with knowledge, particularly vocabulary.
“Okay, that.”
“Just ignore that idea, Finn, he’ll calm down as soon as he knows whether he got Curly in the new production of Oklahoma!” Rachel told him. “If he mentions it again, I’ll talk him out of it. But really, Finn, thank you so much for helping me with all of this.”
Finn snickered, “You can’t share a bedroom for two years, and an apartment for four with my brother and not pick up a ton of this wedding stuff. I still refuse to admit that I know what the color puce looks like - I’m straight but not narrow, and puce is like, the ultimate gay knowledge or something. I’d never get a date again.”
“Well that would be a shame,” Rachel laughed. She stood up, and as she headed to the kitchen, she tossed over her shoulder, “Not to mention a waste! I know you’ll make a very lucky woman very happy someday!”
Behind her, Finn suddenly found the contents of his empty cup fascinating, as he bit his lip and his knuckles whitened.
“So,” his voice cracked, “Your registry?”
Rachel’s voice was thin and soft, as she admitted, “I can’t remember.”
Finn turned in his chair, frowning. “Rachel? You sound kind of... well, scared.”
Rachel leaned her elbows on the counter and her body slumped. “Oh, Finn. It seems like my whole world’s been just a little askew since I saw that stupid bus last night.”
“Bus?”
Rachel told him the whole story, and finished with, “That’s not the creepiest part, Finn! I called the Department of Public Transport this morning, to try and find out who that driver was, and how he might know me - maybe he was a grad student at college with me or something - but Finn, not only is there no bus stop on this street... they told me there’s no route 63 bus at all!”
Finn frowned. “Okay, that’s creepy.”
Rachel bit her lip. “And there’s the photos.”
Finn followed her gaze to the wall at the end of the table. He stood up and walked to the wall, surveying the photos. “Okay, so there’s that one of the three of us together at Lincoln Center, and ones of you and your dads, and Jesse’s stage highlights - I know he’s not close to his family, but not to have a single pic of them up? Seriously? Huh, I don’t recognise the role he wore that suit for - was it a college production? What’s the garden - are you scouting it for your wedding?”
Rachel came up beside him, shaking like a leaf. “Finn, that suit isn’t a stage role, it’s our engagement photo. The garden shot is supposed to be of the two of us in the B&B he took me to for my birthday. Finn, I’ve looked at the photos all around the house, and except for this one of the three of us together, I no longer appear in any photo taken in the last three years!”
Finn looked down at her, concern shining in his eyes.
*
Rachel’s feet slowed, at first imperceptibly, then markedly, as she crossed the street.
Determined not to let some silly incident keep her from her regular exercise routine, she’d gone out running as usual, reciting details about the wedding to keep herself from thinking about the bus.
Then she’d simply started reciting details about her romance with Jesse, because either she’d been dreadfully neglecting her wedding plans, or something was wrong, because she couldn’t remember half the things she should know about her own wedding. Her dress was hanging in Finn’s closet, so Jesse wouldn’t see it, but she couldn’t remember where she bought it.
Walking hurriedly, needing to get it over with, Rachel walked around the corner to her street.
And stopped dead, looking at the bus across the street from her building.
Route 63, advertising ‘Need a New Life?’
Rachel took a deep breath, then another.
“It’s not supposed to be there. It’s some kind of scam to get people to ride on an illegal bus and take their money for fares,” she muttered under her breath.
After all, it was the only rational explanation she and Finn could come up with.
“Just ignore it, and go home, and keep planning your wedding. At least you can accomplish something with your life.”
So why weren’t her feet obeying her? Why was she walking across the street to the bus, drawn as if it were magnetised and her bones were made of iron?
Why were the doors opening for her again?
The same man was behind the wheel; same ‘Schuester’ nametag embroidered on his uniform shirt, same blonde, tightly-curling hair. Same friendly smile.
“Are you coming with us, Rachel?”
Rachel opened her mouth to ask how he knew her name, but nothing came out. For a split second, she was terrified she’d lost her voice.
“I-“
Her nerve broke, and Rachel dashed across the street even faster than the previous night. This time, she burst through the doors at a near-dead run, before whirling to peer through the glass panels, as if they could shelter her from the truth.
The bus was gone, again.
*
Rachel stared into her bowl of fruit-studded granola, absently plunging the spoon into the mess again and again, and never lifting the spoon to her lips. Across the table, Jesse was digging into his bacon and eggs enthusiastically.
“Jesse? Where did we meet?”
Jesse frowned at her, chewing his bacon.
“What are you talking about Rachel? Have you been reading one of Santana’s stupid Cosmo articles about testing your man or something?”
“No,” Rachel replied, half-exasperated, half-pleading. “Please, Jesse, I was thinking about it in the shower this morning, and I can’t remember. We met in college, didn’t we?”
“Of course we did,” Jesse shrugged. “You were a freshman, and you had the nerve to audition for a lead role in Oklahoma! You managed to get Ado Annie, as well! Of course, I couldn’t restrict myself to a second lead, so I took it upon myself to mentor you, and you blossomed under my tutelage. You won a leading role in Camelot, and we had our first date at the opening night cast party.”
“That’s why I know I’m destined to get the role of Curly in this new Broadway production - when Mick first called me about it, you told me it was kismet - that the universe was aligning!” Shaking his head fondly, Jesse chuckled, “Even for an actress, you’re quite the drama queen.”
Getting up and dropping his plate and cutlery in the sink, Jesse came back to drop a kiss on the top of Rachel’s head. “I’ll be having dinner with Mick and Takeuchi again after the matinee, so I won’t come home between performances. I won’t be home until late tonight.”
Rachel slumped back in her chair, her eyes dull as they followed Jesse out the door, and heard a faint “Love you!” as the door slammed.
Letting her head fall forward as she sighed, Rachel decided that when all else failed, it was time to wash the dishes.
As she scrubbed, Rachel idly watched the mounds and patterns in the bubbles. That clump near the side looked like a heart, and the red blob in the middle looked like a Rorschach inkblot.
Studying the red blob, Rachel heard a plop. Then another. Then another, and the red cloud was growing larger.
The plop sounds were drips - drips of blood.
Gasping in horror, Rachel’s head snapped up to look at her reflection in the window, and she nearly screamed.
Her image in the window, wavering and translucent, had a three-inch gash on her forehead, a little above and to the left of her right eye.
Rachel snatched up the dishcloth and pressed it to her forehead, trying to stop the bleeding, her breath tearing in her lungs. After a long few seconds, she took the cloth away for a split second, trying to assess the rate of bleeding.
The dishcloth was clean. The only blemish to the cheerful yellow was a grey grease stain.
Rachel’s gaze jumped to her reflection, and the wound was gone. The Rachel in the window was pale with fright, but she was unharmed - and had somehow faded away just a little more.
A movement in her reflection caught her eye, and Rachel stared in horror down at the street.
Not bothering to wipe the sudsy water off her hands, Rachel dashed out of the apartment - not even remembering to lock her door - and out of the building. She didn’t even look for cars as she sprinted across the street to a horrifyingly familiar bus.
The doors were already open, and Schuester was standing on the second step of the entry to the bus.
“Just tell me! What do you want?” she cried.
Schuester simply looked at her. “We’re waiting for you, Rachel.”
Tears running down her face, Rachel sobbed, “Leave me alone! Please just go away and leave me alone!”
Schuester’s friendly smile turned sad, and the bus doors closed with a hiss.
Rachel watched the bus drive away, and turn the corner, still crying.
*
“Rachel, I’m starting to go past ‘creeped out’ to ‘downright scared’,” Finn told her. He hadn’t even touched her sugar cookies, which Rachel had previously thought would be a sign of the apocalypse.
Rachel wrapped both hands around her mug, desperate to feel the heat sink into her finger-bones.
“I think it’s death.”
Finn stared at her, and Rachel thought that she’d spoken so quietly that he hadn’t heard her.
“I think the bus is death.”
“Why on earth would you think that, Rachel? You haven’t died,” Finn pointed out.
“Remember when I told you about the bus? How I saw it for the first time just after that close call with the BMW? I think... I think maybe it hit me. I think I died, and the bus is Death, trying to take me to the afterlife. It’s the only thing that makes sense, Finn! The way I’ve been fading from the photos, the way that the bus keeps disappearing! Finn, I keep seeing my reflection bleeding, and it’s fading. So are my memories... I can’t remember how I met Jesse anymore. I can’t remember how long I’ve known you.”
“Rachel,” Finn spoke gently, “I think maybe you’re getting a little overly, here. Wedding jitters, even doubts about getting married are perfectly normal. Add in your stress about your career, and it’s no wonder you’re getting a little... overwrought? Is that the word?”
“Yes Finn,” Rachel sighed. “That’s the word.”
“Your tea’s gone cold. Let me make you a new cup,” Finn offered, taking it from her hands and standing.
Unable to sit still, Rachel lunged to her feet and strode past Finn into the kitchen and directly to the window over the sink, her arms wrapped around herself as she stared down at the street.
Her whole body froze as she saw the bus, directly opposite the building’s main doors.
Licking her lips, she tasted blood, and she absently raised a hand to her face, feeling hot thick liquid trickling from her nose. Still looking down at the street, she cried, “Finn, it’s here! The bus is outside!”
Finn rushed to join her, and peered through the window. “Where? Where is it?”
Rachel looked at him in astonishment, then down at the street.
The bus was gone.
Looking at her faint reflection in the window-pane, Rachel could only just make out her own face, completely clean of blood.
“I guess it must have driven away,” Rachel said dully.
Finn looked at her, his brow wrinkled, and slowly nodded. Turning away, he grabbed the full mugs off the kitchen counter and headed back to the dining table. In a remorselessly cheerful tone, he asked, “Hey, did you still want me to run lines with you for your audition?”
“What audition?”
“Um, the off-Broadway revival of Cabaret? It’s in three days, right?”
Rachel shook her head, “No, silly, on Friday.”
Finn chuckled, shaking his head. “Rachel, Friday is in three days.”
Rachel simply blinked, and didn’t bother to argue.
*
Rachel changed for her jog that night as usual, but couldn’t bring herself to leave her home. Instead, she just sat at the kitchen table, staring at the photos she’d taken off the wall - the one of her and her dads at her high school graduation (her college graduation photo didn’t show her anymore) and the one of her, Jesse, and Finn last summer, before they’d gone to see The Importance of Being Earnest (she’d had to all but lead Finn along by his ear before he agreed to go; he’d ended up laughing his head off all the way through, and told her later that this Oscar Wilde guy was even more sarcastic than his brother).
About the same time she would normally finish her run, Rachel sat up straight, feeling an odd shiver in the air.
She was too scared to look at her reflection.
She simply took off her engagement ring, placing it gently on the table, on top of the sealed envelope that bore Jesse’s name. There were two other envelopes, for Finn and her Dads. She was very glad now that she’d updated her will six months ago, after Papa had that health scare with that lump.
She stood up, and pushed the chair back under the table, taking some time to make sure it was properly aligned. She’d spent half the afternoon cleaning after Finn left, wanting to make sure everything was spotless.
On impulse, she grabbed both the photo frames, and tucked them into her arm, holding them close as she walked out of the apartment.
She set the door to lock behind her, but didn’t bother to take her keys.
Slowly and calmly, she walked across the street to the bus.
The doors were open, and Schuester waited behind the wheel.
“Are you still waiting for me?” she asked quietly.
Schuester smiled gently. “We were about to leave without you. I’m glad you decided to come aboard.”
Rachel climbed the steps slowly, feeling herself grow lighter with every step. “I just realised that you can’t fight what’s already been decided.”
Standing beside Schuester, Rachel heard a roar of a high-performance engine pass right by, and she looked out the front window to see a black BMW roar past.
Rachel looked at the bus seats, but they were all empty.
“I... I don’t want to sit alone. May I stand here?”
“Of course,” Schuester smiled. “If that’s what you want.”
With a mechanical wheeze, the doors closed, and the bus rumbled beneath her as it lurched into motion.
Rachel held onto the railing that separated the driver’s seat from the bus, and clutched her photos tightly to her chest with the other arm. “Will it be a long trip?”
“Not long. Everyone else on my route has already been taken to their destination.”
“I’m sorry I made you wait so long,” Rachel apologized. “I’ve always been somewhat single-minded; I didn’t want to give up my dreams of what my life could be.”
“You got on the bus in the end, Rachel, that’s all that matters. It’s not like you won’t be able to perform, after all.”
Rachel let out a tired laugh. "Of course. It's the greatest stage of all, isn't it?"
Schuester smiled, and shook his head. "No, simply the first of many more to come. I think you may have the wrong idea about what this route is. You're not dead, Rachel; at least, you won't be now. This bus isn't taking you to the after life - it's taking you to a better life. It won't be perfect, and it won't always be easy, but it'll be fulfilling, and very happy. You had the courage to take a leap of faith, to accept what fate has given you, and now you have a second chance." The bus shuddered to a halt, the brakes giving a hissing hydraulic sigh, and Schuester smiled. "Welcome home, Rachel."
Rachel gaped at Schuester in shock, and looked through the front window. She was on a different street, full of light and life. A few steps from the bus stop, an chic cafe was still open, casually-dressed people milling in and out and around the tables on the sidewalk. Just across and down the street, a Art Deco-looking movie theatre was advertising The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Directly across the street from the bus stop were several apartment buildings, comfortable and elegant looking at the same time, their lobbies brightly lit to show a security desk.
Her hands clenched into fists, and she looked down to find her framed photos had gone. She looked at Schuester in panic, and he reassured her, “You have new copies, waiting for you inside.”
Her heartbeat thundering in her ears, Rachel gave him her best star quality smile.
“Thank you, for not giving up on me. Thank you for bringing me home.”
“My pleasure, Rachel,” Schuester smiled. “Don’t forget - the final choice was yours. There’s no such thing as a happy ending, just a whole lot of middles. But you’ve made your own happy middle.”
Taking a deep breath, Rachel stepped off the bus.
As the bus chugged off, Rachel crossed the street, climbing the steps of the right-hand building. Pushing open the doors confidently, she smiled at the young man seated behind the security desk.
“Good evenin’, Miss Berry!” the young man exclaimed, in a charming Irish accent. “How was your run?”
“Good evening, Rory,” Rachel replied. “It was somewhat surprising, actually.”
Walking through the small lobby, she turned left and headed to the elevators. One opened its doors as she approached, and she pressed the button for the third floor without hesitation. When the doors opened again, she strode out into the hall and turned right, passing several doors until she came to the one with the brass numbers 313.
Taking a deep breath, Rachel reached for the door handle.
“Rachel!”
Even as her eyes widened at the so-familiar voice, Rachel spun around.
Jesse looked harried as he approached her. “Rachel, I know we don’t have to be off-book for another two weeks yet, but I really think it would set a good example if the two of us were as soon as possible. How are you doing with learning your lines? I know you want to be married by opening night, but that insane brother-in-law of yours would be ecstatic if you let him take over the planning.”
Rachel looked down at her left hand, and sucked in a breath of shock; the flash of a single small diamond had been replaced by a square-cut ruby, with a smaller (but still bigger than before) diamond on each side, with an antique-looking setting on a carved gold band.
Now the shock had worn off a little, Rachel could sense the weightless, invisible cloud around her head... all the experiences of her new life, waiting to be remembered. She just hoped she could remember her old life too, so she would always know how lucky she was, and always appreciate her imperfectly perfect new life.
Rachel’s lips opened, and the words that came from them were all the stranger for being in her voice.
“You know what Kurt’s like. If I don’t keep control of things myself, it’ll become a bigger production than the show.”
“True,” Jesse snickered.
“I’d like a few more days to work from the script - what if we give it a shot at Friday’s rehearsal? If that goes well, it could inspire the others to work during the weekend.”
Jesse looked thoughtful, then nodded. “Sounds good. What about the songs?”
“I think Artie’s still finalising the arrangements, but I have the lyrics down.”
The memories were slipping inside her brain, now - she and Jesse were the male and female leads in a musical inspired by the success of Rock of Ages, about a group of teenagers at the height of the Grunge era of music. They hadn’t managed to get the rights to any Nirvana songs, even though the show was called Smells like Teen Spirit. Rachel was most looking forward to performing Lisa Loeb’s ‘How’.
She and Jesse had been friends since high school; in fact, Jesse had been the one to introduce her to her fiancée, back in college.
Waving at Jesse as he headed back down the hall to the stairs - he lived two floors up - Rachel smiled in anticipation as she took out her apartment key from the hidden hip pocket in her jogging pants, and unlocked the door.
Rachel didn’t need the memory cloud to know which man’s ring she now wore.
As she walked in to their cosy apartment, decorated in a way that managed to look smart yet invited you to put your feet up, she scanned the combined dining/living room. At the sight of the tall form bent over the table, papers scattered in front of him, Rachel smiled.
Walking over, she bent forward slightly to slip her arms around his shoulders, and kissed the back of his neck. She’d always thought he might be sensitive there, and she was right; the shudder he gave in response confirming it. He twisted in his chair to face her, and she used a knee to separate his legs so she could stand between them. He smiled and slipped an arm around her hips, openly caressing her bottom.
“So, did your run help?” Finn asked, his voice a little breathy. “How do you feel now?”
Still grinning, Rachel told him, "High on life."
Then she cupped her hand along his jaw, tilted his head up, and pressed her mouth to his in the deepest, most passionate kiss she’d ever given, in either of her lives. When she broke off from lack of air, they were both panting.
"Bedroom, now," she demanded.
Finn gasped, "Okay,” and stood up so fast that he knocked the chair over.
FINI
AUTHOR’S NOTE: For those of you who are interested in this sort of thing, this is how this story came about:
One stinking hot summer afternoon, New Year’s Eve weekend, (41 degrees Celcius!) I somehow spent around three hours reading the episode synopsis for every single Twilight Zone episode on Wikipedia. When I came across the episode ‘Time and Teresa Golowitz’ I was struck by the adaptation possibilities - especially since the original male lead was a Broadway composer, who came back to find that Teresa ‘Terri’ Golowitz was now a singing star and his long-time friend and collaborator - and saved the page for later.
The idea for the full-blown anthology didn’t happen until I stumbled across ‘Night Route’ - where the original protagonist is too scared to take the bus to the afterlife, and is doomed to die having only lived the unhappy route. My deep-seated need for a happy ending took over, and it seemed a natural fit for Rachel, with Jesse as her fiancée and Finn’s next door neighbour replacing the protagonist’s mother.
At that point, my sense of symmetry decided that all three characters should appear in both stories, and put Jesse in the role of the Grim Reaper in ‘Time’ (who was originally the Prince of Darkness in the show). After that, it seemed unfair not to give my third major character a story of his own, and since I already had 2000’s and 1980’s era episodes, I looked back through the original series, with an eye to something Rachel and Finn could ‘guest-star’ in.
Since I normally can’t stand Jesse, I was originally going to pick one of the downer ending stories for him, but when I came across the bittersweet ‘Ring-a-ding Girl’, about a famous movie star returning to their hometown, it seemed to fit just right, with Rachel’s ex-lover substituting for the protagonist’s sister. Ironically, I ended up cutting the titular ring altogether; a gift from the movie star’s hometown fan club, it gave her visions of her sister, urging her to return home - and was later given to her sister after the plane crash, sooty and cracked. (I ended up putting the pendant in as a substitute about five minutes before I sent in the rough draft.) That also inspired me to put a plane crash into ‘Time’, to explain Finn’s approaching death (originally, it was simply a heart attack from ill health, as the character was in his late fifties), since the time gap would be around fifteen years instead of forty.
Also: I originally intended to call the second act ‘Time flies by as the pendulum swings’ (a mis-remembered lyric from Linkin Park’s “In the End”). I changed it about a quarter-way through, after I’d written the final scenes for act two and three. Given there were no pendulums involved, it seemed a bit silly. Since Finn is almost literally given the time of his life, and ends up giving someone else a new lease on a bright future, it seemed a better title. I thought about changing the act three title to a song title as well, but I like ‘The Last Bus Home’ too much. Not only does Rachel literally catch the last bus - her very last chance - it hints to both what Rachel thinks is the destination of the bus, and foreshadows where it will actually take her.
As for the three ‘musicals’ mentioned; I was wearing my Rock of Ages T-shirt when I wrote the ending for ‘LBH’, so I thought of a spiritual sequel for Rachel and Jesse to star in. By the way, I picked the title because of an old episode of the TV show Cold Case - the episode ‘Detention’ was originally meant to be named ‘All Apologies’ after a Nirvana song, but the production team couldn’t get the rights (but someone must have changed their minds, because the s5 opener used only Nirvana music!). I thought it made a nice mirror to ‘RoA’, which is named after a Def Leppard song, even though they couldn’t get the rights to use any of the group’s music in the show (seriously; when I saw the show last year, in the pre-show announcements they mentioned ‘in case of fire, please don’t start singing Def Leppard’s ‘Pyromania’, because we couldn’t get the rights. Just head for your nearest signposted exit’).
Oh, and if the bit in ‘ToYL’ about the passenger on a plane claiming to see a gremlin sabotaging the wing sounds familiar, but you can’t place it, it’s actually from the original series episode ‘Nightmare at 20,000 feet’, and was remade as part of ‘Twilight Zone: the movie’. The character was played by William Shatner (Star Trek) and John Lithgow (Third Rock from the Sun) respectively, only in those cases the plane landed safely... but his story was backed up when the mechanics found massive damage to the wing/engines afterwards. (hums the TZ theme).
Writing these was so much fun that I’ve decided to try it again - with the only episode to appear in all three eras. ‘Dead man’s shoes’ was remade as ‘Dead woman’s shoes’ in the eighties, and ‘Dead man’s eyes’ in the Noughties, and will soon (err... eventually) be adapted into another of my fandoms.
SPOILERS: For the Twilight Zone episode ‘Night Route’.
RATING/WARNING: PG-13. Swearing, sexual references, supernatural themes and character death.
SUMMARY: On her nightly run, aspiring singer and actress Rachel Berry finds a bus appearing where no bus stop stands, with a driver who invites her aboard, again and again. But if she chooses to take the night bus, where will it take her?
Third Act: The Last Bus Home (Based on the 2002 episode ‘Night Route’)
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Whoosh!
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Whoosh!
Rachel Berry took an extra step for momentum, and then leaped to the top of the foot-high wall that surrounded the playground without breaking her rhythm. She’d stopped using her iPod on her runs for greater safety when she started her night route, and had grown to prefer running to her own natural soundtrack - the light thumping of her feet, and the whistle of her breath.
Jumping off the wall, she took two steps across the pavement - and stopped dead, throwing herself backwards to keep her balance. She glared at the black car that had slammed on the brakes right in her path, and reached out to thump on the hood in indignation.
To her aggravation, the driver ignored her, and drove away.
“Hey! They’re called headlights, dirtbag!” Rachel called after the car.
Making a harsh noise in her throat in frustration, Rachel took a deep breath and shook her head. Double-checking both sides of the street, she started off again, loping across the deserted road at an easy pace, and rounded the corner of the T-junction.
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Whoosh!
Thirty more paces, and she’d be home.
Twenty more paces.
Fifteen more - stop.
Rachel stopped almost dead on the spot in astonishment. What the heck was a bus doing across the street from her building? There wasn’t a bus stop there; in fact, there wasn’t a bus stop on this street for at least three junctions in any direction.
Curious now, she walked across the street, eyeing the bus. It looked like a typical city bus, with ‘route 63’ in the slot above the rear window. Beneath the window was a plain black and white advertisement, reading ‘Need a New Life?’ As she walked along the side on the footpath, the ad seemed to continue, the same simple white text on a black background, with ‘Need New Life Insurance?’
Rachel heard the doors hiss open, and curiously looked inside. The man sitting behind the wheel was in his early thirties, with a head of tight blonde curls, and ruthless cheekbones.
His smile was friendly, though, as he asked, “Are you coming with us, Rachel?”
Rachel’s eyes widened, and she quickly looked at his nametag, which read ‘Schuester’.
She’d never seen him before.
So how did he know her name?
Rachel prided herself on being calm in a crisis - essential for work in the theatre - but on top of her near-accident, this was too much. Overcome by a sudden feeling of utter dread, she sprinted in front of the bus and tore across the street, her hands slapping the front doors of her building and absorbing the schok as she all but slammed into them.
Breathing hard from a mix of sudden physical exertion and fear, Rachel whirled and put her back against the doors as she took one last look at the bus.
But the street was empty.
Walking down the shallow steps, Rachel looked both ways on the street. Even though the street stretched for a good mile in each direction, there was no sign of the bus. She hadn’t heard it leave, nor could she have taken more than a minute to cross the street. Where was it?
Shivering now, Rachel all but fled into her building. She was lucky enough to find an elevator on the ground floor, and rubbed her upper arms briskly with her hands as she rode up to the fifth floor.
Letting herself into her apartment, she called out, “I’m home!”
Nothing but a silent and dark apartment greeted her.
Sighing in resignation, Rachel tossed her keys into the little glass bowl on the sideboard that stood against the wall next to the front door, and walked into the kitchen. Looking at the small whiteboard on the upper refrigerator door, she read out loud, “Dinner with Takeuchi at Madrid Courtyard. Wish me luck! Curly, here I come!”
Rachel sighed again, and opened the refrigerator for the milk. She’d been a vegan in high school, but college had been too expensive to buy her own food, and vegetarian was the best she could do. She’d thought about trying to go back to it after graduation, but she’d moved in with Jesse instead, and he barely tolerated vegetarian dishes as it was. She did rather like dairy though, so it wasn’t all bad, and she tried to keep her use of eggs to a minimum.
Checking the urn on the counter, she refilled it and set it to heat. Between her tea consumption and Jesse’s coffee addiction, they’d found it easier to simply set up a full-sized urn and keep it going more or less constantly.
Waiting for the water to boil, she wandered past the counter and into the open-plan dining room, idly looking at the collection of photos on the wall. There were her fathers, and two or three others of her with them. Jesse holding the National Show Choir trophy from his sophomore year in high school, and another from his swing cast of the Fame revival. A picture from their engagement party, and one of them in the garden of the lovely B&B that Jesse had taken her to several months ago as a surprise. Another was from last summer, taken on the steps outside Lincoln Center and showing her with Jesse and Finn, their neighbour down the hall. Finn Hudson, tall and lanky and home-spun gorgeous, had swiftly become her best friend in the building - her best friend altogether, really.
Struck by a sudden thought, Rachel headed to the pantry, to make sure they still had some of those chocolate-chip cookies he loved, or whether she needed to call Jesse and ask him to pick some up on the way home.
Smiling in satisfaction as she located an unopened packet, Rachel heard the urn sound it’s alarm.
Pouring her mug full, she took her chamomile tea through the dining room to the living room, but something - some sense of wrongness - made her stop. Clutching her mug in both hands now, Rachel slowly walked backwards, trying to pin down what had alarmed her.
Stopping in front of the photos, Rachel turned and gazed at the same photos she’d been looking at just a few minutes ago.
Rachel blinked, and looked again.
The engagement photo, and the shot of the B&B - was she imagining things, or had she disappeared from the pictures?
Stepping closer, Rachel looked again, and sighed. No, she was still there. She was just a bit blurry, that was all.
Heading into the living room, she didn’t see her image waver and disappear from all the photos taken in the last three years.
*
“So, are you sure you and your band don’t mind playing the reception?” Rachel asked.
“No problem, Rach. Granted, we don’t usually do weddings, but for you we’ll make an exception,” Finn Hudson grinned, before taking a chocolate-chip cookie. “Lunch was great, by the way. You’re such an awesome cook!”
Rachel smiled in gratification and looked down. “I just wish Jesse thought so. He always complains I’m starving him on bunny food.”
Finn set down his coffee cup, and looked at her with a serious expression. “Do you realize how often you say things like that, Rach? Are you sure that you’re not rushing into this whole wedding thing?”
Rachel glared at him. “Finn!”
“I’m just saying, Jesse asked you to marry him when your self-esteem was in the toilet, and you still haven’t gotten it out of the bathroom. I think maybe you might be latching onto this wedding stuff because you feel that Jesse’s the only thing in your life that’s working.”
“You’re being ridiculous, Finn - I’m marrying Jesse because I love him! Alright, yes, I am in a slump career-wise, but I’m only twenty-four!” Rachel continued bracingly, “I still have lots of time left to make my mark on Broadway. There’s no reason I should resign myself to simply being the helpmeet of a well-known actor.”
Finn raised his eyebrows, and retorted, “Just tell me this, Rachel - would you have said yes if you’d gotten the part in that revival of A Chorus Line?”
“I made the call-back for Chorus?” Rachel muttered under her breath. “I... don’t know. I can’t remember.”
Finn bit his lip, and took another sip of coffee, before setting it down with a tiny sigh. “Okay, back to the wedding. Remind me where your bridal registry is set up? And please tell me Jesse dropped that dumb idea about all the guests submitting pictures of their dates for approval, so he can have a properly anaesthetic wedding.”
“Aesthetic, Finn; concerned with beauty or the appreciation of beauty,” Rachel absently corrected. One of these days she was going to track down whoever had convinced Finn he was stupid and strangle them. There was nothing wrong or lacking with Finn’s intellect, but his low self-esteem about his intelligence meant he constantly made mistakes with knowledge, particularly vocabulary.
“Okay, that.”
“Just ignore that idea, Finn, he’ll calm down as soon as he knows whether he got Curly in the new production of Oklahoma!” Rachel told him. “If he mentions it again, I’ll talk him out of it. But really, Finn, thank you so much for helping me with all of this.”
Finn snickered, “You can’t share a bedroom for two years, and an apartment for four with my brother and not pick up a ton of this wedding stuff. I still refuse to admit that I know what the color puce looks like - I’m straight but not narrow, and puce is like, the ultimate gay knowledge or something. I’d never get a date again.”
“Well that would be a shame,” Rachel laughed. She stood up, and as she headed to the kitchen, she tossed over her shoulder, “Not to mention a waste! I know you’ll make a very lucky woman very happy someday!”
Behind her, Finn suddenly found the contents of his empty cup fascinating, as he bit his lip and his knuckles whitened.
“So,” his voice cracked, “Your registry?”
Rachel’s voice was thin and soft, as she admitted, “I can’t remember.”
Finn turned in his chair, frowning. “Rachel? You sound kind of... well, scared.”
Rachel leaned her elbows on the counter and her body slumped. “Oh, Finn. It seems like my whole world’s been just a little askew since I saw that stupid bus last night.”
“Bus?”
Rachel told him the whole story, and finished with, “That’s not the creepiest part, Finn! I called the Department of Public Transport this morning, to try and find out who that driver was, and how he might know me - maybe he was a grad student at college with me or something - but Finn, not only is there no bus stop on this street... they told me there’s no route 63 bus at all!”
Finn frowned. “Okay, that’s creepy.”
Rachel bit her lip. “And there’s the photos.”
Finn followed her gaze to the wall at the end of the table. He stood up and walked to the wall, surveying the photos. “Okay, so there’s that one of the three of us together at Lincoln Center, and ones of you and your dads, and Jesse’s stage highlights - I know he’s not close to his family, but not to have a single pic of them up? Seriously? Huh, I don’t recognise the role he wore that suit for - was it a college production? What’s the garden - are you scouting it for your wedding?”
Rachel came up beside him, shaking like a leaf. “Finn, that suit isn’t a stage role, it’s our engagement photo. The garden shot is supposed to be of the two of us in the B&B he took me to for my birthday. Finn, I’ve looked at the photos all around the house, and except for this one of the three of us together, I no longer appear in any photo taken in the last three years!”
Finn looked down at her, concern shining in his eyes.
*
Rachel’s feet slowed, at first imperceptibly, then markedly, as she crossed the street.
Determined not to let some silly incident keep her from her regular exercise routine, she’d gone out running as usual, reciting details about the wedding to keep herself from thinking about the bus.
Then she’d simply started reciting details about her romance with Jesse, because either she’d been dreadfully neglecting her wedding plans, or something was wrong, because she couldn’t remember half the things she should know about her own wedding. Her dress was hanging in Finn’s closet, so Jesse wouldn’t see it, but she couldn’t remember where she bought it.
Walking hurriedly, needing to get it over with, Rachel walked around the corner to her street.
And stopped dead, looking at the bus across the street from her building.
Route 63, advertising ‘Need a New Life?’
Rachel took a deep breath, then another.
“It’s not supposed to be there. It’s some kind of scam to get people to ride on an illegal bus and take their money for fares,” she muttered under her breath.
After all, it was the only rational explanation she and Finn could come up with.
“Just ignore it, and go home, and keep planning your wedding. At least you can accomplish something with your life.”
So why weren’t her feet obeying her? Why was she walking across the street to the bus, drawn as if it were magnetised and her bones were made of iron?
Why were the doors opening for her again?
The same man was behind the wheel; same ‘Schuester’ nametag embroidered on his uniform shirt, same blonde, tightly-curling hair. Same friendly smile.
“Are you coming with us, Rachel?”
Rachel opened her mouth to ask how he knew her name, but nothing came out. For a split second, she was terrified she’d lost her voice.
“I-“
Her nerve broke, and Rachel dashed across the street even faster than the previous night. This time, she burst through the doors at a near-dead run, before whirling to peer through the glass panels, as if they could shelter her from the truth.
The bus was gone, again.
*
Rachel stared into her bowl of fruit-studded granola, absently plunging the spoon into the mess again and again, and never lifting the spoon to her lips. Across the table, Jesse was digging into his bacon and eggs enthusiastically.
“Jesse? Where did we meet?”
Jesse frowned at her, chewing his bacon.
“What are you talking about Rachel? Have you been reading one of Santana’s stupid Cosmo articles about testing your man or something?”
“No,” Rachel replied, half-exasperated, half-pleading. “Please, Jesse, I was thinking about it in the shower this morning, and I can’t remember. We met in college, didn’t we?”
“Of course we did,” Jesse shrugged. “You were a freshman, and you had the nerve to audition for a lead role in Oklahoma! You managed to get Ado Annie, as well! Of course, I couldn’t restrict myself to a second lead, so I took it upon myself to mentor you, and you blossomed under my tutelage. You won a leading role in Camelot, and we had our first date at the opening night cast party.”
“That’s why I know I’m destined to get the role of Curly in this new Broadway production - when Mick first called me about it, you told me it was kismet - that the universe was aligning!” Shaking his head fondly, Jesse chuckled, “Even for an actress, you’re quite the drama queen.”
Getting up and dropping his plate and cutlery in the sink, Jesse came back to drop a kiss on the top of Rachel’s head. “I’ll be having dinner with Mick and Takeuchi again after the matinee, so I won’t come home between performances. I won’t be home until late tonight.”
Rachel slumped back in her chair, her eyes dull as they followed Jesse out the door, and heard a faint “Love you!” as the door slammed.
Letting her head fall forward as she sighed, Rachel decided that when all else failed, it was time to wash the dishes.
As she scrubbed, Rachel idly watched the mounds and patterns in the bubbles. That clump near the side looked like a heart, and the red blob in the middle looked like a Rorschach inkblot.
Studying the red blob, Rachel heard a plop. Then another. Then another, and the red cloud was growing larger.
The plop sounds were drips - drips of blood.
Gasping in horror, Rachel’s head snapped up to look at her reflection in the window, and she nearly screamed.
Her image in the window, wavering and translucent, had a three-inch gash on her forehead, a little above and to the left of her right eye.
Rachel snatched up the dishcloth and pressed it to her forehead, trying to stop the bleeding, her breath tearing in her lungs. After a long few seconds, she took the cloth away for a split second, trying to assess the rate of bleeding.
The dishcloth was clean. The only blemish to the cheerful yellow was a grey grease stain.
Rachel’s gaze jumped to her reflection, and the wound was gone. The Rachel in the window was pale with fright, but she was unharmed - and had somehow faded away just a little more.
A movement in her reflection caught her eye, and Rachel stared in horror down at the street.
Not bothering to wipe the sudsy water off her hands, Rachel dashed out of the apartment - not even remembering to lock her door - and out of the building. She didn’t even look for cars as she sprinted across the street to a horrifyingly familiar bus.
The doors were already open, and Schuester was standing on the second step of the entry to the bus.
“Just tell me! What do you want?” she cried.
Schuester simply looked at her. “We’re waiting for you, Rachel.”
Tears running down her face, Rachel sobbed, “Leave me alone! Please just go away and leave me alone!”
Schuester’s friendly smile turned sad, and the bus doors closed with a hiss.
Rachel watched the bus drive away, and turn the corner, still crying.
*
“Rachel, I’m starting to go past ‘creeped out’ to ‘downright scared’,” Finn told her. He hadn’t even touched her sugar cookies, which Rachel had previously thought would be a sign of the apocalypse.
Rachel wrapped both hands around her mug, desperate to feel the heat sink into her finger-bones.
“I think it’s death.”
Finn stared at her, and Rachel thought that she’d spoken so quietly that he hadn’t heard her.
“I think the bus is death.”
“Why on earth would you think that, Rachel? You haven’t died,” Finn pointed out.
“Remember when I told you about the bus? How I saw it for the first time just after that close call with the BMW? I think... I think maybe it hit me. I think I died, and the bus is Death, trying to take me to the afterlife. It’s the only thing that makes sense, Finn! The way I’ve been fading from the photos, the way that the bus keeps disappearing! Finn, I keep seeing my reflection bleeding, and it’s fading. So are my memories... I can’t remember how I met Jesse anymore. I can’t remember how long I’ve known you.”
“Rachel,” Finn spoke gently, “I think maybe you’re getting a little overly, here. Wedding jitters, even doubts about getting married are perfectly normal. Add in your stress about your career, and it’s no wonder you’re getting a little... overwrought? Is that the word?”
“Yes Finn,” Rachel sighed. “That’s the word.”
“Your tea’s gone cold. Let me make you a new cup,” Finn offered, taking it from her hands and standing.
Unable to sit still, Rachel lunged to her feet and strode past Finn into the kitchen and directly to the window over the sink, her arms wrapped around herself as she stared down at the street.
Her whole body froze as she saw the bus, directly opposite the building’s main doors.
Licking her lips, she tasted blood, and she absently raised a hand to her face, feeling hot thick liquid trickling from her nose. Still looking down at the street, she cried, “Finn, it’s here! The bus is outside!”
Finn rushed to join her, and peered through the window. “Where? Where is it?”
Rachel looked at him in astonishment, then down at the street.
The bus was gone.
Looking at her faint reflection in the window-pane, Rachel could only just make out her own face, completely clean of blood.
“I guess it must have driven away,” Rachel said dully.
Finn looked at her, his brow wrinkled, and slowly nodded. Turning away, he grabbed the full mugs off the kitchen counter and headed back to the dining table. In a remorselessly cheerful tone, he asked, “Hey, did you still want me to run lines with you for your audition?”
“What audition?”
“Um, the off-Broadway revival of Cabaret? It’s in three days, right?”
Rachel shook her head, “No, silly, on Friday.”
Finn chuckled, shaking his head. “Rachel, Friday is in three days.”
Rachel simply blinked, and didn’t bother to argue.
*
Rachel changed for her jog that night as usual, but couldn’t bring herself to leave her home. Instead, she just sat at the kitchen table, staring at the photos she’d taken off the wall - the one of her and her dads at her high school graduation (her college graduation photo didn’t show her anymore) and the one of her, Jesse, and Finn last summer, before they’d gone to see The Importance of Being Earnest (she’d had to all but lead Finn along by his ear before he agreed to go; he’d ended up laughing his head off all the way through, and told her later that this Oscar Wilde guy was even more sarcastic than his brother).
About the same time she would normally finish her run, Rachel sat up straight, feeling an odd shiver in the air.
She was too scared to look at her reflection.
She simply took off her engagement ring, placing it gently on the table, on top of the sealed envelope that bore Jesse’s name. There were two other envelopes, for Finn and her Dads. She was very glad now that she’d updated her will six months ago, after Papa had that health scare with that lump.
She stood up, and pushed the chair back under the table, taking some time to make sure it was properly aligned. She’d spent half the afternoon cleaning after Finn left, wanting to make sure everything was spotless.
On impulse, she grabbed both the photo frames, and tucked them into her arm, holding them close as she walked out of the apartment.
She set the door to lock behind her, but didn’t bother to take her keys.
Slowly and calmly, she walked across the street to the bus.
The doors were open, and Schuester waited behind the wheel.
“Are you still waiting for me?” she asked quietly.
Schuester smiled gently. “We were about to leave without you. I’m glad you decided to come aboard.”
Rachel climbed the steps slowly, feeling herself grow lighter with every step. “I just realised that you can’t fight what’s already been decided.”
Standing beside Schuester, Rachel heard a roar of a high-performance engine pass right by, and she looked out the front window to see a black BMW roar past.
Rachel looked at the bus seats, but they were all empty.
“I... I don’t want to sit alone. May I stand here?”
“Of course,” Schuester smiled. “If that’s what you want.”
With a mechanical wheeze, the doors closed, and the bus rumbled beneath her as it lurched into motion.
Rachel held onto the railing that separated the driver’s seat from the bus, and clutched her photos tightly to her chest with the other arm. “Will it be a long trip?”
“Not long. Everyone else on my route has already been taken to their destination.”
“I’m sorry I made you wait so long,” Rachel apologized. “I’ve always been somewhat single-minded; I didn’t want to give up my dreams of what my life could be.”
“You got on the bus in the end, Rachel, that’s all that matters. It’s not like you won’t be able to perform, after all.”
Rachel let out a tired laugh. "Of course. It's the greatest stage of all, isn't it?"
Schuester smiled, and shook his head. "No, simply the first of many more to come. I think you may have the wrong idea about what this route is. You're not dead, Rachel; at least, you won't be now. This bus isn't taking you to the after life - it's taking you to a better life. It won't be perfect, and it won't always be easy, but it'll be fulfilling, and very happy. You had the courage to take a leap of faith, to accept what fate has given you, and now you have a second chance." The bus shuddered to a halt, the brakes giving a hissing hydraulic sigh, and Schuester smiled. "Welcome home, Rachel."
Rachel gaped at Schuester in shock, and looked through the front window. She was on a different street, full of light and life. A few steps from the bus stop, an chic cafe was still open, casually-dressed people milling in and out and around the tables on the sidewalk. Just across and down the street, a Art Deco-looking movie theatre was advertising The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Directly across the street from the bus stop were several apartment buildings, comfortable and elegant looking at the same time, their lobbies brightly lit to show a security desk.
Her hands clenched into fists, and she looked down to find her framed photos had gone. She looked at Schuester in panic, and he reassured her, “You have new copies, waiting for you inside.”
Her heartbeat thundering in her ears, Rachel gave him her best star quality smile.
“Thank you, for not giving up on me. Thank you for bringing me home.”
“My pleasure, Rachel,” Schuester smiled. “Don’t forget - the final choice was yours. There’s no such thing as a happy ending, just a whole lot of middles. But you’ve made your own happy middle.”
Taking a deep breath, Rachel stepped off the bus.
As the bus chugged off, Rachel crossed the street, climbing the steps of the right-hand building. Pushing open the doors confidently, she smiled at the young man seated behind the security desk.
“Good evenin’, Miss Berry!” the young man exclaimed, in a charming Irish accent. “How was your run?”
“Good evening, Rory,” Rachel replied. “It was somewhat surprising, actually.”
Walking through the small lobby, she turned left and headed to the elevators. One opened its doors as she approached, and she pressed the button for the third floor without hesitation. When the doors opened again, she strode out into the hall and turned right, passing several doors until she came to the one with the brass numbers 313.
Taking a deep breath, Rachel reached for the door handle.
“Rachel!”
Even as her eyes widened at the so-familiar voice, Rachel spun around.
Jesse looked harried as he approached her. “Rachel, I know we don’t have to be off-book for another two weeks yet, but I really think it would set a good example if the two of us were as soon as possible. How are you doing with learning your lines? I know you want to be married by opening night, but that insane brother-in-law of yours would be ecstatic if you let him take over the planning.”
Rachel looked down at her left hand, and sucked in a breath of shock; the flash of a single small diamond had been replaced by a square-cut ruby, with a smaller (but still bigger than before) diamond on each side, with an antique-looking setting on a carved gold band.
Now the shock had worn off a little, Rachel could sense the weightless, invisible cloud around her head... all the experiences of her new life, waiting to be remembered. She just hoped she could remember her old life too, so she would always know how lucky she was, and always appreciate her imperfectly perfect new life.
Rachel’s lips opened, and the words that came from them were all the stranger for being in her voice.
“You know what Kurt’s like. If I don’t keep control of things myself, it’ll become a bigger production than the show.”
“True,” Jesse snickered.
“I’d like a few more days to work from the script - what if we give it a shot at Friday’s rehearsal? If that goes well, it could inspire the others to work during the weekend.”
Jesse looked thoughtful, then nodded. “Sounds good. What about the songs?”
“I think Artie’s still finalising the arrangements, but I have the lyrics down.”
The memories were slipping inside her brain, now - she and Jesse were the male and female leads in a musical inspired by the success of Rock of Ages, about a group of teenagers at the height of the Grunge era of music. They hadn’t managed to get the rights to any Nirvana songs, even though the show was called Smells like Teen Spirit. Rachel was most looking forward to performing Lisa Loeb’s ‘How’.
She and Jesse had been friends since high school; in fact, Jesse had been the one to introduce her to her fiancée, back in college.
Waving at Jesse as he headed back down the hall to the stairs - he lived two floors up - Rachel smiled in anticipation as she took out her apartment key from the hidden hip pocket in her jogging pants, and unlocked the door.
Rachel didn’t need the memory cloud to know which man’s ring she now wore.
As she walked in to their cosy apartment, decorated in a way that managed to look smart yet invited you to put your feet up, she scanned the combined dining/living room. At the sight of the tall form bent over the table, papers scattered in front of him, Rachel smiled.
Walking over, she bent forward slightly to slip her arms around his shoulders, and kissed the back of his neck. She’d always thought he might be sensitive there, and she was right; the shudder he gave in response confirming it. He twisted in his chair to face her, and she used a knee to separate his legs so she could stand between them. He smiled and slipped an arm around her hips, openly caressing her bottom.
“So, did your run help?” Finn asked, his voice a little breathy. “How do you feel now?”
Still grinning, Rachel told him, "High on life."
Then she cupped her hand along his jaw, tilted his head up, and pressed her mouth to his in the deepest, most passionate kiss she’d ever given, in either of her lives. When she broke off from lack of air, they were both panting.
"Bedroom, now," she demanded.
Finn gasped, "Okay,” and stood up so fast that he knocked the chair over.
FINI
AUTHOR’S NOTE: For those of you who are interested in this sort of thing, this is how this story came about:
One stinking hot summer afternoon, New Year’s Eve weekend, (41 degrees Celcius!) I somehow spent around three hours reading the episode synopsis for every single Twilight Zone episode on Wikipedia. When I came across the episode ‘Time and Teresa Golowitz’ I was struck by the adaptation possibilities - especially since the original male lead was a Broadway composer, who came back to find that Teresa ‘Terri’ Golowitz was now a singing star and his long-time friend and collaborator - and saved the page for later.
The idea for the full-blown anthology didn’t happen until I stumbled across ‘Night Route’ - where the original protagonist is too scared to take the bus to the afterlife, and is doomed to die having only lived the unhappy route. My deep-seated need for a happy ending took over, and it seemed a natural fit for Rachel, with Jesse as her fiancée and Finn’s next door neighbour replacing the protagonist’s mother.
At that point, my sense of symmetry decided that all three characters should appear in both stories, and put Jesse in the role of the Grim Reaper in ‘Time’ (who was originally the Prince of Darkness in the show). After that, it seemed unfair not to give my third major character a story of his own, and since I already had 2000’s and 1980’s era episodes, I looked back through the original series, with an eye to something Rachel and Finn could ‘guest-star’ in.
Since I normally can’t stand Jesse, I was originally going to pick one of the downer ending stories for him, but when I came across the bittersweet ‘Ring-a-ding Girl’, about a famous movie star returning to their hometown, it seemed to fit just right, with Rachel’s ex-lover substituting for the protagonist’s sister. Ironically, I ended up cutting the titular ring altogether; a gift from the movie star’s hometown fan club, it gave her visions of her sister, urging her to return home - and was later given to her sister after the plane crash, sooty and cracked. (I ended up putting the pendant in as a substitute about five minutes before I sent in the rough draft.) That also inspired me to put a plane crash into ‘Time’, to explain Finn’s approaching death (originally, it was simply a heart attack from ill health, as the character was in his late fifties), since the time gap would be around fifteen years instead of forty.
Also: I originally intended to call the second act ‘Time flies by as the pendulum swings’ (a mis-remembered lyric from Linkin Park’s “In the End”). I changed it about a quarter-way through, after I’d written the final scenes for act two and three. Given there were no pendulums involved, it seemed a bit silly. Since Finn is almost literally given the time of his life, and ends up giving someone else a new lease on a bright future, it seemed a better title. I thought about changing the act three title to a song title as well, but I like ‘The Last Bus Home’ too much. Not only does Rachel literally catch the last bus - her very last chance - it hints to both what Rachel thinks is the destination of the bus, and foreshadows where it will actually take her.
As for the three ‘musicals’ mentioned; I was wearing my Rock of Ages T-shirt when I wrote the ending for ‘LBH’, so I thought of a spiritual sequel for Rachel and Jesse to star in. By the way, I picked the title because of an old episode of the TV show Cold Case - the episode ‘Detention’ was originally meant to be named ‘All Apologies’ after a Nirvana song, but the production team couldn’t get the rights (but someone must have changed their minds, because the s5 opener used only Nirvana music!). I thought it made a nice mirror to ‘RoA’, which is named after a Def Leppard song, even though they couldn’t get the rights to use any of the group’s music in the show (seriously; when I saw the show last year, in the pre-show announcements they mentioned ‘in case of fire, please don’t start singing Def Leppard’s ‘Pyromania’, because we couldn’t get the rights. Just head for your nearest signposted exit’).
Oh, and if the bit in ‘ToYL’ about the passenger on a plane claiming to see a gremlin sabotaging the wing sounds familiar, but you can’t place it, it’s actually from the original series episode ‘Nightmare at 20,000 feet’, and was remade as part of ‘Twilight Zone: the movie’. The character was played by William Shatner (Star Trek) and John Lithgow (Third Rock from the Sun) respectively, only in those cases the plane landed safely... but his story was backed up when the mechanics found massive damage to the wing/engines afterwards. (hums the TZ theme).
Writing these was so much fun that I’ve decided to try it again - with the only episode to appear in all three eras. ‘Dead man’s shoes’ was remade as ‘Dead woman’s shoes’ in the eighties, and ‘Dead man’s eyes’ in the Noughties, and will soon (err... eventually) be adapted into another of my fandoms.