AN: So this is an idea that I had a couple months ago. I haven't updated it in forever due to personal lose and the abandonment of my muse, but I think I'm back, so hang in there with me.
Disclaimer: I own nothing Glee or Gossip Girl related. All other ideas are mine though.
Rachel exited the sliding doors of Port Columbus International Airport and smiled as she spotted the familiar sight of her father lounging against the bumper of his car. She waved enthusiastically and started dragging her enormous hot pink suitcase in his direction. He smiled as she finally reached him and lifted up for a hug.
"Ahhh. It's been a long two months pumpkin, let me get a look at you." he held her at arms length and looked her over.
"Daddy, I'm fine." she laughed and pushed him away.
He smiled again as he grabbed her suitcase and hauled it into the trunk. Rachel walked to her side of the vehicle and slid in.
She immediately noticed her pink swarovski encrusted Blackberry sitting in the cup holder, with it's little red light blinking away merrily. Hiram slid into his seat just in time to witness her heavy sigh and the way she leaned her head back in apparent apprehension.
"Your father suggested I bring it along. He thought you might want it to check all your messages" he explained as he started his car and pulled into the traffic leading away from the airport.
Rachel nodded and closed her eyes. She knew she probably should check the phone, she knew she would probably have several texts that she would at some point have to respond to, but she wasn't really ready for that yet.
To her it felt like the past two months had flown by, and she wasn't really sure she was ready to return back to reality just yet. She had spent her summer in New York with her aunt Hazel who lived in this awesome apartment on the Upper East Side.
It had been fantastic.
Hazel had introduced Rachel into a world that was almost the complete opposite of the day to day life she experienced in Ohio. Sure, there were adjustments that she had to endure, like the fact that nearly everyone she met was so much more willing to be blatantly obvious about their wealth. She was used to having to downplay the fact that her family was actually really quite well off. Her fathers had been adamant that Rachel be brought up in a more humble setting than they had experienced while growing up in Manhattan, but the small taste of what could and someday would be her norm, had done wonders for her. She had learned who she was, and had been able to find a more positive self image than she had previously held.
Of course, it helped that Hazel and a few of her friends had convinced Rachel to ditch the animal sweaters she had been notoriously fond of, and they had helped her to piece together a more relaxed style that she was able to feel was still hers.
And then there was the fact that New York guys were more used to ambitious women, and she hadn't found herself lacking in male admiration.
It had been fun and relaxing and just what she had wanted for the summer before her senior year. She had wanted to leave Lima behind for awhile in hopes that she could come into her own.
She had also wanted to leave behind the drama that ensued when her and Finn had broken up, for what she knew was the last time, the first week into summer.
Which was precisely why she had left behind her phone.
The only person she had even talked to from Lima this summer, besides her fathers obviously, was Kurt. And that was because he had somehow found out that she was staying with her aunt and had been able to track down Hazel's phone number.
She opened her eyes as her father turned on the radio and Pink's song, Runaway filtered through the car.
He smirked at the perfection of the lyrics and turned onto the interstate, headed for Lima. Rachel rolled her eyes at the irony. She glanced out the window and then glanced back to her Dad who was bobbing his head along to the song, and then rolled her eyes again as she reached for her phone.
She had 453 text messages.
She sighed once again and began to wade through the mess.
120 of them were from Finn. She ended up deleting the whole entirety of them after reading the third poorly written plea for her to come back to him.
263 of those were from Kurt, and she couldn't help but laugh a little as she read those. They started out polite and inquiring, then went from panicked to desperate, and then there were the final 20 that were sent the day he had finally figured out where she was. Those ones were triumphant and perfectly Kurtish.
20 of the texts were from other random members of New Directions like Tina, Mercedes, and Artie all wondering if she was ok.
Her favorite text was from Noah who demanded to know "where the fuck" she had "hidden her tiny ass at?" which made her smile. It was good to know that he had at least been a little worried about her.
The other 50 were alerts from her.
Gossip Girl was completely idiotic and she hated it, but for some reason, GG had taken interest in the Glee club last year and had started actively posting about certain members of the group, Rachel included. And as a future Broadway star, Rachel had thought that this would be a learning venture on how to deal with paparazzi, so she subscribed to the asinine blog/gossip rag.
She sifted through the alerts, curious to see what had been happening while she was gone.
Apparently Santana had finally come out of the closet and started dating Brittany, and they had ended up breaking up and dating again...twice.
Blaine had convinced his aunt living in Lima to let him move in, and he was going to be going to McKinley starting Monday.
Lauren had moved to Alaska of all places, leaving behind a supposedly heartbroken Noah.
Kurt and Mercedes had participated in a drama production in Columbus, where Mercedes had met someone.
Quinn's mom had convinced her to attend a bible camp type thing in Nebraska, and she had gotten back two weeks ago.
Sam spent his summer working four jobs.
And then there was Finn. The highlights of his summer seemed to be their break-up and then the not entirely unfounded rumors about him hooking up with half of the female lifeguards at the water park he worked at in Fort Shawnee, a town just to the south of Lima.
Rachel wasn't shocked to realize that she felt nothing at that news, not even a twinge of jealousy. New York had done it's job. And it wasn't exactly like she had been a saint while she was gone, either.
The two posts about her didn't really surprise her.
The first had a picture of her checking in at the baggage claim the day she left with a caption underneath that said:
It seems our resident diva is leaving town. Or is she running?
Where are you going Diva B? And why do I have the sneaking suspicion that you didn't tell anyone you were leaving?
You know I'll figure it out.
xoxo GG
The second was a picture of her that was taken not 20 minutes ago when she was walking out of the airport. Rachel couldn't help but compare the two pictures of herself. In the first picture she looked disheveled and stressed. There were bags under her eyes and she was wearing what had once been her signature look. In the second picture, she looked put together and confident in her skinny jeans and loose gauzy blouse. In her opinion, the two girls were two separate people.
The caption under the second picture sent a smile straight to her face:
It looks like our diva has finally decided to come home to us.
Where she went, no one is exactly sure, but I do know one thing, wherever you wandered off to B, it looks like it did you wonders.
Glad to have you back diva, things were getting boring without you.
xoxo GG
Rachel relaxed into her seat. It wasn't as bad as it could of been. And maybe just maybe Gossip Girl's last post had sparked a small flame of excitement for Monday and all that it would bring. She was positive that this year was going to be different from the rest, it was just up to her whether that was a good thing or not.
Lemme know what you think?
