TITLE: Twilight's Falling
AUTHOR: TaleWeaver
FANDOM: Glee/The Twilight Zone
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. Lyrics featured from 'Don't rain on my parade' from the musical 'Funny Girl', 'More than you know' from 'Funny Lady', and 'Rolling in the Deep' by Adele. Stories adapted from episodes written by Earl Hamner Jr (Ring-a-ding Girl), Alan Brennert and Parke Godwin (Time and Teresa Golowitz) and Jill Blotevogel (Night Route). No profit is being made from this work, and no copyright infringement is intended.
SPOILERS: For the Twilight Zone episodes 'Ring-a-ding Girl', 'Time and Teresa Golowitz' and 'Night Route'.
RATING/WARNING: PG-13. Swearing, sexual references, supernatural themes and character death, including mentions of suicide.
PAIRING: Main pairing is Finn/Rachel. Featuring Jesse & Rachel friendship and minor Jesse/Rachel.
SUMMARY: (AU) A trilogy of tales adapted from episodes of The Twilight Zone, starring Jesse St. James, Finn Hudson, and Rachel Berry.
Act One: Catch a Falling Star
Broadway star Jesse St. James is making a visit to the hometown – and the girl – he left behind.
Jesse St. James couldn't look around for more than a few feet without it being shouted to his eyes.
LIMA FOUNDER'S DAY CELEBRATIONS!
At least one in three signs announced the picnic in two days' time. It was the traditional (God, he hated that word!) kickoff to the Founder's Day Celebrations, which lasted a full week.
Jesse couldn't help but sigh, as a dozen memories crossed his mind. The Founder's Day Picnic was one of the major events of Lima, NY's social calendar (what there was of it). In most of the old families, you weren't allowed to miss it unless you were in jail or dead.
He had hated almost every moment of growing up in this one-horse town. But he did have some good memories of the FD Picnics.
Most of the other good memories were centered around one person; the very same person he was about to see in the flesh for the first time in three years.
On the steps of the Lima Civic Center, Jesse looked down his body to give himself a final inspection. His black linen pants were unwrinkled, and his dress boots were clean. His dark red Egyptian cotton shirt, the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, was immaculate. Frowning, he reached behind his neck to adjust the drape of the silver chain. The pendant that hung from the chain rested just below his collarbone; it was a thick-rimmed circle, with an inner ring of tiny claws that held a flat, thumb-sized disc of obsidian, jet black and mirror-bright. It had been Rachel's last gift to him.
Satisfied with his appearance, Jesse walked through the front doors of the centre, and headed straight to the auditorium. He'd checked the Founder's Day website, and knew that this year the concert was being rehearsed to the point of exhaustion, thanks to its new director.
Jesse was a little surprised to find he still knew almost every inch of the place by heart; he slipped in by the side entrance that was hardly ever used, and seated himself a few rows behind the director's desk.
Seated at the desk was his childhood friend and ex-lover, Rachel Berry.
Her hair was as dark as he remembered, but it was longer now, almost to the middle of her back. She'd worn the same style back in high school, and Jesse frowned at her choosing to grow out the shorter, more sophisticated style she'd worn in college.
Growing up, they'd lamented being born in Beantown – as they'd called it – and spent hours talking about how they'd take Broadway by storm. They'd started dating in high school, then became lovers, at least partly because they were both terrified that a relationship with someone who wasn't equally as determined to leave this place would trap them here. He could admit that, now.
It wasn't that Rachel wasn't attractive. Dark-haired and eyed, Rachel's Jewish nose set off her looks, rather than distracted from them, and her body was slim and graceful - tiny and light, like a fairy. Their first co-starring roles together had been in this very theater, as Peter Pan and Tinkerbell. He'd always thought her lovely, but years after their breakup he had the perspective to admit he'd never thought she was hot – not the way that idiot from her synagogue with the afro and the glasses always thought.
It was the Jewish guilt that had destroyed her dreams, though. She'd been halfway through her junior year at Carnegie-Mellon (much as she longed for New York City, she had to go where the scholarship money was) when her Dad had been diagnosed with cancer. Her other father was still frail from the heart attack he'd suffered a year earlier, and Rachel had only gone back to school after that because they'd both asked her to. They could have coped without her; Lima was nothing if not tight-knit, and her fathers had a large circle of friends who would have happily pitched in. But Rachel refused – this was her family, and she would care for it.
It was probably Rachel's determination, as much as any medical treatment, which enabled Leroy Berry to survive the cancer. It had still been a long recovery, though, compounded by the continuing frailty of her other parent. Rachel had known what leaving college meant; it would doom her to suffocate in this place forever. Their love affair had long since atrophied, but their friendship remained strong – but not strong enough to allow him to talk her out of her incredible, foolish sacrifice. When she told him to graduate from UCLA and head to Broadway without her, she'd looked like Ophelia, letting herself be dragged beneath the currents of the river simply because she had no will left to live.
She was twenty-five years old, but even from behind her in the semi-darkness, Jesse could see she looked drained. As if some essential spark of life had ebbed away.
For God's sake, she was directing the concert! She'd do a superb job of course, but backstage? They'd been in the Founder's concert since they were old enough to understand stage directions, but they'd never been given a full solo number, because of all the adults who wouldn't give up their split second in the spotlight to someone obviously far more talented.
"For God's sake, people, look alive!" Rachel said into the microphone. "Take five and drink a Red Bull or something!"
As the assembled group on stage filled off stage, Rachel slumped back in her chair and gave the 'I'm-surrounded-by-idiots' sigh Jesse was so familiar with, and it warmed his heart. At least she hadn't completely given in to Lima's collective drive to mediocrity.
"Hello, Rachel."
Rachel actually jumped to her feet, almost getting caught up in the director's desk, gaping at him gratifyingly.
"J... Jesse?"
"None other," he smiled back.
He stood up and moved to meet her, and no more words needed to be said.
She threw herself into his open arms, and they hugged like long-lost family.
"So, how goes the concert?" Jesse asked an hour later, over vegetarian pizza.
Rachel sighed. "They're trying hard, I'll give them that. But there isn't a person in the cast with a real spotlight voice. I've had to arrange three-part harmonies for almost every song."
Jesse looked down to hide his smile. This just might be easier than he thought.
"Well... I have an idea."
Rachel looked at him brightly and expectantly, and Jesse couldn't stop the smile, now. She was so eager!
"What if I performed at the concert?"
Rachel gaped even more than she had when she first saw him.
"What? Jesse, why...?"
"But we'd have to start the concert at noon."
"Wait, the picnic starts at 11:30 – the council will never agree to it!"
"Oh, come on. So you have the tug of war an hour later!" Jesse shrugged. Rachel still looked doubtful, and Jesse's face darkened for a moment, looking almost pained, before offering, "The concert's still a major fundraiser, right? What sort of turnout do you think we'd get if I offered to perform for free?"
"Full house," Rachel answered instantly.
"It has to be then, Rachel – I don't have a lot of time here. Not only will I perform for free, but I'll stream the concert live on my website – how do you think the council will like seeing themselves on TV?"
Rachel smiled, slow and sure. "You know perfectly well what a publicity whore Councilwoman Sylvester is."
Jesse's smirk matched hers. "My YouTube channel is in the top seventy-five subscriber's channels, and I have three million followers on Twitter. If I bring the audience, I get to pick the time."
"I'll see what I can do," Rachel laughed.
"One more thing, Rach – I want you performing too."
Rachel's eyes widened, and she gasped.
"I want you to open the concert, and then you'll back me on the songs I sing. No question."
"Jesse..." Rachel murmured.
"Don't even dream about telling me you're out of practise – you sing like you breathe, Rachel. This will open doors for you, and I want to be the one escorting you through them."
Rachel bit her lip, and Jesse let his heart's wish spill.
"I really want to sing with you again, Rachel. Just once more."
"I want that too, Jesse. More than almost anything," Rachel smiled sadly.
Two days later, after a whirlwind of action that left Jesse in awe of Rachel's organisational skills all over again – if he ever wanted to invade a small country, Rachel was the one he wanted as a general – everything was set to go. Sue Sylvester, head of the Lima Town Council (known behind her back as 'Chairwoman Mao') had been mocking Rachel's concert only a few hours ago, until Jesse had informed her that YouTube had had to put on two alternate streaming sites, so many of his subscribers had stated that they were going to be logging on.
Jesse had broadcast on Twitter that this concert would be solely of material he'd never performed or recorded before, and it had brought out his fans in droves. Several of his colleagues in the business were watching too, after Jesse had made sure to inform them that this concert would include a preview of new original material.
He and Rachel had snatched rehearsal time whenever she could spare it – Jesse was sure that she hadn't slept more than eight hours in the last forty-eight – but his faith in her talent had been fully justified. Rachel sounded almost as good as when she'd performed in the Carnegie-Mellon musicals, and just a little more polish from vocal coaching and rehearsal would make her the equal of any of the leading ladies he'd performed with on Broadway.
He was only sorry he wouldn't be able to see the reaction Rachel would get from others in his profession. He'd bet his first Tony statuette that Schuester would be creaming his pants over Rachel before sunset.
Jesse couldn't help himself; he had to see Rachel, talk to her, one last time.
They'd decided that Rachel would enter from the auditorium, surprising the audience from behind. They hadn't needed to debate the playlist at all; they'd simply taken turns suggesting songs, leaving the other to grin in agreement. They hadn't even spoken aloud the name of Rachel's opening number. They'd both known what it would be without even discussing it.
"Ready to go?"
Rachel whirled, and smiled at him. "Born ready!"
She smiled as she brushed off the sleeves of his red shirt, and inspected his black pants and boots. Jesse was confident that he was as immaculate as when he'd arrived.
Rachel cupped his pendant in her hand, and smiled.
"I can't believe you kept this."
"I can't believe you would think for a second that I wouldn't."
"Papa had gone to that health resort in New Mexico, and Daddy and I were with him. By the time we left, I knew the nearby town like the back of my hand – I found this on a jewellery stall, run by this lovely Navajo woman. The second I saw it, I knew you were supposed to have it. I kept this hidden in my dorm room for almost nine months, until your birthday.
"I was so happy the day I bought this for you. It was spring break, my sophomore year. I still thought the world was my oyster, back then. Like I could achieve anything I wanted, and as long as I was willing to work for it, my success was inevitable," Rachel's face fell, and she confessed in a whisper, "I haven't felt like that in a long time. From the second I wake up in the morning, it feels like I'm struggling to breathe. Like this whole damn town, except for Daddy and Papa, is a huge weight on my chest, so smug and self-righteous. None of them believe I came back here for Daddy, you know. They all think I was knocked down a whole series of pegs at Carnegie-Mellon, and came back here to lick my wounds after I had it forcibly hammered into me that I wasn't nearly as talented as I always claimed to be, and that I'm simply too cowardly to admit that I'm as humdrum and mediocre as the rest of them."
"Rachel Barbra Berry!" Jesse chided her sharply. "I obviously came back just in time. You were actually starting to believe that crap, weren't you? You were born to sing and perform – you were born to shine. Now I'm going to make sure that you do. It will be part of my legacy to the world.
"Rachel, I came back here to help out the town, that's true. But I mostly came back for you. I couldn't stand the thought of never hearing you sing again. You have always been meant for better than this town, Rach, and now your Dad's better you can go get it - and I'm going to help you get what you deserve."
Jesse reached out a hand, and gently ran a lock of her silky, dark-chocolate hair through his fingers, and Rachel smiled at him, a gentle, glowing smile that he'd never seen her use with anyone but him and her fathers. He knew that she'd use it for another man soon, but in this last moment it was only for him, and Jesse relished its radiance.
"When you told me to go to New York without you, you said that I wasn't in love with you. That was true, Rachel, but I do love you - I think you're the only person in the world I've ever loved. Always have, always will."
Jesse reached out and pulled her close in a crushing hug. He buried his face in her hair and inhaled deeply, memorising her scent, and the feel of her body in his arms.
"One minute!" he heard the call in his earpiece.
Sighing, Jesse let Rachel go. "Never missed a cue, not going to start now. You'd better get into position."
He looked down at Rachel's face, and knew that he'd accomplished what he came here to do.
"This is your moment, Rachel; give it everything you've got." He ducked his head to give her a quick, chaste kiss on the lips. "Break a leg."
"I love you too," Rachel told him, still smiling.
He smiled back at her, and walked away.
Rachel faced the auditorium doors, and took a deep breath as the opening notes rang out.
She wasn't stupid; this performance may be broadcast on the net, but she wasn't going to be the Broadway version of Justin Bieber. But Rachel Berry was a professional, no matter if she lived in Lima or New York City, and she would perform as one.
Time to face the music and dance.
She gripped the curtains, and ripped them open, feeling the spotlight hit her right on cue.
"Don't tell me not to live – just sit and putter. Life's candy and the sun's a ball of butter – don't bring around a cloud to rain on my parade!"
Rachel rode the melody, soaring on the harmony. Absorbed by the song, she could still see the looks of surprise and astonishment on faces of people who'd known her all her life, and never took her seriously. Never acknowledged her talent.
Well, she would show them right now what she was worth. Whether she shone on Broadway or Dalton Street, in the Gershwin Theatre or the Lima Civic Centre, Rachel Berry was a star!
Standing on the stage, she belted out the last notes with all the passion she'd kept leashed for so long.
The applause crashed over her.
Smiling, Rachel waited for it to die down, gratified and flattered that it took so long.
Holding out her hand to darkened stage right, she declared, "Ladies and Gentlemen – Jesse St. James!"
A new spotlight beamed onto the piano, where Jesse was seated. He waited a few seconds, making sure everyone was focused on him, before he pounded out the opening chords on the piano. When he paused, the drums and bass guitar repeated them. They stopped, and Jesse played the chords again, and this time the band picked it up, continuing with the song. Jesse grinned at Rachel, and she began.
"There's a fire starting in my heart. Reaching a fever pitch, it's bringing me out the dark."
She grinned back at Jesse, and he took over.
"Finally I can see you crystal clear, go ahead and sell me out, and I'll lay your shit bare!"
Rachel picked up the lines again at the chorus, singing backup to enrich the vocal line. She'd forgotten how much she missed this, weaving her voice with his.
"And you played it," Jesse sang.
"You played it," Rachel sang back.
"You played it," Jesse sang one last time.
The band cut the music, and together they sang acapella, "And you played it to the beat!"
One beat, two beats, and the noise crashed around them.
But it wasn't applause – it was an overwhelming tidal wave of tearing metal and crunching impact and booming explosion, and the theater shook as if from an earthquake.
Rachel instinctively dropped to her hands and knees on the wooden boards, looking around frantically.
What the hell was going on?
She turned to ask Jesse, but he wasn't there. She never saw him again.
For the next fifty years, everyone in Lima talked about the Founders' Day Crash the same way everyone else in the country talked about 9/11.
"Thank you Mr Schuester," Rachel spoke quietly into the phone. "I'll see you at 'The Old Haunt' for our meeting."
She shut the phone with a sigh, and slid it in her jeans pocket for easy access. It seemed like it hadn't stopped ringing in the last two days and nights. Jesse had put her down as his emergency contact and next of kin, so between his agent, his publicist and the occasional co-star it seemed like she was taking a call every time she turned around.
But this last call had been for her. Jesse's website and YouTube channel had indeed broadcast the performance, and he'd asked many of his colleagues to watch it. His agent was sending a potential contract by courier for her lawyer (okay, it was Daddy, but he was a damn good lawyer!) to look over, and William Schuester claimed that by the time she'd reached the chorus of 'Don't rain on my parade', he'd known that Rachel was the one he wanted to play the lead in the musical he was workshopping right now.
She couldn't miss the chance, she knew; not only had her fathers urged her to take it, she knew it was what Jesse had planned all along. This was the first real step to what she had dreamed of and worked toward her entire life, and she needed to take it.
But she needed some answers first – and approaching her was the tall, lanky figure of the man who was going to give them to her.
"Mr Hudson? – Finn," she corrected herself. Somehow, she'd been completely comfortable with Finn Hudson the moment they met. Which was quite something, considering she'd been in near-hysterics, insisting that everyone leave the site of the plane crash and find out where the hell Jesse was! The first time she saw Finn, it had been less than four hours since the airplane had crashed into the dead centre of Abernathy Memorial Park, and everyone in town was in shock.
If it hadn't been for Jesse's concert, the park would have held almost the entire population of Lima when the plane crashed. The town of Lima, NY, would have gone from a speck on the map to a ghost town in a matter of minutes.
The Police and Fire Department had managed to keep their heads enough to keep everyone out of the rubble while they looked for survivors, and then out of the wreckage to preserve the scene. Finn had praised them highly for their efforts last night at the town meeting - the auditorium had been even more crowded than it had been for the concert, though for a far grimmer purpose.
As the Lead Investigator of the team sent by the National Transportation Safety Board, it was Finn's responsibility to try and find out why the plane had crashed, and crashed where it did.
It had also been his responsibility at the town meeting to confirm that there had been no survivors.
And that Jesse St. James, Lima's most fortunate son, had been on board.
"Hi, Rachel," Finn told her, smiling tentatively. "Was that another call from St. James' publicist?"
"No," Rachel smiled, just a little. "It was the director of a new musical that's being developed for Off-Broadway. Jesse told him to watch the broadcast, and he started trying to call me before the crash even hit the news. I have a meeting with him in two days time, and if that goes well a formal audition after that. But he claims that unless something drastic happens, the part's mine for the asking."
"That's great, Rachel," Finn told her, beaming. He winced, and added, "I mean, obviously the circumstances aren't the greatest..."
"I still can't believe it," Rachel burst out. "Jesse was standing next to me, singing with me, when the plane crashed! Don't tell me it was some sort of imposter – that idiot Dakota Stanley already tried. Maybe a lot of people could have been fooled by a good enough actor, but no one could make me think I was singing with Jesse St. James except for Jesse St. James himself!"
"Rachel – Rachel!" Finn placed his hand on her shoulder, then slid it over and down to rub her back.
Rachel couldn't stop the sudden and absurd notion that what Finn really wanted to do was hug her, but he didn't quite dare. Absurd as the notion was, she couldn't help but wish that he would.
"Rachel, I'm sorry, but there's no mistake. My AV expert Lauren checked the footage from the airport security cameras, and she clearly identified St. James sitting in the waiting area, then walking through the boarding gate, both with her eyes and with facial recognition software. She even double-checked the footage, and it's the real deal. I had them run the DNA three times, on three different machines – given the broadcast, I could justify it.
"Jesse St. James was on that plane, and his remains are in the County Morgue right now. I'm sorry, but I can't put it any other way."
Rachel's eyes brimmed again, and she ducked her head to discreetly wipe away the tear-trails. Over the last two days, it sometimes felt like her eyes were going to be permanently red-rimmed, she'd been crying so much.
Finn took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "Look, I don't know if it helps, but... what I'm about to tell you, it's on the down-low, okay? I mean, I've never actually told anyone this before."
Rachel nodded, and Finn guided her over to her Papa's big car. Rachel's pulse quickened as he grasped her hips to boost her up to sit on the car hood, and she took a deep breath to calm herself as Finn climbed onto the hood beside her. He rested his feet on the bumper, his knees bent, and leaned forward to brace his elbows on his thighs. He looked straight ahead, not at her, and Rachel already knew that was a sign. Whatever he was about to tell her, he was worried about her reaction.
"My dad was in the Army during the First Gulf War. I was born when he was in Iraq. One day when I was about six months old, my Mom looked out the window, and my dad was walking down the path to the front door. Before he got there, she flung the door open and threw herself into his arms, crying because he'd finally come back to her. She didn't know he was coming, you see – she hadn't heard from him in a week, before his latest mission. He wasn't even due home for another couple of months yet.
"She dragged him inside, and straight to the living room, where I was in my playpen, and picked me up and introduced me to my Daddy. He held me, and Mom hustled him into this leather recliner she'd scrimped and saved to buy him for their first anniversary. He sat down with me in his lap, and Mom grabbed the camera. You see, she'd promised him that the day he came home she'd take our first picture together. She snapped the picture, and it's a good thing the camera had auto-focus because her eyes were still blurry. Then the doorbell rang, and she told us to say right there. She hustled to the door, accepted the registered envelope from the postman, and hurried right back. She wasn't away for more than a minute. But Dad was gone, and there was just me sitting in the leather recliner. She called for my Dad, but no one answered. Then something made her open the envelope, and it told her that my dad had been killed in action in Iraq."
Rachel gasped, before her jaw dropped. "But... how?"
"Mom did a lot of research after that, on ghosts and supernatural phenomena. A lot of it was bullshit, but she found this guy called Bobby, who listened to her story. He had a ton of old books about this stuff in his salvage yard, and he showed her a page in one. It was about something called a 'doppelganger' – it's German for 'double walker'. It's a paranormal double of a living person, usually an omen of danger, misfortune, or even death. In Norse mythology, a 'vardoger' is a ghostly double of a living person who performs their actions in advance. Sort of like you're so impatient to get somewhere and do something, your soul gets there before you do and performs a dress rehearsal."
For some reason, it had never occurred to her until now that in all the days of Jesse's return, he hadn't changed his clothes once. Not even for the concert.
Without realizing, Rachel slid closer and leaned her body against Finn's. "You think that Jesse somehow – what, knew he was going to die, and sent his soul ahead to save the town?"
Finn shrugged. "I don't know, Rachel. But I'm pretty sure that no matter what, he wanted to see you one last time."
Rachel rested her head on his shoulder, and she sighed, before her lips curved into another tiny smile.
"Oh! I have something for you," Finn told her, carefully keeping the shoulder underneath her head still, while he used the other hand to dig into his jacket pocket. "I should really be keeping this as evidence for awhile longer, but... well, given that we know beyond any doubt about St. James, I really don't think anyone will bust my ass for this."
He brought out his clenched fist, and offered it to Rachel. His fingers unfurled, and Rachel's breath caught.
It was the obsidian pendant she'd given Jesse. The one he'd been wearing the whole time he was in Lima. The chain was blackened and part-melted, and while the setting was intact, the pendant had a diagonal crack running across it, about a third of the way down.
"I couldn't do anything about the chain or the crack, but I talked to my forensics guy, and he told me how to clean off the soot and – umm, other stuff. I know I never met St. James, but from everything you've told me – well, I think you should have this."
Rachel took the pendant from Finn, so carefully it could have been a Ming vase, and looped the chain through her fingers for extra security.
"Rachel? I know this is, like, the worst timing ever, but I'm heading back tomorrow. If this job's taught me anything, it's that you gotta take the chance while you can. When you come to the city for that meeting with the director... would you have dinner with me?"
Rachel lifted her head and said boldly, "Only if you come to my place for dinner tonight. Consider it your audition."
Finn lit up like he'd just been handed a Christmas present in October. "Seven o'clock okay?"
Rachel nodded.
"I'll be there," Finn vowed.
Rachel smiled, and ducked her head to hide her faint blush, her eyes automatically landing on the pendant cradled in her palm.
She gazed into the tiny obsidian mirror, and Jesse's face looked back at her. He smiled at her for an instant, and then he was gone.
The cracked pendant became famous as her good-luck charm. She insisted on it being part of her costume, when Will Schuester cast her as the female lead in Time of Your Life. She wore it under her clothes on all her opening nights. She wore it around her neck the day she married Finn Hudson, and it accentuated her House of Hummel original gown on the night she won her first Tony – nine months before her son Jesse was born.
END OF ACT ONE