A/N: I own neither Glee nor its characters, only those characters I have created. This story was inspired in part by the novels of John Fowles and Scott Spencer. I hope you enjoy it. Reviews, as always, are welcome.
She hurried away from the theatre after signing a few autographs. Some of the people waiting outside were left disappointed at not getting a playbill or picture signed; however, everyone knew Rachel Berry was not one to spend much time with fans after shows. This particular night she didn't even spend her usual few minutes. She just randomly signed a couple of playbills thrust at her as she moved along towards her waiting cab. Nevertheless, the crowd waved and cheered.
Judah was waiting for her at Sardi's. Rachel texted him, saying she was finally on her way. She offered no apology; he was fully aware of her schedule, so if he got pissy, well, she just wasn't in the mood for that. Besides, it wasn't as if either of them of them owned the other. She did like him, though. Judah Freleng was dark, good looking, and talented. And Jewish, which she found endearing. And he was good in bed-maybe even as good as Brody—which was the only thing, these days, which seemed to relieve her stubborn insomnia.
He was having a drink at their usual table. As she approached with the hostess, he smiled and stood up. Ever the gentleman. She liked the impeccably-tailored, traditional gray suit he wore—Savile Row, no less (they had met soon after he had come off a successful run in the West End).
Judah gently kissed her on the lips, and nodded to a waiter, who scurried to bring the drink he had already ordered for her, The Macallan 18-year old single malt scotch with a splash of spring water (he preferred Laphroaig).
"How long have you been waiting?" Rachel asked.
He shrugged. "I got here a few minutes before your text."
"So you're still on your first drink then. Awesome!"
"I know you don't like your men drunk and sloppy."
She beamed at the waiter as he brought her drink.
"Well, yes, but I also don't like it when they get ahead of me. Cheers!" They clinked glasses and drank. She closed her eyes, savoring that first sip. Judah had taught her to appreciate fine whiskey.
She smiled at him. "So, how did the audition go?"
"Pretty good." Judah was a stage actor, and in-between plays. He had auditioned for a highly-anticipated new play, The Moon Garden, by Pulitzer-winning playwright Dave Welland. "I think I have a chance at this one."
"Don't be so modest," Rachel laughed. He gave her a sheepish look. "I happen to know you did very well."
He sighed. "You didn't tell them about us, did you?"
"You think they didn't already know? Seriously?" Their relationship was no secret to the press, and had garnered some low key attention, but not much. It's not like either of them had a Tony award yet.
Rachel liked a man with a healthy sense of pride, but the fact remained, The Moon Garden was being produced by Billie West and Jerry Fineman, the same ones who put on Funny Girl. They called Rachel right after it was over, as she was having coffee that afternoon before heading in to work on her new show, Mount Olympus Blues. Judah looked somewhat crestfallen, so she patted his hand.
"They said you were great. I didn't have to say anything on your behalf." She stopped and chuckled, sipping her drink. "Well, I did reply 'I know.'" And she winked.
He laughed, and they placed their orders with the waiter. Both had the Spinach Canneloni (appetizer size), with a fine bottle of chianti. The conversation was typical for them: about Rachel's show, how she was getting along with her male lead (she wasn't); current Tony rumors (she was in the running for her portrayal of the obsessed, narcissistic Sally Jones); how the director couldn't quite seem to capture the composer's intentions (she was good friends with the composer, Tom Foley), despite Rachel's helpful input. Judah told some more stories of his London run of the revival of Harold Pinter's The Pumpkin Eater (very good critical reception, mediocre audience response); The Moon Garden (she had read all of the buzz about it); how Judah felt intimidated by Welland being at the audition.
"Ooh! What does he look like in person?" Rachel asked, all fangirly.
"He's about six-foot tall, kind of wiry, with gray hair and beard. Gold- rimmed glasses. Like a college professor, even down to the brown corduroy jacket and jeans. He thanked me, but that's about the only interaction I had with him."
"Something tells me you have it in the bag," Rachel said, toasting him with her coffee cup.
"Are you hiding something?" Judah raised an eyebrow.
"Maybe." She flashed him a coy glance over her cup. "Maybe not." Truth was, she didn't know for sure, since the auditions for the lead weren't complete, but Billie West had said he was the best they had seen so far.
They had met at a dinner party thrown in honor of their manager, Fred Callo. She was seated next to him, although she was actually there with a date, a singer named John, who, frankly, seemed far more interested in obtaining representation by Fred than in her. Which was fine with Rachel; she was relishing leaving him with a peck on the cheek afterwards.
It had been seven months since she had started dating. Three years after Finn's death, she had decided it was time. Unfortunately, she couldn't seem to gel for long with any of the men she had seen. Clark, a Wall Street banker, didn't even last one full date: he was so obnoxious she left the restaurant and took her own cab home. Mark was better, a physics graduate student Kurt had recommended, He seemed nice, but her third date with him was a disaster. Kurt said she just wasn't ready for sex, but she knew that wasn't true. She was more than ready. Unfortunately, it wasn't until they were in bed and Mark saw her only tattoo that things went downhill.
"Who's Finn?" he asked her, not in an unpleasant way. Just curious, she supposed.
Rachel hadn't thought much about the tattoo for some time—it had become a part of her body, so much so that she almost didn't know it was there.
"He—" Mark was stroking her flank, smiling, but Rachel froze. How could she describe him? "The love of my life" probably wasn't a diplomatic description, given the circumstances. "Ex-fiancé? Not much better.
"He was my high school sweetheart," she said, finally, hoping Mark would drop it. But he thought she wanted him to say something, you know, to acknowledge that reality.
"You must have loved him," Mark said, which was probably the worst thing he could have said at that moment. She broke into tears, all her carefully built-up defenses just swept away, and ended up sobbing, and asking Mark for a rain check that never came.
The ironically-named Woody played baseball for the Mets, and was, thank goodness, fun and uncomplicated. He didn't even acknowledge the tattoo. And he was gentle with her that first time. Letting herself go after so long, Rachel felt her sorrow, which manifested itself now as insomnia, dissolve temporarily. She awoke in Woody's bed actually refreshed and alert. During her time with Woody, she looked rested and healthy, even gaining back a portion of the weight Finn's death had taken from her.
But it didn't last. Woody replaced her with a Hollywood actress, and Rachel, furious and hurt, found herself sliding back into her previous pattern of not eating or sleeping, along with a new coldness. All that concerned her, for the next few dates, was getting a good night's sleep. She refused to talk about the tattoo. Rachel lived a compartmentalized life: still deeply, hopelessly in love and connected to poor dead Finn, and emotionally distant but sexually enthusiastic to anyone else.
Fortunately, she wasn't much of a partier, so her professional life didn't suffer. On the contrary; she did get a Tony nomination for Funny Girl in its last year. And her friend Tom Foley, a composer that she met at a party thrown by the Funny Girl producers, specifically wrote the part of Sally Jones in Mount Olympus Blues, with her in mind, and had enough clout to get her cast. The show, almost at the end of its first year, took awhile to catch on, but when it did, Rachel found herself in even more exposure and adulation than with Funny Girl. The part, with its non-stop intensity, plus Tom's complex, difficult, but mesmerizingly melodic music, took almost everything Rachel had to perform. But the result was astonishing. Audiences couldn't seem to get enough of it. There was pressure to add extra matinees, but Erik Strong, the director, had wisely chosen a seasoned Broadway veteran, Talia Gillerman, as an understudy. Unlike with Funny Girl, and its almost disastrous casting of Santana Lopez as understudy (although they remained friends, both agreed it was best if they didn't work together), Talia and Rachel formed a solid professional relationship, and worked out the part so that when Talia was on stage, the transition was almost seamless. The result was a show capable of running on all cylinders, and Rachel was not chronically exhausted, as long as she could find sleep.
On nights when she wasn't with a man, Rachel was forced to be alone with her thoughts in her small Manhattan apartment (her agent renegotiated her Funny Girl contract a year into its very successful run, and she now commanded and received very good money). She still privately mourned Finn's loss. Nobody, not even Kurt, knew how wounded she remained, how bereft she felt. It took everything she had to keep remembering how Finn had kept her from losing her humanity.
In her darkest moments, Rachel begged Finn to come back to her, because she feared not being able to keep going this way.
At the dinner party, the attraction between Rachel and Judah was mutual and immediate. Judah was smart, ambitious, and accomplished, from here in New York. Their conversation was sparkling and flirty, and when she took him home with her that night after sending John packing, the sex was mutually enjoyable. She awoke from a profoundly restful sleep to the smells of him cooking breakfast.
Judah was stable. Yes, he could be moody, but he wasn't needy, and, like her, not ready for anything more than being what amounted to a friend with benefits. She had always thought that term was ridiculous, so it came as a very pleasant surprise when she realized that's what they had become. The friendship was real—there was true affection and interest, and concern for the other's welfare. They had common experience—Judah had a broken engagement, at the altar no less, that he had been mourning, and unable to resolve, for some time—and each of them provided exactly the kind of company that the other could handle. And the sex, with its narcotic effects, was consistent enough to actually affect her health for the better. Her skin improved, and she gained enough weight back to actually put curves on her still-delicate figure. Judah, in turn, also benefited. His moodiness seemed innate, she amusedly noticed, but it appeared more under control since she had known him.
The sad fact was, before they met, their lives had been in slow, mutual decline; gradually, almost imperceptibly, eroded by unresolved sorrow. Together, they could, at the very least, reach a stable equilibrium of some kind, an arrest to the decline, a starting point from which each could properly heal. By some stroke of fate, Rachel and Judah turned out to be the best things to happen to each other at that point in their lives.
There was no fatalism involved, no cynical acknowledgement of the temporary nature of the arrangement. The fact was, neither of them ruled out the possibility that their relationship could deepen, someday. But for now, Rachel and Judah were grateful for the emotional breathing room.
"Okay," said Judah, "be that way." And in a perfectly-trained British accent, added, "But if I find out you are hiding something, I'll be frightfully browned-off."
They lingered over the wine and tried celebrity watching, but none but themselves seemed to be in the restaurant at the moment.
"Did I ever tell you the first real celebrity I ever met was Patty LuPone, and it was right over there?" She pointed at the table.
"When was that?"
"When I was a junior in high school, and we came here for our first Nationals competition for the Glee club." He could see the happy smile grow on her face. "Finn took me here before our performance."
"He took you on a date to Sardi's? When you were in high school?" Judah was impressed. "Smooth."
Rachel giggled at that thought. "He wasn't smooth. More like a fish out of water, actually. We were broken up, and he wanted us to get back together. The only reason he even knew about Sardi's was because I had talked about it as part of my dream to live in New York. It was sweet. He was sweet. So sweet." She felt Judah's hand on hers, but she didn't break down.
"And Patty LuPone?"
"Oh, yeah. Sorry. She was passing by our table, and I was babbling on to Finn, trying to give myself courage, and finally stood up and introduced myself."
"Did she give you any advice?"
The memory warmly flushed through her system.
"She said to never give up."
"Well, given how you got accepted to NYADA, I think you took her advice to heart." Judah looked at her proudly. "Did Finn's attempt to get you back work?"
"We were broken up in name only, I think," she said. "We never stopped loving each other." Judah never got weird when she talked about Finn, nor did his talking about Anne bother her. He certainly had loved her deeply, and even now was convinced she loved him too, and the jilting had been for reasons out of her control, at least, that's what one of her friends had hinted at. It made little sense to Rachel, but she never commented on it, other than to offer him support, because that's what friends do.
They hurried to the curb and hailed a taxi, signing only a couple of autographs. Rachel told the driver to take them to her place, giving Judah a sly wink. She cuddled close to him.
"Cold?" he asked.
"Spring is almost here," she said. "I can't wait."
"But you rock a trench coat and boots, baby," Judah murmured.
"I rock a sundress even better," she purred, and he laughed.
She watched the crowds on the sidewalk, even this late and in February. The cold, clear air made everything appear etched in clarity. Her head dropped to his shoulder, just as her phone buzzed. A text. She brought it up as the screen filled the cab with a soft light.
It was from an unknown number. It made little sense.
"The dead live."
"How do they live?
"By Love."