A/N: Hey guys! I haven't given up or forgotten about 'The Choices that Form Your Life' don't worry, but I've been super busy this semester with work, my rugby team have gotten into our cup finals and I've lost my starting position, so I'm having to work hard to get it back! This is something that has been rattling around my brain for about 6 months now, and I'm a little stuck with 'Choices' so I thought writing this might help me get my groove back. So, happy easter if you celebrate it, or happy Saturday if you don't!
If enough people like this, I will continue with it, along with Choices, so please let me know what you think :D
She'd become successful in her own right.
Mostly from necessity. Relying on others only had only got her hurt, stepped on, having to sacrifice or change herself for the other.
So why, she wonders, is she changing now?
Why is she stood in front of an intimidating, smooth, dark chocolate coloured, solid wooden door, centred by a muted, but crisp, silver plaque. She ran her finger around the straight edges and sounded out the letters in her head, mouthing them silently, feeling them roll around her mouth, bouncing from tooth to tooth, brushing against her tongue, finally testing out the full name.
She jumped when a forceful hand landed on her shoulder, and she had to suppress a shudder when realising it was the hand of her husband. Her husband she married too quickly and with not enough thought.
She had met him backstage at the first Broadway show she had been cast as the lead in.
No swaying in the chorus line, no limited lines and sporadic scenes, no more being an understudy hoping for an accident serious enough to take out the lead, but not serious enough to, you know, kill her or anything.
The lead.
The.
Lead.
And he had been there.
Tall, dark slightly rounded features, looking decidedly out of place, with flowers gripped tightly in his hands, waiting for his girlfriend who was performing in her first ever Broadway show. Although Rachel hadn't known that at the time. (She liked to think that if she had known, she never would have started the relationship, but she doubts the truth in that.) He had smiled at her, praised her good performance, reassured her that her nerves hadn't shown, defiantly flirted with her throughout the whole conversation.
A week later, Rachel had been receiving glares and snide comments from a pretty, petite blonde with shimmering blue eyes that turned to a dark, stormy sky every time she spoke to Rachel. It wasn't until she saw him with another bunch of flowers gripped in his hand, decidedly ignoring the blonde and pushing the flowers into Rachel's hands that she understood.
Less than 12 months later and she had been walking down the aisle in a swirling, soft white dress, hair pulled tightly back, whilst also falling softly around her face, eyes fixated on the tall man nervously waiting alter.
(Really, even the preparation for the wedding should have been a sign, he wouldn't waver on the location of the wedding, wouldn't let any traditional Jewish passages or small ceremonies to be included in his mother's idea of a perfect Christian wedding, and they even had to spend the month before the wedding in separate houses, complete with a chaperone for any interactions.)
Her fairy tale Prince waiting for her.
Her fairy tale Prince whose crown lost its shine daily once she slipped on his ring and took his name.
Her fairy tale Prince who had been sleeping in a separate room for two months now, who she would leave if it wouldn't potentially (almost certainly, a man leaves his wife, and that's her fault, a woman leaves her husband, and that's her fault) hurt her career, who had begged for months for her to come to counselling in order to turn their marriage around.
She had eventually agreed, with conditions of course. The councillor had to be at the top of their field, they had to be discrete, and they had to be a woman. Something had flashed in her Prince's eyes when she had said the last thing, but she couldn't quite name it even now.
"You ready 'Chel?" His deep, calm, rumbling voice had even started to grate, and the nickname he had started, one that used to make her stomach clench in excitement and her skin to heat in love, stuck in her ears uncomfortably, like water you can't quite remove after swimming.
She took a deep breath and nodded, letting him open the door and gently press his hand to her lower back as they walked into the office reception.
Santana had changed a lot after leaving high school and Lima behind.
She'd had her heart broken and repaired more times than she would like to admit to.
She had changed her major three times, and was still unsure she'd made the right choice right up until the day after she graduated, and her diploma was safely stored in her desk draw, the 'graduated with honours' indelibly stamped along it underneath her name.
She'd gotten married and divorced within the same year.
She'd had an argument with her the boss who had given her her first degree related job, and been fired, only to set up her own business which overtook his within two years.
She changed a lot.
And she liked it.
Yeah, the heartbreaks and the divorce had hurt like a bitch when they'd happened, but in retrospect she was more than happy with her life and the way it was going. She wouldn't want to change a thing.
She sighed and shook her head at the ridiculousness of her internal monologue. She was defiantly not old or sad enough to be carrying out this conversation on the way to work. She saw a group of young men in suits approaching her, and casually flicked her hair out from around her blouse collar, smirking at their predictable reaction, heads instantly turning, eyes following her movements then moving down her body.
"You know, one of these days, you're going to do that and not be able to deal with the repercussions." A soft but firm voice said, just to the left of her.
"I don't remember ordering a side of feminist politics with my morning latte Q."
Quinn raised her eyebrows and rolled her eyes. "I'm just saying, I've heard and read enough reports of what happens on NYU campus to be worried when I walk through the campus for lunch, let alone actively encouraging random guys on the street."
Santana sighed, crossing the arm not holding her coffee around her waist. "Whatever. Its broad daylight, at 8:45 in the morning Q, on a busy street that has cops, some of them with freaking guns, on the corners. I'm good."
Quinn sighed in resignation, taking a long sip of her coffee. "Fine. Didn't you say you had a new client today anyway? Looking forward to that?"
Santana snorted indelicately before she replied. "Ecstatic." She pushed her sunglasses onto the top of her head and turned to look at Quinn briefly. "I actually don't know much about this one. Very hush hush, which means they're either extremely integral to the running and security of our wondrous country," She paused, waving her hand around her head, before pulling her sunglasses off her head and pointing the arm at Quinn to emphasise her words. "Or they are so egotistical and simultaneously unimportant that they think the world would shatter if they had to see someone like me for help."
Quinn chuckled. Santana often got clients that fitted both categories, although Quinn never heard names or details, due to the secrecy that Santana's business relied upon. But she had had to sit through enough ambiguous rants from Santana to know that she secretly loved the power trip that went along with being trusted implicitly by people like this. Sometimes, Quinn thought, Santana was no different from the gossip and power hungry Cheerio she was in high school. "So which do you recon it is today? Help run our country or help line already wealthy people's pockets?"
Santana tilted her head to the side and twisted her lips delicately. "The second. I definitely didn't have to answer enough intrusive, seemingly pointless security questions for this one to actually be important."
As they approached Santana's building, they naturally slowed, much to the annoyance of people still rushing to get to their destination. Santana stopped by the overpowering, elegant black twisting metal fence that bookended the steps to her door.
Quinn sighed dramatically. "I guess this is goodbye then." She pressed the back of her hand to her forehead and wilted slightly.
Santana's gentle, girlish giggle floated out between them as she pulled Quinn towards her. "Dork." She said, squeezing Quinn once and brushing a kiss to her cheek.
"I try." Quinn said as she shrugged and stepped back. Santana rolled her eyes (seriously, Quinn was sure that one day they would just keep going Santana rolled them so much) and twisted on her toes running lightly up the steps. She pressed the buzzer next to her name and title insistantly, glared at the camera and pushed the door firmly with the palm of her hand. "I'll see you tomorrow Q? No lunch today I'm afraid, new clients always mean horrendous amounts of paperwork."
Quinn lifted her now empty coffee cup in recognition before continuing down the road, deliberately swaying her hips slightly. As she reached the corner, she turned to throw her cup in the bin and lifted her head to look back at Santana. Who was still standing on the top stair, hand flat on the door, and eyes trained on where Quinn's butt had been seconds before. Santana's eyes quickly flickered upwards to the smirk on Quinn's face. Santana rolled her eyes before she shook her head sharply and walked through the door.
Quinn laughed to herself as she walked around the corner. "Every dam time."
Short, yes, but its just an intro to see if people like it. Any mistakes, as usual, let me know, and please review? :)
Thanks for taking the time to read