Disclaimer: Glee is owned by Ryan Murphy, Ian Brennan, Brad Falchuk, 20th Century Fox Television and any production companies associated with said persons. This is written purely for entertainment and to alleviate my own immense boredom. I am gaining nothing financially.
Rachel Berry stared at her reflection in the full length mirror as she carefully ran her hands down the front of her dress, barely touching it but trying to smooth non-existent wrinkles while nervously checking for any sign that the dress hugged her too closely in the bodice. There were certain things that weren't anyone's business just yet and the people she knew from Lima had already been sending her far too many contemplative looks since she had arrived back in town two months earlier.
She just wished she could turn her brain off for five minutes; something she hadn't really been able to do for the last two months.
In a last ditch effort, she had sent her small group of well meaning friends (all of whom, except for Kurt, were from college) and her fathers away seconds earlier after begging for a few minutes to herself so she could breathe and calm her rapid fire thoughts; now she couldn't help but wonder if that wasn't one of the worst ideas she had ever had.
The room was just too quiet not to think.
And all she could think about was whether or not she was making a mistake. She knew she wanted this, there was no denying that; but, she suddenly wasn't sure if it was the best decision. She couldn't help hearing her father's voices from the night she had broken the news, back in the middle of April, one month before graduating from college. They hadn't reacted the way she had expected - there had been no animosity, no disappointment and only support. Then she had told them the rest of the news and suddenly they were full of opinions - she was too young, it was too fast, she should wait a few years.
The irony was that Rachel had actually braced herself for both reactions; she had just expected each reaction to be for the opposing piece of the news.
Though, instead of caving, Rachel had stood by her decisions and now, almost three months to the day, her fathers also stood behind her and supported her completely as they always had with everything in her life. So the fact that she was suddenly wondering if they were initially correct was troubling.
The sound of her cell phone buzzing on the dressing table startled her out of her thoughts and when she saw who the text message was from, and what it said, every single doubt that had sprung up disappeared instantly.
'I'll see you soon. I'll be the one in the front of the room. I love you.'
She laughed lightly and fanned her eyes with her hands, because Kurt would kill her if she ruined his work, while she studied her reflection again. This time all she could see was a confidant young woman who knew she was making the most important, and most correct, decision for her life at the moment.
The nervously excited laughter bubbled up again as she thought of what fifteen (sixteen and seventeen) year old Rachel Berry, who chased after Finn Hudson as though he was the personification of male perfection and actually expected to win a Tony Award by the age of twenty-five, would say if she knew what twenty-two year old Rachel Berry was about to do.
She was fairly certain that her high school self would be insisting that she visit a psychiatrist instantly; not to mention the insane tantrum she would throw over the whole situation. Because, every dream that little girl had, dreams that hadn't budged a inch by high school graduation, were significantly altered just over four years later. There was certainly no Finn Hudson anywhere to be found and, more shockingly, there was no Broadway in the immediate future.
Rachel was incredibly glad she was no longer that girl.
Because the woman she was now, two months after graduating from New York University with what amounted to essentially three majors, a Bachelors of Music "five year" dual degree from the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development in Music Composition & Theory with a Masters of Music Education and a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Drama from the Tisch School of the Arts, had a different level of maturity then that teenager. The woman she was know knew what it was like to see older friends graduate and struggle to even get a chorus role in an Off-Broadway production. The woman she was now knew what it was like to spend four years doubling up on classes and never going home for breaks, because she was taking even more classes, to finish those degrees in four years. The woman she was now knew what it was like to live in a small studio in Brooklyn with second hand furniture, eat ramen noodles daily, go without heat or electric some weeks and still be tight on rent money.
The woman she was now didn't just have a dream for the future, she had a vision for it.
She was in Lima by choice, she was less than ten minutes from walking into the Temple she had grown up in to marry her college boyfriend, she was three weeks away from moving into a very small, but lovely, three bedroom home in Cambridge, Massachusetts (her father's wedding present after they had come around to the idea of the wedding), she was a month away from starting her initial job with the American Repertory Theatre in Boston as a Box Office Manager (they wanted her as an actress; but had made concessions after she promised to be available next year for the start of the 2018 season) and she was just about five months away from being a mother for the first time.
High School Rachel Berry would never understand the vision and would only focus on the "dream" without seeing the reality that surrounded her.
She wouldn't understand falling in the most intense, truest love with her best friend halfway through her sophomore year of college. She wouldn't understand caring more about her friends then herself and realizing, through the pain of her friend's struggles, the smarter way to pursue the dream. She wouldn't understand deciding in her junior year of college, well before any child or wedding was even an idea, that acting in a regional theatre for a few years and building up her resume was the best way to go about it. She wouldn't understand how the American Repertory Theatre in Boston became her top choice of regional theatres the same day the acceptance letter from Boston University Medical School, her (by then) fiance's first choice school, arrived in the mail at the end of March. She wouldn't understand how Boston became the only choice three weeks later when the stick turned pink.
High School Rachel Berry's world revolved around Glee, Finn Hudson and the dream of Broadway stardom that she felt entitled to. Twenty-two year old Rachel Berry's world revolved around Noah Puckerman, their child, the life they were building and the vision of how amazing it would be as they each worked towards their personal dreams by each others sides.
Did she still want Broadway in the future? Absolutely. Would she be disappointed if she didn't get it? Probably. Would she survive either way? Without a doubt.
Because unlike fifteen, sixteen and seventeen year old Rachel Berry's idea of what love was based on her relationship with Finn Hudson? Unlike the child she was then, never knowing if he truly loved her back? Twenty-two year old Rachel Berry knew that Noah Puckerman's world revolved around her just as much as her's revolved around him. He only proved it further the night Rachel agreed to marry him (back in January) when he promised that as soon as he finished medical school they'd go back to New York (she hadn't yet told him that her plans involved going wherever he got the best residency offer - every major city has a theatre community); and again the night she agreed to marry him sooner then planned when he repeated that promise.
For twenty-two year old Rachel Berry, that was more then enough.
With that memory bolstering her confidence even further Rachel quickly typed a reply into her phone and exhaled. She was ready.
'See you soon my love. I'll be the one in white.'
A/N: A few things/warnings/explanations/etc:
1) This is something I've been working on for a few months (on and off). I'm posting the prologue for not other reason other then I felt like if I didn't, right now, I might not ever.
2) It's going to be slowly updated (like, really slowly) because I'm putting it together kind of like a quilt - I have these little pieces written (present and flashbacks) that have to be woven together to form the full picture. We're going to progress pretty far through Noah and Rachel's lives in the present (from the wedding onward) and see exactly how they got there (in love, their career choices, etc) in the first place through flashbacks that in some cases go all the way back to childhood. So hopefully everyone will bear with me on this one.
3) One of my best friend's actually has the degree Rachel got in the story; girl busted her ass but pulled it off. So it is possible. Just heading that one off at the pass.
4) So far, based on what I have written, this will have a very different feel then any of my other Puckleberry stories. This is Future AU, so, if things seem ever "OOC" please keep in mind that the characters are not in HS anymore and things have happened to them in their lives.
I had long conversations with some friends who moved into various big cities to attend college and looked at how they changed when faced with suddenly being "adults" on their own for the first time. I remembered how their priorities shifted and how they matured (or in some cases, did not mature). I also had long discussions with the friends of mine that were young parents for various reasons (we're all late 20s/early 30s now). There are going to be moments of some fairly insane angst, but there will also be some moments of fairly insane fluff. I'm going for a massive dose of "reality" with this story. It's essentially an examination of life, love and how it changes you for the better or for the worse depending on how you roll with the punches (on that note - yes, the other Gleeks will appear both in present and in flashback and yes, this idea will apply to them as well - so expect to see "different" characters depending on where we are in everyone's lives and how they've coped with adulthood).
If you've read this far, I applaud and thank you. And I promise to never write another novel length A/N again. I always appreciate feedback and constructive criticism and do my best to reply to everyone who takes the time to do so (but I love all of you).