This was my first ever attempt to write fic, originally posted a few months ago immediately following the finale but since reworked and rewritten. I have a thing for doomed couples, which may explain my affinity for St. Berry. Anyone who has heard the song "Sometime Around Midnight" by the Airborne Toxic Event will see immediately where I got my inspiration for this section of the story from.
Spoilers through "Funk".
Disclaimer: I do not own Glee, Jesse St. James, Rachel Berry, Finn Hudson, Billy Joel, Stephen Sondheim, Lionel Ritchie, New York City, suburban Ohio, or much of anything really. All I own is the way these words are tied together and the time it took to make them that way. Even so, I get no compensation for this whatsoever...besides the emotional capital that comes from your reviews :)

After six years of basking in Los Angeles's yellow glow, he had come to realize that following his ardor would bring him nowhere but the cool blues of New York City. The echoing timbre of his smooth tenor belonged among orchestra pits and ornate vaulted ceilings, heavy velvet curtains, intricate gilded details. New York; he can't help the thought that it should be hers. An e-mail a few years back from one of his contacts at Carmel High had informed him of her enrollment at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, and the news had carried barely a glimmer of surprise for him. He had long supposed that in the wake of all they had been through there was expectation that they should divvy up the country, choosing seperate coasts on which to base their fame, far enough apart that their spotlights would not cross. But if they hadn't spoken all these years, how could he worry about breaking rules? How was he to recognize the boundaries, or even discern their existence? New York City was a springboard, where young and old migrated to see their dreams launched to the loftiest heights (all while easily forgetting the need to traipse so diligently over the dreams of others, shattered and crushed on the dirty concrete, to get there). What were the odds that in this mecca, this city of millions, he would even find himself in a position to step on her ballet-trained toes?

(Fame is the smallest world. Jesse St. James is fooling no one but himself.)

Auditions come, auditions go. So too do the callbacks. It's the starring roles that elude him, the way that nothing ever has. The dusty, dirty, mean streets of New York City have succeeded in adding the tiniest bit of dull tarnish to the shine that has always entered the room before Jesse St. James does. But there is a particularly promising audition - fingers crossed, he chuckles at the fact that he has come to allow faith to reside in superstition rather than purely in talent - and he meanders the streets with Sean and Brandon that night, enjoying the lights and the gin and the bigness of everything. The watch on his wrist flashes midnight and in suburban Ohio this means lights up and final call, the end of something, but not in New York - in New York it is only the beginning. Promise.

(He has heard it said that there is no waiting, there is only preparing.)

The band discards guitars and drums in favor of a harmonica and the tinkling keys of Piano Man on the ancient Steinway tucked nearly invisible in the back corner of the bar. All around him patrons warble the familiar refrains into their drinks, swaying back and forth, stars on their own musical stages. Jesse only listens, bathed in a neon glow; alcohol makes it easy to lose himself in the moment. New York makes it easy. His ears are ever musically trained and it is subconsciously that he finds himself picking through the chorus of voices, lingering over none for more than a few seconds. Except for one. A voice that brings him back to another time and another piano bench, a voice that could fill this room and spill out to the sidewalks beyond if only she would truly release it. He spins around, No. It can't be. But it is and there she stand by the far wall, every low light in the bar reflected off of her features. Rachel Berry. Catching spotlights where spotlights don't exist, always. The simplest of white dresses when everyone else wears shades of black, red, purple. Her hair is soft brown waves down her back, sparkles live in her chocolate eyes rivaled in intensity only by the showtime smile surrounding each syllable of her song. A friend leans close, whispers in her ear; her head tilts back in laughter but what tumbles from her lips instead is a sweet music, the chime of bells, something more beautiful than Joel or even Sondheim could hope to express. Upon recovery she lifts her doe eyes in succumb to the silent pull of his green ones, a catch, and if breath still remains in his lungs then he has no hope of recalling how to locate it. The temperature drops. Chills. Everything still, frozen, until the gaze is dropped. He whirls around, places both hands against the bar, and it is the only thing holding him immobile as the rest of the room continues to spin. He finds his breath and with it comes his showface and he can still feel her eyes on his back; he may stand there seconds or even hours before he feels fingertips brush his elbow.

"Jesse?"

He was unaware that the simple act of turning, a tiny practice in shifting weight, could ever bear so much resemblance to moving mountains. His activities of the earlier day are forgotten, inconsequential; this is the true audition. (No waiting, only preparing. How could he be so unprepared?)

"Hello, Rachel."

(Hello. Is it me you're looking for?)

And he can see it in her eyes. In her smile, though for him she doesn't yet wear one. Gone is the deluded self-confidence, the need for masking insecurities with over-compensation. It is all replaced with a quiet strength that radiates from within and he is immediately reminded of himself at age 18. If she is surprised to see him, angry at his intrusion to her world, her eyes betray nothing. There was a time when those eyes spoke volumes, revealing each inkling, thought, emotion. The adoration and vulnerability plainly visible in her glances during their high school days scared him, once; he finds that the seed of fear planted then still exists, only growing and intensifying now at this new idea of not ever knowing.

His fingertips rest on her shoulders as he leans in to kiss her cheek, a greeting. Ever poised, ever professional. His lips hover over her skin, just barely touching it, and one brown ringlet swings forward with her lean to brush against his jawline. He lowers his eyelids as her scent, apples and pomegranate, washes over him.

He is miles west and years back, seated at the music store's piano in Lima, inches from her. Her eyes are closed and there are furrows in her brow and though he senses her nerves she is still so open, entwining her voice into and around his own. He blankets the darkness of his ulterior motives with innocent sentiments borrowed from Lionel Ritchie, tell me how to win your heart, and yet in this moment he has found that he knows nothing of true intimacy. Awkward nights on basement couches and rushed encounters in dark backstage corners pale and crumble in comparison to what he experiences here, bathed in pure honesty and the sound of their voices, each note weaving the cord that ties them to one another. Her head nestles into his shoulder months later as she lies naked in his arms, his fingertips tracing the most intricate of patterns in the layer of sweat that still clings to her body. Apples and pomegranate. She sleeps then, and even in their quiet breathing they harmonize. Everything entwined: fingers, legs, voices. What she gives of herself on that night seems nothing in comparison to what he takes from her just two days later; from the McKinley auditorium stage he watches her. Sees the hurt and betrayal spread through her widened eyes, the slackening of her jaw, like she's been slapped. He is with Vocal Adrenaline, surrounded, engulfed by them. Andrea is there, nimble fingers exploring his body in a way that suggests familiarity with the territory, and of course they sing: another one gone, another one gone, another one bites the dust.

(And yet, she was still so willing to forgive.)

The bar. It's with regret that he withdraws from the embrace. A tiny smile plays with the corner of her mouth and she lifts her vodka tonic, asks how he's been. She has heard of his living in New York. "Running into one another was an inevitability." (Inevitability. He had allowed her a single inevitability back then, one among the world of them that he provided to himself. She would become a star. Not a dream, an inevitability.) She, too, has grown familiar with the harsh realities of life outside Lima. Living as Somebody in Ohio doesn't hold quite so much weight in a city where you can't walk down a street without tripping over three more Somebodys. They laugh, and though she is different it's still natural. Easy. She said once that life is a musical and he feels as though he could break into song here, take her hand and leave the bar, flawless choreography all the way down the street.

A hand appears on her shoulder, possessive, sweeping aside his delusions. His mind still in the past, Jesse glances up with half an expectation that it will be awkward, bumbling Finn Hudson that he finds standing there behind her. The one who had been there to pick up her pieces after he had carelessly strewn them about, or so he heard. But this hand belongs to a different man, one who is all dark skin and darker eyes behind smart glasses, with a perfectly executed showface as he extends his other hand in Jesse's direction for an introduction. He has the easy confidence of a male lead, an equal, someone who could belt Webber songs with the best of them; not that he should have expected anything less from Rachel Berry. Jesse can not be bothered with this man's name, his attention resides solely on his hand winding its way around her waist and coming to rest on her hip, it's getting late. She meets Jesse's eyes a final time, "...it was wonderful to see you," before allowing herself to be led away.

Jesse St. James recalls the day he walked away from Rachel Berry, with a clarity that does nothing to distinguish it from yesterday. Yolk drips from her shiny curls, eggshells cling to her jeans and lay in ruins at her feet. Insult added to injury. He approaches her, feeling the smooth surface of the final egg as he rotates it over and over in his palm. Her eyes blaze defiant as she challenges him, do it. And he can do no more to hurt her, following the deception and the manipulation and the abandonment, nothing more than this. He raises the egg to her forehead, watches those last flickers of hope in her eyes fade and die with his squeeze, sticky yellow rivulets streaming over his knuckles and down her face. But just before- a final proclivity, unbidden yet painfully true, flows from his lips to create a stain much more permanent, far more difficult to remove than egg yolk:

"I loved you."

Loved you.

Love you.

Love.

He doesn't even realize that he drifts toward the door through which she made her exit moments ago. His friends' stares are pure confusion, "What is it, man? You look like you've seen a ghost." Their questions give way to protests and he is ignoring it all, allowing the door to swing shut behind him. He is stumbling beneath the street lights, she is nowhere in sight. Snuggled against him in the back seat of a yellow cab, no doubt, or lacing her fingers through his on their easy walk home. Maybe he lifts her and carries her part of the way, offering relief to her aching feet after hours of standing in heels. Maybe he hums accompaniment as she performs snippets of her favorite ballets with a darkened pizzeria as a backdrop, the two of them succumbing to peals of laughter at their own bravado. Jesse St. James paces and whirls on the sidewalk, drunk with the gin and the thoughts and the memories. People stare as they pass.

He just has to see her. He just has to see her.

His cell phone is out of his pocket, and he flicks through his contacts until he locates her phone number. Still there, after all these years. He sinks to the sidewalk, back to a stained brick wall, and presses Send. One ring, two, and then her voice, a lilt of confusion revealing that his number has become unrecognizable. He can think of nothing to say, and so his words are Lionel's. "Hello...is it me you're looking for...?" Never before, in all his years of auditions and seductions and performances, has he sang a line with so much intent.

Through the speaker, her sharp intake of breath. A barely audible click.

Call disconnected.

-x-x-x-

Rachel Berry stares at the phone folded in her lap, screen still illuminated from the recently discarded call. Who was that, Cooper asks, and she answers no one. He is satisfied with the response and throws an arm over her shoulder. She stares out the window of the taxi, destined for the life she has come to know, but only sees shelves lined with music books. Only hears a ghost of piano melody.

...and I want to tell you so much, I love you.

Enjoy. Review!