This is a shift day [see above]. There was another upload this morning: You'll Find Wonder, chapter 21.

"A Moment That Shaped You"
Future Rachel

(day 3 of 7 in Jade's awesome birthday week! ;))

She remembered the days when it was her, the trembling girl with the big dreams still needing to come true. It felt so long ago now... It had not come without the struggles, the hardships, the work... But she wanted it and she was ready and she did it. She got to New York, she continued working her ass off, and she got her break. After that, a lot of things did get easier, but she never rested on her laurels, never stopped doing what she could to improve herself, to fill the promise she had made herself to keep living her dream for as long as she could. That was what she told the girl.

She had just been back in New York for two days after having been in Los Angeles for a month, and she was still in that stage of letting the city she loved just soak back into her. She had the week off and she was going to enjoy it. That morning began with her going on a walk, and she was stopping now for coffee in a small shop she had been going to since the first day she had landed in the city, suitcase in hand and uncertainty gripping her... It had released as soon as she let the city take her, and eventually it had led her to this shop. They had her picture on the wall now and she still had a hard time believing it some days.

She was sitting in the corner with her coffee when she saw her... She was hard to miss, with a shock of red curls around her face and down her back. It obscured her face as she sat at the counter, but Rachel had long perfected the subtle glance... This girl wanted to look at her, had recognized her but maybe couldn't get the nerve up to say a thing about it. Rachel would let her get around to it, if she could... It felt like the thing to do.

So she waited, drinking her coffee as she would. The girl continued her cautious gazing, though she didn't move. In the end she had gotten up, gathered up her things... and she had walked out the door. Rachel had watched her go, the mass of hair bobbing along, easy to keep in sight, as she walked, but then stopped. She stood in place for a moment and shook her head, nodded, then turned around and stalked back closer to the window before stopping again. Alright, maybe it was time to give her a hand after all.

She locked eyes with her, seeing her blue ones widen, and she signaled to her, hooking her fingers in the usual sign for 'come here.' The girl pressed a hand to her chest - me? - and Rachel nodded, motioning again. After a couple more seconds the girl had snapped out of her daze, walking back through the door and slowly on toward her table. She could see her hands shifting like she was trying to hide a tremor.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..."

"What's your name?" Rachel simply asked.

"Ch... Chloe... Clarke," the redhead managed, like she had forgotten for a moment. "It's an honor to meet you, Miss Berry," she was looking to regain some of her functions, though she was still nervous as hell.

"Would you like to sit, Miss Clarke?" Rachel answered, and now she was fidgeting again. "Come on, you earned it."

"I did?"

"You came back," Rachel pointed out. Finally, Chloe sat. "That's some hair," Rachel smirked and Chloe's hands reached out to nudge the curls out of her face.

"Yeah..." she blushed.

"I like it," Rachel complimented, and the girl's pale cheeks competed to match the redness of her hair. "What do you have there?" Chloe looked down to what she pointed at, the notebook in her hands. "Clutching it so tight."

"Just notes and things?" she smiled shyly.

"Just notes and things?" Rachel repeated, smiling as well.

"Ideas, notes on songs, steps... plans," she finally elaborated. "Long term, short term... Things I need to see, things I need to be in... Things I need to see again..." Rachel laughed.

"Had something like that, too," she nodded.

"It was hard, though," Chloe guessed.

"As it should," Rachel confirmed, and Chloe quickly nodded. It was here Rachel had told her about the all important dream, and what it had meant to her, still meant to her. Chloe just listened to her with rapt attention. Even after all this time, it still gave her something, to see someone look at her this way. She never could forget that once upon a time it was her with those eyes. If she forgot, then she would lose herself.

"Can I ask you something, I... I wouldn't want to impose, you... you've already been so gracious..."

"Please," Rachel insisted, and Chloe let out a breath.

"I've read so many interviews you've done, watched, too, but I wanted to ask... Was there ever a moment, something that happened, before you came here, or even after, that you look back on and think... 'That needed to happen.'" Rachel looked at her, and she could just feel it, that sort of passion she always, always recognized and responded to, because it brought her back to those days growing up in Lima.

"Well," she thought, giving the girl's question the due concentration. She dug down and there found her answer. "My senior year in high school, I auditioned for NYADA," she started, and Chloe nodded - she knew. Rachel smiled, nodded to herself before looking back to her. "I choked," she stated, and this time Chloe was taken by surprise.

"You did? Y..." she started but then paused, like she would have been interrupting, intruding.

"Don't Rain On My Parade," Rachel confirmed, and Chloe audibly gasped, which made her laugh and in turn made the redhead chuckle along. "I never thought that was possible, I thought it was safe, and maybe that was where it went wrong. And for a while after that, I thought 'that's it, it's done, I missed my chance.' It took some... very special people reminding me who I was, that this one audition wasn't going to define everything I'd worked toward from the start."

"But you graduated from NYADA, so you still got in?"

"After chasing Carmen Tibideaux within an inch of a restraining order," she nodded, tipping her head forward to indicate this wasn't always the best course of action, and the rapid little nod told her the message was received. "As... difficult and just incomprehensible as that time was for me, it made me reevaluate some things, especially how I would manage my nerves. I kept telling myself if I stuck with Don't Rain On My Parade, nothing could touch me, I'd done it for as long as I could remember. And I knew how much was riding on that one audition, and I went for something I felt was safe, in the process completely bypassing a process that might have allowed me to see and feel and understand things better. I guess what it showed me was that sometimes the obvious choices aren't necessarily the right ones." It was hard not to smile, seeing how much the girl gave careful thought to the words she told her, as they were being told. When Rachel stopped, Chloe sat up, like she'd just caught on to the way she'd adopted a listener's slouch.

"Thank you so much, Miss Berry, I've already taken up more of your time than I would have expected," she shook her head with an emotional smile.

"It was my pleasure, Miss Clarke," Rachel smiled back and the redhead's smile only brightened. She stood, still clutching her notebook.

"It was really so very nice to meet you, I'll remember what you said."

"Keep it up and, who knows, maybe you and I will cross paths again. Something tells me maybe we will," Rachel nodded and she could practically see the flutter in the girl's heart.

"I can only hope. I-I mean I'll work on it," she adjusted.

"I'm sure you will," Rachel kept on smiling.

"Have a good day, Miss Berry," she bowed her head.

"And the same to you, Miss Clarke," Rachel returned the gesture. She watched the girl make her way out the door again, taking a few shy looks back over her shoulder like she thought she shouldn't but she couldn't help herself. Rachel watched her go, couldn't not. She had seen plenty of young guys and girls over the years, and she doubted that any of them affected her in hours and weeks and months the way Chloe Clarke did in all of ten minutes. She had told her she could see them meeting again some day and those weren't words she just threw around, not without believing. And staring into that cloud of red, she had believed.

THE END

A/N: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.
In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are
always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!