Chapter 1
If there was one thing Rachel Berry prided herself on (if we, of course, exclude her phenomenal voice and acting prowess), it was her exceptional memory, the result of many years hard exercise, following closely the instructions provided by numerous books and articles (e.g. The Memory Book: The Classic Guide to Improving Your Memory at Work, at School, and at Play), and her natural aptitude. Good memory was vital for her future professional success as forgetting even the most insignificant activity on her daily routine would be detrimental to her preparation for a career on Broadway (her words, not mine).
And that exactly was the reason for the utter and overwhelming horror which overtook her at the prospect of having forgotten about something important. Indeed, her complete freak-out had nothing at all to do with the fact that the "something important" was her longstanding crush on, and maybe the very existence of, one Charlotte Fabray. It was just that Charlie (as she preferred to be called) had been an essential part of Rachel's childhood, and the petite brunette was ashamed of having allowed the memory of her friend to be all but erased from her mind.
But even Rachel Berry had to admit that the previous drama-filled school year, Glee club and her newfound social life might excuse to some extent the failing of one of her brain's primary functions. That didn't make her feel better about the day she'd just gone through at the least, however.
She jumped on her bed face first and tried very hard to forget the first day of her junior year at William McKinley High School.
=P =P =P
It would be a gross understatement to say Rachel Berry was brimming with excitement about the whole new academic year of learning that awaited before her, bringing her a bit closer to her ultimate life goal of taking over Broadway, as she walked through the school hallway. She was skipping.
The pocket-sized brunette was moving toward her first period for the day fairly quickly, with the distinctive confidence of someone who is blissfully oblivious to all the stares they are receiving, when her body, propelled forward by the force of inertia, collided soundly with a human-sized, blond obstacle which just happened to be standing in her way, in the guise of rummaging through its locker, and sent them both sprawling on the floor.
"Oh my God! I apologize profusely for this. I never even noticed you standing there," Rachel squealed, jerked from her daydream of future stardom by the very much unexpected crash. Her unwitting victim, who was still trapped beneath her, just groaned loudly, stunned.
The groan incited immediate reaction from a more atavistic, albeit repressed, part of the petite singer's brain and just like that she was on the alert. Despite not having heard this particular voice all summer, the little diva knew it rather well and hurried to get off its owner.
"Oh God, Quinn, are you injured? Did I hurt you? Do you need me to take you to the nurse? I did not remotely mean to collide with you in such fashion..."
The ex-cheerleader just winced up at Rachel and ignored her babbling in favor of trying to stand, but the moment her right hand touched the floor, she cried out in pain and collapsed back down.
"Quinn!" the brunette was kneeling by Quinn's side in a flash and reaching warily towards her wrist. When the blonde didn't show any signs of biting her head off, as she was wont to do, Rachel gently cradled the injured limb in her hands and examined it carefully. "It seems to be sprained," she said when Quinn whimpered quietly at the touch.
"Just help me up..."
"Jesus, RuPaul! Don't you ever watch where you're going?" the voice was coming from right behind the diva and she instinctively turned her head back to look at its source.
Later the singer would swear that had been the worst shock of her young life (though maybe not using the exact same vocabulary), because Quinn Fabray was standing a few feet behind her, with her trademark raised eyebrow, a hand on her hip and staring down at her with mild contempt.
It was a true miracle that the short brunette held her dismayed (or terrified) shrieks in. Her memories chose that exact second to remind her of their existence and she was yanked from the haze of the nightmare that two Quinns would entail by a name.
Rachel nearly snapped her neck as she spun around to face the blonde whose hand she was still holding.
"Charlie?"
=P =P =P
The first time Mr. and Mr. Berry took their young daughter to the playground so she could interact with other children her age was one of Rachel's earliest memories. It was also something she remembered with astonishing clarity.
Leroy and Hiram had opted to sit back on a bench away from the children and try to as unobtrusive as possible while little Ray-Ray (they hoped) made new friends. They happened to live in Lima, Ohio, however, so that, unfortunately, wasn't how things had turned out, exactly.
The first kid to approach the shy tiny brunette had been young David Karofski who took the opportunity of her dads looking away to push the girl on the ground and laugh at her. It had proved to be a very wrong move, though, because it attracted the attention of one Brittany Pierce and, by extension, Santana Lopez.
Before he realized what was going on, Dave was running to his mother, clutching the shin Santana had viciously kicked, while Brittany, and Quinn and Charlie Fabray, who had been playing with the inseparable duo, knelt by Rachel trying to stop her from crying. Of course, the tears dried up pretty fast when she saw the twins, swallowed up by her curiosity.
It was the beginning of a great, drawn-out playground love affair.
It also took 16-year-old Rachel an insultingly large amount of time to remember that from that day on, she had both Fabrays wrapped tightly around her chubby little fingers.
TBC