Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Glee characters.
I can't believe I'm actually back, Rachel thought, with no small amount of distaste, as she peered out of the window and idly watched the houses fly by. Lima looked exactly the same way as she'd left it – quiet, typical, frustratingly normal. She wouldn't doubt that everyone she'd left behind were exactly the same – just older, probably married with 2.3 children and a dog. That's what she figured Finn and Quinn's lives were like, at least. She'd heard from Kurt that they'd gotten married a few years back; no doubt they'd already fulfilled at least the children requirement. She wasn't entirely sure what Quinn's position on dogs were. She had no idea what was going on with any of her other Glee club members, Kurt being the only one she'd kept in touch with. He was still with Blaine, which, call her cynical, was still surprising because she'd never figured something from high school would last, especially since Kurt had moved to New York with her and Blaine had never seemed to have any plans to even go there. But Blaine had followed him and it was all very romantic and wonderful and – she was being cynical again. She chided herself for that. Just because she hadn't been having much luck in the romance department didn't mean everyone else's love lives were doomed. She'd tried the dating thing, you see. And for a while it had worked. And then it didn't. Luka, the supposedly supportive ex-boyfriend, started getting annoyed with her constant shows, with her fame, saying she never had time for him anymore. He started believing that she was sleeping with her costars (as if she would ever! She knew better than anyone that having an intimate relationship with someone you worked with was completely unprofessional, not to mention could completely ruin the production) and, well, it got to a point where she knew she had to end it and pretty much kicked him to the curb.
She'd started to become fed up with him anyway. He had this awful habit of not picking up after himself, not to mention his strange tendency to walk around nude much of the time and, while what had been left of Rachel's prudence when she'd been in high school had completely dissipated when she came to New York, it was awkward to bring friends over, only to walk in on your boyfriend in his birthday suit. Suffice it to say that Rachel was grateful to finally have a genuine excuse to boot him out.
Unfortunately, he hadn't taken kindly to it, which was what she was doing here, back in Lima, Ohio. See, despite his frustrations, Luka still hadn't wanted to the break up. He was, in layman's term, a squatter. In other words, he'd been counting on her to provide for him – food, shelter, the whole enchilada. So, he'd started following her. Calling her. Writing her e-mails. Standing under her window. It was all harmless (although quite creepy), but she made the mistake of telling Kurt and he, in true Diva fashion, flipped out, and then told her fathers, who insisted that she call the authorities and get her butt to Lima, where Luka wouldn't be able to find her. While she couldn't argue with the latter (no one knew that the not-quite-famous Broadway star Rachel Berry came from Lima, and she wanted to keep it that way), she insisted that she was fine and Luka wouldn't hurt a fly.
That is, until she came back to her apartment one night and found that he'd broken in and was lounging, nude as the day he was born, on her couch, eating her food and looking like he owned the place. When she'd told him to get out (in not-so-polite intones), he'd gotten angry and advanced on her, mouth gaping wide to wail out an argument and finger stabbing in her direction and, well, she wasn't quite sure what had come over her, all that she knew was she had no interest what-so-ever in what Luka Everett had to say and he was seriously started to disturb her and she'd sort of swung her purse at his head and knocked him unconscious. She hadn't done it on purpose, of course. It had just sort of…happened.
And then she called security to remove him from her apartment, booked the first flight out of New York to Lima and was on the plane before he could regain consciousness and come after her. Not that she thought he would actually cause her harm (maybe just for a moment there when he'd been striding towards her like that; she could have sworn that was a crazy glint in his eyes and she knew what a crazy glint looked like because she'd seen it in her own eyes previously, but hers had been out of sheer determination, thank you very much). She called Kurt from the airport and explained to him what happened, rubbing her temples to stave off a growing migraine as she suffered through his "I knew it!"s and "I told you so!"s. She then called her agent, Maggie, and explained the whole situation (and had to suffer through reprimands about "not telling her sooner", but thankfully Maggie was understanding and told her she'd deal with everything back in New York). The third phone call (and possibly the most painful) was made to her dads. She kept it short, claiming that they were about to take off and she had to switch off her cell phone (which was a little white lie, but it was just easier to quickly tell them she was coming to Lima due to previously discussed matters and then hang up before she had to listen to them be over-protective and chiding. Needless to say, by the time she'd switched off her cell phone, her headache had grown into a fully-fledged migraine.
It was an incredibly long flight.
And now here she was, back in Lima, the place she'd sworn she would never step foot in again. There was a reason why she flew out her dads to come and see her in New York and not the other way round. The car came to a sudden stop, snapping Rachel out of her day dream. She straightened up and pushed her chocolate brown hair behind her ears, stepped out of the car, and hesitated for a few seconds to stare at the house – her house. Or, her fathers' house. It was still exactly the same. Everything about this place was exactly the same and she didn't know why, because she'd expected as much, but it was still so damn frustrating.
"Welcome home, bunny," her daddy said, pulling her close and dropping a kiss on her forehead. Almost immediately, Rachel forced her expression to melt into a more pleasant one, knowing her fathers were thrilled to have their little girl back in their midst again. She wondered if they still hung onto the hope that they could convince her to give up her dreams in New York and stay here with them, settle down, find a job, get married, the whole enchilada. But she was not Quinn Fabray, set out to find her own Finn Hudson. She refused to fit into that role. She hadn't wanted to be tied down by a small town before, and she certainly wasn't going to start now. Still, she couldn't say any of that out loud, so she merely brushed off the hopeful expressions on her fathers' faces, grabbed one of her trolley-bags, reminiscent of her high-school bag, although there was a significant difference in their size, and marched into the house she'd abandoned so long ago. She wasn't entirely sure how long she would stay here, but she knew one thing for sure:
Rachel Berry was not here to stay.
A/N: Ooookay this is my first multi-chaptered fanfic on here. HOPEFULLY this is one I'll stick with since I have a tendency to get, uhm, sort of distracted with ideas and stuff. Anyway, Noah makes an appearance in the next chapter!