What Rachel Knows

Rachel can feel it. No, not an urge to leap out of her chair and burst into song and dance. That's a constant. What she can feel is the burning sensation of eyes staring her down. She sighs, shifting slightly in her seat. She's not really bothered by it, used to it really, but it does make listening to Mr. Shuester ramble about togetherness a little harder than normal. Her eyes narrowed a little as he shifted into talking about animals for whatever reason and wrote his word of the week (Pack – like of wolves) on the dry erase board. As Brittany raised her hand (apparently she had once been raised by wolves for a summer), Rachel thought about the first time she had realized Quinn had a slight staring problem – and when she realized what it meant.

There school district was broken down into four distinct sections, Elementary, Middle, Intermediate (or Jr. High), and High School. There were a number of smaller Elementary Schools that became Middle School, but when the children entered seventh grade, they pooled most of the schools together for Jr. High to High School. So it was during this transition that Rachel Berry (only eleven at time and younger than most of her classmates) first met Quinn Fabray. It was funny because, in her old school, she hadn't been the unpopular, social misfit she is now. That is not to say she was popular, not by a long shot, but she had also never had a Slushee thrown in her face. She wasn't invited to very many birthday parties, but she got the classroom wide invitations. She had people to sit with at lunch, though they never really talked, and she was never picked last for gym class on principle. Her dad's kept her busy with extracurricular activities – pageants and recitals that showed their parents just how normal and spectacular a child raised by two dads could be- and she was comfortable in the neutral familiarity she shared with her classmates.

She's pretty sure Quinn is the primary reason this changed. From what Rachel understood, Quinn was indeed the Queen Bee in her middle school, capitalizing on her older sister's and mother's knowledge to help her rule with an iron fist. It was with this knowledge that helped her find and convert Santana and Brittany, almost immediately, to form the unholy trinity.

It was a little confusing, honestly. Santana and Brittany had gone to Rachel's school (Brittany even lived right down the road from her) and the two had been best friends since preschool. She knew how their popularity worked. Brittany charmed people –being nice, funny, and a little dim- and Santana did the heavy lifting – made the right people cry. Santana was ruthless enough to get what she wanted, while Brittany was nice enough to smooth out the rugh edges left behind. Apparently, Quinn did this double effect on her own – brutal and manipulative, but charming. She knew when to be nice and sweet and who it should be to. Rachel to this day, especially with how their friendship is breaking down, has no idea how they settled on friends instead of enemies, but figures that it played into her own downfall. After all, being friends instead of enemies with Santana gave her an edge and an ally, but it also meant she could never relax.

It is funny in its own way, Rachel figures, that she has always partially blamed Santana for the way Quinn treats her, since they spent six grades and kindergarten interacting peacefully. Santana might have given her the odd sneer or insult when they were forced to interact, but it had always been fleeting and impersonal. And her and Brittany had shared a dance class – though they had never been partners due to the size difference –that Santana had eventually and half-heartedly joined. But Rachel definitely wasn't a threat and there really were girls and boys more deserving of her ridicule –such as the poor girl with external braces that Santana apparently made cry everyday for a month or Johnny Steps who accidentally tripped Brittany and sprained her leg and was then never seen from again. But when Quinn started noticing her, so did Santana.

It happened slowly, though. It started, or at least Rachel noticed it first, in gym class. They were playing tennis on the courts and Rachel and her partner were one of the groups playing. Since they only had a couple of courts, only 16 of them could play at a time, leaving quite a few of the co-ed gym class watching. It was the first time Rachel felt the sensation of a particular intense gaze. She isn't sure if it is her extensive background with the eyes of the audience on her or her sixth sense, but Rachel knows without a doubt and without turning her eyes that someone is watching.

She smiled a little as she jumped and hopped around. In the sake of complete honesty, which Rachel tried to live by, she loved that feeling of being watched. Whether cameras or a live spectator, the idea of having an audience made her glow and helped fuel her dreams of Broadway.

She was a little tired at the time. Most of the other girls and boys were putting in minimal effort. The girls didn't want to put in the effort for a sport and the boys thought tennis was "fruity," but Rachel Berry always put in 100% effort. This amount of effort, though, especially against the competitive Santana, did lead to a less than lady-like appearance. She was sweating hard and breathing deeply when she first recognized that prickle that meant someone was watching her. She didn't know who it was, but figured it was one of her hormonal boy classmates. She wanted to look around, but had to keep her head in the game because her partner was useless and Santana kept aiming the ball at her head and she wanted to win (100% remember) so she tried to ignore it. As it continued, though, she decided to play it up a little, adding some flare to her game. Jacob Ben Israel wasn't in her class and she loved performing for an audience, so she figured there was no harm in hamming it up.

Of course, that flare, while she was sure it was visually appealing, didn't really help her tennis much and Santana did end up beating her. It was with a little pout that she watched Santana strut back to her friends, one of whom was gazing at her quite fiercely, mouth hanging open slightly. With Rachel's eyes now on her, Quinn jerked her own upwards to meet Rachel and it was the first moment they have eye contact.

Rachel smiled at her and waved, somewhat dorkily she will admit now, and Quinn's eyebrow twitched upward. She seemed to swallow a bit, but did give a weak smile and wave back – although her wave was really just raising her hand a little – before Santana caught her attention. Rachel smiled cheerfully and flounced off, missing the scowling Santana hissing something into Quinn's ear.

At this point, Rachel really doesn't know if Quinn is a friend or a fan, but decides to play it up best she can anyways. In the classes they share, Rachel makes sure to smile brightly and moderately show off her wide range of knowledge.

As the year continued, Rachel would often find herself the object of Quinn's gaze, often paired with a soft smile. Once, after she had a verbal altercation with her teacher due to an unfair and completely biased methodology that resulted in her not only being forced to partner and spend time with creepy Jacob, but also get a B+, a B+!, when he was too busy staring at her and trying to touch her hair to complete his part of the assignment, Quinn had almost laughed. While this might not seem like much, Rachel felt it was quite an achievement. For one thing, she is quite sure that Quinn was not laughing at her, and, two, Quinn was remarkably closed off most of the time. In fact, this incident was one of the reasons she decided to actually try and interact with the older girl. Unfortunately, she tried to do it outside of one of their shared pre-honors classes, choosing gym class to create a nice parallelism to the first time (she thinks) they noticed each other.

It was slightly weird that they had never conversed considering how much of their time consisted of stares and small smiles. So that one gym class, bolstered by the memory of Quinn's near laugh, Rachel walked right up to Quinn. She wanted to stick her hand out for a proper handshake, but she was still sweaty from the day's work out and did not want to gross her out.

"Salutations, Quinn," she started, causing Quinn's head to jerk in her direction, breaking away from the conversation she had been having with Santana and Brittany. "Although are eyes have met across the room more than a couple times, which, by the way, is tried and true film trope that bodes well for our future, we have yet to be formally introduced so I have taken it upon myself to remedy this. I would like to extend my greetings and introduce myself. I am, as I am sure you are already aware, Rachel Barbra Berry, current star and future Broadway sensation and EGOT winner. Noticing your affectionate – nay, adoring gazing, I would like to take this opportunity to open a line of communication between the two of us" And of course she finished it with a bright, level three smile – showing some teeth, but no dimples and slight tilt of the head. Inside she was freaking out a bit.

She hadn't really planned that long ramble. While she did believe monologues had their place and in many cases, especially speeches and school work, quality should be valued over brevity, this was not what she planned to say. Her actual plan, which she had spent half of lunch scripting, consisted of Rachel walking elegantly by Quinn and just giving a quick hello and walking away. If only she had been on a stage with thousands of eyes on her and the bright, hot spotlight highlighting her every move. Then she could have relaxed a little.

Quinn, though, hadn't reacted well to Rachel's ramble. Well, actually, it was more like she hadn't reacted at all. She hadn't even blinked, though her face has slowly flushed.

"…grk.."

At Quinn's less than stellar response, a somewhat worrying response to be honest, Rachel ignored Santana's "WTF face" and reached out to gently grab Quinn's shoulder. What if Quinn had been acting rebellious and illegally chewing gum during gym class and Rachel had startled her and now Quinn was choking to death right in front of her while she did nothing!

"Quinn! Are-are you okay? Do you need some water or the Heimlich Maneuver or maybe CPR," Rachel said slowly and enunciating a tab more than necessary as she leaned in close to Quinn. At either her words or her touch, Quinn jerked backwards, bumping into Brittany.

"Gack!"

Rachel reached out to help her, somehow, but Santana pushed her aside and grabbed her arm, pulling her away from the blondes.

"Listen her, Dwarf," she hissed, quiet enough that the teacher wasn't alerted, but loud enough that Quinn and Brittany could still hear from where they were seated, "you need to back off. Apparently, you have some sort of lezzy crush on her, but you need to leave Quinn alone. Obviously, she is having some sort of allergic reaction to the gay germs you and your two fathers let out, so you should probably try and wash it of in the showers. Lord knows you need one."

Rachel opened her mouth to retort but could only let out a squeak. Santana had teased her a little in the past, just the occasional biting comments, but nothing ever so personal and harsh. Everyone had known about her two gay dads, she had never hid that information. They had always wanted to let people know, making sure the public knew they weren't ashamed. She figured that was one of the reason they lived in this Podunk town when both her dads had to travel a little ways for work. Both of their families rejected them, and they always wanted to show that they still had a great life. They had their high paying jobs, a nice suburban house, a beautiful daughter who was not only in pageants and shows, but winning them against the other "normal" kids. Now that she was past that age, they were letting her do a lot more on her own. She was still in all her extracurricular classes because she honestly loved the activities and the spotlight, and they kept her out of the lonely house. But she maintained a perfect GPA and those activities, and she was reasonably well adjusted, for the most part. Santana had no right to bring up her dads as if they were a disease. Santana's dad and hers even worked together in the hospital. She just wanted to get the ACLU in here and have them tell Santana of like Daddy was always threatening to do.

Instead, she looked over Santana's shoulder at Quinn who, for once, wasn't looking at her and was, instead, staring at the ground. She gritted her teeth and about faced, rushing off into the girl's locker room. Despite their friendship, she knew the two girls had no problems snapping at each other, so if Quinn had wanted to say something, she would have. And for the first time in a while, Rachel ignored the feel of a stare on her back as she walked off. It wasn't quite the signature diva storm-out she would one day perfect, but she thinks it got her point across.

For the next couple of months, Quinn continues to watch Rachel during their classes and often in gym class as well, but Rachel stops meeting her eyes. Rachel doesn't mind if Quinn wants to watch her for whatever reason. At least she's not overly creepy about it, like Jacob. In fact, now that Rachel isn't actively reacting to Quinn's gaze, Rachel wonders if Quinn even realizes she's staring. Most people stare off into space and doodle during class – not Rachel Berry, of course, because note taking is important – but Quinn stares at Rachel and doodles. Still, while Rachel doesn't mind an admirer, especially one as well known and liked as Quinn, if she doesn't want to actually interact with Rachel then Rachel won't put in the extra effort that could be used in other, more productive endeavors.

She doesn't realize yet that Quinn doesn't react well to being ignored, but it is something she will soon learn.