A/N: This is the first story in a three-part series I'm calling Only Dots on a Line. It happened because I wanted to explore the same theme - that of being someone's first choice - with Rachel, Santana, and Quinn; that theme is really the only thing these three stories have in common, so each can be read alone. This story is Rachel-centric and includes some Jesse/Rachel. I'd love to know what you think!

After graduation, everyone else talks about their last summer. Their last summer at home, their last summer of freedom, their last summer to "just be kids."

Rachel is ready to grow up and get on with her future. She's convinced that when she looks back, her childhood is going to be the least exciting part of her life.

She made a deal with her fathers after she was accepted to college: She would defer for a year, to see what she could do on her own in the city, and if she didn't catch a break, she would start school the following autumn, no excuses, no arguments. She just needs to know what she can do on her own before she commits herself to four years of paying dues in what feels like the least productive way possible. However important education is, life experience outweighs it.

Her fathers help her move to New York at the end of June, into a sweet little studio apartment in the Village. It's tiny, with hardwood floors that have been scratched and scarred with time and a kitchen like a cave, but it's perfect for her. She loves it, maybe more than she should.

Rachel is single when she moves to New York City. She's on her own, but for the first time, it's because she realizes that it's how it's meant to be, just her against the world, rather than because no one wants her. She's happy with her status as an independent woman.

She and Finn...they were built for high school, not for the real world, a fact that became apparent to both of them when Finn wasn't accepted into any of the schools he applied to in New York. He was discouraged, and so sure that Rachel was going to leave him for the city and never look back that he broke up with her before she got a chance to.

"I don't want to hold you back," he'd whispered when she'd asked why, her eyes wide and her voice shaky.

That was fine. He'd never been willing to work as hard on their relationship as she had.

She hadn't been at all surprised that he'd stared pursuing Quinn (again) not two weeks after their breakup. Rachel thinks a part of him has always wanted Quinn and maybe always will. She was his first love, his first choice, Rachel thinks, always. The fact that the girl had rebuffed his advances, however, had been a bit of a shock.

Anyhow. That's all in the past, and she's now set her gaze firmly on the future.

She gets herself into acting classes and dance classes and voice lessons and goes to every open call she hears about that could even remotely apply to her, even when they're asking for a leggy blonde or someone to play the mother of a ten-year-old girl. (You never know when you're going to impress just the right person, and she wants to make the most of every opportunity.) Everything she does is about making connections or improving her talent, and she loves every minute.

She's heading to a voice lesson, travel mug of honeyed green tea in hand, the first time she sees him in the city. Jesse St. James. He's leaned back against the brick wall outside of the building across her narrow street, hands in his pockets, feet crossed casually at his ankles.

She freezes for just a moment, unwillingly, then her feet are moving again, carrying her down the sidewalk and away from him without a second glance. Part of her doesn't want to believe it, but she knows that it's true even without looking back to make sure.

Her mind races for the entire trip to her lesson. She wonders why he's here and what he wants and how the hell he managed to find her. She doesn't know who would have given him her address in the city; plenty of people have it, but as far as she knows, none of them would trust Jesse with it.

She's able to ignore her thoughts for the duration of her lesson (Rachel is an excellent compartmentalizer), but the second she leaves, all of the questions come back. How long has he been in the city? How long has he been watching her without her knowing about it?

Most importantly, what does he want?

It keeps her awake until well past the time when she's usually asleep, lying in bed and listening to the sounds of the street below her window while she stares at the ceiling. It's infuriating. She tells herself that she won't give Jesse a second thought because she's never really believed that he ever gave her feelings any real consideration. She won't see him again, surely, so she won't think of him any more.

Her resolution last all of the six hours between the time she finally falls asleep and when she leaves her apartment the next morning, because he's there again when she leaves for ballet.

His posture is identical, casual and relaxed, the same as he's always appeared. She stands still for a moment, watching him watch her. He hasn't changed. He never seems to change.

She doesn't let herself consider crossing the street.

She wants to march up to him and ask all of those questions swirling in her mind and distracting her from more important things, but she's learned some self-control in the last year. It doesn't matter why he's here, watching her. Jesse St. James doesn't matter to her any more, because she never mattered to him as much as everything else did.

(It occurs to her that perhaps she should be worried about him being there, but she's never been fearful of him; he's never made her feel threatened physically, and she can't imagine that he has anything truly sinister planned, even if standing outside of her home every morning is a bit creepy.)

Jesse is there every morning when she leaves for a week, and while at first she was just curious about what he was doing, his continued presence starts to make her angry. It's obnoxious.

Saturday morning, she wakes up with a craving for a chai latte, so she gets dressed and heads out, intent on walking to the coffee shop on the corner. She isn't at all surprised to see Jesse standing in what has become his usual spot, though she does surprise herself when she jaywalks out across the street to stand in front of him.

"Hello, Rachel," he says pleasantly, as if they're meeting under typical circumstances, at some place that they both just happened to be instead of because he's standing outside of her home.

"Do you care to explain why you're stalking me?" she asks. She doesn't think before the words come out of her mouth.

"I'm hardly stalking you," he answers, looking amused. "Other than making assumptions based on your sartorial choices, I have no idea where you go when you leave home or what you do all day."

Rachel crosses her arms and glares. "What are you doing here?" she corrects.

He smiles. "I came to see you."

She knows it's rude, but she stalks away, leaving him standing there. He doesn't call after her.

By the end of the second week, she's used to seeing him there, standing across the street every morning when she leaves.

She'd be lying if she said she didn't think about him. He's most of what she's thinking about these days, actually.

Rachel remembers the way she felt when she first met Jesse. She was in awe of him, of his talent. She couldn't believe that he knew who she was and was interested in actually getting to know her. It was naive, certainly, for her to believe anything that he said. It was too convenient, the lead of their competition taking an interest in her, but the timing was advantageous.

Finn was busy trying to find his inner rock star. Rachel was vulnerable, and therefore willing to swallow every line that Jesse fed to her.

For all of his duplicity, he understood her in a way that no one else ever had. They were both driven, dramatic people who were devoted to their dreams. He was charming and attentive in a way that Rachel didn't believe Finn ever could be. (It was a standard that Jesse set that Finn never did quite live up to.)

In the end, Finn put everything ahead of her. God, if there was a theme in their relationship, that was it.

She just wants to be someone's first choice for once, not the girl that he settles for because he's realized he can't have what he really wants.

She'd thought she had that in Jesse, truly. In hindsight, her naivety is embarrassing, but at the time, she could imagine nothing more romantic than a boy who wanted to be with her so much that he would transfer schools his senior year and leave behind a championship show choir to join her own fledgling group. Of course it occurred to her that he was using her when they first met, but what was this but irrefutable evidence that she - they all - had been wrong?

She doesn't know that she was ever really in love with him, though she was certainly on the way. In another time and place, one without Finn and show choir rivalries, she would have given him every piece of her heart.

As it was, Jesse broke those pieces of her heart she did give him, left New Directions short a strong male vocalist, and then rubbed her nose in all of it at Regionals.

She got over it all fairly quickly thanks to her relationship with Finn, but then he reappeared a year later and dredged it all back up, all those old feelings and the ways that he'd wounded her.

It was easier to forget him the second time around. She had Finn, again, and she hadn't let herself be drawn in by Jesse's allure that time.

God, she hates him for coming here and bringing all of this up again for her, and the way he's just standing there every morning. He doesn't call out to her or wave or do anything, really, but watch until she turns her back and walks down the street.

After a month, Rachel starts wondering what exactly it is that Jesse does here in the city, how it's possible that his schedule allows him to be standing outside of her building when she leaves each day, particularly considering that she goes out at different times.

She doesn't ask.

It takes six weeks for her to walk up to him again. Her jazz class was cancelled, but she didn't get the message until after she'd already showered, and she figured that she might as well go ahead and get dressed and have breakfast at the diner down the block.

It's hot, the hottest day of summer so far. Rachel feels overheated the moment she steps outside, even in her gauzy sun dress. Jesse is standing across the street like always, hands in the pockets of his dark jeans.

She looks both ways before crossing in the middle of the street. Jesse watches her approach, but doesn't alter his casual posture. "Would you like to join me for breakfast?" she asks simply.

"I'd love to."

They walk together to the cafe, and Jesse holds the door open for her to walk through. (The fact that he is a gentleman was never a question. He always has been.)

She learns quite a lot about him before the waitress can even bring their coffee. He's in the city doing exactly what she is, working towards the stage, though he doesn't have a deadline hanging over his head the way that she does, given that he already flunked out of college. He's just waiting for the right person to see him, looking for his big break.

She always did have more in common with Jesse than with any of her other boyfriends.

"What about you, Rachel?" he asks, his eyes on the sugar packet he's tearing open. "I'd have thought you'd be back in Lima making the most of your summer."

"What are you doing standing outside of my apartment every morning?" she asks, ignoring his question to ask her own and watching his hands as he sets aside the empty packet. It just sort of slips out, but she feels that she's waited quite long enough to find out why he's here.

He looks up, thoughtful, and pops his thumb in his mouth to lick away a few stray sugar crystals. "I wanted to see you," he answers, essentially the same thing he said when she first asked what he was doing weeks ago.

"Jesse." She shakes her head a little. "Please be serious. I'm done playing games. Especially with you."

He sits back in his seat, watching her carefully. The corners of his mouth are upturned, but the expression isn't quite a smile. "Because, Rachel. You're the one that got away, if you'll indulge the cliché."

Her breath catches in her throat, and all she can do is blink.

"I've come to understand how wrong I was to take you for granted, and I want to make up for it." He leans forward again, his eyes on hers, intent. "I intend to woo you, to treat you like you deserve in an effort to make up for my abhorrent behavior in the past."

Rachel's mind races. She wishes, fleetingly, that she was a liar. She wants to tell him that she isn't interested, that he had his chance and she's matured to a point that she doesn't feel the urge to engage in liaisons with past beaus simply to see if there's still any spark between them.

But she does want to know what's still there. She'd never admit it as easily as he did, but he's always been the one she wondered about.

"You nearly destroyed my junior prom," she finally says. "You left New Directions a week before competition. You abandoned me right when my mother did, when it was your idea to find her in the first place." She swallows, watching his face. He's just looking at her, his expression inscrutable. "You cracked an egg on my head, Jesse."

"And I'll spend forever making it up to you, Rachel, if you'll just let me."

His voice is earnest, and his expression is genuine. Jesse always was a good actor, though, and she doesn't know that she ever knew him well enough to say for sure that she can tell the difference between lies and sincerity when words spill from his lips.

"I think we should just have breakfast to start."

She waits another two weeks to agree to give him her number.

"You haven't changed it," he says with a smile.

Her eyebrows shoot up. "You still had it?" She wonders why he went through all of this, weeks of standing outside every day, when he could have just called.

His smile widens.

Rachel is deliberately keeping her distance with Jesse. He doesn't stand outside her apartment any more, not now that he can call her whenever he likes. They've shared meals, but always at a restaurant, and though Jesse has picked her up at home, she always meets him on the street instead of inviting him up.

She doesn't trust him, not completely.

She lets herself think about that when she's getting dressed for an evening out in early September. His agent (Rachel doesn't let herself consider the fact that she hasn't made enough connections yet to have found an agent who is begging to represent her) has invited Jesse to a cocktail party at a bar that she's only seen in the pages of Vanity Fair. The location alone had her convinced when Jesse asked her to be his date, and then he'd added, "Maybe you'll impress someone there with your gorgeous face."

Maybe.

Rachel has always been a very trusting person, willing to put her faith in people who don't always deserve it. Her life is full of examples, scenarios in which she trusted someone to do the right thing - whatever that was - only to see it blow up in her face. Jesse is a prime example of this.

(She's always wondered if he played a larger role in her initial meeting with Shelby than coincidentally being part of the show choir that she directed, but honestly, she's scared to ask. She's afraid of what the answer might be.)

Over the years, she's been given dozens of reasons not to trust people, and especially not this man.

His eyes sweep over her body when she steps out of the front door of her building. (Because even now, she doesn't invite him up.) The neckline of her burgundy dress is scooped low, and the hem falls to just above her knees. The length and the little cap sleeves keep it appropriate, but it's still a sexy dress, offset by her hair in soft waves, pinned back from her face, and smokey eye makeup.

"You look gorgeous," Jesse tells her, his voice soft. She freezes when he leans towards her, holding her breath when his lips skim her cheek. "Truly beautiful," he murmurs, lingering near her ear.

She doesn't breathe again until he's moved out of her space and is leading her to a cab, double-parked with the meter running.

"I won't leave your side all night," Jesse tells her when he's helping her out of the cab. She knows that he means for his tone to sound reassuring. She isn't nervous, so it isn't necessary, though she keeps that to herself.

He's true to his word, guiding her through the crowded room and introducing her to people he knows. "Rachel Berry," he tells his agent. "The best duet partner I've ever had the pleasure of performing with."

She misses the little swell of pride she's supposed to feel when she hears that, though she still smiles graciously at both men.

(She isn't simply a great duet partner. She's more. She's excellent in her own right.)

She spends the evening taking tiny sips of the vodka tonic that a waiter handed her without question her age and making polite small talk with strangers who aren't any more interested in her than they are in Jesse, whatever delusions he might have about his own importance.

She excuses herself to the restroom at one point, thinking that she'll just wash her hands and take a moment to breathe, though she should know better than to expect a ladies' washroom to be empty. The two women gossiping together at the vanity ignore her when she walks in, offering a smile to the attendant before slipping into the stall nearest the door. (A habit rather than a means of avoidance; she read once that the stall closest to the door is typically the least-used and therefore the cleanest, so it's always the one she chooses.)

She lowers herself onto the closed lid of the toilet, her knees pressed together as she pulls a compact out of her handbag with the intention of checking her lip gloss. Instead, she finds herself gazing at her reflection in the tiny mirror.

It makes her think of a night years ago, standing in her own bathroom and seeing herself in a lavender nightgown, her eyes wide with anxiety.

Rachel is startled to realize that she doesn't want to leave the restroom this time either.

Doing this with Jesse, being the girl on his arm...it feels wrong. This is his event, and even though she's just as talented as he is and worthy of being here in her own right, tonight she's nothing more than a pretty accessory. What's worse, she's been acting like nothing more than that pretty piece. It's so out of character, and she doesn't know when or why she started behaving like this.

This isn't her.

Rachel asks Jesse to meet her for breakfast on Saturday morning. It's raining, steady, soaking rain that makes it feel colder than it actually is, and she finds herself wishing that she was wearing something heavier than her cotton cardigan when she's sitting in the over-air conditioned diner waiting for him, the hem of her jeans damp.

She'd left the cocktail party earlier in the week in a bit of a rush, claiming a headache when she'd returned from the restroom and found Jesse waiting for her, standing alone at the side of the room sipping scotch on the rocks. It was a bit too much, really, and she'd needed some distance, some space to think everything through.

The decision had been easier than she'd expected.

She can't help smiling fondly when he comes in, water droplets rolling off his leather jacket and his hair a bit damp. "Good morning," she greets politely over the rim of her coffee cup.

He smiles. "Good morning, Rachel." He shrugs out of his jacket and hangs it over the back of his chair before taking a seat and ordering a cup of coffee from the waitress who stops at the table.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" he asks once he's settled. With the exception of that first time, Rachel has never invited him to join her anywhere; he's done all of the asking.

She thinks that maybe this was a bad idea, asking him here today. She's sure that she's sent the wrong message, and that what she has to say is going to hit him like a ton of bricks.

But here they are, and she can't hold back now.

"I don't think we should see each other any more," she says without preamble. He blinks. "If I thought that you simply wanted to be friends, that would be one thing, but I think it's obvious that you want more than my friendship."

"Rachel, I don't-" He cuts himself off, regroups. "Have I done something to upset you?"

She says no because he hasn't, at least not really.

"I don't understand."

"I'm never going to be able to trust you, Jesse, not really. I want to," she admits, holding his gaze, "but it's never going to happen." While she can appreciate that he's trying, everything he's done in the last few months has fallen into the 'too little, too late' category. It's all well and good that he realized his mistake and came back for her, but it isn't enough.

"Do you hate me?" he asks after a moment.

"No."

"You just don't trust me." It isn't a question, so she doesn't reply. "And I can't do anything about it." Again, it isn't a question, so she doesn't say anything.

They sit in silence for a few moments, just watching one another across the table in this little corner diner. It's strange, but it isn't uncomfortable. It just...is.

"I'm going to go," Rachel finally says, shouldering her purse and standing up to push in her chair. "Goodbye, Jesse."

She doesn't give him a chance to reply before she turns and walks out of the restaurant, ducking her head as she starts down the street, fumbling with her umbrella.

She still sees Jesse on a regular basis. They're working towards careers in the same industry, so their paths cross often. He's always warm, and she's always cordial, but she knows that there won't ever be anything romantic between them ever again.

This time around, there isn't any unfinished business. There aren't any lingering questions about what they might have been, because she knows, with a strange certainty, that they would never have worked.

When it finally does happen, her big break, it's like it all happens at once.

She gets her first part in a new show in the mold of the classic Broadway musical, a tiny part with one spoken line and barely a handful of lyrics she sings on her own. When the lead's understudy takes a role in another show, Rachel is tapped to be the stand-in while they look for someone new. (It takes everything in her not to beg them to let her do the job permanently, because playing a lead is her dream, but at least now she's guaranteed to be on stage each night.)

Then the lead is involved in an accident that pulls her out of the show indefinitely, and Rachel is thrust, unexpectedly, into the spotlight.

For the first time, it's as if the universe is conspiring to give her a gift instead of attempting to destroy her dreams. It feels amazing.

Jesse gets his break, too, at just about the same time. They're moving about in the same circles, so they see one another quite often, but they aren't anything more than friendly. It's unexpected, Jesse respecting her wishes like this - past experience says that he wouldn't have been able to resist making some grand gesture again - but she appreciates it immensely.

Some blogger does a bunch of digging and learns that they were members of rival show choirs in high school (though he doesn't manage suss out their relationship, for which Rachel is grateful) and attempts to manufacture a feud between their shows. It's a spectacular failure, especially after they do a photo shoot for New York magazine on the rising stars of Broadway. The photographs are lovely, and they're printed with a short blurb about their (incomplete) history and how they now have nothing but respect for one another as artists.

For Rachel, at least, it is the truth.

She's taking a break when she runs into him in the city. She's been working constantly for almost five years, and when her last show closed, she decided that it was about time that she took a moment to breathe and enjoy her success, and maybe try her hand at songwriting again (her manager's suggestion).

It's a complete stroke of luck that she sees him at all. She's cutting across Central Park to get to the east side for a lunch date with a friend when she hears someone call her name. She's recognized often enough, yes, but this is New York, so she's generally left alone. It's strange, so she looks, and sees him coming towards her with a smile on his face.

He always did have a great smile.

"I haven't seen you since high school," she says when they're standing face-to-face. He looks...not older, exactly, but more mature. He has what looks to be two-day stubble on his jaw, and his shoulders seem a bit broader under the cognac leather jacket he's wearing. The effect, taken together, is very appealing.

"I know," he agrees. "Not in person anyway. You're kind of everywhere here."

She shakes her head, blushing, and looks for a subject change. "What are you doing in the city?"

"Living," he answers with a shrug. "Been here for about three years, working." He grins. "I'd ask what you've been doing, but your face was in Times Square when I moved to the city."

She feels her chest get warmer as her flush moves downward and is glad that she's wearing a scarf that covers the skin there. "I'm going to meet someone, but we should catch up. Have dinner or something."

He agrees, so they exchange numbers, and she walks the rest of the way to her lunch with an extra little bounce in her step.

They meet at an Italian restaurant that she suggests, and they catch up on the basics - what he does in the city, the highlights of what happened to each of them in the intervening years - while they choose a wine and peruse the menu. A good deal of her important moments have been reported in the media, and his mother apparently keeps up with 'that lovely Rachel Berry,' so he does more talking than she does.

He raises his eyebrows at her when she orders the four-cheese lasagna. "Thought you were vegan."

"Most days I am," she says with a smile. "I dated an Italian chef for almost a year, and he reintroduced me to the wonders of good cheese." She bites her lip, then admits, "I'm a little bit in love with a good asiago."

He gins, takes a sip of his wine, and looks at her thoughtfully. "So, what do you do when you aren't blowing everybody away with that voice?" he finally asks.

He's one of the best dinner companions she's had in a while, maybe ever. They talk only briefly about high school, but they never run out of things to say to one another. Books and movies and New York politics, and while Rachel was always aware of the fact that he could be a great listener, she hadn't ever really taken the time to listen to what he had to say. (This, of course, is true of an enormous number of people who have passed through her life; that's the hazard of being a girl who talks a lot, she supposes.)

"What really happened with you and St. James?" he asks when they're lingering over espresso.

"Nothing," she answers, because those couple of months when they had a rather tentative friendship barely even register any more. "Someone did a little research and a little math and realized that we'd been in competing choirs years ago and tried to make it into a thing. They never found out that we'd dated, and neither Jesse nor I told them, so it wasn't anything." She shrugs and takes a sip of her espresso, the bitterness washing over her tongue deliciously.

He looks at her thoughtfully, then changes the subject to some of the controversial changes the MTA has made lately.

"I always wanted you," he confesses when they're waiting at the coat check.

She feels her heartbeat begin to quicken. "Why didn't you do anything about it?"

"You always belonged to someone else." He says it simply, like a fact.

"That isn't true," she argues.

"Rachel." He tilts his head, and when she thinks back, she realizes that maybe he isn't wrong. "I didn't know how to be that guy."

Now, standing with him, looking up and seeing the softness in his eyes, she wishes, a little desperately, that he had. Maybe, if she'd been with him back then, things would have been different. Easier.

"There isn't anyone else now," she points out quietly, returning the slow smile that spreads across his lips.

Later, when he walks her to the subway station and she leans up on her toes to kiss him, he whispers her name against her lips like a secret.