She meets him for the second time in a coffee shop a few blocks from Broadway, and it's decidedly less romantic than the first. Or something; Rachel's still not sure how to categorise meetings that aren't measured in the capacity to keep up with her in any and all future duets.
(For the record: singing with him will always be a high note in itself; they both revel in it).
But she meets Jesse St James anyway, in New York City, the concrete jungle where dreams are made of, except they're not, for her. That's passive; Rachel's making her dreams in this city, it doesn't get to make them for her. They're four blocks west of 52nd and Broadway, actually - Rachel Berry knows exactly where she is, because Broadway has always been, will always be, the centre of her universe, her future direction, and everything, really. (More than everything, actually, on those days when she indulges in her penchant for hyperbole, even if it ruins any and all future pretences of theatricality). She just doesn't know this particular coffee shop, beyond the fact that 'the barista has the best ass ever' and that's why she's meeting Shannon here.
But Shannon is ten minutes late, today's barista comes complete with a monobrow and a generous lashing of incompetence, and she definitely knows that voice. Because here's the thing: for six weeks in her sophomore year of high school, Jesse St James became not just the centre of her universe, but all of it. To Rachel, he became bigger and better than Broadway itself, just because he had the talent for it.
There weren't many people who did.
Jesse St James might have been the universe, once, but now he's the star. And Rachel Berry: sometimes she's just the understudy in her own performance.
"Rachel," Jesse says, in a voice that's just not quite cracked enough to be rehearsed; he wears arrogance and faux-hurt like a wedding ring, the commitment and the metal staining his skin. "How are you?"
He doesn't sit. She doesn't expect him too. This isn't –-
She's not sure what it isn't, but she knows what it is, and it leaves her skin thrumming with anticipation, her palms warm and sticky even before she curls them around her coffee mug for comfort. Rachel takes comfort in the breath she draws, deep from within where her voice lives. Some things are better left unsaid, but it's like warming up in the morning, and nothing's quite the same unrehearsed.
"New York's been good to me," she says. Then, more earnestly: "It's… there's a lot more competition than I expected, but I feel… honest here." Her grin is loud and quick, like the clack of heels on pavement, but only slightly less obnoxious. "You of all people would understand that, I imagine."
"I have been told that honesty is the best policy, although given the rampant spread of idiocy I've experienced, I'm starting to believe that might actually be health insurance." He sighs, long, drawn-out and more wistful than Rachel had expected; looking closely, she can see the fatigue in his eyes. She knows it well: being fabulous isn't easy. "The last time I've seen something so contagious, Vocal Adrenalin was consuming vast quantities of unpasteurised milk to strengthen their bones for those lifts. Let my biography state for the record that E Coli is not as fun as it seems."
"You're re-thinking the direction of your biography?" she asks, curious. "I take it becoming infamous failed as a career plan," and she's only somewhat haughty, really. "I could have warned you; I know it's not quite the same, but I've learnt from my fair share of drama queens. Most of my fellow classmates thought it was simply about getting noticed, but it's not. It's about what you do when the attention is yours."
"You always knew how to command an audience," Jesse replies, eyebrow raised, body sprawled easily over the table as he leans towards her. Rachel swallows thickly and tries not to think about the gentle tensing of the muscles in his arms. "Most Ohioans were always kind of backward, but it's nice to know that someone knows the difference between shooting stars and frankly insulting special effects."
"You're from Ohio too," and it shouldn't be the point, but it is, all of a sudden, and it settles uncomfortably in her like a particularly off-key strand of Katy Perry. There are things that cannot be unwritten; Rachel holds onto these last vestiges of high school, tucked close to her chest for when she's famous and reporters want to know how a girl from a mid-sized town in mid-America ended up being anything but middling.
She wonders what they'd say if they knew: it started with a serenade, of course, but it didn't really end with that fateful New York kiss. The thing with Finn is –- it's different, they're different, and that's all there is too it, really. They're not Maria and Tony or even Elphaba and Fiyero but they were Rachel and Finn, and it stings, sometimes, just a little. She doesn't begrudge him his happiness in Ohio, but she'd wondered, just occasionally, if there wasn't a name that would look good next to hers in bright stage lights. A kiss is a kiss is a kiss, for the audience, at least, but for her it could be something so wonderfully intimate, something so impossibly big and yet able to be clutched in the palm of her hand, a reminder that yes, this is real.
Rachel grins, suddenly; if her life was a musical, Kurt would want credit for any and all plays on Jesse St. Sucks.
"Glass houses, all that," Jesse says, finally. His hand comes to rest upon hers, finger stroking gently at her knuckles, and it feels familiar, like a song she's learnt to rote memory, but that she can still find something new in, again and again. "Personally, I think it's a better use of our time to throw stones at people who can't dance," and it makes something twitch in her, lukewarm at first but still there, hollow in her gut even as it makes her feel queasy.
"Don't," Rachel says, harsher than she intended. "It's different, now, but - you of all people should be have been to appreciate blinking neon signs, even if they did say 'stop'." Then, softly: "I know what that feels like. More than I should do, actually."
Jesse looks pointedly down at the sheet music tucked under her arm; she wonders vaguely, if this is where it starts, again. "I hear that reciprocity's valued in this industry," he says and it takes Rachel a moment to process the implications of it until she blushes red in a shade only Kurt could name.
She thinks back, for a moment, remembers Madonna and her high school bedroom in that now all too nauseating shade of pink, remembers hello I love you but not the goodbye, not really; the murder of defenceless animals aside, what shocks her most about that is that eggs are metaphors for life, not death, and -
You don't make it past high school without a well-honed sense of irony.
"In that case," and she gestures for him to sit down, spreading the folder of music out in front of them. She hums the first few bars –- and isn't it funny that her biggest obstacle is a too-loud coffee grinder here, a hole she can't dig for herself –- and Jesse joins in, slotting into the harmony like a key in a lock, wriggling slightly until he finds the right fit.
She's afraid, for a single moment, as the song reaches a crescendo. Not of losing herself to (into) him, but of losing her voice. Because Rachel's felt the way her breath hitches in her throat when he kisses her, the way a peculiar kind of silence floods the cavities of her chest, like the fact that the universe has given her even one percent of what she's ever dreamed of means there's nothing else left for her heart to sing or say.
And then –- Jesse sings the final version with her, not at her, with all the respect it deserves, and it's that, more than anything –-
Rachel rethinks her romantic notions, just for a moment; the world shines through his smile, this is her spotlight and they could be co-stars.