White Dragon: Prologue
I think this is full of spies
I think they're onto me
Didn't anybody, didn't anybody tell you?
Didn't anybody tell you how to gracefully disappear in a room?
"3AM" was what the clock said to her. She sighed; not now, not yet.
She was in her kitchen brewing a batch of chamomile tea that would last her through another hour, then ultimately put her to sleep. It had been like this every night since she'd started her holiday break, and each night she'd stay up a little later than the last.
She was a nocturnal creature, something she'd learned in her twenty-first year of life. She was twenty-three now, and truthfully, she felt a lot older than that.
Lucy poured herself a mug of the tea and took a modest sip without bothering to blow at the steam. She closed her eyes, savored the burn. Taking a seat at her work desk, she pulled down the piece of paper tacked to the board hanging above it. On the paper she'd started a letter, and a year later it was still incomplete.
She'd started it on the tenth of July last year, and decided she wouldn't touch it again for another year, to be sure she even wanted to finish it. Too many times she'd done things on impulse, and each time those things had ended up unfavorable for her. She wanted to do this right, if at all.
Lucy had to take another swallow of the scalding hot tea before she started rereading the letter, because she thought the sting of it might take away the sting of the feelings the letter was bound to bring back up.
She breathed, quivered, ran her hair through her brown hair, chewed at her thumbnail.
Dear Rachel...
Rachel sat alone in her one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment and stared out her window at the nighttime New York City lights. Once, those lights would have thrilled and inspired her.
Now they were just lights. Just photons and metal and electricity and whatever held it all together.
There was a thin strip of powder expertly formed on her kitchen counter. She always did this before a line; thinking about her life, beating herself up until she felt like cocaine was her only reprieve.
The inbox on her phone was full, and she had fifty-seven missed calls and thirty-four voicemails from the past two days. Rachel tried to let people know she was still breathing every two days, because once she'd waited three days and her fathers had ended up in New York City. Once, Santana had even come beating down her door.
She used to cry about all of it, her life's downward spiral, but now she can't even do that.
Rachel wasn't sure if there was even any life left in her.
Still, she picked up her cell phone with feeble hands and started on her list of people to call.
Santana had never been one for bullshit, and this was the biggest pile of it she'd ever stepped in.
When she'd gotten a friend request on Facebook from "Lucy Fabray" she had her suspicions. Santana knew that Q**** used to despise that name, and the only depth she'd ever assigned to it was that she'd changed a lot, and wanted to forget her old name (to cleanse herself, was what she actually said, and Santana remembered thinking she was a little queer for it). Now, she was back to Lucy. What had happened?
Santana never had much restraint with her emotions, and she'd been livid over Q****'s absence for so long she had to let her know.
So, she'd sent her a very long, very not nice message detailing her frustrations. Santana never had much restraint with her words, either. Still, at the end of the message she'd attached her phone number, and a post script. I hate you, but call me sometime, you deserter bitch.
Santana was usually fast asleep at 4 AM, but tonight there was a nasty thunderstorm, and Brittany was afraid of them. Brittany's arms, already wrapped (a little awkwardly) around Santana, tightened their hold and she felt her soft hair press into her cheek as Brittany buried her face into her shoulder. Groggy but never grumpy, Santana rasped, "What is it, baby...?"
"Lightning," she whimpered, "and I think your cell phone is lighting up."
Santana rubbed at her eyes and fumbled in the darkness for her glasses first, cell phone second. She sat up, and Brittany curled up in her lap. Santana ran her fingers through her hair while she tried to figure out the unknown number.
"Who is it, San?"
"I..." It hit her. "I think it might be Q****, Britts."
"So it is you."
They'd been best friends, once, and she'd never heard her sound so cold. Lucy wanted to hang up, but opted for chewing through the skin around her thumbnail instead.
"Yes...It's me. Lucy," she affirmed, "I guess I shouldn't say I've missed you." She had missed her, but figured it didn't mean much to realize it systematically.
"I wouldn't," Santana cut, "because I'd have some things to say about that."
She tore a long strip of skin away, and the salty, metallic taste of her blood hit her tongue. Lucy was a fragile girl.
"Santana. I called to tell you something important."
"Well, by all means, Q-" Santana started, and Lucy could tell by her tone that she was going to say something bitchy, but she beat her to it.
"No, not Q."
There was a long pause at the end of the line; she heard the short, choked sound of someone's words sticking in the back of their throat.
"Okay...Lucy. Tell me, then."
"Rachel, honey, please come home," her Daddy pleaded to her.
"Please, baby, we're so worried about you," her Dad joined in.
Rachel did what she always did when this happened. She inhaled deeply and forced herself to be cheerful, to make up a lie.
"Dads, I'm fine, really. I've just been super busy with this musical NYADA is producing. I'm a part of the stage crew, if you can believe it," Rachel knew they wouldn't make a trip to New York City if she wasn't in the show. Her lie would hold up.
The line was silent for a few moments, and finally her Dad responded with a weary, "Okay, Rachel."
"Don't let them keep you in the stage crew forever, Rachel. Sometimes stars have to assert themselves, you know Barbra was a fighter." her Daddy added, and she could hear the sadness in his voice. There was shuffling around on the end of the line, and a muffled sob that must have meant that her Dad was holding her Daddy close to him.
"I know, Daddy, I know." Hiram reminded her each time they spoke of Barbra's willpower. She used to look up to her (and Patti Lupone) exclusively; she used to covet that fierceness. Now Rachel looked up to anyone she saw outside of her apartment window that seemed even the least bit happy.
They said their goodbyes, and Rachel stared at the phone for several minutes after they'd hung up. She felt empty. There was a time when she'd cry her eyes out after every phone call with her parents, because she missed them so badly. Now she only ever cried because she missed herself.
Whatever feelings she had were forgotten as soon as her nose met with her counter top.
Santana was quiet, far too quiet for Lucy to be comfortable. Immediately she wished she hadn't called her at all; she didn't know if she could stand any more negativity over the subject. Certainly, she'd given herself enough hard times over it.
Lucy didn't know who else she could have told, though. Santana had been the only one to message and reach out to her in such a way. She'd been angry, she'd understood that, but because Lucy also understood Santana, she knew that her anger meant she still cared.
Now she wasn't so sure. The line remained silent.
Heavy of voice, Santana finally responded,
"I had a missed call from Rachel today. I'll call her tomorrow and tell her about the letter, and I'll leave it up to her whether she wants me to send it her way."
"Thank you so much, Santana," she said in a voice that was so full of warmth that Santana almost believed things were the same between them. Then, filled with bitterness again, she rid herself of the feeling by delivering a stiff and sarcastic, "Goodbye, Lucy."
She hung up her phone and turned it off, in the event that Lucy should try to call back. Santana wasn't sure what her mental standing was nowadays, but from their phone call she surmised that she was far from stable.
But now she'd been handed the missing pieces to the Rachel Berry puzzle, one that had bothered her since she'd busted open the door of her apartment only to find Rachel living in a shit hole that smelled of dirty laundry and piss and God-knows-what-else.
She knew she had to do something about it, something past relaying Lucy's message to Rachel, but she hadn't figured out what yet.
Brittany, still curled up in her lap, awoke from her sleep long enough to speak to her in a voice so tired and childlike that Santana couldn't help but smile despite everything.
"Baby...Whatever it is, can you think about it tomorrow? I dream of being kidnapped by velociraptors every time I fall asleep without your arms around me."
Santana slid back down onto the bed, pulled Brittany close, whispered "I love yous" and stroked her hair until she fell asleep again.
After hours of agonizing over the letter, Lucy discerned that it would be the most effective as it was. Her feelings were fresh back when she started it, and she was a different person then.
She didn't trust herself anymore.
She folded the letter up and shoved it into an envelope that was almost too small, and it felt sort of metaphorical to her before she realized just how sleepy she was. Lucy addressed the front, stamped it, and sprayed some of her perfume onto it.
It took her several minutes to work up the courage to seal it, and in those minutes her entire life flashed before her, images pouring from every part of her brain and cascading over each other; a discordant mess. She tried to focus on just one. She squeezed her eyes shut and felt the veins in her wrists bulge from her clenched fists and felt her teeth groaning from her clenched jaw.
Then she found it and relaxed.
A five-year-old Rachel ran through her mind, and at her feet grass perked up and flowers blossomed and she saw the Sun bounce off of her chestnut locks. Lucy didn't have to worry about getting caught watching; Rachel stayed in her own world.
They were neighbors. That's where it all started for her; she wondered if Rachel ever knew. Then it hit her, what she had to do, and she reached into her desk drawer and pulled out a new sheet of paper.
For the first time in years, Lucy found herself smiling fully and from the heart, because if she couldn't win Rachel Barbra Berry back with one letter she'd win her back with enough to make a book of their lives and their love. And their loss.
Starting at day one.
Dear Rachel,
I am begging you to have the restraining order lifted. This is too casual an ending for us, and if it's closure that you want I'm begging you for that too, but only if it's face-to-face.
Don't be misled, Rachel. I don't want this to be over. I want to see you again (every day) and I want all of those good things for us again, all of the things we used to want together. I am already seeking help. It's hard looking for help in someone so foreign to me. Since high school, you've been the one to drag me out of these things; the only one.
Please call me, or write me. I'm desperate.
You keep me hanging on.
Quinn
A/N: If you made it to the end of this, I want to thank you for showing interest in my fanfiction! I haven't published anything in a long time, so I'd love to get positive feedback from this. If you liked it, drop me a line or two! I would greatly appreciate it. If not, thank you anyway for simply reading.
I have a lot planned for this story and I am excited to write more!
Love,
Jordan.
P.S. If anyone is curious, the song lyrics at the beginning are from The National's "Secret Meeting." Fantastic band, great song. Give them a listen if you get the chance.