Hey gleeks,

So I was originally planning to post the final chapter of my current story, Take Me As I Am, before starting this one- but I've had this first chapter ready for a while, and this weekend my family is all in town for my cousin's Bar Mitzvah and everything's so crazy, I won't have time to finish my other chapter for a few days at least. So I thought I might as well start this new story off now. Yay!

The premise is simple: these are, as the title suggests, snapshots from the life of Quinn & Rachel post- high school. They will be in no particular order; it's not really one unified story, it's just a series of little individual moments, some big and important, while others are just little everyday scenes and vignettes. It's definitely taking place in the same world as my other story, so assume everything that's happened in TMAIA has also happened here. Enjoy! :)

Snapshots: The Daily Show

February 2018

…

"Judy, just leave the dishes! The show's starting!" Michael called from the living room, swirling his glass of Pinot Noir to calm his nervous hands. There was an indistinct call in response, and the three men in the room just looked at each other in mild amusement.

"Tom, go drag your wife out of the kitchen, will you?" Jacob smiled wryly. "If she misses the start of the interview, she'll blame you anyway."

"I'm on it," the bearded man grinned conspiratorially back, rising from his seat on the couch to collect his wife, Judy Fabray-Miller, and bring her back to the living room as Jon Stewart welcomed his audience back after the commercial break.

"Alright, I'm here!" Judy exclaimed excitedly, taking off her apron and tossing it over the back of a chair as she came to sit beside her in-laws on the couch, accepting a glass of wine as her husband sat beside her and kissed her cheek.

...

"Welcome back to the Daily Show!" Jon Stewart said on screen, waving at his studio audience as they cheered. "Joining us tonight is the lovely and talented Oscar nominee, Miss Rachel Berry." The cheering in the audience increased wildly, and Jon Stewart stood up to welcome Rachel as she walked onstage, beaming her biggest gold-star smile and waving at the studio audience. She looked stunning in a simple black dress, cut above the knee, with her dark hair loose and flowing over her shoulders. Jon Stewart shook her hand and kissed her cheek, whispering something in her ear that made her laugh and nod enthusiastically before he showed her to her seat and went back to his own.

"Rachel, it is so great to have you on the show tonight," Jon said with obvious sincerity as the applause finally died down.

"It's great to be here, Jon. I've been watching your show since I was a little kid! You're like my Johnny Carson!" Jon did his usual deadpan WTF look into the camera, raising one eyebrow slightly; the audience started to laugh, and so did Rachel. "I mean, I didn't mean that you're old or anything"—

"No, no, it's all right. I am old. I'm just glad you didn't get buried under the sea of denture cleaner, prune juice and adult diapers we keep stocked in the green room," Jon said dryly, making Rachel blush a little as she laughed and shook her head in embarrassment. "Aww, relax everybody, I'm just loosening her up, okay? I mean, what are you, twenty-one? Everybody over 30 looks old to you, right?"

"I'm twenty-four," Rachel corrected him, and again he looked at the camera in his patented oh-God-help-me expression, getting another laugh from the audience as he looked down at his notes and pretended to organize them.

"Okay, so seriously though. You're twenty-four years old, and America is already madly in love with you. You got a Tony from your first Broadway show, and now you've got an Oscar nomination for your first movie. You're halfway to being the youngest EGOT-holder in history. So far, it seems like your life is pretty much straight out of a David Bowie song." Rachel giggled and shook her head no at the audience as they cheered appreciatively.

"That's very sweet of you to say, Jon, but it's really a lot less glamorous than a Bowie song. I'm just so happy and blessed to be able to do what I love, and really be embraced by the public across so many different mediums. Truthfully, as long as I can keep singing and reaching an audience, that's all that really matters to me."

"But an Oscar would be nice," Jon prompted, with a faux-sheepish shrug of obviously fake indifference.

"Yes," Rachel agreed with a broad smile, "an Oscar would certainly be nice."

"That's all I'm sayin'," the host smirked, and winked at her. "So paint us a picture here, Rachel—how did you get where you are, starring in the most popular musical movie remake since Hairspray? I of course have been following you since you got your start in New York in the Juilliard student theater, but I think most of America was not lucky enough to see the musical adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies."

"Oh my God, you saw that?" Rachel giggled and covered her face with her hands, slightly mortified. Jon wiggled his eyebrows. "Okay, yeah, that was actually a lot of fun. But, no, I think I really did have the stars align for me or something; it's still an insane amount of work, but I've had a lot of really serendipitous opportunities in the last few years. I was a freshman at Juilliard when Duncan and Steven approached me about the treatment for Spring Awakening"—

"That's Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater?"

"Yeah, that's right. They'd been working for, geez, something like five years on making this 17th century German play into a rock opera, and basically they had everything in place to start their Broadway pitch except a female lead. They'd seen me in West Side Story, that was the Juilliard Drama department's spring musical that year"—

"I bet you're glad they didn't see Pride and Prejudice and Zombies," Jon said dryly, and Rachel cracked up again along with the studio audience.

"Yeah, definitely! Anyway, they asked me to come in and read for the part, and I did. So I dropped down to part-time at Juilliard, and then I dropped out all together once the show went into production. And, I mean, for a first experience on Broadway, it was amazing. The cast, they crew, everyone was working so hard—there was no way I could've gotten that Tony on my own."

"And the show won best musical and best score, too, so you know it was one of those zeitgeist group dynamics."

"Oh yeah, absolutely," Rachel nodded happily. "So then we were getting ready to finish the run, this was early last year, and I was just starting to think, like, okay…what am I gonna do now? Do I go back and finish school? Do I just keep auditioning on Broadway? And that's when Ryan Murphy basically showed up at my door and offered me my dream job. So here we are."

"So producer/director Ryan Murphy basically knocks on your door one day and says, 'Hey, what's up, I want to make a film revival of Funny Girl and you're gonna be the next Barbara Streisand.' Was it really just like that?"

"Yes! Well, I mean, I don't want to make it sound too easy. I still had to go to LA and audition, and that's actually a funny story"—

"I heard you crashed your car in the paramount lot."

"Oh my God, I did! It really wasn't my fault, though. But I was so freaked out I was gonna miss the audition, I just abandoned the rental car and literally ran to the sound stage! I was picking glass out of my hair while I was singing. But I made it. I wasn't going to miss it for anything."

"Well I think America would like to thank you for not taking the time to brush the glass out of your hair." Rachel blushed, and Jon got another laugh from the audience as he gave them his deadpan ironic-serious face. "No, but seriously, the last few months must have been a hell of a ride for you, huh? You go from being a fresh young upstart on Broadway, which is already an incredible accomplishment, but of course you're not getting the same kind of exposure with live theater as you have in the movies"—

"Right, of course. They're incredibly different."

"And then without any film background at all, you get the lead in a major movie musical remake. Really, you became America's sweetheart almost overnight."

"Thank you, Jon, that's very sweet of you to say."

"Actually, I've been asked to deliver a message to you on behalf of America." He rustled under his desk for a moment, pulled out a little black jewelry box, and flipped it open, dropping down on one knee behind his desk. "Will you marry us?" Rachel laughed, blushing bright red.

"Awww! Now this is definitely the best interview I've ever gone on. The one where I get a marriage proposal from the United States. But no, sadly I can't marry America, Jon. I'm already married—actually, we're just about to celebrate our first anniversary." There was a collective awww from the audience, as Rachel smiled shyly and held out her hand so they could see her wedding ring.

"D'oh!" Jon groaned, face-palming in mock disappointment. "Yeah, I did surmise that you were married when I saw the ring there. Nice. But I figured I might still have a chance, since your husband doesn't seem to mind you getting a little sugar on the side when you're out on the red carpet." As he spoke, a large photo of Rachel and Quinn on the red carpet from the Funny Girl premiere was thrown up on the screen behind the stage. The photo was a good one, natural and loose, both girls beaming at the camera with their arms around each other. Quinn still had a tendency to lean her forehead serenely against Rachel's whenever they had their picture taken; and Rachel still made sure she was photographed only from her left side.

"So...who's the hottie?" Jon prompted, wiggling his eyebrows. The audience laughed and hooted appreciatively.

"That's my wife, Quinn," Rachel said happily, blushing pleasurably as she tore her eyes away from the photo to look back at her interviewer. He raised his eyebrow, looked out at the audience appreciatively, and then looked back at Rachel, who was laughing at his impressed expression.

"Nice work."

"Thank you," Rachel giggled. "She's pretty awesome. I definitely wouldn't be where I am today without her love and support."

"So you're 24 years old, you've got a hit musical and a hit movie, and you're happily married to a Swedish supermodel? Seriously, what kind of vitamins do you take, kid?" Rachel giggled and shook her head while the audience laughed approvingly.

"Haha, no, but she could be, right? No, actually Quinn prefers the view from the other side of the camera—she's a freelance photographer. So it's great, we get to travel together a lot these days."

"Glamorous travel, you say? Obviously, you don't have kids yet."

"No, not yet—I think we need a couple more years to be young and crazy. Though actually, we always said we'd have a kid after I won my first Tony…but we thought that would take a lot longer! So that was one plan that actually did get scrapped."

"What, like in the whole eleven months of your marriage, you had this grand life plan all sewed up?" Jon asked with his trademark dry sarcasm, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh no, it's a much more venerable plan than that. No, I mean, we've been married a little less than a year; but we've actually been together since high school."

"Seriously?" Jon raised an eyebrow incredulously.

"Yeah!" Rachel nodded proudly.

"So you're not just being trendy now that gay marriage has finally been legalized in New York."

"Haha, no, we were gonna do it last year whether it was legal or not—though I am glad we now have the same legal protections for our family that you have for yours." There was an outburst of applause from the studio audience, and Rachel turned and smiled at them.

"Yeah, good job New York!" Jon yelled, nodding in agreement with the audience's cheers. "That's really great. And may I say—mazel tov. So I guess you're not waiting till after the fame and fortune is secure to come out on the cover of People magazine, huh? Is this a generational thing? I've noticed that the young kids today are a lot less hung up on sexual identity pretty much across the board."

"I don't know if it's a generational thing or not, but for us it was never really a question. I mean, we've been together since the 10th grade; we don't need to keep coming out, over and over again. Why should we? The first time didn't take? We just want to live our lives, the same as everyone else, you know? We don't want our relationship to be a card we play in Entertainment Weekly or anything. It's just- life."

"Okay, you're gonna have to get a lot more conniving and cynical if you're planning on staying in the movie biz," Jon said sarcastically, and Rachel giggled and shook her head at him. "Honestly, though—you've been together since the 10th grade? Like, the whole high school sweethearts thing? I didn't think that happened anymore."

"I didn't think so either, 'till it happened to me," Rachel shrugged happily.

"And I heard your high school back in Ohio actually made you both prom queens."

"Yeah, that's true!" Rachel laughed. "Who told you that? Did you interview my parents?"

"Oh, we have our sources," Jon said mysteriously. Then the red carpet photo on the screen was replaced with a blown-up version of an old picture of Quinn and Rachel at prom. The audience roared in approval, while Rachel blushed bright red.

"Oh my God, where did you get that?" Rachel laughed, peeking out from behind her hands.

"Little known fact about me," Jon shrugged wryly. "I don't like to brag, but...I'm actually the head of the Jews-who-bagged-a-hot-blonde-shiksa archive. We keep very good records." Rachel just laughed and shook her head. "Just remember," Jon said seriously to the audience, "I'm not only the President of the Jews-who-bagged-a-hot-blonde-shiksa club, but I'm also a client." He winked at the audience, who all clapped appreciatively. "The movie is Funny Girl, it's out in theaters now, and the lovely young star I've had the pleasure of embarrassing tonight is Miss Rachel Berry. Tune in to the Oscars next Sunday night to see her clean house! Thanks for watching the Daily Show!"