It had been just another day in kindergarten for Rachel Berry: she explained the importance of hand sanitizer after picking up toys to the other kids during playtime, brought her favorite Barbra Streisand CD for Show-and-Tell, counted all the way up to 83 during math-time, and slept the entire naptime. Now all that was left to do was write her name ten times down on the special big-line paper.
Although she tried as hard as she could to make her name look nice every day, all that ever came out of it was a bunch of scribbles. She looked at the papers around her, most scribbles like her's, until one caught her eye. In beautiful cursive letters, it read "Quinn Stella Fabray" over and over again, each time as perfect as the last. Looking up at the writer, Rachel sees the new girl Ms. Smith introduced this morning. Rachel thinks the girl must be perfect—not only can she write in cursive but she's also got nice blonde hair and pretty hazel eyes.
When the girl sees her looking at the girl's name, she glances at Rachel's paper and then back to her own before focusing on Rachel.
"Oh, I know how to fix this! My name's Quinn by the way. What's yours?"
"Rachel Berry"
"B-E-R-R-Y," Quinn asks, effortlessly writing something down.
"Um, yes"
"Here! Just practice tracing over these and you'll get it in no time," Quinn says cheerfully, handing her a sheet of seven cursive Rachel Berry's, "that's how I learned."
"Really? Just by tracing," Rachel asks
"Yep, my mommy showed me how"
It suddenly dawned on Rachel: she had bad handwriting because she didn't have a mother! Nothing against her fathers but with one being a doctor and the other being a lawyer, they just couldn't teach her to write well. She definitely had the capability and with Quinn's help she would be able to write her name in beautiful cursive letters too.
"You have an unusual middle name," Rachel comments, carefully tracing letters.
"Oh, um it was my uncle's pick," Quinn replies as a blush rises.
"Oh, I think it's cool. Why'd he pick that?"
"You do? He said that Stella means star and that I was going to be one."
"Oh, I'm going to be a star too," Rachel exclaims with a bright smile that slowly fades.
"What's wrong?"
"I'm just jealous that star is practically your middle name and that mine is Barbra," Rachel pouts.
"Oh, I know how to fix this too!"
Quinn grabs into her plastic pencil box and pulls out a sticker sheet full of golden stars, peels one off, and places it next to Rachel's traced name.
"There. Now you're Rachel Berry with a Star."
And so from that day forth, Rachel Berry brought a package of gold-star stickers so she could place one next to her name—with Quinn occasionally lending her one.
Over the years, the girls' relationship would change but Rachel would still be Rachel Berry with a Star. While stars might have been metaphors for her being a star, Rachel just hoped that Quinn would one day realize it was also a metaphor for Rachel still loving her.