A/N: FutureFic! I just like the idea of a PezBerry friendship, on top of Rachel achieving her dreams. And, yes, Rachel + EGOT = OT5.
There will be plenty of references to property not owned by me, first and foremost being the characters in this story.
This is my first time publishing a Glee fanfic, so please be gentle.
Spelling and grammatical errors are mine, I tried to make like a Pokemon master and catch them all, but some might have escaped me and thus I apologize beforehand. Some leaps of logic would be requested, as I don't work in theater and I made some things up as I went along.
Read. Enjoy. Review (if you wish to).
Rachel is more than aware of the irony that fills her life.
Sure, she has fulfilled many of her ambitions, all those lofty goals the people in her hometown had found incredibly out of reach for her, but she and the iconic roles she had aspired to portray don't seem to get along: her performances in Funny Girl and Oklahoma! were both well-received, but hardly award-worthy.
In fact, her single Tony, as Featured Actress in a Play, was for her performance in a small play that she'd brought to Broadway from the off-off-Broadway stage it had started from. It had given her attention, and had given her the opportunity to take on iconic roles she has wanted to play since she understood what it meant to perform. She does, however, despite her reputation as being a diva and being too big for her shoes, she goes back whenever she can and workshops with the writer and composer behind her big break, or works on smaller plays that probably wouldn't see the lights of Broadway, simply because she likes the material enough to give it the attention her name would bring.
Sometimes she imagines her younger self stomping her foot in protest, when she recalls how she'd almost happily left Oklahoma! to fill in for two weeks at the one of those musicals built around the existing discography of some rock band.
The irony, really, is that she's been in three more winners of Best Musical or Play, and has been nominated for each Actress category, but hasn't added to her Tony wins outside of that first one. Yes, to cameras, the press, and everyone else she's willing to smile and say it's an honor just to be nominated (which, really, it is,) but she wants to win, damn it.
She's nominated once more tonight, and everyone believes she's a sure bet as Leading Actress in a Musical, for her much-lauded performance in one of the most talked-about shows this season.
She's heard such praise before, but tonight she's not in the mood to play nice, so she brings in Irony in Life Number Three, her award season lucky charm: Santana Lopez.
They had become friends in those two years they had been exiled in New York together, not knowing anybody, while Rachel studied in Juilliard and Santana was in NYU. Rachel's fathers, still the travelling duo they have always been, just dropped by whenever they could to see their darling daughter, and Santana had a slight falling out with her family over her sexuality (her family imposing a don't-ask, don't-tell approach to it), so she didn't really relish going home to Ohio. But the real reason Santana gamely went along with Rachel's superstition was simple: their freshman year, it had been Santana who had sought out Rachel, finding New York too large and too intimidating, even for her. And, yes, it had been a blow to the ego to find Rachel so clearly in her element; but Rachel was nothing if not extremely forgiving and helpful, and so for the two years before Quinn Fabray, Kurt Hummel, and Brittany Pierce found themselves joining the two brunettes in the City, Rachel and Santana had become their own twisted version of a family.
She knows superstition is illogical (even though she subscribes to more than just a handful of superstitions), but Santana had been the one who had coerced her into even auditioning for that first play their freshman year, and Santana had been the one who advised her to stick with the play even as it languished in its off-Broadway stage for two years before it was finally picked up for Broadway production. Santana had been the one who practically slapped her and demanded for Rachel to "calm (her) crazy" all through nominations and that very first Tonys night.
Yes, that kiss had startled both of them, and they both laugh at it now, and there were probably better ways to reveal Rachel's bisexuality, but Rachel's fear at the realization that she'd just kissed Santana Lopez without the pre-law major's permission actually overrode the fact that she'd just won her first Tony Award.
It was also that fear that saved the world at large a long, rambling signature Rachel Berry speech.
There was, surprisingly, a method to Rachel's madness.
Her fathers, from whom she had learned her over-dramatic streak, she already knows cannot sit still for a night of awarding, and when they complain about not being allowed to bask in their daughter's success, she reminds them of how they were during her first ever awards ceremony, back in second grade, when her performing arts school awarded their best performers. Neither man remembers, of course, because they had taken turns fainting out of sheer excitement; They have never been allowed to attend another ceremony (outside of her bat mitzvah and graduation), or any of her performances, since then. Her nanny, bless her heart, was a lot more cool and calm than they were, and it had been a major loss to her competition preparation when Cecille had left Ohio to join her daughter in Vermont.
Kurt, bless him, had been her date when she was nominated for a second time just the year after her first, this time for Lead Actress (her first), and even though she hadn't had any real expectation of winning, she hadn't had any the year before either, and there was no harm in hoping, right?
She'd lost.
Kurt never saw another award show as her date again, although she did make it a point to get him tickets to the Tonys every year, as long as she wasn't nominated. Tonight would be his first Tonys that she was nominated for.
Her first Grammy nomination was for a song she'd helped write and compose for her first Best Musical play. It had been re-cut and released as a single, and everyone and their mother and their grandmother bought the single (Finn Hudson would forever regret making fun of My Headband and Only Child, even if his critical and skeptical remarks are what made her strive for better). As payment for being the first person who ever publicly supported her songwriting, Quinn is Rachel's chosen date for the Grammys. Santana had been too busy working on her internship, Kurt had been home in Ohio and Brittany had a sprained ankle, so it's just the two of them who fly to California for the event.
Rachel was nominated for Song of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal, and as part of the cast ensemble, shares the Best Musical Theater Album (she still prefers one of its original titles, Best Broadway Show Album) nomination with the show's primary composer.
They win Best Musical Theater Album, which isn't part of the telecast, and Rachel is willing to forego Female Pop Vocal, but when she loses Song of the Year, she and Quinn hit the bar. Hard.
The rest of that night is a blur, and Rachel can only be thankful that there were no tabloid sightings or reports of drunken debauchery from that night, although they themselves have proof to the contrary.
It would be years later, when Brittany is not just near-tears but actually crying because Rachel wouldn't let Quinn come along to the Primetime Emmys for a night where Brittany is nominated for choreography, and Rachel actually still wins an award, that they discover that it's fine for Quinn to be at an awards show, as long as Santana is around.
Jesse St. James had been reintroduced into Rachel's life some years before when Jesse joins the cast of a play that Rachel was returning to after a brief stint in Into the Woods, playing opposite each other as a young couple whose marriage is coming apart at the seams. The year their show starts on Broadway, Rachel gets nominated for a Drama Desk Award for Into the Woods, and brings Jesse as her date.
It doesn't even matter that she is nominated for the same role for a Tony: she refused to even speak with him during that award ceremony, even if her date that night, her mother, has no idea why she wasn't allowed to talk to her former student.
Shelby Corcoran also never sees another awards show where Rachel is nominated without Santana Lopez nearby.
Yes, it sucks vacuum cleaners that the Tony Awards are always right in the middle of Santana's most demanding period in school, but Santana has graduated, and this is the first time Rachel is nominated since then.
She'd won her Grammy (Song of the Year, among others), her Emmy (Supporting Actress in a Miniseries), and her Oscar (Supporting Actress and Original Song), all with Santana with her. And twelve years between Tony wins is just too much for her, especially if she keeps getting nominated. She wants this one, especially, for several reasons: primarily, she wants that "in a Musical" on her Tony, and, once more, it's something she's workshopped from concept to the Broadway stage, and she's even a producer.
She's so invested in this play and her performance, in fact, that she's pretty sure if she wins they might have to reinstate the Tony Award for Best Special Theatrical Event for her reaction.
Santana, to her credit, remains cool and detached from everything as ever (it is also regrettable that the Tonys are the awards that Santana has the least amount of interest in). Santana never cares if their outfits match, because the last thing she wants is to be identified not just as Rachel's date, but be mistaken for something else. Santana is still trying to figure out how to get Rachel into the MTV Video Music Awards because groupies tend to be loose. The MTV Movie Awards (because the movie adaptation of Wicked is one of those rare Hollywood commodities that gets critical and commercial success, and gets its stars nominated for both Best On-Screen Duo and Best Actress nominations) are just too full of jailbait. The Emmys and the Oscars are for sight-seeing other celebrities, and she loves the Golden Globes now that the celebrities are getting drunk in it again.
It's endearing, though, to have watched Rachel prepare for this year's Tonys, because it's less the controlled, Juilliard-trained actress she's used to, and more the manic Energizer bunny that was Rachel in high school that they all had to live with.
The fact that everybody pretty much threatened not to talk to Rachel or to wake her up on Tony night with a faceful of Slushie didn't even deter the actress.
Santana pities Kurt, who had made the mistake of letting Rachel move in with him while contractors finish her new apartment.
Irony in Life Number One, more commonly known as Quinn Fabray, had known better than to let Rachel move in with her in the months leading up to the Tonys, although she's been the one to take over calming Rachel when both Kurt and Santana have risen their hands in surrender.
Irony in Life Number Two is also nominated tonight, and Jesse knows better than to make any kind of comment about Rachel's nomination. Which is probably why he's steered clear of her the past month.
Santana, however, isn't just there as a lucky charm - seriously, the fact that Rachel doesn't even register the obvious pun in that is testament to how tightly-wound Berry is about this nomination - she is also there, as she had been the first time, to calm Rachel's crazy. Every time, she deems it to be her job to keep Rachel distracted, to keep her relaxed. And she does it the only way she knows how: She instills the fear of Santana Lopez upon Rachel Berry, and Rachel makes it her job to keep Santana preoccupied enough that she won't feel compelled to leave Rachel's side at any point during the night and tilt the earth off its axis or whatever explanation Rachel wants to use.
She understands, however, that desire to be the best, and she can't even make fun of Rachel for the goal-oriented streak that has gotten her this far. She didn't know anyone else who got this successful this quickly, and she knows it's her job to keep Rachel grounded, because, really, this kind of success would have easily gotten to Berry's head.
The fact that every time Rachel wins, the first thing she hears as a congratulatory note is "Midget! You won!" might be a major contributing factor to keeping Rachel grounded.
(Sometimes Santana uses other variations of the theme, like the time she actually told Rachel not to melt the golden Oscar statue and turn it into the one ring to rule them all. It's a humanitarian service she's doing here: she didn't want the world to be bored to tears with a Rachel Berry acceptance speech.)
Jesse doesn't win Best Featured Male Performer in a Musical, and both former members of New Directions can't help but feel it's still a justification for the Funking he'd done as part of Vocal Adrenaline. Yes, they can grow up and mature, and even be friends now, but teenage grudges had a long shelf life.
Rachel's category is the one right after the one the presenters just started introducing, and Santana can tell from Rachel's white knuckles and almost-destroyed clutch that the girl needs to be distracted. "I'm gonna ask Britt to marry me."
Rachel turns around so fast Santana is almost concerned she'll get whiplash. "What?"
"I said-"
"But... are you two even dating right now?"
"No, but it's that same place we've always been, you know? So close, so far away?" Santana wondered if seeing that stupid play with the U2 songs had brainwashed her. "I know how hot she is, and with her trip to LA coming up..." Santana took a deep breath. "I don't like thinking she could meet some romantic guy she's known for two weeks to know what a catch she is, and what if he proposes? Or worse, what if she says yes?"
"Why aren't you two dating, anyway?" Rachel asked.
"Berry, you and me lived together for six months. Remember what I was like?"
"You and I," Rachel corrected, before adding, "and you mean that bitchy version of yourself when you've been studying the whole night for a test?"
"Yes, that one!"
"Well, you're a bitch to me all the time, and Brittany knows more than anyone how bitchy you can get, so... Oh!" Rachel and Santana stopped talking just long enough to join everyone in clapping for the... nominees? A man was walking up the stage, though, so apparently they'd just announced the winner.
"Do you think she'll say yes?" Santana asked, drawing Rachel's attention back to her, because if the disembodied voice announcing the next category even registered with the brunette, she could already witness the fruition of the panic attack waiting to happen.
Rachel turned back, because if there was anything more important to her than her awards, it was her friends and family. "I don't know, Santana. I mean, you two have tried and broken up so many times before... But I know Brittany thinks of you as her soul mate, and she's clearly the love of your life..."
"Straight answer, Hobbit!" Santana exclaimed.
Rachel knit her brow. "I don't know! I'm a romantic, Santana, and I want the two of you together. But Brittany has a logic system all her own and her perception of people and situations defies our own."
"You're no help at all!" Santana whined.
"I'm sorry!" Rachel returned, sinking in her seat and glancing to a point somewhere in the opposite side of the auditorium, where Quinn and Kurt were seated with Brittany. (She already had them in the same room, but she really hadn't wanted to jinx her chances.) "What do you want me to say, Santana?"
"I don't know." Santana glanced briefly to the stage, and saw the presenters opening the envelope, with Rachel's distracted visage onscreen alongside her fellow nominees' on the screen behind them. "Lie to me."
Rachel smirked, and turned to her, grinning widely. "Of course she'll say yes."
Santana grinned back, just as the audience around them burst into applause. "You just won, Yentl."
Rachel froze, and glanced around. Sure enough, everyone was clapping and looking at her expectantly. She turned back to Santana. "You're evil."
"It's my job, Tinkerbell." Santana shoved her out of her chair, causing Rachel to stumble out onto the aisle, putting on her best show face to disguise the fact that she'd just been shoved out of her seat by her friend in front of people she has admired her whole life (and she also tries to ignore the camera following her every move).
The Tony Award for Best Special Theatrical Event is safe from her this year.
Santana won't be so lucky, once she puts together a plan to get the lawyer back.