A/N: Long-awaited sequel to 'it's all in the being here'. (Can stand alone, as well. Not deeply connected, just takes place afterwards in the same universe.) Sorry it took so long, everyone. I just saw that the original was about to reach it's sixty day limit in the Document Manager and realized how long it had been. So I got right on it and the words thankfully started flowing! Funny how my muse works so much better under pressure sometimes, eh?
Written in second person, 'you' being Rachel. Oh, and a future fic of sorts.
Pretty angst-y throughout, but not a depressing ending by any means; I don't think.
Hope you enjoy it!
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Yells that surely echo in the surrounding apartments, awful words spoken both way. Then the slam of the door, the sudden quiet – or as quiet as it can get in the city that never sleeps – above all else, on the brink of closing in and suffocating you.
Your breathing's heavy, your eyes threatening imminent tears that you try to blink away (because you're hard-wired to avoid showing weakness, even when you're alone), and you end up closing them as a tear slips out unnoticed.
You should clean up the broken glass on the floor from a vase you could care less about, pick up the few pictures frames laying scattered on the carpet, be ready to assure your quite nosey and over-protective elderly neighbor Delilah that you're fine when she surely comes a-knocking (she never fails, after this kind of ruckus) … but you just collapse onto the small, beat-up old couch because you need a moment to think.
To regroup; to think back on how you ever got here.
When did it come to this, you wonder sadly? Fights once a week if not more often, less and less joyful and secure times in between; screaming matches that warrant visits from concerned neighbors; broken pictures frames carrying memories long since past of happier times when things were easier (or easier to deal with, at the very least, if not easier or simple in the strictest sense).
You miss how it was in the beginning. The easy grace you held about you and you strutted your stuff up and down Manhattan, coming home to a man who loved you (and still does, you're sure of deep down in your heart). It was hard, and the apartment was in worse shape then, and many months you'd have to decide whether hydro or heat was more of a necessity (because you're both far too proud to ask your families for help paying bills or getting by), but you were happier. You were both still so full of hope.
A funny thing, it is; hope.
So strong and unwavering in a person's heart, beginning to grow weaker with time and more brittle with each passing failure. It wasn't hard at first to get over a bad audition or a part not gotten (which, admittedly, was gotten far less than it was not); because it was easy to look to the next one and believe that you really had a shot. Not so easy now, after an endless string of directors has torn you to pieces, always finding some reason or another for why you weren't perfect enough for the part. It's almost as though they're broken records of each other, eventually running out of new material and recycling insults and not-so-easy let downs.
How your height is lacking, your waist too wide, your presence too insignificant on stage (you often wonder if they're actually seeing you when they say that, because since when has Rachel Berry ever had too little stage presence?), your nose far too big. Your voice too annoying and nasally (which, you'd like it to be known, it most certainly is not) … And your personal favorite: lacking in experience and professionalism. You'd like to know how they expect you to gain professionalism and experience when no one's giving you a chance.
But chin up as always; keep smiling and keep trudging on. Easier in theory than in practice, and definitely more practical in theory; because the longer one puts on a façade, the less confidence they have to be who they are (you should know), and the less easy it is to put themselves out there and face rejection after rejection.
Only just recovering from the hell that was your high school experience, the criticism definitely wasn't (and isn't) helping your case anyway.
But he was always there, wasn't he. At the end of the day spent waitressing to pay the bills, or the end of a day standing in lines for two minute auditions that never amounted to anything, he was there. Working his own way as a mechanic, he definitely had less disappointment in his life than you did; the only thing he had to put up with was seeing you so miserable.
You wonder if that's where you went wrong; if he finally got so sick of picking you up when you were down like some self-pitying fool, and that's why he's at the end of his fuse so often recently. As often as you are; and that's saying something.
Oh, and let it be known that Noah is far from the sole inducer of the arguments. For more than a fair share of them, the blame lays mostly upon your shoulders. (He's just the one who ends up walking out the door before one of you manages to say something you'll really regret.)
There's a quiet knock on the door, and you really don't want to get up, but you think that Mrs. Boughermeyer will probably actually call the police if you don't let it be known that you're still alive and breathing. Gently pushing off and rising, taking one step – cautious of the broken glass – while wiping your face clear and running a hand through your hair, you sigh.
But the door pops open just moments after the soft knock, and it's not Mrs. Boughermeyer come to check that you're alright. It's Noah, a sheepish look on his face, and your heart crumbles as tears well up in your eyes. He's back earlier than usual, and he usually misses the overly-emotional part, so you turn your back to him and put a hand to your mouth to stifle the unattractive sobs trying to escape from your throat.
His arms wrap around you from behind, and all hell breaks loose. You can't contain yourself any longer, and he gets caught up in the whirlwind. Because God, are you sick and tired of this; tired of fighting and being all strung out and being so goddamn miserable. You just want to be happy again.
You want to come home stressed out, and smile when you see him standing barefoot in the kitchen, and forget all your worries when you see the latest disastrous attempt at making a recipe from one of your cookbooks. ('No,' you'd tell him laughing, 'you can't substitute carrot cake for carrots.') You want to laugh and wince as you chew the burnt concoctions, tease him and suggest a cooking class you know he'd never, ever in a million years take, even if it was in your budget. ('I don't need a cooking class, baby,' he'd say, 'I'm a stud.' As if it made a difference as to his skills in the kitchen.) You want to cuddle up with him on the couch the way you used to in the bed of his truck, watching movies on the laptop instead of gazing up at the stars the way you used to.
You want to blast Journey through the speakers, pissing off all the neighbors – and not caring at all – and dance and sing in a pair of old sweats and one of his large T-shirts. You want to have him chase you around the apartment afterwards, Journey still playing on in the background as he picks you up and throws you down on the bed before climbing on top of you. You want to get back to where you were before; back to the happiness and the laughter and the kind of tears that didn't end in him breaking a vase you couldn't really care less about and slamming the door behind him.
It's like the two of you somehow skipped the marriage – and the honeymoon – and all the bliss, and ended up in the miserable middle-aged phase where everything is horrible (including and especially your relationship) and nothing's going right. And it sucks.
But you have the power, you've decided; even though at the moment you're sobbing into his shirt and have never felt more out of control. You have the power, and first order of business (after, of course, cleaning up what might as well be the wake of a tornado – and what is hopefully the last of the sort) is to go about changing that.
You're jaded, and bitter, and you don't feel at all like that teenage girl you're trying to get back to, but if there's one thing you haven't managed to lose (not really, at least; even though maybe you thought you had) is your fiery determination.
Because you don't know how, but you're going to make it happen. And judging by the way he's holding on to you tight and whispering sweet, sincere apologies in your ear, you think he'll be on board voluntarily.
Though you'd make it happen some other way, somehow, if you needed to; even by simply willing it into being.
You are still Rachel Berry, after all.
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Can't promise a speedy follow-up, lol, but anyone want one more, at least? I'm thinking their wedding day, possibly ... (;
Please review! Whether you liked it or though it was terrible!