Author's note: This is companion piece to "An Illusion". Rachel's POV and a little continuation from where the previous installment left off, so it's recommended that you read that one first.
The applause is deafening. Her jaw's hurting from the smile she can't seem to get rid of.
It goes on for what feels like forever—a storm that will beautifully haunt Rachel for the rest of her life. Tonight marks the first of many openings that will surely make it to news stands the following day.
"Rachel Berry: London's Stunning Breakthrough in Decades"
It's not Broadway—yet. She'll make it there in time. Sometimes you need to get as far as possible from the destination to figure out the best routes. She'll go home, and the people who stepped her down will be on their knees, begging her to be part of their projects. She remembers each of their faces like a photo album grafted in her brain.
She'll go home and maybe Quinn will still be there waiting for her. Because she's still Rachel Fabray-Berry in her passport, in her driver's license, in every public government record, in everywhere.
And in the middle of her glory, she can't help but think about the message her wife's left for her on the answering machine.
There has to be a way to make a high school love affair work.
Rachel knows, she's sure of it, that there's some guaranteed pattern out there she needs to learn and share with Finn, because when she finally comes to the realization of what's right in front of their lives—
Well, it isn't exactly as easy as belting out a surprise performance of "Don't Rain On My Parade".
If anything, no amount of research gives Rachel enough assurance.
More than half of the couples from their neighborhood who had married their high school sweetheart are now divorced, and nearly broke from it. She knows some of them because her dads sometimes invite them for dinner. She's heard the end of their stories by the time she's finished with her salad.
At night she keeps looking at a picture of Finn, and her poster of the Big Apple, and they just don't fit together. To be honest, the closest he can ever get to is New Jersey.
The reality of it all tears Rachel's heart to pieces.
That is why, she agrees to marry Finn. It might be the only way she can take him with her. Finn will belong to New York like Rachel—because he's going to be permanently a part of her.
What she doesn't count on is Finn, surprisingly having a dream of his own.
What she doesn't count on, is that it's somewhere on the far opposite side of her own.
A single call cancels the wedding. Some other couple gets married at four in the afternoon. Rachel doesn't bother getting out of her wedding dress when she rushes to the hospital to see Quinn. She wears it while sitting idly inside the emergency room, guilt eating the life out of her.
Quinn would've been on her feet, unscathed and 100% alive if it weren't for the accident.
There'd be no accident, if there's no wedding to attend to.
There'd be no wedding, if only Rachel didn't want everything too much.
A part of her is relieved that she didn't got married to Finn Hudson at eighteen, barely out of high school and in a small chapel in Lima, Ohio. It makes her feel disgusted with her self, knowing that it's at the expense of Quinn, broken and unconscious on a hospital bed.
At exactly five minutes before midnight, a noisy red signal sets off to inform the hospital residents that trauma patient Lucy Quinn Fabray's heart, is no longer showing any sign of electrical activity. To every person who studies medicine, this is the most common definition of death.
"Hey..."
Quinn's voice, just a tad more hoarse than normal, but it's hers.
And in this moment, it's all that matters to Rachel more than the wedding band she still wears around her finger. Or the fact that she barely had anything in her stomach for a week now.
She refuses to look at Quinn, pretending to be asleep, until the blonde's fingers graze against her ear, and she finally turns her head to face the broken girl lying on this stiff bed.
"Quinn," She cries, and doesn't care about how unattractive she is when her nose's snotty and just a hundred times less desirable compared to Quinn's. "You were dead for a few minutes, when the doctors came to—"
Rachel's words break, as she feels the soft pad of Quinn's thumb wipe a steady stream of tears from her cheek.
"Please don't cry." It's hard to say if she's actually hearing the words and not imagining them.
When she meets half-lidded hazel eyes, she feels the ability to say no to Quinn slipping away.
Finn brings up their wedding a week after Quinn's been released from the hospital. He is hopeful and smiling and telling Rachel that maybe it was a sign from Jesus that they should wait for a better location, a better wedding cake and all their guests more approving of their union. They can even do it wherever Nationals will be held this year.
Rachel merely nods through it all, keeps on a tight smile that Finn won't ever find the need to question.
They could still marry a few years from now, perhaps when they are able to view the recent events in a comical manner at their annual high school reunion.
They could.
But Rachel's afraid she can never get over indirectly causing Lima's most devastating car crash of the year. Or the fact that Quinn was actually dead for exactly three minutes and twenty-two seconds.
For the first time, Rachel feels discomfort when Quinn catches her and Finn in the hallway, along with a sudden urge to shrug off his left arm resting languidly around Rachel shoulders.
It's Quinn first day back at McKinley, and Rachel doesn't know why she instantly withdraws her hand at the sight of the approaching blonde in a wheelchair. Her first thought is how Quinn manages sincere smile as if what happened a month ago is merely a distant nightmare that didn't leave her temporarily crippled.
When Finn asks her what's wrong, she pretends not to hear him.
"It's Quinn, isn't it? She told you to do this to me." Finn states, jaws clenched tightly.
"Finn, it's not—"
"She's always trying to ruin my life."
"—her."
Finn visibly recoils. Rachel continues before her mouth goes completely dry. "I know how much you were disappointed when the wedding didn't push through. It feels as if I've stomped on our promise, my and it...'"
Rachel sighs. "I know I've hurt you," Finn's silence, if anything, affirms it. "I just- I can't bear to do it anymore."
"So you're breaking up with me."
"I'm saying I can't marry you."
But all he's hearing are the words not being said.
Finn begs for one final kiss. Rachel's more than willing to give it to him.
It's the second lamp they knock down this afternoon. "Sorry". Finn mutters an empty apology as he pushes Rachel against the wall, securing her strong, tanned legs around his waist as he clumsily tries to set a rhythm that will bring them over the edge, and come for the second time around. They're fucking like rabbits in Rachel's bedroom, not even two days after their wobbly breakup. Finn unceremoniously showed up earlier with a bouquet of roses, smelling good and dashing in a red polo shirt. And as soon as Rachel informs him that her dads are out for a weekend getaway, clothes are soon being discarded.
She likes being in love, the thrill of urgent sex, the feeling of someone wanting her like this, of losing control. She doubts that Quinn's ever been in a relationship as intense as theirs. Or if she's knocked down lamps and not care at all. To put it simply, Rachel doesn't think the blonde's ever felt this way for anyone else.
Which is why, Quinn will never understand why she can't give this up even if she tries.
Rachel's mortified to realize she's having these thoughts while Finn is buried deep inside of her.
When they're done catching their breaths, Finn says, "I bet we can do this, Rach. It doesn't need to be this complicated. I promise to keep us together until we graduate out of college, I swear I'll be in the league in a few years and you're—"
"Okay."
"We'll still get married."
"I love you."
"I love you, too."
Everyone finds out, no thanks to Kurt.
She can't bring herself to look at Quinn while she listens to every justification of why being with Finn can destroy everything she's ever hoped for.
Compromise doesn't exist in Finn's world, Rachel.
He may want you, but that doesn't mean he wants your dreams too.
She listens, but she's deaf to reason. Instead, she wonders why Quinn's putting all her energy to making Rachel's dreams come true for her.
Rachel has her suspicions.
But it's Quinn. So she might be wrong.
Still, whatever Quinn's motives were, Rachel can't shake the truth that Quinn is right.
She forgets about those suspicions as soon as she gets out of Ohio. Her focus is on Julliard now, and making a long-distance relationship work. Quinn's surprisingly supportive of her, visits her every weekend, and at some point Rachel feels as though her friend's finally come to respect her decisions. It's not like she's made the wrong ones anyway. She'll be on the fast track to Broadway in a year or two.
Quinn's the only high school friendship she's managed to maintain, and it becomes something Rachel's not quite used to. Not because it's Quinn—the former Cheerio whose favorite past time used to be throwing slushies at her face without even batting an eyelash— but the fact that she's more invested in this then Rachel.
From time to time, she still wonders when things took a 360-degree turn for them.
At what point did Quinn decide she wants to keep Rachel in her life? True, Yale isn't that far from Rachel's dorm, but still, she doesn't think a lot of people would be willing to consistently take more than two hours of travel time to meet someone from their past.
That, and Finn's quarterly visits helps Rachel survive freshman year.
She travels to New Haven for a change, and the smell of a delicious home-cooked meal welcomes Rachel, even before Quinn greets her at the door wearing an over-sized Yale shirt and pajamas.
Quinn takes her coat, and says "Stay there and don't move. Dinner will be ready in a few", before running back into a cloud of smoke.
"Don't you need help in the kitchen?"
"I'm serious, don't try to do the dishes or sweep the floor." Rachel smiles fondly, vaguely remembering the last time she heard that tone of Quinn's— laced with something that sounds like a death-sentence.
"Okay." Rachel concedes and instead, takes the rare opportunity to observe Quinn.
It's hard to believe that this Quinn is someone she knew way back in High School. She doesn't look like anything like the girl who went through a teen pregnancy, a divorce, an identity crisis that left her with permanent mark of some celebrity's face on the small of her back—
But this girl is mature, but passionate about life, books, and art.
If Rachel were to meet Quinn for the first time today, she won't think this person's gone through all of that.
Half way through sophomore year, intimacy becomes a problem for Finn.
At Rachel's suggestion, they try a hand at phone sex.
But you can't really call it that, when only half of the party finishes every time.
The first time she doesn't return Finn's call, she's at one of the most prestigious restaurant in Manhattan, celebrating their young charmed lives. She doesn't know half of the people in the group, but that's Rachel's life nowadays.
She knows everybody, even though she doesn't. Not really.
She never really expected New York to change her at the very least. But then again, things have happened in the past that weren't exactly included in her 5-year long plan.
By now Rachel has almost forgotten the need to share the details of her life. She's come to appreciate mystery.
(…and has recently discovered she enjoys leaving people wanting more.)
Perhaps because nobody really pays attention to your personal life, your history, or your relationships. Life generally revolves around success and failure, business and money, career and lifestyle. Rachel's learned which ones belong to the foreground. And everything else, she basically keeps to herself.
So when Quinn asks her how she has been, there isn't really much to tell aside from how other people around her are doing so well.
She's drunk— the drunkest she's ever been in her entire life— when Finn calls, angry, and questioning her nightly activities with her so-called "friends" from Julliard.
He doesn't say it aloud, but Rachel knows when Finn's words turn into unwarranted accusations.
Their fights become more frequent. Quinn stays longer hours. Sometimes she spends the night, rocking the brunette back and forth until the tremors subside.
"You guys are going to be okay."
She can't believe that she's hearing this from Quinn, of all people.
"You're just saying that to make me feel better."
Quinn smiles, and seeing it, Rachel does feel a lot better. "That and because I believe in you, Rachel. You don't give up on things you love unless it's for something you love more. I learned that from you."
Finn flies in one Saturday.
He shows up unexpected at her doorstep, and it reminds Rachel of a much similar experience that led them to their most memorable sex, and the choice of staying together while being thousands of miles apart.
"God, I've missed you."
Her excitement stifles when Finn responds with a tight smile, followed by a long and heavy sigh.
It completely shatters, when he awkwardly says, "We need to talk."
"You just don't tell me things anymore, Rach. We talk, but we don't… you know, really talk."
"Finn, I'm trying here."
"I know, Rach. But I don't think it's enough."
"At least he has the decency to do it in person, babe."
Apparently, it's a New Yorker's way of comforting someone in a profound grief. Look at what you have, and then look for someone's who's gotten worse.
Rachel waits until Quinn's done with midterms before telling her. And then she packs her belongings as soon as Finn leaves, and buys a bus ticket to New Haven.
It's the way Quinn's looking at her, and the way she's not taking advantage of Rachel's drunken state.
She sees the hunger, the vivid primal want in Quinn's eyes that she hasn't seen in Finn's even after they haven't been together in months.
So she dares the blonde to tell the truth, to reveal everything Rachel already knows. When Quinn gives in, Rachel finally understands that no one else will ever be this devoted to her. And so she rewards Quinn with her wet tongue, lacing it against the blonde's, fingers running through a pale shade of yellow, and her heart—
It's not pounding the way she wants it to, but Quinn feels warm everywhere and it doesn't make Rachel feel so alone anymore.
Rachel hasn't felt so wanted like this for so long, she just misses it so badly sometimes.
At first, she just wants to prove that she'd been right about Quinn all along, but then, she also discovers that Quinn is exquisitely soft in a way Finn will never be as her mouth travels down the length of Quinn's torso. Everything's fuzzy, and uncertain. The trembling body beneath her is every bit surreal, and she allows herself to get lost in the feeling of Quinn.
Memories of her ex-boyfriend's grunts being replaced by breathy moans she never thought she'll have against her ear.
Quinn Fabray smells different—feminine and powerful.
Forgetting Finn Hudson is easier this way, with Quinn's taste delicious, and heavy on her tongue.
