Rachel has a notebook in her desk in which she keeps Very Important Lists: every book she has read and every movie she has seen since the beginning of sixth grade, ideal roles in a variety of plays, movies, and television shows, and her favorite musical (updated as often as necessary) since the beginning of third grade.
The first musical listed, which was actually her favorite well before the beginning of third grade, is Into the Woods. It is no coincidence that her list of ideal roles includes both Red Riding Hood, which she anticipates playing before she turns eighteen, and the Witch, which she hopes to someday perform in front of Bernadette Peters. Rachel knows that Ms. Peters did not actually originate the role on Broadway, but she does appear on the original cast recording, and therefore it is her that Rachel wants to impress. Rachel knows all the words to the prologue (and most of the other songs, too) before she goes into the second grade.
Her favorite is "Maybe They're Magic," a short song for the Baker's Wife in which she justifies unsavory actions that she and her husband must take. "If the end is right," she sings in the last line, "it justifies the beans." At age seven, Rachel doesn't understand that this is a pun. In fact, in high school, when she finally pieces it together, she thinks she has discovered something important before she runs downstairs to tell her dad and he just laughs.
Regardless of the fact that she doesn't get the pun, she does get the message: you can do bad things, so long as you have a good reason. This doesn't always stop her from feeling guilty about the bad things she does, but it helps. Rachel's reasons are always good.
When Rachel is in fourth grade, she decides that she hates lima beans. That's how she justifies her decision to subtly sweep all the beans on her dinner plate into her napkin and throw them away. The end was right, and it justified the beans. She grins, proud of herself for applying the songs logic so literally.
In seventh grade, Rachel realizes that if she misses gym class, she will have extra time to practice for her upcoming dance recital. Even though lying to teachers is, she knows, not exactly acceptable behavior, she thinks it's worth it. She tells her teacher that she has her period (even though she hasn't actually gotten it yet, and is very fuzzy on the mechanics of the whole thing), and clutches her stomach, and limps into the hall where she immediately breaks into her dance. She rocks the recital, and does not use that excuse again until high school, when it wasn't an excuse.
In ninth grade, Rachel cheated on a math test. Getting an A in Geometry was crucial to maintain her 4.0, and preparation for an upcoming concert had left her short on time to study. She wrote equations on the inside of her left wrist and prayed no one would notice as she slid her sleeve up. No one did. Rachel got a 97 on the test and kept her 4.0 intact. She felt bad, but it was worth it, and she doesn't cheat again.
When Rachel tells Finn about Quinn and Puck and the baby, she tells herself that it's justified, because she cares so much about Finn. Finn needs to get out of Lima, which he won't do if Quinn has his baby, so Rachel does a bad thing in service of a good thing. She tells herself it has nothing to do with wanting Finn for herself, and certainly nothing to do with wanting to punish Quinn for being a bitch all freshman year.
She feels guilty afterwards, but it isn't until she starts to become friends with Quinn during junior year that she thinks maybe she'd been lying to herself about what end her actions were serving. She is afraid that maybe she did it because she wanted Finn, and, having since had and lost Finn several times, she realizes that maybe that wasn't a worthwhile end.
She doesn't feel even remotely guilty about Sunshine and the crack house. Her reasons were impeccable: Mr. Schuester, with his vague and misguided ideas about equality mattering more than success, would have given Sunshine some of her solos. This would have negatively impacted not just Rachel, but the club as a whole. In fact, she thinks, the situation would have justified sending Sunshine (what kind of a name is Sunshine, anyway?) to an active crack house. The girl got off easy. Later, when Mr. Schuester still gives her solo for Sectionals away, Rachel feels reassured, once again, that she made the right choice in eliminating Ms. Corazon from the competition.
One afternoon, Rachel sits in her dormer window watching Quinn paint her toenails on her bedroom floor. They have only recently moved firmly into the "friend" camp, and Rachel's guilt has been eating her alive.
"Quinn?" she says quietly.
"Hmm?" The blonde girl smiles and looks up.
"I need to tell you something. Well, to apologize, really." Rachel brings her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around them, suddenly looking impossibly small.
Quinn is instantly concerned. She carefully puts the lid back on the nail polish bottle and moves to sit across from Rachel in the window seat.
"What's up, Rach?"
"Well," Rachel starts, drawing out the word as if to stop the conversation in its tracks. "Do you remember — I mean — of course you remember — when I told Finn about — about Beth?"
Quinn looks stung. "Of course," she says, drawing her knees up to match Rachel's closed-off posture. "Why?"
"When I did that, I thought I had a really good reason. I thought that I was doing it to help Finn not get stuck in Lima and make something of her life." She looks to Quinn for some sort of response, but the other girl is preternaturally still. "But that's not why I did it. I didn't have a good reason. I'm really sorry. I hope we can still be friends."
Quinn stares at her in silence for almost a full minute before she speaks. "Would it matter?"
Rachel looks up, confused. "Would what matter?"
"Would it matter if you had a good reason? Would you not be sorry?"
Rachel considers the question.
"It might have, once. But no, I guess, now, it wouldn't. I don't like — I don't want — that is — I don't ever want to cause you pain. And I know that that — that what I did — it caused you a lot of pain. So no, it wouldn't matter."
Quinn nods and stares out the window.
Rachel thinks, bitterly, that Sondheim got it wrong. The end doesn't justify the means at all. She looks back at the other times she's used that justification, and the awful things she's done. She wonders who else she's hurt.
Quinn interrupts this train of thought when she reaches out to place her hand on Rachel's arm. Rachel smiles, tentatively. They sit like that, framed in the fading Lima sunlight, for almost an hour before Quinn speaks again.
"Okay," she says.
"Okay?" Rachel says, blankly.
"Okay," Quinn says, again. She moves closer to Rachel, rests her hair on the shorter girl's knee. Rachel runs her hair through the golden hair that spills over her legs. "Okay."