Written for the challenge by Gemelli22 and inspired in small part by a story that Lea Michele told in an interview with Seth Rudetsky.
The headline 'Snowpocalypse" is plastered on every newspaper stand in New York, and the sheer drama of the declaration sets his mind turning.
It's really been eight years, he thinks. He had come to New York after four years in California; itching to finally get his career started. She'd already been there for two, going to college at Tisch. He had caught glances of her here and there, at various shows and festivals, always with a loud, raucous group of girlfriends surrounding her.
It had surprised him how much she looked like a New Yorker, how happy and at home she seemed. And, so, he had made the decision to let her be. She didn't need him to complicate her life any further.
When they both landed somewhat successful Broadway roles, he scoffs at his previous naïveté. Obviously their meeting again is inevitable. He wonders if she knows it too.
But even the inevitable takes time to happen, and he finds himself waiting, though for what he's not sure. He just knows that every time he sets foot in Times Square, every time someone asks him to go out for a post-show drink or he is waiting in line for coffee, he wonders if this will be the day that he meets Rachel Berry again.
One Sunday in January the city that never sleeps is covered in snow, and his entire world becomes a playground. As the snow continues to fall, anything seems possible.
There are two people with a small child in the audience when he does the matinee of his show. The cast makes quick friends with their guests for the evening but the novelty of the situation is short-lived. The brilliant and dark comedic undertones of the show that Jesse has always admired is lost on children, and when the little girl starts whining, the couple decides to leave at intermission, thanking the actors from their seats in the front row.
The cast decides to do an abbreviated second act, anyway, filling in the usual dialogue with curses, gross humor and political satire. It's fun for a while, but everyone realizes soon enough that they would rather be elsewhere. Most of the cast are Broadway vets, with significant others and children at home, and instead of finding an open bar and some food, as one of the stage managers initially suggests, they all decide to just trudge home.
Even though he is not half as exhausted as he normally is, he still craves his normal post-show latte and pumpkin bread. The one Starbucks that is open takes him right past her stage door and he stops, makes his decision and hopes he won't regret it.
Unlike him, she and her cast make it through their whole show. It's one of those beloved movie musical adaptations and she and two of her costars are singing one of the main songs at the top of their voices when they come through the door.
He's standing there, freezing, with a Starbucks cup in each hand, waiting for her.
He swears he sees a hint of a smile when she recognizes him.
"I figured it would take an act of God for you to ever talk to me again," he says, gesturing as well as he can with his hands occupied to the sheer madness of the snow around them. "So here I am."
"You always knew how to make a dramatic entrance, Jesse," she says wistfully. She steps away from her friends and towards him. He reaches out and offers her the drink in his right hand. She reads the label, sees that it is soy, and takes a sip.
He thinks this is going as well as he could have hoped for. "It's my dramatic exits that get me into trouble," he says, with as much self-deprecation as he can muster.
She turns around, smiles at her friends and tells them to head out without her. She doesn't explain to them who this crazy man offering her coffee in the middle of the street is, but they don't ask either.
Now that he's used his opening line, and responded to hers, he's at a loss for what to say. He swears he had a whole monologue planned out but seeing her up close again has wiped the words from his brain. She looks the same, but older, still gorgeous, still sexy.
"So you made it to Broadway." She nods, starts playing in the snow with the toe of her left boot. "So did you." He nods too and another awkward silence takes residence in the already eerie quiet of the snowy street.
He decides it's all or nothing. "I'm sorry, Rachel. For everything. For Vocal Adrenaline winning at Regionals that year, for the eggs, for Shelby. All of it. I just … I've wanted to tell you for so long."
She's looking at him now. "Okay," she says softly.
He stares hard at her. "Okay? Is that it?"
She shrugs nonchalantly but the voice that comes out is angry, full of pain. "Well, what do you want me to say? That this makes up for ruining my life? For saying you loved me and then leaving me? That it's okay that it took you eight years to apologize? That it's fine that you've been in New York for four years and this is the first time you've said one word to me?"
Yes, he thinks, this is exactly what I want you to say. Because he needs to hear this from her, almost craves it. This isn't even close to the hell he's given himself in the last eight years.
"I'm sorry," he says again, but he feels as if it has lost any meaning.
"Stop saying that!" She flings her arm as she says it and the entire contents of her latte spills onto the front of his puffy jacket and drips slowly down, staining the snow.
It's far too close to an egging, and they both make the connection. She laughs, but it's short and mirthless.
"Did you ever really love me?" She almost whispers it, and he realizes that she's waited eight years for the answer to that question. He can hear in her voice the same longing he feels, the same regret.
"Almost from the beginning." He takes a deep breath. "Did you?"
She takes a while to respond. "Yes." She pauses, swallows. "It wouldn't still hurt this much if I didn't."
She realizes that she may have said too much, but she doesn't care. She can't live like this anymore. At 24, she still compares every guy that comes into her life to him. No one has ever understood her better, no one has ever come close. She needs resolution, one way or another.
All the trashcans are covered in snow, so he tosses his own drink to the floor, knocks the empty cup out of her hand. He grabs her around the waist, pulls her flush against his body. She doesn't resist.
He doesn't think that he could say what he is about to say under any other circumstance. It would seem ludicrous, but the snow has washed everything clean; their lives a blank slate.
"Rachel, I want to make love to you. Tonight." She nods, his forwardness, his words rendering her momentarily speechless, turning her on more than she's ever been in her life.
"Okay." She looks up at him, grasps his hand and leads them towards her apartment.
After he tells her the whole story behind how he got to her stage door that day, they track down and keep one of the newspapers with the headline that had inspired him to go after her.
Even though an apocalypse is a dramatic ending, a new beginning always follows, even if it is eight years in the making.