Rachel Berry believed she possessed the skills of a leader. She was not a follower, not Rachel Berry. She felt it from the pit of her stomach to the back of her eyelids that she was going places in life. She knew this because her Dad and Daddy told her so after she won her first singing competition when she was five. "Rachel, you are going places, sweet pea, just you wait!" Her Dad exclaimed while her Daddy nodded enthusiastically and swept Rachel up into a hug. Rachel did not really know how to get to these places, but she figured she'd sort out the directions eventually.
Rachel's childhood was a happy one. Her house filled with music and the flirty laughter shared by her fathers. Her days spent running around on playgrounds and digging castles in the sand: Her boundless enthusiasm a magnet for the neighborhood children. Rachel's Dad and Daddy made her feel secure, encouraged, deeply loved. Her singing talent and drive propelled her forward and, by the time Rachel was thirteen, her fathers converted the downstairs den into a Rachel Berry shrine of sorts. After all, Rachel won so many trophies and ribbons and framed certificates of achievement that they had to put them somewhere. And Rachel's room was no longer an option after she persuaded her fathers to buy her an elliptical machine. A star must have the body to match the talent.
Rachel held onto her view of the world as inviting and clearly infatuated with her talents – not just any girl received so many awards that it warranted a room to house them – until freshman year in high school. It seemed to Rachel as if that was when her life actually began. Her time in the spotlight with applause raining down and accolades sliding off the tongues of others was a fantasy, she decided. Two cherry slushies thrown on her at the end of the second week of school cemented her new reality. Her peers, once her playground and neighborhood friends, for the most part now shunned her. Where once they found her excitable nature infectious, they now regarded it as draining and annoying.
Rachel's defense was to carry on as normal. She remained bubbly, outwardly optimistic, and sure of her talents. She volunteered for every school activity for which she even remotely met the requirements. Yes, she should join the Black Student Union since she wanted to honor the heritage of her father. Yes, she should join the Renaissance Club because those students truly needed her help in learning how to properly add Old Latin flair to their song selection. Yes, she should join the track team as the inspirational leader of the group. Rachel believed there was no better motivational tool than the power of her voice to speed the runners to victory.
When one by one the clubs kicked her out, she adapted easily and came up with a new tactic. She'd form a club of her own…and the only member she needed to that end was herself. She approached Principal Figgins with the idea of creating a welcoming committee of sorts for incoming students. Figgins approved her idea immediately: He'd had enough of teacher and student complaints about Rachel brashly infiltrating school groups. He reckoned that no one could grumble about Rachel being in this group since she was the only member.
Exactly one week after Rachel's conversation with Figgins, her "club" welcomed its first assignment. Rachel re-read the note from Principal Figgins as she bounded down the hallway of McKinley. She was on the lookout for a female transfer student, name Quinn Fabray, locker number 213. Rachel rounded the corner and glanced toward locker 213. She stopped walking as soon as her eyes connected to the blonde girl now putting books inside her locker. Rachel watched the girl's fingers gracefully navigate from book bag to locker and back again. She swallowed hard, picked up her right foot and set it forward, and marched closer to locker 213. Rachel was on the verge of speaking to Quinn when the girl glanced up and past Rachel's head. As Rachel walked right toward locker 213, she was for the first time able to fully take in the hazel of Quinn's eyes, the angular, strong line of her jaw, the waves that curled in her hair. Rachel sped past Quinn, took the next left down the hall, and went to class early.
"So much for being a leader," Rachel whispered to herself as she sat down in class approximately ten full minutes ahead of schedule.
That night Rachel was beyond sleep and wrapped in her thoughts. Quinn, Rachel quickly determined, was one of those girls so pretty that it made you hate yourself for not being as beautiful. Quinn's beauty embarrassed Rachel and made her feel awkward. Rachel was hyperaware of these types of feelings. It was just last year that she experienced something similar. Her Dad and Daddy went away for a weekend conference – usually one of them stayed behind if the other had to leave town for work. In their sweet but overprotective way, a full month in advance of their trip they asked their Rabbi if she knew of any good babysitters over the age of eighteen. Rachel vehemently protested the arrangement for a solid week before the trip…right up until her Daddy opened the door and Rachel saw the girl hired to babysit her. Rachel's mouth shut and her chest tightened. This, this girl was stunningly good looking. Rachel fleetingly wondered why she'd never seen her in temple.
Rachel did not know how to talk to her "babysitter," so she spent much of the weekend in her room. When she ventured outside the confines of her safety net, the beauty of the girl who tried in vain to nudge Rachel into conversation would just unravel Rachel all over again. Rachel found she could not articulate thoughts, felt clumsy and uncouth, and embarrassed in her own skin. It was best if Rachel stayed in her room. Her Dad and Daddy kept her in that room even longer when they returned home to the girl's report that Rachel barely spoke the whole weekend and largely kept to herself. They both knew that was highly unlike their talkative, attention-seeking daughter. Surely she must be sick. Rachel let them believe just that and it allowed her a day off from school…but even more time to think of curly auburn hair, bright blue eyes, and a sparkling smile.
Now, lying in the same bed, Rachel replaced auburn hair with blonde and blue eyes for hazel. She turned to face her window and resolved that Rachel Barbara Berry was going to approach Quinn Fabray the next day and act like a normal human being. She would engage her in conversation. In preparation, Rachel flung herself out of bed, opened her laptop, and spent the rest of the night researching current events topics. Should her mind and body betray her tomorrow, maybe she could power through it by, for instance, asking if Quinn knew much about the local string of convenience store robberies.
As the weeks passed, Rachel was confident her plan was working. She rarely talked about herself to Quinn and, really, Quinn was not much of a talker at all. Rachel overcompensated for Quinn's silence by talking even more: About income tax regulations, the new sewage system plant being built at the edge of Lima, the complaints of residents over a Starbucks possibly replacing the local coffee shop - anything! Rachel was becoming a pro when it came to local news, which she reasoned also served the purpose of preparing her for any future political career.
Quinn offered very little information to Rachel; usually she just nodded, smiled politely, or let her eyes stray to whatever briefly caught her attention. Rachel preferred it that way because when Quinn looked at her, Rachel almost always faltered. Quinn would stare at her with an expression that baffled Rachel, who prided herself on being able to read facial cues quite well. It helped prepare her for any future Broadway roles. Yet Quinn's look was mysterious and rarely offered to her. For Rachel, it was also perplexing and endlessly frustrating.
One day Rachel was extolling the virtues of Streisand when Quinn graced her with that look. Rachel felt words get stuck in her throat and she was just barely able to grasp at tidbits of information to force them out of her mouth. Suddenly, Quinn turned to Rachel and stood so close that Rachel unconsciously stepped back.
Quinn spoke up, "Look, Rachel, I get that you feel like you have to take me under your wing, or whatever. But I think I got this whole school thing down. You should probably be on your way. You know, back to your life and friends?"
Rachel thought Quinn must be joking. Or did she actually believe she was merely some type of charity case for Rachel? "Quinn…I think you misunderstand. Yes, I was chosen to show you around the school but now I feel as if we could be good friends. You seem quite…"
Quinn cut her off. "Rachel, I'm a cheerleader now. You, you are…well…not. We have nothing in common. Leave me be!"
And with that, Quinn silenced Rachel. Rachel stood stock still and watched Quinn rush toward the corridor. Rachel fleetingly wondered how she did not know that Quinn was on the cheerleading squad. She shrugged it off, and for the first time of many, Rachel followed after Quinn.
"So much for being a leader," Rachel mumbled under her breath as she actually started to run, desperation suddenly fueling her adrenaline, after Quinn. She ran until someone ran into her. Rachel bounced backwards and down as seemingly all the breath left her body in a rush of air and exasperation.
"Oh, gosh, Rachel, I'm so sorry!" Finn Hudson exclaimed, towering above her.
"Nevermind," Rachel managed to breathe out. She quickly regained her footing – thank you very much to her elliptical machine for her ability to recover so speedily – and moved forward again. Finn stopped her by tugging lightly at her arm.
"Finn, I assure you that I am okay. In the future, please watch where you are going. I have to find Quinn, so I am sorry that I do not have time for a conversation."
"Actually," Finn began, rather bashfully. "I wanted to talk to you about Quinn."
Rachel held her breath, counted to ten, and waited for the inevitable. "What about Quinn?" she asked him.
"Well…do you know if she is seeing anyone? You know, any boys? I've asked some of the guys on the football team. They don't know and you hang around her, so…" He trailed off.
Rachel listened to Finn with a blank look on her face. Of course Finn would like Quinn! Rachel could have predicted this turn of events, but she hadn't planned on the sudden jealously that sprung up within her like a brush fire. She glared up at Finn and calmly said, "I honestly have no idea, Finn. A girl as pretty as Quinn most likely has many, many suitors. I wish you the best of luck in your pursuit." Without so much as a backwards glance, Rachel left Finn standing, forlorn, in the hallway.
She never found Quinn that day at school. She went home and re-played her conversations with Quinn (too brief) and Finn (too long) over and over on a loop. She fell asleep that night with words echoing in her mind, words that she wanted Quinn to say to her instead of the ones asking Rachel to leave her alone: "I like you, Rachel. Can't you tell by the way I look at you?" Rachel preferred this version of the conversation. She liked the idea that Quinn liked her.
Rachel's mission the next day at school was simple: Corner Quinn. Make Quinn talk to her. When she spotted Quinn, though, her plan seemed null and void. Finn had Quinn in a corner. Finn was making Quinn talk to him. Rachel thought about interrupting them. Then she heard the melody of Quinn's laugh, saw her hand glide down Finn's shoulder, watched as Finn stepped even closer to Quinn. Rachel turned in the opposite direction without looking back. Had she been only two minutes late in arriving to school, the scene she witnessed between Quinn and Finn would have encouraged her to approach Quinn instead of turning from her. Quinn left Finn standing, perplexed, as she thought up a vague excuse to remove herself from the situation after enduring – in her most polite fashion – probably the dumbest joke she'd ever heard. Rachel would have seen the frown on Finn's face as Quinn moved away from him. She would have seen Quinn grimace and roll her eyes after she turned her back on him. She would have been looking right at Quinn because Quinn was watching as Rachel walked away.
It became easier for Rachel to accept that she had no place in Quinn's life. She occupied herself by staring at Finn every time she thought no one would notice. Could Quinn actually like this guy? He was bumbling and a little on the stupid side. He was kind, though. Rachel eventually made a pros and cons list of Finn's attributes to see if she could gauge Quinn's possible attraction to the boy. She marked out all the cons on her list the day she learned that the two were dating.
She added two pros to the list when she found out about Quinn's pregnancy: "Able to manipulate a girl into having unprotected sex with him and, thus, impregnating her. Able then to hold onto said girl and seem like a hero for sticking by her during stressful and difficult times."
It was really an accident, the way in which Rachel learned that Noah Puckerman was the real father of Quinn's baby. Rachel was acutely aware of anyone who paid Quinn a great deal of attention. She was not blind to the fact that, lately, Puck hovered near Quinn any time the two were in the same vicinity. One day in Glee Rachel noticed that Puck ran his hand along Quinn's stomach during a dance routine, which was not part of the choreography at all. Quinn brushed Puck's hand away with a scowl and her body seemed to draw in on itself. The truth clicked in Rachel's mind with such force that she backed into Santana in the middle of the routine. She barely felt Santana nudge her sharply in the elbow and huff back into position with a grunt of disgust aimed at Rachel.
She tried to give Quinn a way out, a way to tell her about the baby's paternity. She thought about the issue for days until she stumbled upon a way to connect Puck to the baby. She hated to bring her religion into the mix and inwardly loathed herself more than a little for stooping so low. Yet she was desperate for Quinn to explain the situation. She wanted Quinn to justify her actions. What Rachel really wanted more than anything was a way to forgive Quinn. It was hard to love someone who was lying to others for reasons that Rachel failed to grasp. Had Quinn told the truth and allowed Rachel even the barest of insights into her reasoning, Rachel was fairly certain she would have kept the secret with Quinn. She wanted something that they could share, even if it was a lie.
Rachel told Finn the truth for the most selfish and juvenile of reasons. Everyone believed – and she let them believe, so wasn't she as much a liar as Quinn? – that she told Finn because she cared deeply for his feelings. Really, though, Finn found out because Rachel was angry at Quinn. She was in love with a girl who barely spoke to her and lied to her about half the time they carried on a conversation. It was pretty sick and twisted, Rachel bitterly admitted. And it made her angry. So, why not hurt Quinn? At least maybe then Quinn would feel something for her, even if it was the same anger that Rachel harbored toward Quinn.
Instead of comforting Finn following his attack on Puck, Rachel trailed out after Quinn. All the anger left Rachel as soon as she saw Quinn's face when Finn first hit Puck. Rachel barely remembers the fight since all her attention was on Quinn. Looking at Quinn made her body feel the same as it did that day Finn accidentally knocked her down in the hallway: Empty of air and overcome with the urge to run. Quinn's shell-shocked look as she sat in the corridor of McKinley initially produced a similar reaction in Rachel. She felt badly startled and on the verge of tears. She was shaking and fitting one of the oldest clichés in the world, literally wringing her hands. She wanted to hug Quinn. Maybe that would stop her shaking. Instead, she just mumbled over and over that she was sorry. And she realized for the first time how very, very deeply she loved Quinn. She was no longer angry at Quinn for lying. She was no longer angry at all. She just wanted to love Quinn, but she knew that was not an option. She was not a suitor for Quinn's heart. Rachel realized that this was why she had been angry in the first place: She knew Quinn didn't want her. It was a terrible, lonely feeling. Yet she did not feel so alone right now with Quinn by her side. She came away from their talk with the nagging, guilty feeling that Quinn somehow comforted her far more than Rachel ever could Quinn.
She dated Finn for the last part of sophomore year out of pity. She kept up the part of doting girlfriend for as long as she was able. It prepared her for possible future movie roles. Although she put on a show, she cared very little when Finn was the one to break up with her. She cared a lot that he left her for Quinn.
She dated Jesse for the last part of junior year because the boy was like her mirror. He might be her competition but Rachel had a real flair for the dramatic. He stroked her ego and she thought that was probably the closest thing she'd find to love in small-town Ohio.
When Finn suddenly started showing interest in her again, her first inclination was to use the information against him to win points with Quinn. She couldn't stay true to her intentions, ironically enough, because of Quinn. During their songwriting session for Regionals, Quinn practically begged Rachel to let her keep Finn. Rachel tried to absorb Quinn's words about how she was better than this town, how she was meant for greater things – meant for those places spoken by two fathers to a five year old child. Yet Rachel could only really focus on the fact that Quinn wanted rid of her. All the rest, she believed, was just patronizing drivel meant to appease Rachel. And Rachel felt lonely for Quinn all over again as if for the first time. She just wanted to love Quinn, but she knew that was not an option. She was not a suitor for Quinn's heart. She and Quinn were not going to get it right.
Rachel was never more aware of that fact than when Quinn slapped her at junior prom. Once again Rachel found herself following after Quinn when she should have been nowhere near the girl. How predictable, that slap. It seemed the only thing they could share was anger and frustration. And Finn. After the slap Rachel saw before her a familiar picture: A broken Quinn Fabray, the girl who Rachel loved beyond reason or sensibility. Of course she could not conjure enough energy to get mad about the slap. That look on Quinn's face wasn't really giving her a choice in the matter. She drew nearer to Quinn, absentmindedly grabbed a paper towel, and allowed her fingertips to quickly dance across Quinn's face as she dried her tears.
Rachel kept going back to that moment at prom a lot during the following weeks. She liked to drift to sleep by remembering the softness of Quinn's cheeks and the brief but lovely moment when Quinn exhaled so forcefully that Rachel could feel – almost taste – Quinn's breath on her skin. She thought about that moment a lot in the days after she broke up with Jesse under the guise of him being too brutal with his opinions of her friends in Glee. She thought about it as she wrote songs for Nationals while the other girls bounced around on the hotel bed. Quinn even took the liberty of smacking Rachel in the back of the head with a pillow and laughing at Rachel's stunned expression. Rachel eventually laughed, too, but for far different reasons. If Quinn Fabray could even imagine the thoughts swarming through Rachel's head the moment before Quinn's pillow connected with the back of her head!
Her onstage kiss with Finn left Rachel with conflicting emotions. The only thing she could be sure of was that she wanted to kick Finn in the balls. Hard. Twice. She was torn as to how to approach the subject with the rest of her friends. She could try to play it off or defend the kiss. Santana quickly solved Rachel's dilemma by threatening to kick her ass. The rest of the group dispersed after Santana calmed down enough to stalk out of the room. It was not the failed kiss with Finn or Santana's threats or even the fact that all her friends wanted to avoid her that finally cracked Rachel. Quinn – always, always Quinn - won the prize in that arena. Quinn finding her disgusting was just short of all that Rachel could bear at that moment and more than enough to topple her to the ground. It was for the best, she reasoned, that her eyes were so full of tears that she did not even see Quinn walk out the door.
She spent her summer wrestling with her feelings and asking questions she'd never had the courage to tackle. Was she really in love with Quinn? Or did she just want something out of her reach? Could she actually love a person she seemingly barely knew? Was she in love with a girl who lied to her…ignored her only to pay attention to her with a slap to the face…someone who left her weeping on the floor of a hotel room? Could she even call that love?
Her answer came to her by summer's end with no loud fanfare or sudden moment of clarity. She just somehow knew the truth, and it was a truth that left her both disappointed and relieved. She cried about it – let the tears serve as an ending. It was strange to her to cry over something that never even began, but that didn't change how she felt about the ending.
When Rachel saw Quinn on the first day of their senior year, she knew she'd come up with all the right answers over the summer. Walking toward her and just as quickly away from her was a pink-haired Quinn. She called out to Quinn and was met with silence. Typical, really. When Quinn passed by her without so much as a blink of acknowledgment, Rachel stood rooted to the spot. For exactly how long is still up for debate.
"So much for being a leader," Rachel thought as she once again went after Quinn Fabray.