Chapter One

King Of Wishful Thinking

Rain was coming down pretty hard as Rachel drove her silver Porsche down the highway. Her radio was on full blast and playing 'cry me a river' by Justin Timberlake of all things. She wanted to smile at the irony but she didn't seem to have it in her. She glimpsed out of her window when she saw the 'welcome to Lima' sign emerging in the distance. Rachel sighed and remembered the moment that she had told Kurt and Blaine that she was leaving New York for a while and going back to Lima.

"What? Rachel, what do you mean you're going to Lima?"

She glanced at her two best friends, Kurt who was currently giving her his best gaping fish expression and Blaine who was a little preoccupied with the one year old child in his arms. Their son Eric was possibly the best thing Rachel had done in her life so far and she would never regret doing something so magical for her two friends despite the nasty things that Jesse had said to her which she would never repeat to them of course.

"I mean that I'm going to Lima. I'm leaving New York for a while. I really need a change of pace and I've got no shows booked at the moment so now is the perfect time to get away".

"Rachel if you really need a break, shouldn't you go somewhere exotic? I'm sure Jesse would be more than happy to arrange something for you. Wait – why is Jesse not going with you?!" Blaine questioned her, noticing the fact that she had deliberately left her husband out of her plans. Kurt's eyebrows rose and he turned to look at his best friend with concern. She knew the moment that his eyes met hers that she was going to have to tell them the truth. There was no way she could keep this from them.

So she explained to them what Jesse had done, leaving out the things he'd said about the two of them of course, and ended up cuddling between them on their sofa with baby Eric in her lap.

"I always knew that Jesse St James wasn't good enough to kiss your feet. You deserve much better than that fluffy haired primadonna".

"Thank you guys. I love you both so much. Now do you get why I need to do this?"

"Of course. You need to rediscover yourself and where better than the place you started?"

That had been two weeks ago. She had quickly filed for a divorce from her unfaithful husband and thankfully it had been all over fast. He had nothing she wanted and they both kept their own money that they had earned through their careers. Rachel had phoned her father and told him that she was returning to Lima and he had arranged to rent her a nice apartment for the duration of her stay. Rachel had sent her things ahead of her beforehand so she was currently travelling light and wouldn't need to do much unpacking when she arrived.

She turned a corner sharply and felt the knot in her stomach loosen as she began to drive through her hometown. She smiled for the first time since leaving New York as she passed breadstixs and got a glimpse at the McKinley performing arts school. Five minutes later she pulled up outside of a modern apartment complex that had only been built within the last four years. It hadn't been there when she still lived in Lima but it was only one of the many changes that had occurred in Lima since she had left.

Rachel parked her car and grabbed her small bag from the back seat before entering the foyer of the complex. She walked up to the reception and forced a friendly smile on her face as she approached the middle aged woman that sat behind the desk. "Hi" she said, announcing her presence and the woman glared up at her. "I'm Rachel Berry. My dad arranged for an apartment to be rented here for me in my name".

The woman's glare suddenly disappeared and she stared at the brunette in shock. "You're Rachel Berry!"

"Yes?"

"You're Rachel Berry! Oh my gosh, I love your shows. I went to see Jane Austen Sings about five times when I visited my son and daughter in law in New York last year".

"Thank you" Rachel blushed. "Do you happen to have the key to my apartment?"

"Oh yes, sorry. Here you go, honey. If you need anything, don't hesitate to ring reception".

"Thanks, Diana" Rachel replied after taking a quick glimpse at the woman's name tag.

She grabbed her key and got into the elevator that would take her to her floor. According to the slip of paper that she'd been given with her key, her apartment was on the third floor. When the elevator pinged open, she made her way to the end of the third floor corridor to her door. She turned the key in the door and opened the door to hear a chorus of "Surprise!" greet her as soon as she stepped in the doorway. Waiting for her in the small, open living room was both of her fathers in the same room for the first time in years, Will, Emma, Kitty and her husband of two years Roderick, Mason and Madison and to her surprise, Sam Evans.

"What are you guys all doing here?!"

"We wanted to be here to give you a very warm welcome home" Will told her with a large smile, his eyes full of fondness for his former student and friend. "Welcome back Rachel Berry".

"Once Leroy let it slip that you were coming home for a while we wanted to make sure that we were all here to greet you" Kitty smiled, herself home for a visit with her family with Roderick. Normally they also lived in New York where she and Roderick performed together in their two person band. "And to make sure that you're okay. We heard all about Jesse St James from you're dads".

"Daddy, Dad!" Rachel turned to glare at them but neither of them seemed particularly remorseful about spilling the beans on her ex-husband to all of her friends. The only thing the public knew was that they were divorcing because of irreconcilable differences.

"Sorry honey but we feel that Jesse doesn't deserve you protecting him. He's made his own bed and should be forced to lie in it".

"I agree with Hiram. That little jerk thinks that he can hurt my baby and get away with? I don't think so" Leroy scowled, stepping a little closer to Hiram to Rachel's surprise.

"Well thank you all for coming to support me".

She smiled at all of them until her eyes met Sam's. He didn't seem as comfortable as the others being there and she herself felt uneasy being around him again. He hadn't even turned up to her wedding to Jesse four years ago even though it was him that had broken things off with her and hadn't seemed at all affected when she had told him that Jesse had kissed her in the auditorium.

"If you're hungry from your long drive here, Rachel, there's plenty of food and drink set out on that table over there. We decided to turn this little gathering into a small party for you" Hiram informed his daughter who smiled as gratefully as she could.

"Thank you all so much. I'm starved!"

A few hours later and after helping herself to some food, everyone had left her apartment and Rachel was now lounging on her sofa, gazing up at the ceiling. Everyone had spoken to her for a while, everyone except Sam. She couldn't help but notice that he had left before everyone else. What was his problem? It wasn't as if he hadn't been dating people himself. She had thought that they had still agreed to be friends when they ended their relationship but he hadn't been acting much like one to her, a thought that made her feel angry with him and angry with herself. She was angry at him for not being there for her and for breaking things off and angry with herself for going off with Jesse at the first opportunity that was given to her. In a way she had brought on all of her current pain on herself and that made her infuriated.

As long as she could remember, she had always thought that it would be her and Finn in the end but life had got in the way and things had gone completely upside down. Growing tired of being alone with her thoughts, Rachel threw herself off the sofa and put on a movie. Whenever she was going through something, funny girl never ceased to make her feel better.

When Leroy had rung Sam and told him that Rachel was coming back to town, Sam had felt a mix of excitement and trepidation. He knew that it was stupid to be hung up over someone who had clearly moved on from him a long time ago, and they hadn't even been together for that long, but Sam had known the moment that he had heard that Rachel and Jesse were a thing again that he had made a big mistake in letting Rachel go. At the time he had truly thought that it was for the best, that it wouldn't take him too long to get over Rachel since they had been friends longer than they had been dating for. They would just go back to being good friends again, wouldn't they?

It turned out that it wasn't as simple as that. Saying goodbye to Rachel had been one of the hardest things he'd ever done but he knew that she belonged in New York and he didn't. Jesse did though and Jesse knew what a special girl Rachel was and jumped right in there at the first chance he got. He was a smart guy. Sam had kept in touch with Rachel and he'd suddenly find himself with bad stomach ache every time she mentioned Jesse and what they had been doing together in one of her many emails. Years went by and he dated a lot of girls just to distract himself from Rachel. He thought it had been working and that he had been doing pretty well until he received a wedding invitation through the post and suddenly it felt as if he'd made no progress at all. The only thing he could think about when he got the invite was that Rachel was making a huge mistake and if he hadn't have let her go that could have been him.

But the fact was that he had let her go and he had to live with that choice. He got what he thought he wanted, a quiet life in a small town but it still felt a piece of him was missing. He knew that he needed to forget about Rachel and so he continued with his streak of dating different girls – all conspicuously not brunette and almost taller than him – and pretended like he had never seen the invitation, that Rachel wasn't marrying someone else while he was still alone and missing her. She was over him and he was going to act like he was over her. It was fine. He had stopped replying to her emails at some point and totally missed the fact that she had been nominated and won her first tony. It was only when Blaine had skyped him that he found out.

After smoothly avoiding Blaine's questioning about just why he didn't know about the tony, he sent Rachel a bouquet of flowers as a congratulations and then went back to ignoring his heart which kept calling him a colossal idiot for firstly breaking up with Rachel without even considering her offer, secondly for being too cowardly to say anything about the fact that he still had feelings for her and letting her go off with Jesse and finally practically pushing her out of his life just so he didn't have to feel the regret and hurt of losing her.

Then Rachel's world fell apart and she was back in Lima. To Sam, she had never seemed more beautiful than the moment she had stepped into her apartment and their eyes had met for the first time in years. He could see the pain in her gorgeous eyes and he had wanted nothing more than to hold her and curse out Jesse St James for forgetting what a wonderful and amazing woman that he had been blessed to have as a wife and treating her like trash when he should have treated her like a queen. It had taken everything for him not to blurt out that he regretted everything so he had avoided talking to her alone and had left as soon as he thought it wouldn't seem too suspicious.

Still he would have to deal with the fact that Rachel Berry was back in Lima and back in his life. So what was Sam going to do about it? He could either act like a coward again, choosing the easy way out or he could go after what he knew he had wanted since the moment they had locked lips in her old childhood bedroom. Sam knew now what he was going to do but he was definitely going to have to go about it very carefully unless he wanted to screw things up for good.

One way or another, Sam was going to win over Rachel Berry and heal the heart that Jesse had broken.