Title: The United States of Rachel Berry
Disclaimer:I don't own Glee. Thank the gods! Season 5, anyone?
3. AND THEN
there were two, or three, or...
"Do you think the others could be real people too?"
The question was asked timidly, yet Rachel's brown eyes were shining. Santana could only shrug her shoulders in response, because fuck, she was rooming with this mess.
"Geez, Hobbit. They're your people; you tell me."
And so she did.
XX
Rachel first 'met' Finn Hudson when she started her sophomore year in highschool. William McKinley High was a whole new world for the girl, and freshman year had been mostly finding her bearings and blending into the scenery. But then in the new school year, graduating senior Hank Saunders accused the campy music teacher of inappropriate touching, and the next thing anyone knew, the school's glee-club was disbanded. Luckily, Spanish teacher Mr Will Schuester was on hand to relive his glory days of yore, and soon the New Directions were born.
Goth-chick Tina Cohen-Chang, wheelchair-bound Artie Abrams, and the soulful diva Mercedes Jones, with none other than Rachel Barbra Berry as its star.
Puck was fairly confident of his guitar-playing (axel-shredding, as he called it) ability by then, and Rachel could sing circles around everyone else without even really trying, and things just seemed to fall into place. Until Mr Schue took the four of them to see a real show choir perform.
Vocal Adrenaline was impressive, to say the least. And the seamless precision of their lead vocallists Jesse St. James and Andrea Cohen blew them all away. The entire ensemble were like powerful cogs in a well-oiled machine. The presentation of the perfect leading pair was what sealed Rachel's fate.
Let it never be said William Schuester didn't know how to play dirty.
The very next meeting of the glee-club was dedicated to finding their own powerhouse duo, because let's face it, Artie was never going to be Rachel's leading man. Puck? The less said about that the better. They needed someone, a male someone, who could keep up with Rachel vocally as well as physically, and who was also not just in her head. Naturally, they weren't gonna find that combination in the current glee members. They would have to recruit from outside their trusted bubble.
Unfortunately for Rachel, that meant facing her worst nightmare: cheerleaders. Head Bitch Santana Lopez and her side-kick Brittany Pierce wormed their way in, despite vehement protests from their bullied victims. Dragged in behind them like so much forgotten luggage were their respective boyfriends; the strangely silent pair of Mike Chang and Matt Rutherford. But while the football-jocks could dance, they were still lacking in the voice department, which had Schuester canvassing for a male lead.
He met Kurt Hummel. And Rachel met Finn.
XX
"I don't know how else to describe it," Rachel said. "I mean, obviously we didn't meet, like..." She bit her bottom lip for a moment. "That's just how I recall it. When Mr Schue introduced us to Kurt, Finn said hello."
Finn wasn't particularly smart, or particularly ambitious, and sometimes he could be a huge jerk, but generally speaking he was a nice guy. He loved music, and played the drums, and he had a decent singing voice that only needed a little more training. He was also the tallest boy their age Rachel had ever 'seen'. He was earnest, wanting to be a good person and a leader, but his perpetual quest for popularity meant he unintentionally hurt his friends' feelings, a lot.
"Also, he wasn't exactly real, except, you know, in my mind."
The girls were starting on their dinner by now. Just a simple vegan pasta with a green salad, but they'd done this so often before, it was like a well-oiled routine.
Santana was handing Rachel the salad bowl, when something caught her attention. "Wait," she said, squinting in thought. "I kinda remember him, I think. Finn," she clarified. "He was the one-"
"Who called Kurt's bedroom decorations faggy," Rachel interrupted her.
Yet Rachel ended up having to apologise to him, which is insane, since she has two rather faggy dads. She was also the one apologising for pushing Artie's wheelchair so hard the boy nearly rolled off-stage. Rachel was also the one getting slushied and dumpster-tossed for being a freak-show.
"Wow," Santana said. "Now I'm suddenly wondering how I ever thought these dickheads were just, you know, acting exercises gone too far, or whatever."
"Yeah, I got a lot of crap because of Finn." Like getting punched in the face for calling Brittany stupid. And for then trying to flirt with Santana, although that might actually have been because of Puck, too.
'Being' Finn also meant Rachel was the one getting sacked on the football field. She still didn't know how he'd managed to convince Coach Tanaka to give her little hands and spindly arms the quarterback position on McKinley's Titans. She supposed once you had a kicker that danced the Single Ladies dance before he scored the game's winning points(Kurt; no surprises there), no other suggestions were without merit.
It also meant she ended up losing her virginity to Satan herself.
"That had been a fun week; not." Rachel pulled a face.
Puck had been beside himself with rage, and if the boys had been real, Rachel knew fists would have been flying. And for all his physical stature, Finn would have lost that particular fight. It was Brittany, sweet gullible naive Brittany who came to Rachel's (and Finn's) rescue. Rachel thought that if her and Noah Puckerman ever met face-to-face, their cat-that-got-the-canary-and-the-cream smirks would be perfectly identical.
XX
After realizing that her brain couldn't actually process the possibility of Rachel's alters all existing in the real world (at least not without blasting right out of her skull) Santana had raced to find her laptop. The dread on her roommate's face however, had postphoned her quest for answers until after dinner, though. Eventually, stuffed with good food (even if it was vegan), the two girls retired to Rachel's room, since her bed had the softer surface. You know, just in case fainting became an issue.
Santana eventually found him in Georgia. According to his facebook profile, Finn Hudson was enjoying the Army's bootcamp at Fort Benning, and 'learning a whole lot of awesome stuff.' He looked exactly how Rachel described him, which she kinda knew he would.
"Damn," Santana muttered lowly, "that is one tall mother."
He had a fiancee, Harmony Drew, who would be studying at New York's Tisch School of the Arts as soon as she graduated highschool, and a step-brother called Sebastian Smythe, who wanted to take over the world, one closeted-gay-boy at a time. He was the quarterback and captain of his highschool's football team, the Spartans. And yeah, the drummer of their jazz band.
"This is surreal," Santana said softly, happily rifling through the various photo albums littering Finn's facebook page. "Look at all this," she continued. "You even have the same taste in clothes!"
But Rachel wasn't really paying attention anymore. She had much bigger things to worry about, like the fact that whoever Finn Hudson was, he knew Noah Puckerman, out there in the real world. And someone else she was intimately acquainted with. Her hope that Santana wouldn't see him too went up in smoke, when the Latina breathed out an astonished "Ay dios mio" from her spot next to Rachel.
"Did you see this?" she asked, pointing at the group-shot that had already caught Rachel's eye. Santana didn't wait for an answer, enlarging the photo in order to confirm her suspicions, and incidentally (unknowingly) Rachel's fears.
There, with arms casually slung over broad shoulders and sharing cheesy smiles, were Finn Hudson, Noah Puckerman, and a blonde boy that Rachel recognised instantly. Santana ignored her shocked gasp in favour of reading the caption, missing the other girl shaking her head in disbelief.
"Best buds and bro's forever: Captain Finn, Puckasaurus Rex, and Sam I Am," she said. "Holy fuck." Santana blinked owlishly at her laptop's screen, but the image, and its accompanying description didn't change. "Rach, I think I'm having a stroke right now."
She finally turned to face her silent roommate and best friend. "Tell me this is not happening," the latina husked, wiping her wet cheeks. When did she start to cry? Still, her eyes desperately searched the chocolate ones in front of her for answers, an explanation, anything to negate the truth forcing the breath from her lungs.
"Rachel," Santana choked out, throat impossibly dry. "What does this mean? What the fuck does this mean?"
Rachel didn't know, couldn't even begin to figure it out. One thing was clear, though. Silence could no longer be an option for her anymore. All those things about her alters she'd refused to acknowledge before, would have to be brought into the light. Hopefully, answers to Santana's questions would be revealed as well.
She just prayed she would still have herself in the end.