Rachel didn't want Quinn to be leaving so soon. Or, well, at all. She had enjoyed these past couple of days more than anything, even with her slightly calamitous interactions with Santana at some points. Santana seems to be grudgingly accepting Rachel as a new facet of Quinn's life, which Rachel is extremely grateful for. Today, Rachel is accompanying Quinn and Santana to the train station for their departure. Kurt and Michael have also decided to come along so they can say goodbye even though they didn't really have the chance to see the two women at all.
The five of them walk through New York together with Rachel in the lead, walking as slowly as she can while still keeping a good enough pace that they won't be late and miss the train. She's struggling to keep conversation going because she wants to beg Quinn to stay in New York, to find a job there as, who knows, a receptionist or something.
It's at this line of thought that makes Rachel remember that Quinn lives with Santana. She would most likely want to continue doing so, which means that Santana would have to find a job in New York as well. But, despite all the odds, Rachel was finding herself tentatively enjoying spending time with Santana.
When they got to the train station, there was about five minutes left before Quinn and Santana had to board.
"It's been really great to see the two of you," Rachel said somewhat awkwardly.
"You too," Quinn said, which was quickly overlapped by Santana.
"Yeah, whatever. You're alright, Berry. I mean, you live in New York, and we live in Ohio, so I guess I can put up with you." Santana turned to Kurt and Michael. "Oh, and next time I'm in the city? I gotta hang out with you and your boytoy, Kurt."
Kurt looked mildly offended, but Michael rubbed his arm to calm him down. "Sounds perfect, Santana," Michael responded civilly.
"I think it's time for us to board," Quinn gestured to the train behind them. Hugs were exchanged all around. When Rachel hugged Quinn, she couldn't help but leave a small kiss on the blonde's cheek.
"I'll be back," Quinn whispered. Something about the way she said it made Rachel curious. But she let both it and Quinn go, watching her join Santana and get on the train.
As the remaining three of them walked back to their apartments together, they talked about their plans for the upcoming week, what Rachel was going to wear to her lunch with Madame Rhonda, and discussed Michael's want for a dog, which Kurt still staunchly disagreed with.
When they reached the junction where they would go separate ways, Kurt changed the topic. "So, I saw that Quinn was granted a kiss on the cheek and Santana was not," he noted. Rachel felt her neck go a little warm- had she treated Quinn differently?
"So? Santana's not exactly the most physically affectionate type," Rachel explained.
Kurt snorted. "Oh, and Quinn is?"
"Shut up," Rachel replied, which clearly meant that Kurt was right and she didn't want to admit it.
"I was under the impression that Santana was very physical," Michael commented with a snicker. Rachel swatted him on the arm.
"Go home and watch a fashion show or whatever it is you two do when I'm not around," Rachel said, waving goodbye as she made her way back to her apartment.
It started that day after Kurt's comment and continued for the rest of the week.
She couldn't get this whole thing off of her mind. Rachel had kissed Quinn on the cheek. Wasn't that completely typical of good friends, especially in New York? But then again, she never kissed Kurt or Michael and she hadn't kissed Santana. Why? She scoffed at the thought at first, thinking that there was no need to overanalyze such a small gesture. But then she remembered Quinn's hands in hers and the way her heart had raced when it was just the two of them alone together, sharing personal thoughts and memories.
She remembered how she'd admitted to Quinn that she was much happier since the blonde had come into her life. She recalled Quinn talking softly to her, the feeling of whispers against her ear before she left her alone with Santana, and then again when she'd promised to come back to New York.
Rachel's mind wandered to the tantalizing image of Quinn dancing at the strip club, watching her toned leg muscles work, taking note of the conveniently placed glitter on the top of her chest. She remembered being pinned up to the wall that night and wondered if she'd ever been in such a heated experience before in her life. It had been the heat of anger, of course, but Quinn was still dressed as a stripper for God's sake, so it was still somewhat arousing.
Arousing. She'd just associated Quinn with arousal.
"Oh my God… I have a crush on Quinn Fabray," Rachel mumbled to herself.
After having her little epiphany, Rachel had to restrain herself from instantly calling Kurt for his opinion on the whole thing. She managed to keep these thoughts to herself for a good two and half more weeks. The highlight of those two and a half weeks quickly became thrice-weekly phone calls from Quinn.
The two would talk about just about everything, and it made Rachel giddy. It was like finally having a female best friend that she could gossip with and generally be like a middle school girl. She told Quinn all about lunch with Madame Rhonda and how the dance master had hinted at being involved in one of Frankie's new endeavors and possibly getting Rachel an audition. She told Quinn about this even before Kurt, which was unusual.
She would also send Quinn texts randomly throughout the day when she saw something that reminded her of the blonde or something funny happened. By the time it had been almost three weeks since she had last seen Quinn, Rachel decided that she couldn't keep all of her feelings inside of her head any longer. So, she called Kurt and asked if he could come over after work, to which he agreed. He asked if Michael could come too, but Rachel declined.
"What's up, sweetie?" Kurt asked as soon as he opened Rachel's front door, not bothering to knock, like usual. Rachel was sitting at her kitchen table with her head in her hands and her elbows on the table. Kurt pulled out a chair and sat next to her. "Is something wrong?"
Rachel let out a sigh, trying to think of how the best way to approach this would be. "Kurt, you know how I've always imagined myself ending up with the perfect leading man? A singer, a dancer, someone who could level with me. Someone attractive and kind and strong. And someone that knows how to handle me even when I get a tad bit… dramatic," she started.
Kurt looked at her quizzically. "If you're about to tell me that you've met a guy that you think meets your incredibly high standards, please excuse me while I literally shit bricks," Kurt said, holding up his hands. Rachel shot him a glare.
"My standards are not impossible," she denied. Kurt gave her that sort of "Sure!" nod before letting her continue. "Well, anyway, I know that you may have begun to consider me an asexual workaholic, and perhaps you have been right for the most part, but I think I am changing."
"God bless you, are you telling me that you finally stopped believing boys are icky?" Kurt mocked. Rachel groaned; he was clearly not taking this seriously.
"Kurt!" she admonished. Kurt's eyes widened.
"You're serious?" he questioned hesitantly. Rachel bit her lip. "Damn. You're biting your lip. You'd better spill it, girl."
Rachel took a deep breath, once again stuck on how to move this forward. "I have met someone that makes me feel like someone's planted a butterfly bush inside of my stomach and it's being populated like crazy. I don't think that this person knows that I could even possibly think of them in that way, and it's not like I even really wanted to, considering the fact that our lives do not really overlap in the way that I imagined previously. And, at this point in my life, I should really be focusing on getting on Broadway since I've now got the connections to make it there. And I'm pretty sure that she would never return my feelings, so I should probably-"
Kurt cut off her ramble with one word- "What?!"
Rachel's face scrunched up. "What?" she repeated.
Kurt's eyes had widened again. "She," he said.
"Kurt, what in the world are you talking about, spewing words like 'what' and 'she'?" Rachel demanded.
"You said she," Kurt emphasized. Rachel swallowed. There it was- problem one of this little tiny crush and discussing it with Kurt. She hadn't meant to use a gender specific pronoun, but there went that plan. "Rachel, you've met someone. A girl. You know, I always thought that the girls I set you up with always failed a little less disastrously than the boys."
"Wow, thanks," Rachel said sarcastically. Kurt made no apologies.
"What's she like? Did you meet her at an audition? Please tell me she does not fail at fashion like you did before I trained you, because I'm not sure if I'm ready for a project of that size just yet. Oh, worse, please tell me she's not straight," Kurt spouted a bunch of questions off.
Rachel held up four fingers. "She's… beautiful, and she can sing, and she's smart. And no, I didn't meet her at an audition. She's actually quite fashionable, I should think, and I'm going to ignore your dig at my fashion for the time being. And no, she's not straight," Rachel said, bringing a finger down for each of Kurt's questions that she answered.
"And why did you say that she would probably never return your feelings then?" Kurt asked. This was the hard part- telling Kurt that she had a little crush on someone who had tormented her in high school. This was a girl both of them knew and that would make this whole thing harder. She had no idea if Kurt would completely reject the idea of her liking Quinn. Rachel had told Kurt about Quinn and Santana's past relationship, so he already knew that Quinn was gay, but Rachel knew his mind wouldn't jump there unless she flat-out told him.
"Because we're good friends," Rachel replied. She knew that it was a bit of a copout way of getting at the crux of the matter, but she didn't want to be the one who actually brought this out in the open.
"Rachel, please do not take offense at this, but I wasn't aware that you had any particularly close female friends," Kurt said gently. Rachel didn't take any offense. She was just annoyed that he didn't put two and two together.
"You've met her," Rachel added. Kurt rolled his eyes.
"I wasn't aware that this had turned into a guessing game. What are we, five? And you have a crush on little Susie because you like the way she draws a heart over the "i" in her name?" Kurt snarked.
"No, I'm not five, but I suppose this is just a little crush. It's probably a result of exactly what you were just saying- I haven't had many close female friends in my life, so I'm probably just latching onto her," Rachel resigned herself to saying. Kurt shook his head in disapproval.
"Nuh-uh, no way, you are not getting out of this one without telling me," Kurt said with a tone of finality.
Rachel couldn't bring herself to just say the name. "Do you recall a blonde cheerleader from McKinley High School?" Rachel offered meekly. If Kurt had looked shocked before, he was floored now.
"Please… please tell me you're not talking about someone who used to date Santana," Kurt responded. He seemed generally nervous. Rachel closed her eyes.
"Yes," she breathed out.
"Dammit, Rachel," Kurt cursed. Rachel opened her eyes; Kurt was staring at her like she had just killed a puppy.
"You can't. That's setting yourself up for heartbreak," he said. This was what she had been dreading- Kurt not approving of it. And he was probably right, which was the worst part of it all.
"I know," she whispered in response. Kurt was silent for a short while.
"You know that she's been in love with Santana since high school and probably always will be, right? Even if you did manage to get her, it would be temporary, just a fling," Kurt warned. At this, Rachel paused.
"Since high school?" Rachel repeated. Kurt gave her a look like she had grown three heads.
"Um, yeah? Everyone in the school knew it, even before they announced it," Kurt said slowly like Rachel had gone daft. It was then that Rachel realized the miscommunication.
Rachel slowly shook her head from side to side. "I didn't mean Brittany, Kurt," she corrected. Kurt rubbed his temples, trying to figure it out. Rachel watched his wheels turning in his head for all of ten seconds before Kurt let his head drop to hit the table once before lifting it once more to look at Rachel.
"You're kidding me, right?" Kurt said. Rachel said nothing. "I almost wish you had said Brittany, because then I could just smack your head around a little and you would realize that was hopeless. But Quinn Fabray? You're getting yourself into waaay too much with that one."
Rachel started to get a little angry at this point. "Look, I didn't bring this up for you to tell me that it's a bad idea. I already knew that. It's just a little crush anyway, but I thought you'd at least be a little happy that I'm reconsidering being single for the rest of eternity," she said defensively.
Kurt took that in. "Alright, alright, so you've got a little girl crush on Quinn. Hooray, you're gay for Fabray!" he exclaimed with a huge fake grin plastered across his face and clapped his hands. "Is that what you wanted?"
Rachel gave him a glare. "No. And, you know what? This will all blow over soon, and I'm sorry that I brought it up at all."
"Rachel, I'm sorry, but you did just drop a huge bombshell on me. I mean, I knew that you and Quinn were starting to reconnect and everything, but I thought that's all it was," Kurt backtracked.
Rachel let out a breath. "Fine. Let's have some vegan ice cream and watch that stupid show you like and act like we're dumb teenagers and forget this whole thing for the night."
As it turned out, Rachel's little crush did not seem to agree with her about leaving. She still felt her heart flutter every time Quinn's name showed up on her caller ID.
"Hey, Quinn, how are you?" Rachel answered her phone with a bright tone of voice.
"I'm good- great actually," Quinn replied. "I have something to tell you."
"Oh?"
"You know that conference Santana went to about a month ago? Well, she made some contacts there, and one of them has offered her a job in New York as a nurse and offered to pay for her doctorate if she accepts," Quinn announced.
Rachel made a stream of excited noises that were mostly unintelligible at that point. "You mean- you mean you two are moving to New York?" Rachel squealed. Quinn laughed at the singer's obvious excitement.
"Yup, we move into an apartment next week. I looked it up, and we'll only be a few blocks from you," Quinn affirmed. Cue some more squealing.
"What about you? Are you going to… leave you job?" Rachel asked.
"Well, duh. I'm not going to be making that drive every day," Quinn replied with a small laugh. Okay, so Rachel had worded her question dumbly.
"Yes, of course, but I meant to ask if you were going to leave your current form of employment in search of a new type of job," Rachel rephrased. It became quiet on the other line.
"I don't see why I would. There are strip clubs in New York," Quinn replied. Rachel bit her lip, worrying it between her teeth. She knew that she was treading in dangerous territory here.
"But you don't have to continue that profession. You could always get a job here as a receptionist or a waitress or… or anything, really," Rachel suggested. She listened to Quinn's testy "hmm" and waited for a reply.
"Let's not talk about this," Quinn said with a tone of finality.
"Okay, but I am more than willing to help you search for a job-"
"I get it. Listen, I have to help Santana pack. Talk to you later," Quinn cut her off and promptly hung up without giving Rachel a chance to say goodbye. Rachel sat there with her phone in her hand wondering why she had to bring that up during what was supposed to be an exciting and happy phone call.
Rachel managed to regain her general excitement about Quinn and Santana moving to New York when she told Kurt and Michael about it. They shared in her enthusiasm and began talking animatedly about how much fun it would be to go out to dinner with them or go out for drinks. Rachel wondered if Santana was always an emotional drunk like she'd witnessed at Finn's reception. She also wondered what sort of a drunk Quinn would be, or if she would even allow herself to get drunk after what had happened to her in sophomore year.
Kurt was excited for Quinn and Santana to come to New York, but he also gave Rachel a weird sort of glance when Michael wasn't looking. Rachel knew that he was probably trying to remind her that he knew about her growing affections for Quinn and was wondering how this move would affect things. Rachel was happy that he didn't bring it up with Michael there because that meant he hadn't shared Rachel's new secret with his boyfriend.
Rachel waited out the next week with growing anticipation despite not hearing from Quinn at all. She didn't get a few texts from Santana, but she made no allusions to Quinn or her feelings, so Rachel was left in the dark. She just held onto the hope that the two of them could work things out once they were both going to be living in the same city.
And Rachel couldn't help but feel unreasonably happy all over again at the thought of living within walking distance of Quinn. It didn't matter that Quinn would most likely still be a stripper or that Rachel had a secret, unrequited tiny crush on the blonde or that Quinn was currently mad at her. It just mattered that Rachel wouldn't have to wait to see her- she could literally walk a few blocks.
"Just remember when you see her, don't… freak out too much. You're the one who told me that this is just a phase you're going through, a bit of an infatuation that will fade over time. You're happy to have Quinn back in your life is all. Don't overreact and scare her off." Kurt's words came back to her from two days before move-in day.
Rachel wanted to bang her head into a wall to shake all of the thoughts of Quinn from it. She wanted to help Quinn realize that she was worth more than just a hot body for pervy old men to watch. Quinn could be anything she wanted, if only she put in the effort.
Rachel had always sought to help Quinn improve her life, to make something of herself, and Rachel would be damned if she didn't figure out a way to make that past goal of hers come true at long last.
Now she just had to adjust to containing her emotions when Quinn lived in the same city as her.
A/N: Quick update for you guys! If I get reviews, I get the motivation I need to keep writing even when I'm balancing classes, band, a job, and a somewhat complicated social life. As promised, Rachel is realizing her feelings.
Next chapter has Quinn and Santana moving in, more talk of Quinn's job, and starts to get to the core of the matter- why does Quinn work as a stripper instead of having finished off her degree at Yale? The next couple chapters will deal strongly with that question.
I can see this story lasting at least five more chapters if I do the short version, but it could go as long as ten or more if I go through all of the plot that I have tentatively planned.
Hopefully your reviews will be enough of a kick in the ass for me to write!
