May - Senior Year

Can We Stop for the Sunset?

Growing up, Rachel knew this day would come. Just as she knew an EGOT was in her future, she knew she would one day be standing on a stage and speaking to her graduating class as their Valedictorian.

It was as right as putting milk in your cereal.

And today, it all came to fruition.

Her speech didn't come easy. It took an entire week full of nights with Dad and Smokey Robinson and musings to get it right. They combed through ideas over and over. It was as if the entire thing eluded her until the second it stopped eluding her.

It was as clear as… well, putting milk in your cereal.

She had her speech. She had her point. She had her life wisdom for her fellow graduates. There was one thing she learned in the past six months of pain and she would proudly pass it on today.

She took a deep breath and glanced over herself in the mirror once more. Her long, brown hair fell beautifully over her red gown and somehow, she'd manage to pull off the capped look as well. Who was she kidding? She was Rachel Berry; of course she pulled it off.

"Rach?"

She turned towards the cracked door. A bright smile and blonde hair beamed back at her.

"Hey!"

"Can I come in?"

"It's a public restroom, Quinn."

"I'm being polite."

"You're never polite," Rachel smirked. Quinn chuckled shyly and walked into the bathroom. Rachel looked beautiful. She glowed like she used to. Her face always was the brightest thing she knew. She missed seeing it over the past six months.

"You look beautiful," she whispered before she could stop it.

Rachel's attention left the mirror and landed on Quinn. The blonde's hair was pulled back loose at the base of her neck and curved nicely around her left shoulder. Her gold chain and diamond cross shined brilliantly over her sternum and the red gown brought out the blush in her cheeks.

And there were those hazel eyes.

God, those eyes.

"And you, you of course look radiant," Rachel grinned. "Always do."

"Thank you. My dad has already cried," she laughed. "Yours?"

"Twice," Rachel giggled and turned to rest against the sink counter. She crossed her arms over her chest and took a relaxing breath. "And Judy? How's she holding up?"

"We've been through three box cameras already."

"Box cameras? She still hasn't purchased a digital camera after the fiasco of the Homecoming dance junior year?"

"You know she's scared of technology."

"Gah, that woman kills me," Rachel groaned. Quinn nodded with a smile.

Comfortable silence fell over them and Quinn wondered how this day would've gone had last October and November never happened. Would they be making love right now, a quickie before show time? Would they be ecstatic?

Would they be set to take off on a small road trip before Rachel hit Julliard's summer program like they had always planned? Would they be-

"Ready for your speech?" Rachel asked.

"Ready to follow my speech?" she joked.

"Baby, Rachel Berry is always the main act. She follows everyone," Rachel beamed and then froze, her words rolling back over in her mind. She saw it in Quinn's eyes. It'd hit her like a ton of bricks.

Baby.

Those cloudy eyes ripped open and a flood of love expelled itself.

And there was her Quinn.

Rachel should kiss her. She should. Be the Rachel Berry who lives for drama and the moment and the applause and kiss her. Look at her, she wants it. She's biting her lip and darting those eyes. And god, she could hear her heart pounding. Or was it her own? She didn't know. They stopped beating separate hearts two years ago.

Step forward and kiss her.

Easy as that: one, step forward, two, kiss her. It would be easy and it would feel like heaven laced with chocolate surrounding an Oscar.

Oh, god.

But the pain, the abandonment, the guilt, those lips

"Rachel, darling, are you-" Hiram interrupted from the cracked door, his eyes falling tightly on the blonde. "Oh. Quinn," he finished. The girls stepped apart, unnecessary guilt flooding over them. Quinn swiped at her lips as if she needed to wipe them clean.

She'd practically felt the kiss.

She'd almost died waiting for it.

"Hi, Mr. H."

"How are you?" he asked, stepping fully into the women's restroom without a care in the world as he squared his shoulders at her.

She gulped.

"I'm managing."

"Dad," Rachel warned. Hiram eyed his daughter and took her plea to heart. He wanted nothing more than to rip into the blonde; he'd never fully gotten his piece. But parents don't rip into children, do they?

Do they?

What about children who aren't their own?

He wanted to so badly. He watched this girl let Rachel flounder to the point of destruction and she didn't do a thing about it. And she called that love?

"Rachel, we should go," he said. "It's about time. Your class is lining up to walk in."

"Thanks, we'll be out in a second."

"Hurry," he encouraged, eyed Quinn once more and then left them. Quinn released the breath she didn't realize she was holding. That man terrified her, absolutely terrified her.

"You don't need to be scared of him," Rachel said.

"Pretty sure I do. He always looks like he wants to rip my arms off and play that arcade game on me."

"Huh?"

"You know, the one where you stand there with the big whack-a-doodle thing and smash the monster's head when it pops out of each hole. You just smack it and smack it and smack it and-"

"Quinn! My father does not want to whack-a-doodle you."

"Pft," she huffed. "I bet that's not what he would say."

"Why don't you go ask him," Rachel smirked. "And we can put this little debate to rest."

Quinn arched an eyebrow at the challenge, cocked a smile and almost headed out the door just to prove the girl wrong. But then images of Hiram Berry's fiery eyes the day he kicked her out of their house came flooding back to her. His words, his daggers, his forbidding her of all things Rachel: it sent rockets of fear throughout her instantly.

It was quite possibly one of the worst days of her life.

And suddenly, she could barely breathe just thinking about it. She placed a hand over her eyes and took a steadying breath.

"I was kidding!" Rachel gasped and touched a comforting hand down on the blonde's shoulder. "I'm kidding. You don't have to talk to Dad."

Quinn dropped her hand off her eyes and swallowed the images.

"We should go. We have speeches to give," she muttered. Rachel gave her forearm a tight squeeze and released a dazzling smile.

"Impress me."

"It's all I ever want," Quinn admitted, turned to the door and left.

And with that, graduation was upon them.

The football field beamed in the afternoon sunshine. Students sweated beneath their gowns, smiled in the fresh air, and joked amongst themselves in the crowd. Folding chairs lined up in two sections over the field, rows of twenty across and fifteen deep.

Rachel sat beside Quinn on stage looking out over their graduating class glowing in red and the stands full of supporters behind them. It was the day. Today they would officially be free of McKinnely. She never thought it would happen. They were about to be set free.

She and Quinn would be set free.

Could they make it in the real world? Were they that kind of couple? Were they high school sweethearts who couldn't handle real life? They had imploded at the first major life incident. Maybe they weren't meant for real life. Maybe they were meant to be first loves and that's it.

She looked to her right at the blonde.

Quinn looked back.

Everything faded away. Principal Figgins introduced some other speaker and people were cheering. Some music was playing. Some birds were chirping.

But all she saw was Quinn, sitting beside her where it seemed she was always meant to be. Rachel remembered sitting beside her on their first date in the back of that god awful truck, looking at her face and taking her in, so young and vibrant and smitten.

This Quinn was worn, weathered, matured, and striking as ever.

Their history displayed over her face, written in the wrinkles, smile lines and frown lines. Their love gleamed in her eyes. The cloudy grey had exploded in the bathroom earlier and remained gone.

Rachel felt her heart pick up. Her hands started shaking.

Her love for Quinn erupted in that moment, one of the biggest moments of their lives and she was spending it next to the person she was always meant to spend it with.

Quinn slid her hand to the left across their gowned laps and laced her fingers through Rachel's. The speaker spoke, the crowd cheered, and Rachel had no idea what was going on besides that she was still head over heels in love with Quinn.

And Quinn was still head over for her.

And then Figgins was introducing Quinn, their 2011 Salutatorian. Her fingers slid free of Rachel's, her gaze unlocked and her knees took her to her feet and her feet took her to the podium.

Her glazy, Rachel-rosy eyes landed on the thousand plus crowd staring back at her. They cheered, clapped, and watched with eager and expectant eyes. This was her moment to make a difference. This was her moment to make Rachel proud. This was her moment to turn them on a new track.

She looked back over her shoulder at the brunette.

Rachel grinned, confidence and support in Quinn draining from every ounce of her. She pulled her hands up and clapped like she'd never clap again.

Quinn took a breath and turned back to the crowd. They settled and waited. This was it. She swallowed, leaned into the mic, and began:

"It's been a big year for me, as most of you already know. I sat in my room a month ago working on this speech, digging into myself to pull out the message I ultimately wanted to leave with our class of 2011," she spoke. She could feel the crowd attaching themselves to her every word.

"I looked back over our time here, all of us. Whether you were a Cheerio, a Mathlete, a jock, or in glee, we all dealt with the same stuff. And we all had to overcome. That's what high school, and the past year specifically, has taught me: we overcome," she emphasized.

Rachel watched from behind, her heart pounding in her chest at every word as the blonde continued.

"We overcome failure. We overcome tragedy. We overcome heart break. We overcome the world not being fair. "Fair" is now a word that can't exist in our vocabularies. Twenty minutes from now, and by definition, we are all adults. Life will continue to throw us problems, challenges, mountains and molehills.

"And I'm here to encourage you to overcome them. We will be a class of action and courage and bravo. We will attack life. Because, my friends, we only get one chance at this- and that chance starts now."

Rachel swiped a tear, her pride bubbling over.

"I want us to take our memories from high school and learn from them. I want us to never speak the word "fair" because it doesn't exist to us anymore, it doesn't matter to us anymore, because we are too busy overcoming.

"We are too busy living life. We will live like we mean it. We will overcome anything it throws us. We will be a force to be reckoned with. We will be the people we dream of seeing when we look in the mirror every morning. We will live passionately because we can't live otherwise. We will have heart because they pound so freely. We will overcome because we don't how not to," she finished with a smile. "We will be the class who doesn't know how to live without enthusiasm.

"We will try, we will pound away, and we will overcome. Simply because we are those people- we are who we see in the mirror and we make ourselves proud," she finished. "So go out in the world, make your presence known, and make me proud to be your Salutatorian. Thank you and congratulations."

The crowd roared, hitting their feet and slamming their hands together, but none louder than the tiny brunette ten feet back and to her left. She heard the pounding and felt the pride. She nodded thanks to the crowd, smiled wide and leaned back into the mic.

"And now, in what will be one of many throughout her life, I will introduce the incomparable Rachel Berry, your 2011 Valedictorian and my best friend. Give her a hand."

The crowd erupted again with an applause Rachel wasn't expecting. Did these people actually care about her? Had Quinn made them care? The blonde turned around at the podium and walked towards Rachel. With a sturdy hand to her shoulder, Quinn leaned in and placed a kiss on her cheek.

"Knock 'em dead, superstar," she whispered and took her seat.

Rachel's feet took her to the podium. She gave Quinn one last glance and closed her eyes, letting the applause from these people roll over her.

It cooled her insides, stilled her veins and instilled her with confidence. She opened her eyes, stepped up to the mic and found words:

"How about that Quinn Fabray?" she smiled and the crowd roared. She looked back to Quinn as the sound pounded over them. The blonde beamed. Rachel nodded, winked, and turned back around to the screaming crowd. "Yeah, I agree. I definitely agree," she giggled as they settled.

She cleared her throat, straightened her note cards and prayed these words sounded as right coming out of her mouth as they had in her head.

"My speech didn't come to me as easily as Quinn's, unfortunately. I was honored with the Valedictorian status months ago when it was determined none of you would catch me," she joked and Quinn rolled her eyes. "But that was before my life changed." The crowd silenced below her, as if they had just dropped out the secret hatch in the football field.

She gulped.

"I feel like a different person, some ways good and some ways bad. Life is funny like that. It takes you on its back and you're expected to ride it willingly, no matter what. The good mixes with the bad, the big with the small.

"And somehow, we as teenagers have trouble distinguishing between these feelings. Minute issues seem like the end of the world. Our emotions run wild and we so easily lose ourselves. We lack perspective by default.

"I learned a lesson this year about that word: perspective. When you can let the small things be small things and the unimportant things be unimportant, life makes a lot more sense. It almost becomes easier, more fun. You find yourself putting your energy into the good and only the good.

"This is how life is meant to be, I learned," she choked out and swallowed back the tears that threatened. Quinn gripped the sides of her chair beneath her gown and Rachel continued.

"I had to lose my daddy, Leroy, in order to learn this valuable lesson. He was, he was taken from our family last November, six months ago," her chin quivered. She swallowed her tears. She could do this, she could finish, finish for Daddy. "And through this tragedy, I also, I also lost the love of my life," she shrugged dejectedly through tears. "There's nothing like finding yourself with nothing to live for to give you perspective."

She took a breath.

"Don't wait for that kind of loss to start living. Learn from my experiences. Let me leave that with you all. Have perspective, laugh with your friends, love purely, and live honestly. Forgive each other. Give second chances. Chase your dreams. See the world, there is so much out there," she smiled.

Quinn swiped at the tears streaking down her cheeks.

"Have perspective for what matters in this life. Family matters. Friends matter. Laughing, dreaming, and levity matter." She looked back at Quinn and then back to the crowd. "Our, our hearts matter," she whimpered over her own tears. "Focus on these things and your life will be about what matters. And that's all you'll ever need.

"A girl once told me something that has since taken up residency in my heart. And I want to share that with you all today. She said, 'Today was better than yesterday. Let's make tomorrow better than today. That's all I know and all I need to know.' That's it."

Quinn released the rest of the tears. Rachel swiped hers clean and took a steadying breath.

"I'll leave you with her words, class of 2011, because they were always better than mine. Let's have perspective. Let's live for what matters. And let's make tomorrow better than today. For us, for the ones we love, and for our future generations. We have the power. Let's make the world proud," she boasted.

"Congratulations and thank you."

There was an eruption of applause and adoration.

And there was nothing else.