A/N: Pretty long one, in celebration of the beginning of my vacation. (From school; not like a trip.) Happy Holidays, everyone!

St. Berry, set sometime after Funk, just because there's so much raw potential there.

Hope you enjoy!

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It's rather odd, she muses to herself, that despite her aptitude and love for performing, she adores the auditorium most at times such as this … in silence. It's at its most peaceful, with all the lights turned off (in complete darkness but for the soft glow entering from the open doorway), the stage empty and the air still.

It's not dead exactly … In fact she thinks this is when it's most alive. Buzzing not with frantic people, but with a possibility; the luscious belief that amazing things can happen here if put in the right hands. Arms wide open and welcoming, with no judgments yet passed. A quiet promise of something great to come; full to the brim with not-yet-forgotten memories; wizened with age, boasting experience and expertise. But, most importantly, void of presence (excepting only her own, of course).

Or, so she thought. But as she sits reverently in the back row of seats, gazing down at the stage she's frequented for numerous performances since the beginning of her freshman year, she notices the slow, steady breath of another; a kind of controlled and healthy breath that can come from only one person. (Not to mention the shadow of the figure that she knows all too well.)

"How did you know to look for me here?" she asks him, not taking her eyes off the darkness before her, skimming past the more obvious question: Why did you come looking for me at all?

"Oftentimes I've felt as though the auditorium at Carmel was the only place I could go to get any peace at all. I assumed – correctly, apparently – that you'd feel likewise for the one here at McKinley," Jesse replies, taking a step forward from his position in the doorway.

"Shouldn't you be out with the rest of Vocal Adrenaline, celebrating your return?" Her words are bitter; as – justifiably – is she.

"Some things are more important." You're more important.

Silence hangs in the air around them once again, broken by naught but their breathing. She still doesn't look at him, and he doesn't dare move any closer without permission. Not after what occurred just this afternoon.

"Why?"

Even she's not exactly sure what she means. Why is he here? Why is this more important? Why did he play with her heart? Why did he egg her? Why did he make her fall in love with him?

He doesn't have an answer for her; or at least not a very good one, in his opinion. The only thing that comes to mind is because I love you, but he just knows that that has no chance in hell of going over well with her. Not after everything. So he sighs as his eyes fall closed, speaking a half-truth that barely feels like a lie.

"I don't know."

That's not good enough, either. It's almost more painful that if he'd come out and told her that he'd done it all because he didn't care a thing, because she didn't matter, because Shelby told him to and he didn't see why not. His indifference she could accept, however heartbreaking it may be. His uncertainty and that promise of hope in his voice – so like this auditorium she's always found solace in – are like bullets straight to the heart; a string of painful reminders that there was something there between them, something real … before he went and ruined it.

She wants a lot of things, in that moment. She wants to go back in time to before she met him; she wants to go back in time to right when she met him, and stay in that blissful moment forever and ever. She wants to scoff at him and walk away … (but that would take so much more strength than she can find within herself right now). She wants to turn to him and kiss him, and forget everything that ever went wrong. She wants him to apologize.

She wants him to tell her that he loves her … even though she isn't sure she'd believe him if he did.

He doesn't do any of those things, though. He just gently brushes his hand over where hers is clenching the arm of her seat, starting to pull away and stand up. She stops him, though, by twining her fingers through his own.

"Don't leave," she murmurs, before turning her head away from him, embarrassed.

He nods, squeezing her hand gently and sitting back down.

She knows he can't stay forever. And she doesn't even know what she's trying to accomplish here. Their timing from the start hasn't been in their favor; like everything in the world is working against them.

But right now, she knows she can't stand to see him walk away from her again.

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