It's been another year and a half which is just stupid at this point. If anyone is still reading this, I applaud you for being the most patient people on this earth. Saying that though, I am making this the last chapter. I am going to try and round it off as much as possible. Enjoy.
Now she was back with Sebastian, Rachel felt like she was walking on air. She'd finally overcome all her past relationship issues and now she was finally in a healthy, committed relationship with the guy she'd had a crush on since she moved to New York.
A few months had passed since she and Sebastian officially got together and she could honestly say, with her whole heart, that she had enjoyed everyday since. Letting go of her past did exactly as Santana had said. Not only was she now able to move on and be happy but she was happier in herself, more confident and she felt like an all together stronger individual. She was excited to see what was to come.
Classes finished for the day and she went back home. When she opened the door, she wasn't surprised to see Sebastian sitting on her couch and watching in only his joggers. It was pretty standard now that Sebastian spent most of his time at Rachel and Santana's place and Santana spent most of her time at Puck's and Sebastian's place. She didn't mind though; it was nice to have him around and spend her evenings with him. They weren't planning on moving in together any time soon and Rachel was pretty sure Santana wasn't moving in with Puck.
"You should think about wearing more clothes when you're around the house." Rachel said as he spotted him half naked.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him smirk. "Any why should I do that, sweetheart?" he asked. Rachel could hear the smile in his words.
"You know why?" she said, putting down her bag and other school supplies down and turning to him again with her hands on her hips, in an effort to make herself seem as serious as possible. "You are too distracting!" she whined. Sounding as serious as possible quickly went out the window.
Sebastian started to laugh. "Sorry, love." He said, making no effort to move.
Before either of them could say anything else, there was a knock on the door.
"Put some clothes on!" Rachel said again to Sebastian and she saw him jump off the sofa to go into Rachel's so he could, finally, get some clothes on.
Rachel rolled her eyes, before going to the door, not knowing who to expect.
"Rachel!" her friend yelled as soon as she spotted Rachel.
Rachel's eyes widened in surprise. "Quinn!?" she said in surprise, not believing that her high school friend was there, in New York.
"I've missed you so much!" Quinn squealed as she walked into Rachel's apartment and flung her arms around her friend.
"I've missed you too." Rachel said as she hugged Quinn back.
"Who was it, sweetheart?" Sebastian asked from Rachel's bedroom.
"It's Quinn!" she said happily, still hugging her.
They hugged for a few more seconds before separating. "What are you doing here?" Rachel asked.
"I had some time off from school and it's my turn to come to travel to Mike. Perfect opportunity to come and see my friend." She said, hugging Rachel again.
Since the moment they'd met, Quinn and Mike had fallen head over heels for each other and despite the long distance, they had made it work. Every couple of weeks they'd alternate between which one was going to travel to the other and they'd spend a few days together.
"How is it going with you and Mike?" Rachel asked.
"Great, he's so great." She said with a blissed-out look on her face. "We just have so much fun together."
"Do you see it getting serious?" Rachel asked.
"Hmm, I don't know. I'd like to think so. But I'm not going to rush too quickly into it. We're still in school is different states and I know that New Haven isn't too far from here but it's too far to be doing it everyday so neither of us are going to be willing to move until we graduate so for now we have to do things this way." She explained.
Rachel nodded to show that she understood. "Come in." she urged. "Let me get you drink. What would you like?"
"I'll just have some water please." Quinn said. Rachel busied herself in the kitchen and while she was making the drinks, Sebastian came back into the living room and Rachel was pleased to see that he was fully clothed.
"Hey Quinn." Sebastian said simply as he sat back on the couch next to his girlfriend's friend.
"Hey. Thanks for not telling Rach I was coming to New York." Quinn said.
"What was that?" Rachel asked from the kitchen, hearing just the end of the conversation.
Quinn and Sebastian smirked at each other mischievously. "Mike told me a couple days ago that Quinn was coming to town. They both made me promise not to tell you."
"Hmm, I want to be annoyed at you for being able to keep a secret from me so easily but it's so nice to see Quinn that I'm going to let it go." She said, coming into the living room and handing Quinn her drink. "How long are you here for then?" Rachel asked Quinn.
"Here in New York or here with you?" Quinn laughed. Rachel rolled her eyes; she knew that Quinn was teasing her. "Just for a few days. Mike and I have a lot going on for the end of the year so I can't afford to stay for longer. I would love to though. I'm planning to come and stay here for a month during the summer though." She explained.
"That would be so good!" Rachel enthused.
Quinn stayed around for a bit longer before she left to go and see Santana and Puck since Santana was too busy to come home when Quinn was at Rachel's and since she was still 'living' with Puck, she'd be straight back there.
The next day, a Saturday, Rachel made plans to video call Finn while Sebastian went out with some friends. It had been a while since Rachel had spoken to Finn as both of them had been so busy because of the end of the school year so they hadn't been able to put as much time in with each other as they would have liked.
When they finally got around to the video call, Rachel was not surprised to see Brittney with Finn and she was even less surprised to finally hear the news that they were officially a couple.
"That was, like, the slowest burn in history." Rachel laughed when they both confessed the news.
They spoke about how Finn's job and school was going; he was in the local university studying business but was doing a part time job on the side. It meant that he didn't have a lot of time to do much else, but he loved his course and, as tired as it made him, he loved working too. He loved that he was able to contribute to his studies with his own money and he loved that he had a sense of independence because he was doing things on his own.
Then, their conversation turned to Brittney and how she was finding her new course at college. Brittney was doing a dance course, also at the local university as she'd decided that she wasn't comfortable enough to leave Lima and go into a big city like New York. She absolutely loved her course, as Rachel knew she would, and although Brittney hadn't figured out what she was going to do when she graduated, she was looking forward to figuring it out. She was such a gifted dancer and a dance career was the inevitable next step for her.
They spoke a little about the new relationship between Finn and Brittney that Rachel could see coming from a mile off. They spoke about how it had changed their relationship and how their family and friends had taken the news of their (inevitable) coupling up. 99% of them being positive.
Over a hour later, they ended the call with promises of not leaving it so long next time and Brittney and Finn telling Rachel that they hoped they'd be able to make it up to New York when they got a bit more free, time-wise.
Because Sebastian was still out with his friends, with plans to meet him with some friends that afternoon, Rachel decided to spend the rest of the day doing a little bit of shopping. It was a beautiful sunny day at the end of spring and Rachel found that New York was beautiful during that time of year. She took a slow walk to the outside mall close to where she and Santana lived and enjoyed being outside, occasionally going into shops when she saw something that caught her eye.
That night, after spending practically all day away from her boyfriend, she arrived at Callbacks, looking forward to letting her hair down and relaxing after the week she'd had at school. It didn't take her long to find Sebastian and their group of friends. Among them was obviously Santana and Puck but also Kurt and Blaine, Marley and Jake, Kitty and Ryder, Dani and Hunter, and Mike and Quinn. Not all the couples that had started the year together were ending the year together, but as a friend group, they have been able to stay amicable and keep the time they spent together enjoyable.
As Rachel walked up to the table, Santana immediately stood up from the table so she could give her best friend a hug and when she'd sat down, in between Santana and Sebastian, she already had a drink in front of her from Sebastian.
Their night wasn't any different from the countless other nights at Callbacks they'd had since they all met, the same kind of topic came up and at some point during the night, one or more of them would go up and showcase their talents and prove to everyone why NYADA was the right place for them.
During all the commotion of their friends, Santana and Rachel got up together so they could go to the bar as it was their round.
"Look at us, Rach. We're here and we're just about to finish our first year at our dream school. We did it." Santana said proudly taking her friend's hand.
"And just think, the majority of people we went to school with said this would never happen."
They both started to laugh. More so at the amount of people that had underestimated them and underestimated the friendship they had and the amount of respect they held for each other.
The drinks they'd ordered landed in front of them and Santana picked up hers and Rachel's drink, handing Rachels to her.
"A toast to starting over." Santana said, clinking her glass with Rachel.
"Starting over." Rachel agreed, a huge smile on her face.
And that is that! I'm sorry to all the readers for having to wait so long but I hope you enjoyed reading nonetheless.
As long as it took me to write, I did enjoy writing it and I really enjoyed writing the friendship between Santana and Rachel so I will definitely be writing a story with their friendship being the main focus again.