To the casual observer, they were just a group of college-aged people walking home from a night out on the town, a group of three girls and one boy, all casually dressed and sharing a joke among themselves.
Okay, maybe three of them were sharing a joke, while Santana scowled at Kurt, Quinn and Rachel, who were all giggling uncontrollably. "It's not that funny."
"But it is," Quinn admitted, wanting to feel bad about laughing at her friend's expense, but she couldn't help it. She had wanted to stay home after the emotional day she'd had, celebrating Beth's birthday and playing peacekeeper between Rachel and Shelby, and she'd had her doubts when Rachel and Kurt had dragged her out of the apartment for the night, convinced that without Santana, who had to go to work, the duo would bring her to the most cliché New York tour possible. She had been very wrong.
Santana rounded on her roommates, who were clutching onto each other, beside themselves with the hilarity of the situation. "How did you two even know where I work, anyway?"
Kurt gave her a skeptical look. "You didn't think I would hand you the phone from someone calling from a place called The Singing Garden and not check it out, right?"
At the mention of the name of Santana's workplace, Rachel started giggling again.
"Yuk it up, Berry." Santana growled at the singer. "Be lucky you have dads can afford to send you to New York without having to lift a single finger, 'cuz we all know you'd suck at customer service."
Rachel scoffed, her amusement momentarily forgotten. "I won't even dignify that with an answer."
"How did you even get a job as an emcee at a karaoke bar?" Quinn asked, interrupting what she was sure was going to escalate into an exchange of snappy remarks, since Rachel was afforded so few opportunities to make fun of Santana, and Santana's very nature was to be a grade-A bitch.
"They had an ad for hot singers, and, hello," Santana motioned to herself.
"But you didn't sing," Kurt interjected.
Santana frowned at him, as if to ask if he was really going to make her explain to him the details of her job, but seeing his genuine confusion, conceded defeat. "If nobody's singing, I have to do it and encourage people to sign up to sing."
"Do you get to choose what you sing?" Kurt asked.
Santana scowled. "No."
Her companions looked at her questioningly.
She exhaled. "There's like a list of songs that, I guess make people think they wanna sing too. It's like a bunch of power ballads and shit. If Schue was cool enough to have an iPod, it would be his playlist." Santana laughed as a thought suddenly occurred to her. "Who would've thought Curly's dated playlist would have been the better choice, going into Sectionals?"
"Why even go with Gangnam Style?" Kurt agreed, voicing his displeasure as he took Santana's bait and focused instead on the demise of their former Glee Club's chances for a repeat showing at Nationals. Of all the things Blaine could have called and told him about, his ex-boyfriend missed out on telling him about the song choices for Sectionals. He could have offered alternatives, he could have told them just what a grievous error in judgment their chosen set list was. "Gosh, I hope Tina didn't suffer too much."
"Coach Sylvester would be all over that shit and shutting it down," Santana declared. She smirked at Rachel. "Who woulda thought you graduating would send Glee Club spiraling into a death spiral?"
"Santana," Rachel said in a reprimanding tone. A part of her agreed, don't get her wrong, but nobody liked having it stated so plainly.
"I'm just keeping it real." Santana insisted.
"Weren't you all there to help them the week of Sectionals?" Kurt asked Quinn and Santana. "Why didn't you say anything?"
Quinn shook her head. "I think Finn's been taking lessons from Mr. Schuester."
"What do you mean?" Rachel asked, confused, since it was the first time Quinn had offered this information.
"You know that thing he does when everybody makes the effort to do a good job?" Quinn asked rhetorically. "Then just when everybody starts being cohesive he..." She paused, trying to find the right words.
Santana did it for her. "He turns around and does something completely off his rocker and it's all a clusterfuck again."
Not quite the words Quinn would have gone with...
Santana shrugged off Quinn's pointed glare. "Well, that's kinda what Finnocent did."
"I think we've been living with Santana too long," Kurt stage-whispered to Rachel. "That actually made sense." Rachel nodded her agreement.
"We tried helping, but I guess Finn's really just Mr. Schuester all over again because he didn't really seriously consider the options he was given." Quinn admitted. "It's why I skipped on watching Sectionals at all." She scoffed lightly. "I preferred spending time with my mother over watching Sectionals. It was that pointless."
Santana nodded. "They were totes gonna lose, big time. And what does Finnept have to say about his latest act of complete idiocy?"
Kurt made a small noise of protest.
"It wasn't completely his fault, Santana." Quinn attempted to be conciliatory. "Nobody really fought him hard enough."
Santana snorted, pointing at her. "Q. Please. You think it was as stupid as I do, don't pretend to be nice about it. It was a stupid thing to do, choosing a popular but illiterate song for sectionals, and we all should have seen it coming. How'd he even get approval to be in charge of a bunch of impressionable kids, anyway? Don't you at least need some teacher training or something? Didn't he graduate with a Duh average?"
Kurt could only shake his head, not knowing where to start defending his step-brother. Rachel knew it would be futile to try when Santana was on a clear roll about someone she had shown no restraint in criticizing. When Santana was on a roll, Rachel knew from experience, it was pointless to try and argue, because Santana wasn't hearing it.
Santana smirked at Rachel. "You should totes go back and sing some kind of I-told-you-so to Schue, he really did fuck up the minute you weren't around to save his precious."
Unseen, Quinn frowned, unsure if Santana was referring to Glee Club or Finn when the Hispanic girl mentioned Mr. Schuester's "precious". She knew that she and Santana shared the opinion that their Glee Club moderator played favorites a little too obviously when it came to his male lead.
"When is he coming, anyway? I needs to start setting up bells and goats." Santanta declared.
"Bells?" Rachel echoed, the same time Kurt skeptically asked, "Goats?"
"Ogre repellent." Quinn explained. Off their looks, she elaborated. "Britt plays a lot of multi-player role-playing games."
They both still looked confused, but Santana didn't give them the chance for a follow-up question. "Out with it, Pale Face. Berry. I know he's been calling, he's tried the phone at home a few times, too. What's he doing?"
Rachel sighed. "He keeps saying he wants to come to New York, but..."
Kurt frowned and turned to her. "But?"
"Where's he going to stay?" Quinn cut in, mentioning the most obvious problem to Finn staying in the apartment with them, as Rachel had previously mentioned.
"Who wants him here?" Santana added snidely. Off Kurt and Rachel's looks, she raised her hands in surrender. "Just saying."
Quinn shook her head in dismay, and pulled Santana away to let Kurt and Rachel have some privacy, to talk about Finn without Santana's interjections.
Kurt kept looking at Rachel, expecting an explanation for her reluctance to have Finn in New York. He was apprehensive, himself, but this was Rachel, who had been engaged to the guy, who had spent the first few months of her stay in New York pining after him. Who tried as hard as she could to help Finn fit in her new home. Now that he was willing to try, was Rachel really slow to agree?
"What's he going to do in New York, Kurt?" Rachel asked tiredly, voicing the most obvious problem in the scenario. "We tried that once already, and it didn't exactly work out, remember? I don't know what kind of job he can get while he's here, and, what if he doesn't get a job? That'll be like kicking him while he's down. And what will he do then? Santana has a job, as do you, and we have classes; if you expect me to stop my lessons while he's here just so I can entertain him, you're in for some serious disappointment."
Kurt frowned at her. She made some valid points, but... "Is that really what you're worried about?"
"What do you mean?"
Kurt paused before he answered. "For months all you wanted was for Finn to realize he should be in New York with you, and you're setting that aside in consideration for our jobs? Because you're too, what, busy to pay attention to the love of your life?"
Rachel inwardly rolled her eyes, because, God, she'd been in high school. Maybe Finn had been her sun and moon in high school, but even she was capable of growing up and maturing and able to not throw around words like love of her life at the age of eighteen.
Kurt narrowed his eyes at her as she refused to answer him. "You know, ever since I told you about seeing Jesse in New York you've been acting weird." He gasped as a thought occurred to him. "Is that why you broke up with Brody? You don't even know why he's in New York!"
Rachel opened her mouth to protest, except he had a point. She didn't know what Jesse was doing in New York. She shook her head, as if to discard that point of fact. "That's beside the point. I love Finn, I do, but he can't just run away to New York because glee club lost Sectionals. And what will he do here? And honestly, other than a place to get away from everyone, there's really little we can offer him here that we can't do over a few long phone calls."
"Maybe he wants to see us." Kurt argued. "We're his best friends, Rachel."
"Mercedes is one of our best friends, but neither of us has gone to see her in California," Rachel argued.
"That's different."
"Plane tickets are expensive, I know," Rachel conceded. "But what about Noah? He moved back to Ohio to help his mom, they can hang out. They can form a band, or something."
Kurt tilted his head to the side as he regarded her. "Wow. I never thought I'd see the day."
"What?" Rachel asked curiously.
"You really don't want Finn to come to New York," Kurt commented, a hint of awe and surprise in his tone. "You're doing that wide-eyed look of desperation that happens when you're not getting your way."
Rachel stared at him, stunned at having it said so bluntly. She looked away as she let the words settle, and she deflated. She looked back at him sadly. "Does that make me a bad person?"
Kurt considered. "I don't know."
Rachel sighed. "I just... He convinced me to get on the train to New York to take advantage of this opportunity, and it was sad and lonely for a while, but I grew up from that, finding out who I am out of Lima, because for the first time in a long time, I'm out of my comfort zone without a real safety net. I wouldn't trade it for the world, because of what I have now. I can't help but feel like he's not doing the same thing for himself, this is the first real challenge he's had since he left the Army, and he's so quick to give up. I want to be there for him, in every sense of the word, but I can't do that. I can't do that anymore."
"Does he know you feel this way?" Kurt asked softly.
"I've tried to tell him, but it's hard to tell him that this time I can't just prop him up and feel better because there's nothing to do or say that would make this better. He wants to make up, and a part of me wants to, but I don't know if that's what he really wants or if that's just to help him feel good again. I can't fix this for him, and I can't be the one to make it better." Rachel pouted. "And it's awful to feel this way."
"I think the fact that you actually feel bad about it proves that you aren't," Kurt reassured her, giving her a quick hug. "Mind if I ask you how you came upon this epiphany?"
Rachel stepped back from his hug, looking away briefly before looking back at him. "When you told me about Jesse, remember the other thing you told me? About falling back to the familiar?"
Kurt nodded.
"The past few weeks, working with Claire and... everything, it's made me realize what Quinn was trying to tell me in high school. I was meant for this, Kurt: New York, Broadway, the stage. This is what I was meant to be doing, and I can't do that if I'm with Finn."
"He never tried to stop you," Kurt objected softly.
"No," Rachel agreed. "But he wasn't exactly helping me get there, either. He was never going to join me here, so what did that say about our relationship? Were we supposed to sacrifice who we really were to be together? He was going to come to New York and try to fit in a life with me? We saw how that turned out. And was I going to give up Broadway to be in Lima? It's a romantic notion, but we know that wasn't going to work. I love him, but in the long run, we weren't going to be happy."
Kurt smiled wryly. "Love isn't all you need."
Rachel shook her head. She sighed. "I'm figuring out what I should be doing here, and I can't do that if he's around to remind me who I used to be."
Kurt nodded his understanding. "What are we going to do? If we tell him not to come, he'll just force the issue and that's not going to end well."
"We can have Santana do it." Rachel suggested.
Kurt laughed. "That can backfire, and he might just come just to prove her wrong."
"Good point," Rachel conceded. She shrugged, lacking alternative solutions, and started walking to catch up to Quinn and Santana, who were already a good distance ahead.
Kurt caught up to her, and glanced at her. "Why did you break up with Brody?"
"It didn't feel right anymore." Rachel admitted. Which, while vague, summed up exactly what she felt. He had been a fun distraction, and while she hated to say it, he had been a rebound, and she'd known from the start her relationship with Brody wasn't meant for any kind of permanence. She had been lonely her first few weeks in NYADA, and he had been the first person to show her any kind of friendship, of companionship. But she was, as she'd told Kurt, finding her own way, and while she wouldn't mind keeping him as a friend (eventually, hopefully), she didn't want to have any kind of romantic tie to him anymore.
And it felt wrong, to want Jesse while she had been dating Brody. If she was going to ever try to convince Jesse they could try a relationship again, she was going to do it with a clean slate. That included getting rid of Brody.
And Finn.
Because after Jesse's spiel at the coffee shop, she'd taken the time to consider what he'd said, and while it still depressed, frustrated and angered her, she could see past her emotions and understand what he'd been telling her. They had their issues, but nothing that couldn't be fixed, if they really wanted to. And on her part, she knew where she had to start.
Because the past few weeks with Jesse had made her realize that her dreams, her ambition? New York, Broadway, the stage? While she had always imagined her dream man, most recently Finn, sitting in the audience watching her, when she thought about the ins and outs of it, the day-to-day, in recent weeks she had begun to visualize Jesse with her. He knew. He understood. And if there was anyone she could see standing right beside her when she fulfilled her dreams of the stage, it was, to her heartbreak and frustration, Jesse St. James.
She couldn't exactly say that to Kurt, for so many reasons: he was Finn's brother, and he was supposed to be her best friend, but when it came down to it, only Jesse could match her luminescence.
She blinked, and wondered if the power of her thoughts was making her see things. Or the power of her thoughts had conjured Jesse St. James.
Because behind Kurt, several feet away and across the street, she spied that familiar head of hair. Having missed him the entire week, she felt her heart rate increase at the mere sight of him.
Just as she was about to disregard the fact that she had Kurt, Quinn and Santana with her, all of whom probably loathed his very existence, and was ready to call out to him, she heard him laugh and saw him turn back to let someone catch up with him.
The girl caught up to him, and side by side, they kept walking, entering one of the establishments on their side of the street.
Just as they entered, the girl turned to Jesse, and in the light of the street lights, Rachel got a clear view of the girl.
Rachel's blood ran cold.
She hadn't needed the light, to see the girl's face, but it only served to confirm what she knew.
She would recognize that form anywhere, that lithe body and head of dark hair.
She'd been watching it for hours the past week.
Claire.