A/N: As seems to have become a habit for me, I don't exactly know where this story is coming from or what I'm supposed to do with it, except write it down and hope some of you will enjoy it. Also, I can't seem to get away from pezberry friendship.
I guess if you like Must-See TV or Lost&Found, you could like this one, too.
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine. Naturally.
The Truth About…
Rachel's roommate at NYADA, Jade, believes in brutal honesty. Rachel listens to jade talk about hidden truths and masks and tactfulness ("It's still lying!"). She listens to Jade explain that brutal honesty doesn't necessarily mean you have to be brutal – it just means you say everything that's on your mind. "It's like, if I say someone is ugly and you don't think so but don't say anything, you don't lie, right? But brutal honesty means telling me that you don't think they're ugly, even though you just could've kept your mouth shut", Jade says.
Rachel is impressed, but also scared. She thinks it's admirable that Jade allows the world in on all of her thoughts, but she has many flaws, and if Jade always says what she thinks, she sees herself avoiding their dorm a lot.
"My experiences with people telling me what they think of me in all honesty haven't been all too pleasant", she says.
"Don't worry, I think we're going to be great friends", Jade tells her. "You're a good mixture on the hot/crazy scale."
Rachel thinks her first semester at NYADA has just gotten a whole new level of interesting.
That night, she can't sleep. She thinks about Finn and how he's doing, and then she thinks about Quinn and how she's doing and then she thinks about Jade. She's never been big on lying to others or herself, but she remembers reading somewhere that a truth counts more if you make it a conscious fact, rather than accepting it to the point of ignorance.
She thinks of Artie then, because the truth is that he's in a wheelchair; and everyone in Glee Club was so used to that truth that sometimes they'd forget about him not being able to do certain things. Acceptance had become ignorance.
She doesn't like the thought, and it keeps her awake all night.
It's Sunday, and she's on the phone with Quinn.
"I already booked a seat on the train that arrives at 10 am", Quinn says.
Rachel is sure the blonde can hear her smile over the phone when she says "I can't wait to see you again. Next Saturday is too far away."
"I miss you", Quinn admits quietly, and Rachel spends the next ten minutes telling her all about the plans she made for their weekend.
She starts a list. She decides it will contain truths that need to be acknowledged. She doesn't plan on analyzing anything, because there's nothing that needs to be analyzed. She just thinks it would be good for her, maybe even fun, to make herself more conscious of the truths in her life.
She titles it "The Truth About…" and the first thing she writes is:
…missing my friends and family: I miss everyone. It's hard going from seeing my dads almost every day to only speaking to them on the phone, and it's hard not having Glee Club. I still see Kurt and Santana a lot, as they are both here in New York, and I'm glad for that. It's great that I have parts of my old life here with me. I wish Quinn was here, too. She's one of the people I miss the most, but it doesn't feel new. It feels like I've always kind of been missing her.
She's in the library. Contrary to popular belief, she doesn't spend all day singing just because she's a musical theatre student. She needs to study, too, and that's exactly what she's doing.
Until her phone lights up with a new text message.
"Santana says she met someone when she was out with you the other day."
Rachel laughs at Quinn's subtle attempt to grill her about information. Usually, she'd tease the blonde or pretend to not know anything, but she knows Quinn isn't asking out of curiosity, but concern for Brittany.
"We haven't been in New York long enough for you to question the Brittana Long Distance Relationship", she writes back.
"So who is it, and why did San feel the need to mention her?"
"It's my roommate Jade, and they're either going to end up hating each other or become the best of friends."
It takes Quinn longer to reply to that, and Rachel wonders whether she worries about her status in Santana's life, but then her phone blinks again.
"That sounds like us", the message reads.
Rachel wants to tell Quinn that she never hated her, but she feels so much more comfortable with their relationship now than she ever did, and she likes to think that she knows Quinn better than most people – including the blonde – give her credit for. "We never hated each other, Quinn", she texts.
The reply is immediate. "That's true."
Rachel smiles and packs up her books, deciding that she studied enough for one day. She pulls out her list and starts writing.
Her list has grown to unforeseen lengths in a short amount of time. There's the truth about missing people, and then there's about twenty more. Monday evening, only a day after she began writing, the list contains things like:
…Quinn giving me the Metro passes: I was torn between hugging the life out of her and being angry that I didn't think of it myself. I'm glad I did the former.
…finally being in New York: Quinn was so right when she said that I wouldn't want anything holding me back from my dream.
And:
…my new friendship with Santana: I never imagined we could have this. I'm eternally grateful that we're so close now. Just like I'm eternally grateful for Quinn.
It's Tuesday, and she's at her favorite coffee shop with Jade and Kurt.
"Where have you been today?", Jade asks her. "I haven't seen you in any classes."
Kurt almost chokes on his low-fat latte and turns to Rachel, gaping and blinking, as if he's trying to say You, Rachel Barbra Berry, missed a day's worth of classes at NYADA?
Rachel shrugs. "I was busy. No big deal."
She's surprised Kurt doesn't get whiplash.
"What's wrong with you?", he frowns.
"I'm not going to fall behind. It was just one day", Rachel defends.
"Rachel."
"Fine. You want the truth? I had something more important to do today", she says.
"Something more important?" The tone of Kurt's voice suggests that he can't believe there's something more important than classes, at least for her. "And what would-"
She's never been gladder for Blaine's frequent phone calls to his boyfriend than in that moment. Kurt's smile as he picks up the phone is too cute for words, and she's not really concerned about the look he shoots her that says his line of questioning isn't over yet. She knows he'll be in Blaine world long enough to forget about their conversation.
She fiddles with her pen, contemplating the list in front of her and the events of the day.
She's positive she didn't miss anything important in the classes she missed. There's nothing wrong with skipping them and instead going shopping for some stuff for the weekend, right? She looks forward to Quinn visiting her, because Quinn is a friend, and she's excited for her friend coming to New York. Going out and buying food and music and movies she knows her friend will enjoy doesn't make her anything other than a good hostess, right?
She sighs and starts writing:
…skipping classes today: preparing for Quinn's visit was more important to me than my classes at NYADA, my dream school.
On Wednesday, she can't pretend that the list doesn't mean anything anymore.
"Those are all about Quinn", Santana comments when Rachel gets back to her room after her final class for that day.
At first, she's confused, but then she sees her list in her hands and Santana grinning, and she knows-
"You showed her the list?", she yells, glaring at Jade. A beat, then, "You know about the list?"
Jade shrugs. "I was going through your stuff and thought it looked interesting."
Rachel stares. "Aren't you going to apologize?"
"For going through your stuff? But I'm not sorry, and telling you I am would go against my-"
"I get it", Rachel sighs, waving her off. "Yes, most of the stuff on the list is about Quinn, so what?", she turns to Santana.
"No, they're all about Quinn", the Latina grins. "I love this moment so much that I want to marry it."
"And have babies with it", Jade adds.
Rachel feels the strong urge to slap one or even both of them, but, naturally, she'd never-
In a flash, she rips the list out of the Latina's hands and places it on her desk, grabbing a pen:
…when Quinn slapped me at prom: I did not appreciate the drama, but she really is the prettiest girl I've ever met, and she's also a whole lot more than that.
And then:
…this list: it's all about Quinn.
She sees Santana smirking out of the corner of her eye, and Jade shaking her head amusedly, and then she hears "See you later, we're going for coffee."
She doesn't question since when the two of them are friends or what Santana was even here for. She has stuff to think about. So the truth is that the list is about Quinn? Well, she can work with that.
Metaphors are important.
Metaphors are her things, and she's not just talking about gold stars.
She never tells anyone, but she has metaphors for her relationships, too.
With Finn, for example, it was like dancing in a club: a few steps forward and a few steps back, a few steps to the side, a lot of twirling; she was swept away by everything around her, but she wasn't always in the right mood for it, and when it was over, she was really, really tired.
Jesse was like drinking hard liquor. The intelligent thing would have been to not do it, but she somehow, she was desperate to try it. Sometimes she loved it, sometimes she hated it, but mostly, it gave her a headache.
Santana was – is – like trying to fall asleep when you're not really tired. At first, there's nothing, and when it starts, it's frustratingly slow, but then there's progress; steadily and surely. Then it's suddenly completely.
She thinks her relationship with Quinn might be like auditioning. It engulfs her, gives her a rush. It makes her want to give her best. It also showcases her weaknesses, makes her nervous. She doesn't stop trying.
But then she thinks that auditioning is, like, everything to her, until it isn't, because there's also something after that, something more than that, that she wants, and maybe auditioning is not a good metaphor for Quinn.
It's only five days, for heaven's sake. Not counting Sunday, when she started her list, or the following Saturday, when Quinn will arrive for her two-day-visit (and she's not quite sure why Quinn's visit marks the end of anything, but it does), it's only Monday through Friday, five days, that she concentrates on her list.
It shouldn't feel like a lifetime.
But every day something happens. Someone will say or do something, and she'll be reminded of something, or admit to something, and she'll fill page after page with truths.
When she doesn't work on her list, she reads through it, and she finds that even if she only writes things that she's absolutely one hundred percent sure are the truth, it's still a whole lot of stuff that evokes feelings like surprise or shock or confusion in her. It's a little bit unsettling, because, well – does she not know anything about herself?
Five days shouldn't feel like a lifetime, and it certainly shouldn't feel like it's the lifetime of someone else.
Thursday.
She's not a forgetful person, especially not concerning anniversaries or special dates. Even if she was, she certainly can't imagine herself forgetting this date.
She gets an e-mail from Finn that starts with "Dear Rachel, on this day, exactly a year ago, we…" and she doesn't need to read the rest to know she'll never regret instantly deleting the message and then deleting it again from the trash can of her e-mail program. For good measure.
She gets a call from her dads that she keeps shorter than any telephone conversation she has ever had.
Kurt texts her with "Do you want to talk?" and she thinks about replying with "No thank you, I don't", but she really doesn't want to talk, so she doesn't reply at all.
She doesn't hear from Quinn all day. She knows that she should be the one initiating contact on this day, but she gets a small panic attack just thinking about it.
It's a shitty day for her, and the fact that she's too much of a coward to just call Quinn and ask her how she's doing makes it even shittier. "This day…", she sighs, and this is the moment Jade chooses to remember something Rachel once drunkenly told her. "Oh, wait, isn't today –yeah, hey, congrats on the anniversary of your almost-wedding!"
She giggles in the way she does when she thinks she's being really funny and Rachel wants to hit her or storm out or vomit, and her body decides on the latter.
When she finally feels okay enough to come out of the bathroom, all shaky and sweaty and unstable, Santana is sitting on her bed. "Jade called me. Asked me to tell you that she's an ass and that she's sorry. She wasn't thinking."
Rachel doesn't say anything. She runs a hand through her hair and sinks down onto the bed next to the Latina, and then she starts to cry, and she thinks that it's the most plausible outcome this day could've had.
"You know it wasn't….what happened, I mean, it was-"
Rachel's sobs become more powerful. "I'm Still Standing", she chokes out.
And then Santana cries, too.
The two of them get drunk. Rachel calls Quinn in the middle of the night, and it only rings twice before the blonde picks up, not sounding tired at all.
"I didn't think you'd call", she says.
"You're still standing", Rachel slurs.
There's a quiet laugh on the other end of the line. "I'll admit it was a questionable song choice."
"You can't ever do that to me again", Rachel insists.
"What, Rach?", Quinn asks, sounding genuinely curious.
"Make me think I'm about to lose you."
There's silence for a few seconds, and then there's Quinn's voice, in a tone she's never heard her use before: "Never again, Rachel. I promise."
Her list gets a work out that night. Or rather, her fingers and her pen do. She's still mostly drunk, so her writing is not as immaculate as it usually is, and she's still crying, so there's wet blobs all over the pages, but she doesn't care.
Not even the next afternoon, when she's finally recovered from her breakdown and her hangover and checking her book to figure out what her inebriated mind has to say.
It may not be terribly good wording, and it might be a little bit repetitive, but she really can't find fault with the fact that three pages of her list now say something along the lines of:
…losing Quinn: I'd rather lose my voice.
She does know herself. It's just that she's apparently an expert at knowing things but not doing anything with that knowledge.
It's that acceptance thing again, even though accepting what her list practically screams at her would mean acknowledging it, and she's still got a long way to go on that.
She confuses herself with her train of thoughts, and that wasn't what she wanted to accomplish with the list, even though she didn't want to accomplish anything at all.
A truth counts more if you make it a conscious fact. Wasn't that what she was thinking about when she started her project? She knows the truths, always knew them; the only difference is that they now seem to mock her, black ink on white paper.
It's Friday, and this is what she knows: It's about having all the pieces to a puzzle but refusing to put them together.
Not seeing the bigger picture gets harder the longer her list grows.
It's getting late, and she's not really interested in whatever reality show it is that's playing out on Santana's TV right now. She feels the Latina's arms around her, and it's not as weird as it maybe should be – that they've gone from enemies to tolerating each other to a truce, to cautious friendship, to a real friendship complete with the occasional hug, to this; hanging out with each other not because there's nothing better to do but because they genuinely want to, cuddling on her bed and feeling safe with each other.
It's not weird at all anymore (and maybe it has never been) because it makes much more sense to her than the way things were before and because it's almost exactly the way things happened with Quinn, except the she has never done any cuddling with Quinn and safe is not the feeling she'd primarily associate with such an intimate act between herself and the blonde.
Santana's not really interested in the show either, which is why she grabs some pieces of paper from the dresser next to her bed and skims through pages and pages of Rachel's handwriting.
"This has gotten really long", she comments after a while.
Rachel nods and ignores the invasion on her most private thoughts, because this is Santana, and the list is nothing but the truth, and she really shouldn't care, except that she does.
Santana keeps reading, and then she raises both eyebrows and turns to look at the brunette.
"Please don't say it", Rachel begs, because she knows exactly what her friend is thinking.
And Santana, god bless her, keeps her mouth shut, picks up the remote and changes the channel to a movie she knows they'll both enjoy.
Maybe there is something weird about their friendship: completely uncharacteristically, Santana doesn't push Rachel about the truths her list doesn't contain. The truths she's not yet ready to admit.
Auditioning is the perfect metaphor for Quinn.
So...who wants to know what happens on Saturday, when Quinn finally comes to New York?