Later, Rachel feels a bit guilty that she didn't recognize her. Granted, she, until recently, plaued Nancy Drew on Broadway so she's had thousands of young girls line up for her autograph and tell her that she's their role model. Eventually, they all blend together.
Still, she should have recognized her own sister.
She recognizes the man standing behind the eight-year old first. Then it hits her who this little girl has to be. Beth.
Only, it's not Beth. The brown curls and green eyes are all too familiar to Rachel, but Beth introduces herself as Es. "It's actually Elizabeth," she explains as Rachel signs her cast album, "My full name is Elizabeth St. James so E and S are two of my initials. My name isn't really S."
Rachel can only nod. Beth, no, Es, is speaking a mile a minute and smiling from ear to ear. Rachel can usually match that energy, but she's slightly flabbergasted.
Jesse has a guiding hand on Es' shoulder. Rachel smiles meekly up at him, then quietly asks if he and Es would wait for her until after she finishes the album signing. He nods at her and she moves on to the next little girl.
After she signs an album for everyone in line and the manager of the bookstore thanks her for coming, she finds them in the in-store Starbucks. Jesse's reading Newsweek and Es seems to be doing her homework.
Es looks up from her math workbook with a huge smile. Rachel thinks it would be infectious under any other circumstances.
"Dad says he knows you from high school," Es says excitedly, "I can't believe he never told me that before! He's the worst dad ever."
"Ouch," Jesse jokes, closing the magazine, "I'll remember that the next time you ask me to do something on a school night."
Es sticks her tongue out at him, but instead of responding, he addresses Rachel. "Dinner?" he asks softly.
Es screams "Yes!" before Rachel can respond with "Sure."
They go to an Italian restaurant across the street and Es dominates the conversation, obviously enamored with Rachel. She asks Rachel about Broadway and New York, then tries to get her to tell embarrassing stories about Jesse in high school. There is an obvious one that comes to mind, but Rachel plays it safe, telling Es about Vocal Adrenaline and their theatrics. Es has already heard most of the stories from Jesse, so Rachel starts talking about New Directions and has Es squealing from her description of Dakota Stanley's first visit to McKinley.
Jesse quietly watches the two of them interact and pays the bill without Rachel noticing. During a natural lull in the conversation, he tells them that it's getting late and Es has school in the morning. He looks at Rachel, not Es, when he says this, and Rachel knows that he's telling her that the two of them will now get a chance to talk.
Rachel had told the manager back at the bookstore that she didn't need a cab, confident in the fact that Jesse would get her back to her hotel. There is no discussion when all three of them get into his car and he drives to their house. She is reminded of the night that they drove to Shelby's house from her funeral, the last time that she had seen Jesse or Beth (Es).
Of course, Es asks Rachel to sing for her before bed and Jesse pretends to be jealous as Es makes requests. Rachel laughs, but she can't help feeling in the back of her mind that this should all be more awkward than it is.
Finally, Es goes to bed and Jesse comes back to the living room to find that Rachel has raided his wine collection. She has poured them both a glass. She is holding hers as she looks at Es's pictures and his is waiting on top of the piano.
She turns when she hears him enter and raises her glass towards him. "I thought we could use this."
He looks amused but nods, retrieves his glass. They each sip their wine, thankful for the distraction. They have a thousand things to talk about and neither of them knows where to start. The last time they saw each other they were teenagers; now they are obviously so much more.
"Thanks for not telling her about the egging. I don't know what she would do if she found out that I did that to her idol." He says the last word dramatically and winks at her. She rolls her eyes back at him, but smiles. He's always known that was her dream.
"What do you do?" She hasn't thought about the question before now but it seems like an obvious one. He's clearly done okay for himself if the house is any indication, and from the little she knows about it, LA isn't exactly cheap.
"I used to write a column for the LA Times, and now I run a blog on LA music spots." He shrugs, qualifies that his work is "nothing major" but it allows him to work from home for the most part. "After all the time Es spent in daycare and with babysitters when I was in college, I figured I owed it to her."
Like it or not, he's broached the subject that they have both been tap dancing around.
"I was going to call," Rachel explains meekly, "As soon as I knew that I was coming to LA. I figured you were still here. I was just waiting to get settled. I wanted it to be the right time."
She knows that it's a bullshit answer. She really had intended to call, even before her move to LA, but every time she tried, something stopped her. She thinks now, looking at him, that it is guilt from the way she left things last time. She's feeling a very similar sensation at the moment.
"The right time? What does that mean Rachel?" His voice gets dangerously close to anger for a second, but then it's gone, probably mindful of the little girl that is sleeping down the hall. "Forget it," he concludes.
"You should be angry," she encourages, because he should be. They both know it. He had told her that he loved her and for a night they had shared the burden of Beth (Es). But, in those early morning hours, lying next to him as he slept for the first time in days, she remained awake. The reality of what he and Shelby were asking came crashing down on her. She had slipped quietly out of bed and left, never looking back.
"You could have at least woken me up and told me to my face that you were leaving."
She sits down on the stool by the piano and plays with the hem of her blouse. "I was still with Finn, Jesse. We shouldn't have … I shouldn't have..." she breathes out slowly, "It was all too much, too soon. I had just gotten to know Shelby and then she was gone. I couldn't handle Es too."
He nods and she can tell he understands, and that, on some level, he has always understood. He, of all people, knows exactly how difficult what he was asking from her that night is.
"She's incredible, Jesse," she praises. She wipes tears from her eyes. "You're doing such a good job with her. You're an amazing father."
He wipes at his eyes then sits down on the couch and she leaves the piano to join him. He confesses to her how guilty he had felt when he adopted her, when she started to call him daddy because that was how the people at her daycare referred to him, how he had inadvertently changed her name when he had taught her to sound out letters and her initials were all she would answer to. It's almost as if he's been cataloging everything, waiting six years to tell it all to her.
"You have every right to hate me," she tells him.
"I don't hate you." They both realize at the same time that she had said the exact same thing to him six years ago.
It's a different couch and a different time, but then they are kissing again. When he grabs her hand to lead her to his bedroom, it doesn't cross his mind, though it should, whether she will be there in the morning.
Thoughts? This may be my new chapter fic after Campus Visit ends.