Luck favoured Rachel at lunch and the disappointment of losing the only lead she thought she had in discovering who Errant was, was expelled by excitement as she gazed at the lunch tray in her hands. There, written roughly in black permanent marker, was another poem. It was as if the universe wanted Rachel to meet Errant.
I hear your song cascade around me,
Creating chaos in the crevices of my heart,
Inviting it to break for you.
I've perfected my armour because of you;
I've learnt to tell a flawless lie -
So complete I almost believe it myself.
We march towards the end,
Towards the falling dusk,
And you're as beautiful as ever
With these last rays of light illuminating you.
Leave this vapid town,
Leave this rusty life;
Reach for something bigger
While I stay behind,
Hoping you leave my fragile heart.
That's what I dream for you;
You don't belong here anyway.
I don't want to pretend anymore.
This was the poem inked onto the lunch tray and into the beating flesh of Rachel's aching heart. It broke when she read the penultimate line: You don't belong here anyway - she'd heard that before, back when Quinn was still Quinn, when they were both still in love with Finn Hudson. The encounter was ingrained into her memory; every detail stood out as though it had happened moments before, from the dark of the auditorium, to the smell of burning lights and the wafts of Quinn's perfume which had caught Rachel's nose, to the raw emotion which had seared her heart. Any chance of writing a song together was destroyed in that moment. At least Rachel had gotten Get It Right from their clash, even if she had to write it through tears.
The Poet clearly felt the same way Quinn felt about Rachel, to write such a line as that about the person to whom the piece was addressed. For the briefest flicker of a second, Rachel entertained the idea that Quinn was Errant and that this poem was directed at her, but she dismissed the thought - it was too absurd to be true. Besides, Errant was so obviously in love with the person their piece was talking to, and Quinn most certainly did not harbour romantic feelings towards other women.
As she copied the poem down into her little journal, Rachel tried to decipher its meaning. What did 'song' mean? Was it an actual song? Was the Poet a member of Glee? The idea made Rachel's head hurt - no one in Glee could write like that, as far as she knew, unless one of them had been hiding their talent these past two years, and that wouldn't have been fair to the team. So maybe it didn't mean a literal song after all.
What about 'the end'? What kind of end? The end of the year? No, that was a possibility, but what was significant about the end of the year? The end of the school year maybe? Perhaps; Errant could have been a Senior. Of what other kind of end? A morbid thought caught Rachel's imagination and she shuddered; she hoped it didn't mean the end of life.
"Is she at it again?" someone said to her left.
"She's totally obsessed," another voice said.
"I'm not obsessed, I'm just extremely interested," Rachel defended, looking up from her page to see Kurt and Mercedes standing on the other side of the table.
"Girl, you're more obsessed about this than you are about getting the next Glee solo," Mercedes argued, while Kurt nodded.
"Or about Broadway."
"Not true. My love of Broadway is ingrained into my DNA. Finding out who Errant is, is just something specific to this point in time. That doesn't make it any less important," Rachel quickly added, upon seeing her two friends raise their eyebrows at her last comment, "but once I find out who it is, then I won't be obsessed with trying to figure it out."
"You'll be too busy trying to coerce them into writing the songs for Glee," Kurt laughed.
"Why shouldn't I? We would be exploiting our strengths. It would be like using my exceptional vocals at competitions - something to help us win," and both Kurt and Mercedes choked at the implication.
"Oh no you didn't! You know my boy Kurt and I can sing just as well as you," Mercedes said, challenging the brunette girl.
"Better," Kurt added. Rachel rolled her eyes, but didn't rise to the bait; she couldn't be bothered, not today.
"Anyway, you're not going to find out who it is if they don't want to be found out," Kurt continued once he saw that Rachel wasn't biting.
"Why? Do you know something? Kurt, you'd better not know something you're not telling me! Or I swear -"
"Whoa! Easy girl, I don't know anything. I'm just saying that if they were easy to catch, they would have been caught by now. This Errant person's smart - they're not going to risk their identity being discovered. Don't push to far in your search Rachel, or you might scare them off."
"But if I don't push, I'll never find out who they are! I need to know!"
"You're crazy," Mercedes muttered.
"You don't need to know, you want to because you think they'll help launch your career. But what about them, Rachel? What would you give them? If you're going to be taking away their anonymity, then you'd better have something damn good to give them in return," Kurt said, staring at Rachel, who was at a loss for words. She really hadn't thought about what it might mean for the Poet if, no, when, she did discover who they were. Kurt and Mercedes were still staring at her, expecting an answer.
"I'll marry them," she blurted, then blushed. She'd marry them? Of all the nonsense to come out of her mouth, it had to be that? On the other side of the table, her friends had burst into laughter and the red in her cheeks deepened.
"You'll marry them? Seriously? If you make that a promise, I'll believe you," Kurt snorted between fits of laughter.
"Yeah, we'll make sure to write you a wedding song," Mercedes choked. Mortification angered Rachel, and before she knew it, she was looking them both dead in the eye, promising that if she found out who Errant was, and they agreed to help write the songs for Glee to help them win Nationals, then she would marry them. With triumph, she smirked when she saw that both Mercedes and Kurt's laughter had stopped short; the silence between the trio was deafening.
"But, but what if Errant's a girl?" Kurt spluttered. He hadn't been expecting her to promise; he thought she was just being her overly dramatic self. She flushed again, but held his eyes.
"A promise is a promise."
"Oh, you are in deep crap now," Mercedes chuckled, causing Kurt to glare at her sideways. Rachel was too absorbed in her own world to notice. Did she earnestly agree to the possibility of marrying another woman? What in the name of Barbra did she just get herself into?
"Gay marriage isn't even legal in Ohio," Mercedes continued. Kurt now glared at her directly.
"Well, who's to say that Errant is a girl. They might be a boy, in which case, the issue of gay marriage, though it should be legal in Ohio, and I don't understand why it isn't already, won't be a problem. It will be a normal, heterosexual marriage," Rachel said, "and Kurt, you shouldn't glare at Mercedes. I thought you of all people would advocate my marriage to another woman, if Errant so happens to turn out to be one."
"I don't appreciate that you're taking the issue of gay marriage so lightly. We all know that I won't be able to marry Blaine if we last that long. At least, not in Ohio," he said, taking his eyes of Mercedes and shifting them instead to Rachel. The sentence seemed to come out strained, and for the first time, Rachel wondered if maybe his inability to marry another man in his home state bothered him more than he let on; she knew first hand how hard it would be, if her dads were any indication.
"There's always New York," she offered.
"Yeah, there's always New York," he smiled, but there was a tinge of sadness to it, like he didn't really believe what he was saying.
Lunch after that moment of awkwardness progressed as usual; the atmosphere of tension lifted and the group talked about Glee and their chances at Nationals this year. Out of the corner of her eye, Rachel caught a sight of pink hair, but was oblivious to the hazel eyes which also belonged to the owner, glancing at her as often as they dared.