A/N: Merry Christmas everybody! In celebration, have the next chapter of this story. Enjoy!
She sped through the Lima streets, the gears in her mind spinning, turning, grinding, trying to decide where first to look for one, Quinn Fabray. Turning, turning again, speeding. Hardly without knowing it, she skid to a stop outside the location of their last date - the laser tag place.
She burst through the door, pushing it open so hard that it slammed against the wall, leaving a dent from the handle in the plaster. Some of it dislodged and crumbled to the floor as it swung back closed. Every pair of eyes turned to her, games left, ignored as the electronic sounds of death and of car crashes resounded in the small space. She held their stares for a moment, daring them to challenge her. None did. One by one, they turned back to their video games, inserting another coin into the slot, but their attention was still fixated on Rachel. She could feel the tension in the air as they tried not to breathe, lest they miss finding out who the girl with the rage filled eyes was, and why she was there, looking murderous. She marched up to the counter, coming face to face with the owner of the complex; Ernest, she remembered. He shook his head, already guessing what she was there for.
"She's not here," he said. Rachel glared at him for a moment, until she was sure beyond doubt that he was telling the truth. It must have looked strange, the small girl with her eyes narrowed at the tall man behind the counter, but she didn't care. She wanted to find Quinn. Turning on the ball of her foot, she stormed back out, the sound of her footsteps drowning out the words Ernest was crying out to her as she left: "remember she loves you!"
Rachel filed the words away in her mind, under "Things Never To Be Thought Of Again", once more starting her car and putting her full weight on the accelerator, not caring that each time she did so, she was destroying her car a little more. She drove past the skate park, slowing her car down to a crawl, peering at the people there; they were all truanting kids, skipping school in favour of the half pipe. There was no sign of the girl she was looking for, no flash of pink hair. Growing more frustrated by the minute, she floored the accelerator again, the car shooting forward without protest.
Next stop, the bikey bar, she thought as she scoured her mind for directions. She suddenly wished she'd paid more attention to where they were going that night of their first date, rather than being caught in the thrill of it all. But it was Lima, she grew up here; she had some inherent sense of direction, knowing instinctively where to turn off, and soon, found herself on the open highway, certain that in a moment, the House of Chaos would appear on the horizon.
As if to prove her right, within a few minutes, a small, run down building with a patch of dirt as a parking lot appeared, bikes strewn all over the space. Rachel pulled into the lot, shutting the engine off right in the middle of the driveway, oblivious in her anger to the fact that she was stopping anyone from entering or leaving the venue. Even if she had known it, at that moment, she wouldn't have cared. The anger in her boiled; she was sweating, a thin layer coating her lower back, and she clenched her teeth as she marched up to the front door, kicking up little clouds of brown dust as she went. This time, no one so much as looked up from their drinks as she entered. She headed straight for the bar, making a beeline for Bernie.
"Well, looky, it's Quinnie's little friend! What brings you to this fine establishment today, m'dear?" he greeted with a warm smile, pouring a pint of beer as he did so.
"Is she here?" Rachel asked, cutting to the chase. She had no patience for pleasantries today. She wanted to find Quinn, and she wanted to find her immediately. She and her 'girlfriend' needed to have words.
"'Fraid not, my girl. Haven't seen her 'round for a coupl'a days," he lamented, "but you look like a woman wronged. What's that girl done to ya?"
"Yes, pray, do tell. What's Quinn done to have you bursting in here on a school day, looking like you would like to have her head on a silver platter?" a voice came from further down the bar. Rachel whipped her head around to find Mark, the mysterious friend of Quinn's that she'd met on their first date, sitting there, glass of beer in hand. He raised his eyebrows at her, letting them re-ask the question.
"She lied to me," Rachel stated shortly. Mark shrugged, coolly, as if to say 'so what?'.
"She lies to everybody. You learn to get used to it."
"But she promised she wasn't lying to me! And then she did. I don't appreciate having my trust destroyed by anybody. She broke a promise and she lied."
"What did she lie about?" Mark asked with curiosity, taking a sip from his beer. Bernie leaned his elbows on the counter top, bringing his face closer to the conversation, as interested as Mark. Rachel swallowed.
"She lied about lying. And she lied about not knowing anything about this graffiti poet who had been leaving beautiful pieces of poetry all around the school," she said, trailing off. She left out the part about Quinn's apologetic kisses, thinking that was too personal to share; Quinn might have been comfortable around these two men, but she wasn't Quinn, and she didn't think that letting them entirely into every facet of her life was prudent of her.
"Ah yes, Errant, her pseudonym from ever since she started writing. But why is it even important? She likes keeping herself separate from the things she writes. I'm not seeing the connection," Mark shrugged, keeping his eyes trained on Rachel. She suppressed a growl which wanted to emerge from the back of her throat. Where could she begin to explain? She took a moment to compose the thoughts in her head.
"I was curious. I wanted to know who Errant was, and I made it my mission to find out. I got a little obsessed. People made fun of me over it. Not horribly, of course, but they used to laugh, call me crazy - it was very discouraging. But never Quinn. She would encourage me, try to help me. One time she gave me a scrap of paper with a poem that she'd co-" Rachel paled, realising that Quinn hadn't copied that poem from anywhere; that piece of paper was the only evidence that Quinn, Errant, had ever written that poem. And Rachel was the only other person who had ever seen it. Her stomach felt hollow.
Both Mark and Bernie were staring at her with intense curiosity, but neither spoke as Rachel was enveloped by her epiphany. Suddenly aware of their stares and their silence, she recovered herself. Swallowing, even though her mouth was dry, she tried to continue.
"She knew how important it was to me to find out who Errant was. And she promised, she looked me right in the eye, and she promised that she had no idea. And all this time…" she hung her head, jaw clenched to prevent the sudden prickling in her eyes which was indicative of imminent crying. Mark studied his drink, trying to find inspiration for what to say in its depths, to comfort Rachel, to defend Quinn. But it was Bernie who spoke. He looked out across the bar, but his eyes revealed that he was speaking from his heart.
"Silly, silly girl, that Quinn. Pretends she knows what she's doin' but in truth, ain't got any idea. Rachel," he said, now focusing on her, "she does love ya. She ain't so good at showin' it, but I swear, she does. You gotta forgive her."
"I can't."
The words broke her heart even as she realised that she meant them. Something snapped into place within her chest. There wouldn't be any more forgiveness for Quinn, not this time. Rachel had always been lenient, thinking that if she forgave Quinn often enough, then the girl would stop victimising her, that they might become friends. Slowly, it happened, slowly they had flown past the stage of friendship and thrown themselves into something sweeter, more intimate - something more. And Quinn, with some lies, had shattered the foundations of their relationship. Rachel had no more forgiveness left in her; she had spent it all - now there was nothing more to get in return for forgiving Quinn again. Romance was out of the question, the trust she had in Quinn broken into a thousand small fragments. And friendship - it hurt Rachel's heart to imagine Quinn as just a friend.
She stood and walked out of the bar, ignoring the questions and the pleas for her to stop from the two men she was leaving. They probably imagined that she was off to find Quinn, to drag her into the confrontation that she had been so hell bent upon when she'd first entered the bar, wild and caught in the maelstrom of her own fury. But she wasn't. Her soul was tired, dragging its feet, the fight all gone. Instead, she got into her car and drove home, taking her time. No, there weren't any options left for her and Quinn. Not anymore.
Listless and exhausted, she dropped onto her bed once she got home, pretending that she wasn't missing a day of school to feel sorry for herself and what her life had become. Her phone buzzed, but she ignored it. Later, when she bothered to check, she would see the message was from Quinn. She never replied.
The next few days straggled, struggling to move forward, as if the clocks all had trouble ticking onwards, or the Universe had decided in a change of pace and slowed everything down tenfold. Rachel went to school, did her work, acted happy, ignored any form of contact from Quinn. And soon, she found that she was happy, that the act was no longer an act, at least not the way it had begun. Rachel could breathe again, deep, wholesome, life-giving breaths. She threw herself back into school and Glee. The won competitions, including Nationals, the ever sought after trophy perched in a position of pride in the choir room. Rachel improved her grades, and spirits ran high in the population of the McKinley seniors. The graffiti, Errant's epitaph, were scrubbed from the hallway floor, and the final presence of Quinn was eradicated from the school, and Rachel had buried her feelings for the girl so deep in the locked chest within her heart, that she barely felt a pang of loss that it was gone.
The weeks flew by, melting into months, and one day, almost unexpectedly, Rachel awoke with a jolt in the pit of her stomach. Graduation - the final steps she would ever take as a high schooler. She could not stop grinning as she did her morning session on the elliptical. She even ate more than her usual fill at breakfast, breaking the strict diet she had maintained over the past few years. The end had finally come, and it was goodbye Glee club, hello Broadway! At least, that was the plan. It had been the plan ever since Rachel had been old enough to form coherent thoughts of her own. Today, she would graduate, and next week, she would be gone, packed and left to move to New York with Kurt, their applications, by some stroke of luck, having both been accepted. They had literally cried tears of joy when they had received their letters. Rachel's fathers couldn't be more proud. The letter in question was now framed and hung up in the basement, right below the enormous portrait of Rachel. The moment of receiving that letter, holding it with nauseating anticipation as she fumbled to tear it open, and then finding out that she had been accepted was one of the best moments of her life. She only had one final hurdle before getting there.
The school that day was abuzz with the excited murmurs of the senior class of 2012, and the proud mutterings of the parents as slowly, the graduation ceremony began. And, to Rachel, seemed to finish just as soon as it had begun. She could barely remember strutting across the stage to receive her graduate certificate, only that she had, and that it was now sitting in her hand, neatly rolled up and held closed by a red and black ribbon. She shook her head in disbelief. She had done it - she had made it through high school, through endless bullying and ridicule and boring classes and tough competitions - she had made it. Now she was off into the big wide world, and more specifically, the world of musical theatre. She could barely contain the excitement which bubbled within her at every waking moment. Nothing could dampen her spirits, nothing at all.
Almost.
It wasn't until the ceremony was over that Rachel spotted her, standing alongside Puck as everyone started to drift away from the school. Rachel put her head down, picking up her stride. She wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. But too late. A voice called to her, cutting over the conversations of the people around her.
"Rachel!"
Rachel stopped dead in her tracks. Her heart did an involuntary leap in her chest, a display of the acrobatics which had lain dormant for months. She mentally chastised herself, then, taking a deep breath, she let her manner cool.
"Quinn," she returned, turning to face the other girl.
"Congratulations," Quinn offered, meeting her eye for a second, then glancing away. Rachel nodded her thanks. They stood there for a moment, Rachel looking at the other students and parents around them, while Quinn, hands in pockets, shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. Just about to leave, Rachel was stopped by Quinn speaking again.
"Look, Rachel, I'm sorry. I was really, really stupid, and I handled everything so badly," she said, "I went for a display of bravado and ostentatiousness, rather than coming and confessing it all to you quietly."
Rachel's attitude changed immediately. The dam holding back all her anger from the recent months broke, and it came spilling out, flooding over Quinn with all its force.
"Too bad Fabray. You should have realised that at the time. I wasn't your play thing, I was your girlfriend. The least you could have done was tell me, not lead me on this wild goose chase. You knew what it meant to me, you knew how much I wanted to find out, how much time I'd invested, how much effort, and yet, you still lied to me, you still toyed with me. So don't come to me now with your damn apologies, thinking that's going to make everything better, because it's not. We're broken beyond hope. And I'm going to New York, Quinn. I'm moving away, somewhere I can follow my dreams and be happy and not have a million things thrown in my face every single god damned day that remind me of you! So you can keep your apologies. I don't want them," she raged, her face turning red, her voice rising in pitch and volume. A few people stared. A few paused their conversations to listen. Quinn's face flushed a deep, heated red - the red of shame. But Rachel stopped her natural reaction of sympathy. She wasn't going to let herself feel that Quinn. She'd done so before, all it had just led to her being hurt. She wasn't doing that again.
"Rachel, I," began Quinn in a hopeless voice, throwing her palms out in a peace offering which Rachel ignored.
"I'm going away. There's nothing left for me here," Rachel said shortly, then, with as much of the Rachel Berry storm out attitude as she could muster, she turned on her heel and strode away. She didn't see the slump of Quinn's shoulders, or the single tear which escaped from the pained hazel eyes and wound a path down the fair face. Instead, she got into her car and sped home, suddenly not in the mood for the graduation party that had been planned at Brittany's house. After the sixth unanswered phone call later that afternoon, her phone stopped buzzing. She didn't turn up to the party.
For the next week, she was in a frenzy. She packed, she rushed around town, picking up last minute things and made her rounds of goodbyes. There were tears and promises of phone calls and emails. Mercedes promised to see her off at the airport, but Rachel gently explained that there was no need, that she and her dads would be driving to New York, spending that bit of precious family time together. Crestfallen, Mercedes had given her a warm hug. Puck, unexpectedly dropping by the day before Rachel's departure, left her a package, a 'goodbye, good luck gift' as he called it, which Rachel carefully tucked into her bag, promising to open it when they got to New York. He left after a quick hug and warm well wishes. Slowly, the goodbyes were made. At no point was there any sign of Quinn. When it came time to leave, Rachel breathed a silent sigh of relief that the pink haired girl had not tried another attempt at reconciliation. Leaving was much easier that way.
That morning, with the promise of a nice road trip and of dreams coming true in the city of lights, Rachel left Lima, and Quinn, behind. Suddenly, Rachel felt very much like Dorothy on the yellow brick road, full of hope and dreams and open to every possibility, while the Emerald City glimmered on the horizon.
A/N: So that wraps up this half of the story. From the next chapter onwards, we will see Rachel settled into her life in New York, a Broadway success. Yes, it's a bit of a time jump, but that's how the story was planned right from the beginning. If you're really going to hate the story doing that, speak up now, or forever hold your peace :)