Rachel stood frozen in place, the odd traveler passing in front of her here and there as she stared wide-eyed at her former roommate, neither altering their matched gazes. It wasn't only a surprise to see the girl, but also to have been staring so long without one of the girl's trademark quick-witted remarks breaking the ice; Santana was always one to think fast and react without a filter, while she'd often need time to think, which made it all the more curious that the raven-haired beauty in front of her was silent. I can only imagine what's going through her head right now…but, more importantly…what the heck is she doing here in Toronto at eight o'clock in the morning? Since when does she ever get up early?
She knew that she'd called the girl's name a while ago; whether it was seconds or minutes, she wasn't sure. All that she knew was the girl had an unreadable expression on her face, and that made her question whether she was welcome; the girl hadn't even answered or made a gesture of acknowledgement, not that she cared that much. Well, not that she wanted to care that much, anyway. It had been a similar situation when they had all split up years ago, Rachel deciding that it would hurt too much to continue caring about the girl, so she had stopped and quickly lost contact with her old friend. To see her so close again stung more than a little bit, because while she hadn't made efforts to contact Santana, the other girl hadn't tried to contact her either, which only made her feel the imposed silence was something Santana had preferred. Though, even with Santana complicit in the non-communication, she couldn't help but feel guilty for initiating it.
Kurt had moved to Manhattan to be closer to his job at Vogue, while she'd moved to a small condo in Park Slope to be closer to BAM, where some of her steadier performances were held around the time of their separation. Santana had gone somewhere. Rachel had never been too sure where, but by her presence in the airport, she was sure it wasn't Toronto. She wondered if Santana lived alone too; if she missed their wacky outings together, often reminisced about the thirteen short months they'd spent together growing their friendship. A friendship that I threw away…probably the only friendship I did that to…
"Are you just gonna stand there, Berry?" she heard Santana ask warily, breaking Rachel from her thoughts. Prompted with such a question, she looked around, only to find all of the seats were filled. Rachel frowned at the sight, but it didn't last long; Santana started grumbling and knocked some stranger's luggage off the seat beside her, clearing her a seat. Rachel, however, noticed that the stranger was too busy listening to music on his headphones and attempting to ogle her to care about his luggage, so she merely gestured Santana to follow her instead.
The girl got up with a groan, but gamely stood and gathered her luggage before following Rachel down the hall, further from the waiting area. She almost felt bad for Santana, who was lugging around a larger piece of luggage without wheels along with a guitar case, while she had a nice compact one on wheels, making the trip rather easy. She eventually found a nice comfortable looking wall with four seats jutting out of it; she quickly rested her luggage off to the side and sat, gesturing for Santana to do the same.
"The waiting area will be much too crowded far too soon, and we won't want to be there. Besides, this hall seems fairly less traveled than some of the others." Rachel stated, taking a look around.
"We will if we want to catch our flight." The other girl mumbled, sitting down onto one of the seats beside her roughly, clearly tired. It did allow Rachel to get a closer, albeit brief look at the girl; she wasn't wearing much makeup, but it looked like Santana had probably been sleeping as well as she had been. Which, really, wasn't a good thing.
"I have an app on my phone that will notify us if the delay is lifted, so don't worry about that, Santana." She stated happily, her words apparently putting the other girl at ease, given the long sigh Santana let out.
"You supposed to catch the eight o'clock to JFK too?" Santana asked quietly, her eyes closed and head tilted toward the ceiling as she stretched out in her seat.
Santana still lived in New York. It came as a relief, knowing that she was so close, but she couldn't help but be depressed that as large as the city was, no one was ever that far apart. Chances are she could have made a thirty or forty minute commute any day of the week to wherever Santana lived. Rachel wanted to try and gauge the other girl's success, wondering how she'd been doing, but no one looked good that early in the morning. "Yes." She noted simply, not sure what else she could say, or more accurately, what would be appropriate to say.
"Well, it's good one of us is prepared, then." The other girl scoffed, though it sounded more like the start of a laugh, the brief flicker of an upward curve on Santana's lips confirming that notion quickly.
"I wouldn't be Rachel Barbra Berry if I wasn't prepared for such an emergency. And, of course, being stuck in an airport during a blizzard counts as an emergency, in case you were to question its merit as one." She rambled, feeling a little nervous that Santana had barely looked at her since they left the waiting room. Rachel desperately hoped she wasn't making anything too awkward, she knew she tended to do that sometimes in strained social situations where guidelines of conduct weren't entirely clear.
"Not gonna dispute that, short stack." Santana chuckled, finally opening her eyes, though her gaze was still locked to the ceiling. It at least gave Rachel a chance to look closer at the woman, and upon a brief appraisal, her eyes caught sight of a small notebook clutched in the girl's right hand, a thumb keeping her page where there seemed to be something written in pen.
She shifted slightly closer, trying to get a better look, and Santana didn't even seem to notice or care. It was a strange variation from how the girl had been when they'd lived together, where Santana was all about digging into other people's privacy, but would also keep her own strictly hidden away. It had been frustrating then, and she wondered what made that change. "Are you following in my footsteps now, or Quinn's?" she asked the raven-haired girl beside her, who just huffed at her question in confusion before turning to look at her.
Rachel just gestured to the pad, which Santana slipped her thumb out of reflexively. "I haven't been as successful as you or anything, which is kind of disgraceful now that I think about it, but yeah…I guess I have." Santana spoke, though she looked like she was desperately searching for the right words, which really wasn't like her. "You did say I should give it a shot…you know, way back when."
Rachel nodded in understanding; she had told Santana to give songwriting a chance when the girl had been wondering what direction to take her life in. She knew the girl's voice was radio-friendly, that Santana was good with words and had a good feel for music, so she had figured it would be a good fit. That was about three weeks before we all went our separate ways…
"Do you write music for a living?" She asked simply, deciding not to barrage her ex roommate with questions that were popping up in her head.
"I write and perform my stuff, the odd cover here or there, whatever." Santana stated offhandedly, which was an interesting response. Santana had always been a passionate person, especially with music, so it wasn't like her to just brush that sort of thing off. Rachel certainly wasn't sure the girl was just being modest either.
"Jeez, Santana. Don't sound too enthusiastic." She spoke, laughing a little in hopes to lighten the mood. Santana gave a small, tired smile and leaned back in her chair a little.
"I love it, it's just…it's not easy." The girl spoke quietly, letting out another sigh. "It's a lot of long nights, a lot of one meal days, a lot of gas money spent, a lot of road trips to play concerts for fifty people who never buy merch or my album. A lot of constant debts to pay off or worry about. It's hard. The music's the easy part. Everything else…well, it is what it is." Santana spoke wearily, and Rachel couldn't help but wonder if she was just capping off a small tour or in the midst of one, potentially missing a show in New York if she didn't get back soon enough. Not that apparently many people would truly miss her, which was more than a little depressing.
"I understand what it's like to not be appreciated." Rachel added, feeling very similar frustrations over her own career projections and the trials she'd endured to have what little she had.
Santana shot her an immediate hard and disbelieving glare. "Yeah, because Broadway star Rachel Berry doesn't sell out every crowd or something."
Rachel recoiled at the words, and realized that as much as she'd cut Santana from her life, Santana had avoided her. "I'm not exactly on Broadway yet, let alone a star. I just finished a job here in Toronto because it was the only lead role I could get." She explained, and to her delight, Santana looked genuinely shocked, and kind of outraged if that angry little eye twitch still meant what it used to.
"What the hell has been going on over on that fucking island?" Santana growled out as she shook her head. "Seriously, you fucking blew right through all your competition, your profs swooned when you sang. SWOONED. You sang in central park once and a kid actually literally thought you were an angel, so what the fuck happened? You're like the best singer out there, and you can pull pretty much any emotion out on a drop of a hat….what the fuck."
Rachel sat there for a moment, drinking in the unexpected compliments, unable to keep from smiling bashfully from hearing someone who used to constantly tear her down put her on a pedestal. Sure, she knew she was probably the best active stage singer in New York, but she was clearly missing something, otherwise she would have made it by then. "I…thank you for the compliments, Santana. It's just…the Broadway producers seem to be looking for qualities that I don't have."
She more or less expected Santana to make a joke about her appearance, whether it was lighthearted and playful like they had come to be near the end of their time together or not, but the darker girl just kept shaking her head.
"It's bullshit. You should be headlining a show by now. I deserve to be where I am, but you…fuck, everyone knows you don't." Santana noted quietly, slumping forward in her seat as she ran a hand through her hair.
Rachel quietly hummed in pseudo-agreement, but didn't know what to say. She didn't know enough about Santana to give a fair appraisal, and they'd always had this relationship where they tried to be honest with each other. If Rachel was falling off the tracks, dating a creeper, and losing her focus, Santana called her out. If Santana was being aimless and running away from making the most minimal of decisions about her life, Rachel called her on it. She knew Santana wouldn't be up for any empty platitudes, so she just remained quiet until she knew better about the girl's music.
Eventually, Santana cocked her head slightly toward Rachel again, though most of her face was hidden by her hair. "How's Kurt? You two keep in touch still?" The other girl asked, and Rachel decided she'd ignore what was really being asked for the moment. It wasn't something she felt comfortable explaining.
"He's one of Vogue's top editors now, not just online. He's…doing really well for himself. This morning, he told me he's been chosen to help manage both of New York's next Fashion Week festivals." She explained as calmly as she could, knowing that Santana was like a bloodhound, able to smell any hint of jealousy she harbored.
"He still make time for you? Sounds like he's got a busy life." Santana stated, turning in her seat and tucking her legs under herself to fully face Rachel.
She knew her former roommate had caught scent of something, and she wasn't sure what was going on in Santana's mind, so she just stayed her course in the discussion. "We skype often enough…but I haven't seen him in person for about six months, maybe seven. That was for an hour long coffee date." She didn't try to hide her disappointment, figuring it would be a useless endeavour anyway. Santana had always been scarily perceptive, much like Brittany had been, which is why they'd been so dangerous. Santana could smell out perfect targets like sharks went after blood in the water. Brittany would milk information naively out of people with her cheery and often nonsensical banter, and when Santana was relayed it eventually, she'd viciously use it against people when they were at their most vulnerable. It had been an espionage and terrorism match made in heaven.
"That's shitty, Berry. He forgot Blaine when he moved here, and then he gets big and forgets about the girl that helped him get there. I hope you wished him a merry fucking Christmas this morning, then." Santana stated bitterly, seemingly offended on her behalf, though for what reason she wasn't sure.
"Santana, I haven't seen you in years, so I'm not someone who can act all high and mighty." Rachel retorted, earning a cocked eyebrow as Santana looked at her disbelievingly.
"You're kidding, right? It wouldn't have fucking mattered…once I left that barren apartment with you two, I was gone, alright? I knew you needed time to practice, audition, rehearse, all that shit…you wouldn't have time for me, and I knew that was how it was heading even if I knew you probably didn't, so I vanished." Santana explained quickly, and Rachel had to do a double-take at the girl's words. Santana stopped contacting me…for my sake? I'm not sure I can believe that.
Rachel reached out a laid a hand on Santana's shoulder. "I should have made time. I regret that I didn't."
"Don't worry about it, I was fine." Santana noted, rolling her eyes, a reaction she usually got after physical contact when she was nervous. Which means she probably wasn't THAT fine…
Rachel decided to change things up a little to give her a break, while pressing her in a slightly different area. "Where did you end up settling after we all went our separate ways?" she asked, earning a slight shrug.
"I went to Queens. Not the nicest neighbourhood in there, but I could afford the rent, and I could manage for a while." Santana said, her nervous hands giving her away despite the cool, calm expression on her face. "What job did you do up here, anyway?"
Rachel let the topic go for the moment, deciding it would be better left for later. "I took over the lead in 'Mamma Mia!' for a few weeks while the original lead recovered from a gunshot wound…at least that's what I heard. It was fun enough, I guess."
"I hope it bodes well for your future. I know Toronto's not Broadway, but a lead on a big show is something that could get you noticed." Santana's attempts to spur hopefulness weren't exactly catching on with Rachel, but she supposed it was good that at least someone had higher hopes for her future.
"Thanks. What were you doing here in Toronto? Playing a show?" she asked, curious as to why the girl would be up in the great white north.
Santana shook her head and laughed. "No, I don't have any pull up here, and it'd be too expensive to tour here and take that risk. No, I was just visiting my cousin for a few days."
"Most people stay with their family for Christmas, not leave a few days before." Rachel noted with amusement, which clearly wasn't lost on Santana, who swatted lightly at her.
"I'm not most people, I can only handle my family in small doses." The girl said, chuckling, though her eyes were focused off at some blank square on the wall ahead of them. Rachel took the brief distraction to consider her own family. She'd last seen her fathers the previous year for her birthday, but while she was stuck in an airport and had been working away in Toronto over her birthday that year, her fathers were on some Mediterranean cruise for the whole month of December.
She missed them. She missed a lot of things, but she really did miss them, and Rachel really wished she could make more time for them. "Family is important." She mumbled, unsure of who out of the two she was trying to convince.
"So I've been told." Santana stated tiredly almost immediately, which snapped her head toward the raven-haired woman.
"There a story behind that?" she asked, wondering if maybe she was pressing too hard for information, considering she hadn't seen Santana in years.
"Maybe one will materialize after I get some food in me." Santana answered, getting up from her seat to stretch. "Come on, I'm hungry for breakfast, and I'm curious to see if they serve the same bile they do in JFK."
Rachel just nodded as she grabbed her luggage, both of them walking off through the terminal for somewhere decent to eat.
211 Belaire Café seemed like a good enough place, Santana figured. It was a small little restaurant with tables and seats and everything, which was nice to find in an airport. The pair had stopped off at a nearby mini mart beforehand to grab some vegan stuff for Rachel to eat, as apparently the place didn't have the best selection of vegan food. Santana, on the other hand, was tremendously pleased with her warm, gooey cinnamon bun and figured it would make her day a teensy bit better, which she deserved for being snowed in.
The both of them kept some idle conversation, Santana more or less just giving easy responses when she needed to, it was their dynamic when Rachel knew Santana needed time to figure out how to tell her something, but also needed to not be surrounded in silence and the pressure of being the first to speak. It was nice to have that comfortable buffer back; Rachel had always been a really good conversationalist, though she realized the girl wasn't talking in paragraphs as often, nor was she as verbose or over-dramatic. It was an interesting change, one she'd question the diva on later. Truth be told, she kind of missed the diva's crazy, long-winded nervous rants.
But all in all, as she finished her breakfast pita, she couldn't help but be kind of relieved that she was re-connecting with someone. She'd really missed Berry. She'd missed having friends. Not that she felt it fair to consider Rachel her friend, considering the years between them, just like how she knew Rachel shouldn't see Santana as one either. They had a bit over six years between them , which was longer than the span of time that they'd honestly known each other, even as enemies.
Santana pulled out her notepad and watched with amusement as Rachel continued to devour the mountain of vegan food she'd bought; she'd wanted to write a Christmas song, but all she'd been able to write was a jaded reflection of her life. Not that it was a bad set of lyrics, it was just brutally honest and she wasn't sure how easy it would be to put that sort of thing out to the public. Especially seeing how she still wasn't sure what she wanted to do with it, though she did know what sort of sound she needed it to have.
"So, how's the music life going? I…I know you gave me some details beforehand, but I really just want to know if you're doing alright. It isn't an easy field." Rachel stated, drawing Santana's attention from her pad.
"I kind of told about as much as I could before." She answered, not sure what Rachel wanted from her with that choice of topic.
"You said it was hard, but…nothing about the music itself." Rachel clarified, and Santana nodded, sort of understanding that Rachel was curious, so of course she'd be interested in her music, even if the general populace had already proven to her that her music wasn't exactly exciting.
Santana cocked her head to the side a bit, trying to figure out how she wanted to say things. "I…kind of do a bit of everything, I guess. My music tastes have always been pretty widely spread out, and my song writing's followed that too, for better or worse. Well, definitely worse, objectively, seeing as most people pick one style. It's been hard to get out an album with a cohesive sound…I have, like forty something tracks recorded that I think are pretty great, but they don't have a home yet. I…well, I'm just waiting for enough songs to be similar so I can bundle them into something."
Rachel's eyes grew wide, her excitement bubbling up into her face. "Is your album close to done?" the girl asked breathlessly, as if it were an answer she should be breathless about, when most wouldn't waste their breath talking about it after hearing it.
"It's actually out. Didn't fare well…twelve tracks, forty seven minutes and thirty three seconds of music that's got about five thousand sales. Not real great for something that's been out for almost two years." She explained with a frown, wishing she had a label to market her stuff, but she'd had to do all the leg-work herself, and that was a big issue in the whole money-generating part of her life.
"Oh." Rachel said softly, looking surprisingly sad about how everything had gone down. On second thought, it shouldn't be a surprise…she's always been a total sweetheart, and she always cared about me… "So, um…what else do you have on the go to help make ends meet?"
Santana shrugged, trying to fight the flush of embarrassment, not wanting Rachel to know that she did less than classy things for money alongside a coffeehouse gig that gave her too few hours and too few tip opportunities. "It's nothing interesting, really. What have you been in, play-wise and all?"
"Well I've been in a lot of productions, though my major ones lately were Mamma Mia, of course, an off-Broadway production of Passion, and a new production called Nights Errant, which was purely acting. The script was really well done, but the subject material was a bit off the wall, it being about a lesbian dominatrix that spends seventy two hours in a hotel in south New Jersey, and runs into all sorts of fantastical things. It's all basically about a person who's finally challenging their need for control, and as the dominatrix's hold on reality weakens, the protagonist, represented by seven different people, becomes free. It was weird, but a fun experience." Rachel rambled happily, and Santana really wanted to not picture Rachel as a dominatrix. Honestly, it was close to Christmas, and those sorts of thoughts just weren't welcome.
"Good on you for branching out. Not that you should have to, but it's a good idea, expand your portfolio and all." Santana replied, standing up from her seat. "Ready to get back?"
Rachel nodded, grabbing her luggage and wheeling it alongside Santana, who felt entirely frustrated that her luggage didn't have wheels. She decided quickly that she needed better luggage. "It'll at least be a white Christmas out here."
"I'm sure the Canadians will appreciate it more than me." Santana scoffed, just wishing her plane would be able to take her away from Toronto.
As they found themselves back at their wall and in their seats again, Rachel turned to her, her face contorted somewhat from thought. "In high school…did you ever think we'd end up where we are in life?" Rachel asked, and the question hit harder than she'd expected it to.
Santana bowed her head a bit, taking a breath or two to figure how best to say what she needed to. It was an answer she knew full well, but one she was reluctant to voice. Well, I've already hit rock bottom before, may as well just get it out. "Not about you, but for me…I kind of expected to fail, yeah."
Not really feeling up for any follow ups, or in the mood to watch Rachel's gaping stares anymore, she flipped open her pad and began tweaking verses, adding the odd word to make things feel better. She'd written a song, or most of one, in an airport. Before nine thirty in the morning. It was absurd.
Happy with the silence and lack of nosiness from Berry, she toiled away on the piece until she was happy with the end result. Feeling the lingering wisps of sleep at the edges of her mind, she allowed herself a bit of rest. "Hey, I'm tired, I got maybe two hours last night. Will you make sure the Canadian hobos don't politely steal my belongings?" she asked groggily, earning a nod from Rachel. "Good. I'd hate to track them down and listen to them ramble on about their apologies and shit."
"No worries, Santana. Just get some rest."
And so she did.
Rachel was more than a tiny bit concerned. She'd never seen Santana so down and out about something she was passionate about, and it had been a long time since she'd seen the girl so evasive about anything. It had her curious as to how the girl had been since the split. Santana had always been a fount of confidence, even if it was false bravado; it made Santana something of a confident mess of a girl, but without any of that confidence, she was just simply a bit of a mess.
Not that she hadn't seen Santana struggle mightily before; she'd seen it with Brittany, and during her time in their apartment, where Santana would mask her disappointment or hurt by showing in her confidence in something that was sometimes related and sometimes not. Such as when she and Kurt had kicked Santana out after her Paula Abdul routine in front of Brody, though Santana always bounced back with her wit, verbal jabs and playfulness intact.
In a way, Rachel came to really enjoy the other girl's childishness at times. Sure, Santana was quite often clearly immature, but she had been fun to have around the apartment when they were getting along, and she never let Rachel stay bored for long, or mope around. Santana always found a way to jump in with some ludicrous idea or plan that managed to get her mind off all the stressors she had been dealing with. For a few months in her freshman year and the following summer, Santana was the only person who kept her sane, especially after losing the Fanny Brice role to a relative of Meryl Streep who was so putrid that the Broadway show was cancelled after the first two weeks. It was the first of many disappointments she'd had to endure, and watching her favourite musical go down in flames due to a lack of talent, talent which she could have used to save it, had been heartbreaking.
After they had all split up, Rachel found herself quickly missing that playfulness, that easy amusement, and she knew how handy it would have been some nights after long rehearsals or auditions, or the mass amount of days she'd simply been lonely. Sure, Santana was often abrasive and would insult her constantly, but it was all done in jest and at the end of the day, the girl would have her feeling better about herself somehow, and she had a terrific sense for when people just needed company. Rachel supposed it came from being friends with Brittany, who didn't speak so much as use body language, and Quinn, who always looked like an ice-queen even when she was incredibly vulnerable. Santana had managed to handle both of those terribly strange people, so she imagined that Rachel Barbra Berry wasn't so difficult. After all, Rachel knew she wore her heart out on her sleeve, was a terrible liar, and openly moped. It had just been impressive that the girl could tell what mood she was in based on where she'd drop her bag, her walking pace, which part of the apartment she'd enter first, among other 'tells' that Santana had managed to figure out over time. And while sometimes she honestly did want to be alone back in the day, it was always nice to know that the other girl would constantly look out for her. It was nice to know someone cared, especially once Kurt began to drift. Trying to be a Broadway star left minimal time for getting out and socializing, and over the years she often wished she had someone to come home to like Santana who could cheer her up, watch bad movies with her, and sing silly songs with her like they used to do.
"How did I just let her slip through my fingers?" she wondered openly, her eyes glancing over at the sleeping girl. It was a question she'd considered many times, and she was left without an ironclad answer. In truth, she'd grown rather close to the raven-haired girl, having become a card-carrying member of the Santana Lopez Friend's Club, and with Kurt straying, she supposed she was just scared of that happening with Santana. Rachel and Kurt had never had the closest relationship, but they'd been somewhat amiable, which made it difficult when he started removing himself from her life. It wasn't easy, and it hurt, but she was able to withstand it. Whereas Rachel and Santana had been enemies longer than they'd been friends, but their ascent into friendship was like a bell curve, slow at first but steeper as they went. It was difficult to earn the girl's trust, but once she had it, it seemed to change everything. And Rachel couldn't fathom losing Santana so quickly, watching them grow apart over a length of time, so perhaps she'd decided to simply cut her off in hopes that sting wouldn't hurt as much.
In hindsight, it was tremendously stupid, but she never expected Santana to stick around. She never expected Santana to be loyal and remain so close with her. Rachel took another look at the sleeping girl and frowned, the thought that had lingered for years crossing her mind once more. I never thought she'd ever want more from me…and I suppose maybe I wasn't sure I could keep from asking her, and that would only cause us to drift…
Rachel felt guilty, seeing the weathered girl before her, wondering if perhaps her friendship would have helped Santana during her struggles. Wondering if they could have helped each other, even. It was a nice thought; she knew Santana had a large yet fragile ego, and self esteem issues, and often needed some subtle help dealing with it all. Without her around, she wondered if anyone took up the role to keep Santana from deflecting and getting overly defensive. It was clear that she'd lost much of the trust she'd built with Santana over their time apart, based on how vague and evasive her answers were; it worried her tremendously, yet intrigued her that seemingly every time she'd ask a difficult question, Santana would have her notepad in hand, writing away on it.
Feeling a little nosy, curious and perhaps a bit suicidal considering her knowledge of Santana's privacy and rage issues, Rachel reached over and grabbed the notepad resting on top of the girl's carry-on. Slowly, she flipped through it, many pages with crossed out lyrics, some with full sets that had been modified to death, some with just sloppily scribed sheet music. It was clear that the notepad was the girl's musical workbook, and when she got to the newest entry, she froze, her eyes scanning it over. It was a fairly long song, or a song with a lot of words sung quickly, and it looked close to done structurally.
As she read and re-read the lyrics, she found herself nodding, the content resonating with her on a number of levels. Sure, some of it was off-base with her own experiences, and she was surprised at Santana's flair for the dramatic in parts, but she knew the sense of overwhelming regret well. She'd been living with it for years, and she also knew the cost of her pursuit to be happy. Or, rather, her pursuit to make it to Broadway in order to be happy, and the knowledge that her efforts maybe didn't get her as far as the time she spent on it was worth. Some lines were vivid and heart-wrenchingly candid, but a pair of lines really stood out to her and made her blush from guilt, evidence of her mistake clear across the page as any truth that she'd learned in her life, and the sheer embarrassment and hurt emanating from them had her hastily placing the pad back where it was. I should have asked her… she mused, breathing as calmly as she could, trying to fight her tears as she thought about how she would handle the new information. Even with the pad a few feet out of her reach, the words were still swimming in her head.
"I was kind of hoping you'd say; I was kind of hoping you'd stay…" How could I have been so stupid? I knew about her abandonment issues, and yet I just went and cut her off, like everyone else did to her… she thought, chiding herself for being such a horrible friend, and not thinking about someone other than herself back then. She just wanted someone to stay, for once…to show her they wanted her around…
Rachel looked down at the sleeping girl, and mentally amended her understanding of Santana. She's not a girl, she's a woman…just because the years between that milestone and where we are now have been…wasteful for the most part, it doesn't change the fact that we're both adults now. We're both twenty six. She mused, wondering if maybe that confusion was what adulthood was about, even if just in part. If it was about broken dreams, struggling to gain enough perspective every year to keep from cracking, and learning their efforts didn't always secure them success. That some who made little or no effort got what some worked tirelessly for, even though some people desperately wanted it more.
If she'd gotten what she thought she deserved, Rachel wouldn't have been in the predicament of having received an email from her landlord, giving her notice to move out. Her apartment building was to be demolished in mid-late January, and that meant that she'd be looking for a new home. At least it'll be a slow season and it should be easy to grab up a place…I just wish that it affected me more…
Truthfully, she'd gotten the notice and shrugged. She was secure, certainly traditionally stable enough in her life. As Santana had written, everything people said about stability was a lie; Rachel had money to live off of, even if it wasn't as comfortable a life as she'd hoped for. It was at least good enough that she didn't miss meals, could afford to eat out occasionally, and could buy the odd blu-ray or see a few shows a year. That was what most considered to be stability, yet it meant so little to her. Sure, Rachel knew that she was spoiled to a degree, and that she was privileged and was taking much of those elements of financial stability for granted. It was just that it didn't matter much in the face of how unstable her happiness was in her life.
Sure, singing made her happy, performing made her happy, but once that was over she was faced with the same depressing reality she'd lived through for years. Money, food, and shelter were wonderful, but they didn't complete her, and she assumed Broadway wouldn't either. She wasn't about to trade in her Broadway dreams, of course, because she'd always wanted that, but she needed more than Broadway in her life. Rachel, over the years, couldn't help the nagging feeling that she'd screwed up along the way, ignoring her need for something to supplement those goals and the time away from the stage; something else to co-star with her other dreams. I should have been more ambitious…despite what everyone told me all my life, I should have dreamed bigger! I shouldn't have given up after Finn, Jesse, Puck , Brody and all those minor flings along the way. I shouldn't have stopped trying in junior year…I'm twenty six. I won't wait any longer…
A/N: Chapter 2 is down :) I hope you enjoyed this bit of mostly background info. Just going to say that in this, most of the show's major events up through season 4 are canon, but I obviously am taking liberties with their backgrounds and futures and everything. Fair warning.
Just want to thank everyone again for their wonderful support :) You're all awesome! And in case you don't know, YYZ is the airport code for Toronto's Lester B Pearson Airport. Coincidentally, it is also a title of a piece of music by the Canadian band 'Rush', who named it after the airport. I felt it was a fitting title for this fic, seeing as they're stuck there.
Also, some of this fic was influenced in part by a song by The Wonder Years called "Passing Through A Screen Door". That's generally, with small alterations where necessary, what Santana's written in her notepad. I figured I'd let you all know in advance to avoid any confusion.
Link here: watch?v=Jutbr7gwtZQ (watch?v=hq-T0SjROxM for the acoustic version, just in case you're not a fan of louder music)
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