"I'm sorry, do I-I know you?"

Oh, she was beautiful. Quinn knew she must look like a madwoman, her eyes roving over Rachel like a starving person. But it had been four – almost five – four years of nothing. No voice, no soft presence, no glimpse, and now… now there she was. There she was, and she was beautiful, all tan skin and flowing hair and a strange expression on her face. Her legs under the skirt seemed to go on for miles; the little girl had clearly turned into a gorgeous young woman. Quinn felt the tears begin to trickle down her face as she looked at Rachel, seeking to memorize every inch of her. Her portraits hadn't been that far off, she realized; she'd probably made Rachel's nose a little bigger than it actually was, and Quinn barely fought off a laugh, thinking how offended the petite girl would be once she heard that. But she needed to stop staring, she needed to get control of herself, and so Quinn took a deep breath, flexing her fingers against the table.

She smiled up at her. "I've missed you, Rach," she said, and her voice was hoarse from the tears that were still coursing over her cheeks.

The waitress shook her head. "I think… I'm sorry, but I-I think you have me confused with someone else," she said.

Quinn furrowed her brow in confusion. This was her Rachel, wasn't it? Well, of course it was: the height was the same, the brown hair and eyes were the same, the lyrical voice was the same. Just a bit older, and there was a strained smile on her face that didn't quite reach her eyes. And what was she doing waitressing in a place like this, Quinn wondered, finally taking in the stained tabletops and the grubby counters, the greasy smells coming from the kitchen. Rachel should be on Broadway by now, or at least going to school somewhere.

But this was definitely her Rachel, down to the way the girl was now worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. Even the way she moved, slowly while doing such mundane things, but with so much grace and poise. Almost as if she was constantly on a stage. It was so very Rachel that Quinn could almost cry with it – if she wasn't already crying.

So why didn't she—

"Rachel?" Quinn said suddenly, panic and fear creeping into her voice. "Don't you remember me?"

The smile was a little broader, but again it didn't reach her eyes, and the voice was pleasant, polite, and fake when she spoke, so that Quinn shuddered. "No, I'm sorry, I don't. I really don't t-think that I'm the same R-Rachel you're looking for."

"Oh. Could I- could I have some water please?"

Quinn stared down at her hands as Rachel walked off; her heart felt as if it had plummeted to the soles of her feet.

Rachel had forgotten her.

They had told her that this might happen; despite all the therapists Quinn had talked to, despite all the times that she had spent holed up in Sylvester's office crying out her fear and confusion, no one really knew what went on when a connection was severed. Her parents were powerless to offer any explanation; no amount of money that they could pay to any expert brought Quinn the answers she was searching for. The connection was gone, that was all anyone knew. No one knew if it could be repaired; no one knew if it would cause irrevocable damage to either, or both, parties. Quinn was certainly damaged, she'd felt; by the time she'd gone back to school everyone knew that she was the girl whose intended had left her. She'd had to endure the whispers in the hallway, the giggles as the girls on her squad asked each other what Quinn had done to run off her soul mate.

And then she'd worried about what had happened to Rachel. Every day she worried whether the girl – her girl – was safe and happy. Protected. Loved. It had driven her insane until she'd begged her parents on her sixteenth birthday to let her go to New York early. But they had refused, terrified of losing their daughter to the big city, and also terrified of what might happen if she followed through on her promise and located Rachel. They had warned her against finding Rachel, saying that she didn't know what it would do to the girl, to suddenly be confronted with her past. They couldn't even tell Quinn if Rachel would remember.

Clearly she didn't.

But Quinn remembered. She remembered everything. The first time she'd met Rachel, being so scared and confused. She remembered the nervous, awkward few days afterward, how Rachel would approach her shyly and sweetly, almost as if she was meeting Quinn for the first time again. And then things had slowly changed. Slowly she and Rachel had begun to grow closer, become more relaxed and open with each other until finally everything began to click and soon it was as if they had never been strangers, as if they really had been matched before the world had even began.

She remembered how Rachel's smile always reached her eyes, how her eyes would light up and sparkle almost as if Rachel didn't just like gold stars, but was one, and it showed through. She remembered how Rachel would giggle when she was happy, how her happiness would fill Quinn up and there was nothing more that she would want in life than for Rachel to always feel that. She remembered the sad things too: how things never seemed quite right with Rachel sometimes, but Rachel would never tell her. How Quinn wanted to scoop Rachel up in her arms and make it right any time she realized the little girl was sad. The times she had gone to her parents and begged them to help her find Rachel, to adopt Rachel, and her dad or mom would just hug her and tell her with kind words that it just didn't work that way, because then Rachel would be her sister and that would just be, well, awkward.

And even as her hands clutched the table to steady herself because she was shaking with her quiet sobs, Quinn smiled a little, remembering how Rachel had always been a terrible liar. How she would stutter and chew on her lower lip, how her hands would tremble…

The glass of water rattled a little against the table as the waitress sat it down in front of Quinn; her vision cleared long enough to notice the girl's hand shaking. Quinn raised her head and met Rachel's eyes.

Rachel looked away, but she didn't move from her spot at Quinn's side.

Her lip was firmly tucked between her bottom teeth.

She had stuttered.

Her hand was trembling.

And her eyes were full of tears.

Quinn shut her own eyes briefly, before reopening them. Her hands ached to touch Rachel, to bring the girl into her arms, but now Rachel was walking away. Quinn controlled herself, instead saying softly, "Rachel. Princess."

Rachel stopped, her hands limp at her sides and her head bowed even as she kept her back to Quinn. And Quinn knew.

She remembered.

"Please go away. Please." Rachel's voice was little more than a whisper.

"You never were good at pretending," Quinn said, wiping her eyes and her own voice coming a little stronger now. "Oh, you're a very good actress, weren't you always telling me about the plays you'd put on with your stuffed animals? But you never could lie to me."

"I'll tell him," Rachel said, and Quinn saw her tip her head, just slightly, toward the kitchen. "He'll make you leave me alone."

She didn't care what Rachel told the cook, wild horses couldn't drag her away from the diner at that moment.

"Haven't you missed me?" Quinn asked, annoyed that the question came out more desperate than she had wanted to. "It's been four years, Rachel, haven't you… thought about me at all in that time?"

Rachel turned around, her arms folded across her chest as she regarded Quinn defiantly. "No," she said. "I h-haven't. I haven't missed you at a-all. Never thought about you once, as a matter of fact."

The words would have hurt her, should have hurt her, if Quinn had believed them for an instant. But the tell was there, the gentle stumbling over, and instead they filled her with hope. Rachel had missed her.

"Stop lying," Quinn said sharply, but instantly felt guilty when Rachel winced and backed away. "I found you," Quinn said, her hands rising up from the table, palms out, as if in supplication. "I told you I would."

"Yes, you found me," Rachel bit out, "Though I haven't the slightest idea why you bothered. As you can see I am perfectly happy and fine, and I haven't m-missed you, and you can leave."

Quinn quirked an eyebrow. "Actually," she said, drawing out the word a little, "I'm rather hungry." She picked up the menu with an exaggerated gesture, glancing down it and picking out the first thing her eyes landed on. "Bring me a double cheeseburger with fries, no ketchup."

Now Rachel's hands were on her hips, her mouth a thin stretched line as she regarded Quinn with anger. "I don't have to do what you tell me to!" she snapped. "You're not my—" She stopped and looked around, lowering her voice, but the venom was still present. "You're not my dominant."

That hurt Quinn, but she tried not to show it. Instead, she calmly kept her gaze on Rachel as she said matter-of-factly, "On the contrary, Rachel, you do have to do as I say, because you're my waitress. A double cheeseburger with fries, no ketchup."

"You got an order?" the cook said, poking his head from out of the kitchen.

Rachel audibly huffed, throwing up her hands and stalking off in the direction of the kitchen, and Quinn's smile broadened, just slightly.

She'd missed the storm-outs.

Quinn took a deep breath, trying to steady herself and not jump with excitement at the fact that Rachel, her Rachel, was here. She'd found her. After all this time… she needed to tell Sam! She needed to tell Sam, and she needed to phone her parents. She'd need a new apartment. A new, bigger apartment with a bigger bed for both of them. And she'd get Rachel out of this… she glanced around. Out of this crappy diner in an even crappier neighborhood.

What was she doing working here? Quinn wondered again. There were so many questions she had to ask, so many things she wanted to know. But there would be plenty of time to ask the questions and get the answers, and to share everything that had happened to her in their time apart. There was a lifetime for her and Rachel to get reacquainted.

"So's why were you late?"

Quinn craned her ear toward the kitchen, just barely able to discern the voices. Rachel's was so low she had to strain, but even then she caught the sadness in her tone as she answered.

"Mom and I had an argument."

"Again? What for this time?"

Rachel laughed a little, a dry sound absent of any humor. "What do we always argue about? I wanted to go see a show."

"Wicked?"

"Yeah."

"You seen it ten times already."

"So?"

"She say no?"

"I don't need to waste my time sitting in an overpriced uncomfortable seat listening in horrid acoustics to even more horrible performers for the sake of a childish fairytale."

"Ouch. Sorry, kid. You really ought to move. Strike out on your own, you can do it!"

"Not on your salary." Rachel sounded a little more jovial, more like herself, and Quinn smiled even as the horrible realization that things hadn't changed for Rachel began to sink in.

"Please don't dock my pay… I'm sorry I was late."

"Nah, don't worry. Hey, take some cheesecake home with ya when you go. That'll cheer her up. Or shut her up, maybe that's better."

"Thanks, Burt, I appreciate it."

Quinn pretended not to have heard when Rachel came back to her table, unceremoniously plunking the plate down in front of her and stalking back off again. Quinn was of the mind to lecture her about being polite, but something on the plate stopped her. There, nestled in the mound of fries that was next to the cheeseburger, was a small cup of ranch dressing.

Rachel had always teased her that ranch dressing with fries was gross. And Quinn had always retorted that it was a good thing she was the one that was eating it that way then, not Rachel. Quinn traced the rim of the cup with her finger, feeling the tears threaten to overwhelm her again. It was such a small thing, just a little clear plastic cup with some watered-down dressing that had probably been sitting on a shelf for months… But it was proof. Like the thin fiber of a ribbon found in the laundry, it was real, tangible proof that something had existed. A frayed thread of memory linking them together, an unprompted remembrance of the past, and Quinn lifted her eyes from the plate to see Rachel sat on the stool at the counter across the floor, staring at her while pretending not to watch.

"Thank you," Quinn said. It sounded absurd, inadequate, but it was the only thing that she could offer, she was so shocked by a silly cup in a bed of fries.

"Why are you here?"

Quinn winced at the question, pausing to spear the dressing with a fry and pop one into her mouth. Hmm, not too bad, she noted with satisfaction; she really was hungry. She chewed, mulling over her answer, and swallowed before speaking.

"I made a promise."

"I didn't expect you to keep it."

"Well, I did," Quinn said, exasperated. "Honestly, Rachel, it's good to see that you're still as stubborn as ever."

"Please just leave me alone."

"I can't," Quinn said, the tears starting again. "Rachel, I've talked to you every night for four years, just hoping that you'd talk back to me, do you know what that's like?"

"No, I don't." Rachel spun idly around on the stool, a gesture that both infuriated Quinn and made her want to laugh at how little-girl-like it was. She finally stopped and looked at Quinn.

"I didn't hear it."

Quinn tilted her head in confusion. "Didn't hear what?"

"I didn't hear it. You talking every night for the last four years. I haven't heard any of it."

Quinn drew back, the knowledge of it making her feel sick to the pit of her stomach. She shoved the plate of half-eaten food away from her. "You didn't… hear me."

"It's gone," Rachel said, shrugging as if she were speaking of the most mundane thing in the world, instead of the connection that she once shared with her soul mate. "It's gone, and it's never going to be back. That's why you shouldn't have found me. Because what you're hoping for, it's not there anymore. I made sure of it. It's gone, and it'll always be gone."

"Be quiet," Quinn whispered, one hand lifting to her ear as if she could block out the words, block out the reality.

Rachel regarded her sadly. "You should never have come here, because what you want doesn't exist anymore. Maybe it never existed in the first place."

"Be. Quiet!" Quinn snapped, slamming her hand on the table.

"Hey, is there a problem out here?" Burt poked his head out and Quinn looked away, breathing hard.

It wasn't gone. She knew it wasn't. It had never been gone. At least not for her, and now she knew that Rachel remembered.

That was something, right? There had to be some hope there.

"No problem," Rachel called back, before glancing at Quinn. "Just a case of mistaken identity," she added softly.

"I'm not mistaken," Quinn said, shaking her head rapidly. "I'm not." She pointed to her heart. "It's here." The ranch cup. "And there." Rachel's heart. "And there. It's there, Rachel, and you can try to fight it as much as you want. But I promised you I would find you, and I have. And I am not giving you up again."

Rachel hopped off the counter and began to wipe down the tables, even though there had been no other customers except for Quinn. "I never asked you to find me, and I never asked you to fight for a lost cause." She kept her back to Quinn again as she spoke, her voice mournful. "But you found me, and I hope you found what you're looking for. An 18 year old waitress, working in a diner. Fine. Healthy. And… happy."

She looked over her shoulder at Quinn. "You found me, Quinn, now you can go back to wherever your home is and find someone else. Someone who can be… what you want her to be."

"You're who I want," Quinn insisted. "Rachel, you know how this works."

"It stopped working when you were fifteen years old, Quinn. I made sure of it. Now please leave. And for your sake, don't come back."

She sat in the diner for a while longer, hoping that Rachel would come back over and talk to her. Look at her, acknowledge her in some way, but she didn't. She just wiped tables, or spun on the stool, or waited on the other customers that slowly began to trickle in, all the while humming a tune that Quinn tried hard to recognize, but couldn't.

It was only when she left the diner, leaning against the hard brick outside as she cried, that she realized it was the first time she'd heard Rachel say her name in four years.

It was Sam who found her in the common room hours later, just as the sky had gotten dark. There were no lights, and she sat in a chair with Van on her lap. He hissed as Sam approached, jumping down and skulking off to the corner when he handed Quinn a bag of takeout.

"I don't think your cat likes me."

Quinn shrugged, opening up a container of beef lo mein. "He hates everybody. Even me."

"You've been down here ever since you got home," Sam said, digging into his sweet and sour chicken. He stopped with the chopsticks halfway to his mouth and shrugged at Quinn's raised eyebrow. "What, you live down the hall. I notice things."

"Stalker," she teased, and then sighed, picking at the food.

"And you're sitting in the dark. That means two things. Either you're sad because you still haven't found Rachel, or—"

"I found her," Quinn finished miserably.

"Whoa."

"Yeah. Whoa."

"Well, I'd say congratulations," Sam said around a mouthful of food, and Quinn wrinkled her nose. "But you've been down here since you got home, sitting in the dark."

"She pretended she didn't know me. And then when I called her out on it, she said that she was a lost cause, that I never should have found her, and that it'd be better if I just went home and found someone worthy of me."

"Hey!" Sam said, splaying out his arms and giving Quinn a wink.

Quinn laughed, the first genuine laugh she'd had all day. "That would be such an awkward relationship," she said, sticking her tongue out at him. She sobered then and shook her head. "She's not happy, Sam. She pretends to be, but she's not, and I can tell. And I think she wants this, I think she wanted me to find her, but she's fighting it."

"She must have a good reason then," Sam mused. He stretched out his legs and let out a belch. "She'd have to have a good reason to resist fate."

"You," Quinn pointed with her chopsticks, "are so gross. Such a catch."

Sam's smile faded, and he looked at Quinn. "Do you think I am? A catch?"

Quinn sighed and put down her food, feeling guilty. She reached across the chair to lay a hand on Sam's arm. "You're a guy who brought me Chinese food just because I'm sad and moaning over some girl. And you don't even swing my way. So if Puck can't see how amazing you are yet, that's his problem. And you can tell him I said that, Sammy."

He offered her a half-hearted smile. "I meant what I said, you know, about her having a good reason."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it's fate, right?" Sam said, and Quinn nodded. "I mean that's what we're taught when we're kids, that it's fate, and no matter what we do, whoever has our heart has it for life. And even if we never find him – or her – they're still the one for us."

"You're not helping very much," Quinn said, poking at her food again. She'd once thought that never finding Rachel would be the worst pain imaginable. But now that she had found her, and Rachel didn't even want her, couldn't hardly even acknowledge that she remembered her… Quinn wasn't sure if never finding your soul mate was such a bad thing after all.

"Yeah, sorry, not so good with words. Next time I'll put it in comic form." Sam nudged Quinn with his elbow and she grinned. His apartment was filled with wall-to-wall comic books, and she was pretty sure Sam had memorized them all.

"What I mean is, you can't give up just because she says for you to. That's not you, first of all, and second of all, that's not how this works."

"Tried to tell her that too," Quinn pointed out. "She said it stopped working when I was fifteen, because she made it stop."

"Stubborn little shit, isn't she?"

Sam grinned apologetically, showing that he was teasing, and Quinn shook her head. "Yeah, but I love the little shit."

"And that's my point," Sam said. "Rachel knows it's real. She has to. She might've broken it, but that means it was there at some point, right? And you said she remembered. So no matter what happens she's always got that memory of what life was like before. And I don't know… memory's powerful stuff."

Memory's powerful stuff.

Quinn kept replaying Sam's words over and over in her head, long after he had gone back to his apartment and she was still sat downstairs in the darkened common room. Van had padded back over and jumped into her lap, seeming to sense that she needed him. "You're good for something, cat," she joked lightly, stroking his fur and humming to herself.

Van ignored her, preferring to bat at the strip of paper that rested on the arm of the chair, a fortune from one of the cookies.

A story that ends on hope does not end at all.

She stopped mid-hum, her eyes widening as she suddenly recognized the tune. It was the same tune Rachel had been humming earlier, a tune both of them knew well. A lullaby that Quinn would sing, over and over, when a little girl would come to her, sad and lonely and in need of comfort.

Twinkle, twinkle little star… how I wonder what you are.

An unprompted remembrance of the past.

Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky.

A frayed thread of memory.

Quinn stood up so quickly that Van toppled off her lap, yowling in protest before pouncing off ahead of her on the way back to their apartment. She followed him, then stopped and circled back into the room to pick up the fortune. She looked at it with a smile, before kissing it and slipping it back into her pocket.

Twinkle, twinkle little star… how I wonder what you are.