#piclet

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Tracking down the flowers hadn’t been easy. They’re not in season and greenhouses nearby didn’t have them as part of their stock. But after placing a few -- or a plenty -- phone calls, Quinn had managed to find a nursery down in Maryland that could ship a bouquet by opening. 

And because that first summer they spent together was theirs and theirs alone, Quinn doesn’t want to share this moment with anyone, which is why she arrives to the theatre before the doors open, and after sending off the text, lingers by the stage door until a production crew member ushers her inside and directs her toward Rachel’s dressing room. 

Once she knocks twice on the door -- unmistakably Rachel’s with its stars -- Quinn can’t help but feel like she’s seventeen all over again. Giddy and nervous and still just a little bit in love.

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She’s nervous. It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? To be nervous after a lifetime preparing for today. For her opening night on Broadway. But she is. Previews went well. Better than well, really. The only reason she’s not the most talked about name in Broadway right now is that fate wanted her big break to happen right when Lin-Manuel decided to make sure history has its eyes solely on his show. So she shouldn’t be nervous. But she is.

She’s been in her dressing room for a while now, running through lines and steps and how many heartbeats she hopes she’ll have to wait for the show to resume after she stops it at least once. And Rachel knows it’s just a matter of time - a matter of waiting until the nerves currently sitting heavily in her stomach turn into the usual flutter and she feels the energy and excitement of the last minutes before her show. But until that happens, she knows there’s nothing she can do to distract herself from all the scenarios - some good, some bad - running through her head. Until her phone vibrates, and Quinn’s name flashes on her screen.

Quinn is coming. And maybe Rachel was hoping she would. Maybe it had something to do with her insistence that Fiona should wait with her dads and see her after the show. Maybe, with some tweaks that make her heart ache if she thinks too hard about them, tonight can match the opening night she’s been dreaming about since she was sixteen.

“Quinn.” She smiles, one hand already moving to reach for her best friend’s. “I thought you were coming after the show with the rest.”

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Quinn can only shrug, a motion that carries upward to turn her smile a bit sheepish until she has enough of her wits about her to squeeze the hand wrapped around her own. She wants to say that she couldn’t wait, that like always she wanted to be selfish and steal away a moment that was just hers and theirs, but Quinn doesn’t. Instead, she bends low enough to scoop up the vase she had set just to the side of the door frame and utters words from years ago. 

“To match your eyes.” And new ones, too. “And your heart,” Quinn’s grinning now, “but just the gold bits. Not the black ones.”

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It takes some effort to tear her eyes away from Quinn’s face - the light dusting of pink on the bridge of her nose and the smile tugging at her lips - but as soon as she does and sees the flowers, she feels like she’s traveled back in time to their Kentucky summer and the first time Quinn said those words to her. To match your eyes. She remembers the look in Quinn’s eyes and the pink on her cheeks. How soft her skin felt when she tucked the flower behind Rachel’s ear. How hard it was to hear her when Rachel’s head was full of words she knew she couldn’t say if she wanted to keep her friend.

And now, here they are. By the time Rachel realizes her eyes are watering, it’s too late to stop a couple of tears rolling down her cheeks, and she wipes at them with the back of her hand, smile in place and heart thumping against her ribs. “They’re so beautiful.” It feels a little like she’s gone through the looking glass and her life is just a little bit askew. It’s exactly like she always dreamed it, but not quite. Quinn and the flowers and the words, but Quinn isn’t hers. Beth and her mom will be in the audience, but Beth isn’t theirs and her mom isn’t hers, either. And then there’s Fiona. She loves Fiona. She really does.

“Thank you.” There’s an instant of rebellion against the unfairness of it all when Rachel looks into Quinn’s eyes and wonders what would happen if this time, because she’s not sixteen anymore, she did lean in and thank Quinn for her flowers with a kiss and an ‘I love you’. It’s enough to make dark brown eyes gaze at pink lips, and to make Rachel lean closer. But she’s not sixteen anymore, so she presses the lingering kiss to Quinn’s cheek instead. And then she whispers her “I love you” with her free arm already around Quinn’s waist, asking for a friendly - just friendly, of course - hug.

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With hands full of flowers and a smaller palm she refuses to let go of just yet, all Quinn can do is lean into Rachel’s embrace and listen to the twang of her tugged heartstring at Rachel’s ‘I love you.’ It doesn’t matter how many times they’ve exchanged those words over the years, they never fail to result in a visceral reaction that has her heart racing even if she knows the parameters in which said words are spoken. But still, Quinn echoes them with her own truth when she returns the kiss a little closer to Rachel’s ear. “Love you always.” 

Quinn takes only a few more self-indulgent moments of closeness before pulling back, but never dropping Rachel’s hand and walking further into the room to deposit the vase and its flowers on a table. “I don’t want to interrupt your process more than I’m sure I have,” her now free hand moves to curl around and squeeze Rachel’s hip, “so read the card once I’m gone, and...” She can feel her eyes glass over as memories of that summer surface. Rachel declaring she would be a star and Quinn’s skepticism until she received her very own personal performance. “No one is more proud of you, or will cheer louder for you tonight than me.” 

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She wants to tell Quinn to stay, but she knows it’s not what she should do. She needs to focus, and that’ll be impossible with her heart’s favorite distraction in her dressing room. It’ll take her a few minutes to get over this last I love you (and the unspoken ‘as a friend’ tacked on at the end), and she knows her mind will wander every time she looks at the flowers on her table. To missed opportunities and difficult choices and unfair realities. So she doesn’t ask her to stay, but she doesn’t let go of her hand, either.

“You know I’ll sing for you.” Her voice sounds a little flimsy behind the tears, even if she’s smiling. Quinn knows she’ll sing for her. Does she know she always does? But tonight Quinn will really be out there in the audience, sitting with her dads and Shelby and Beth and Fiona. Maybe they’ll all think Rachel is singing for them. “I promised I would.” She promised with her hand on Quinn’s belly and her feet in the lake, right before she promised many other things she never said out loud. 

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They made so many promises -- many unspoken -- that summer, but Quinn’s glad that one they managed to salvage from its broken wreckage was staying in each others lives. Whether the reunion at ACup was happenstance or fate, it brought them back together and rekindled a friendship that looking back on her life now, Quinn’s not sure how she manged to live without. Rachel knows her, her secrets and dreams (well, most of them), and she’s familiar and safe and comforting and...home. Rachel’s home, even in just their friendship, she’s Quinn’s rock and constant.

“And I can’t wait to hear you sing. And watch you dance. And just light up that stage.” There’s a dreamy quality to Quinn’s words as she finally drops Rachel’s hand, though only so it’s free to come up to cup her cheek. 

It would be so easy to duck down and steal more than just Rachel’s pre-show time, but when Quinn dips her head, it’s only to place her kiss to Rachel’s forehead. “Shine bright.” The words are pressed against Rachel’s golden skin before Quinn has to back away, to resist temptation. But before she reaches the door to take her leave, she offers her best friend a final wide smile -- she really is so proud -- and, “You’re a star, Rachel Berry.”

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Quinn’s hand cups her face, and Rachel feels like her best friend is holding her heart instead. Keeping it still. For a split second, she thinks Quinn is going to kiss her. She watches her head dip just so, and she’s so sure it’s really going to happen that the feeling of soft lips on her forehead is like someone squeezing her heart until it hurts. There won’t be a kiss. But there’s pride in Quinn’s eyes, and that can be enough, can’t it? She’ll shine bright. For her. She’ll be her star.

It takes her a moment to recover, even after Quinn leaves. You’re a star, Rachel Berry. And she is. But there’s an empty part of her heart that sometimes, when she’s not vigilant enough about keeping her mind on other topics, she fears not even all the Tonys in the world would be able to fill. Idly, her fingers trace soft yellow petals as she goes looking for the card.

To the girl with the golden eyes and heart, and most importantly on this night, voice. Blow them all away, Rach. 

Love, Lucy.

Love. Lucy. Rachel suddenly, as she stares at the card and the name, realizes she has absolutely everything she’s ever dreamed of. She has Broadway. Friends, a life in New York City, a wonderful girlfriend she loves, and a cat. She even has Shelby as well as her dads, and just like she always wanted, Beth and Lucy will be there in the audience on her opening night. But it’s not right. And when her heart starts beating again, she feels it crack and ache in a way that makes her cry like she hasn’t done in months.

Rachel cries for everything she’ll never have. For prom with Lucy and a gardenia, Beth’s first lullabye and a two-bedroom apartment in New York. For Lucy, who is as much a thing of the past as the accent she used to love and Rachel shed the moment she left Kentucky. Lucy doesn’t exist anymore, and maybe her Rachel doesn’t, either. And the thought that they were each other’s for as long as they were real is enough to slowly soothe Rachel’s heart and dry her tears. She’ll be on the make-up chair in ten minutes, and that’ll take care of the rest.