Rock a Little

chapter one

The beautiful young woman with pink streaks shot through her blonde hair fidgets as she flops down on her bed, her full lips curled up in a sardonic, teasing smile as she tries to affect an air of bored indifference. A purple bubble swells in front of her face, then collapses with a pleasingly loud pop.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing, Abrams?" she asks, her smile growing. "How can you tell that camera is even switched on?"

"I can tell because I'm majoring in film and showing my professors that I know how to operate a camera was pretty much the first thing I had to do when I started classes," her guest replies, rolling his eyes behind the square-framed glasses precariously perched on his nose. He knows she's just trying to get a rise out of him; it's a game they've played as long as they've known each other. "Besides, you don't need to know how things work on this side of it anyway. All you need to do is to stand or sit or do whatever you like while you talk into the lens and let me capture the magic."

She blows another purple bubble, nods in approval when it pops louder than the last one. "Right. You know, you're pretty full of yourself for a first-year student."

Now he bristles. He hates that she knows it's a weak spot, that he can't help his reaction to her relentless needling. She's way too good at it. "A first-year student who's also the winner of the prestigious Motta Award Scholarship for Motion Picture Arts." He winces at the self-importance of the statement, the slightly whiny tone of his voice as he says it. He tries to affect a more serious, professional tone to cover his embarrassment. "Now come on, Quinn. Work with me, while we've still got some good light here."

The girl just laughs, adding a point to the tally she's been keeping in her head since they started playing this game. She's enjoying this. Santana, on the other hand, absolutely hates it when Artie's around with his camera and his junior Scorsese attitude, but Quinn loves punching holes in his ego. His ego, and only that; Santana would actually punch him and walk away. She knows that Artie knows this; she's seen him cringe with fear at the girl's menacing glare.

"You know you only got that scholarship because you took Sugar's picture one day and told her she was pretty," she continues, noting with delight how Artie's expression always twists at the mere mention of Sugar's name. All this time, and he still hasn't gotten over what happened? Well, that's what you get when you make assumptions. "That girl needs compliments like a fish needs water. Anytime somebody's the least bit nice to her she, like, buys them a car or gets her father to give them a scholarship."

She knows, word for word, the defense that inevitably follows the mention of The Hook-Up That Wasn't, or: The Motta Affair.

"First of all, Sugar is pretty, and second of all, I had no idea who her father was or what he likes to do with his millions when he's not counting them. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time, and bam! That's how destiny works."

"I don't believe in destiny," Quinn says airily, waving a dismissive hand. If she hadn't quit cigarettes, this is where she'd take a long, slow drag and then exhale an even longer trail of gray smoke. "I believe we make our own luck, blaze our own paths in life - if we've got the guts to defy society's expectations and go for what we really want."

"Society's expectations? Or your parents'?" he says, knowing it's her one sore spot, regretting the words as soon as they get past his lips. Her eyes go ice cold. If Santana is scary, Quinn is downright terrifying. Maybe he should have interviewed Tina instead. She doesn't say much, but at least she doesn't make him fear for his life on a semi-regular basis.

"Fuck you, Artie," she growls. "You don't know my parents. You don't know anything."

Closing her eyes, she takes a deep breath, counting to ten before daring to open them again. It's not his fault, she realizes. He really doesn't know. How could he, when it's the one thing she refuses to talk about with anyone outside of her small, tight circle of friends and confidants? She likes him well enough, thinks he could one day achieve that privileged status, but not yet. For now, she'll keep him just on the edge of things; not quite in, but not all the way out either.

She resumes that familiar air of bored insouciance, and Artie knows he's been forgiven, without her saying anything. It's part of the mystery of Quinn Fabray, the thing that makes her such a fascinating subject. He hopes that one day she'll let him in on the secret, silent pain that lives in her green and gold eyes, but for now, it's only rock and roll, and he's got no choice but to like it. He'd had no idea what he was getting into when Sugar had talked him into filming the band as his documentary project for school, but even if he had, he thinks, he probably would have signed on anyway. After all, it's not every day a guy gets to film the day to day workings of an all-female rock band that's this close to really getting somewhere, out of this little corner of Midwestern American suburban hell. And someday, when they finally do it, when they're headlining Madison Square Garden or the L.A. Forum, he'll be able to say he knew them way back when, back at the beginning, when it all started.

If Santana doesn't kill me first, he thinks with a sigh.

"Well, camera boy? Are we going to do this or not? Light's fading fast," she teases.

"We are, and it is. So, Quinn Fabray, talk to me. Tell me about life, love and rock 'n' roll."

Her eyes light up like candles, and this time, the smile on her face is genuine. The camera loves her.

"What do you want to know?"

Santana's hunched over her guitar, furiously jotting notes onto a sheet of staff paper, while Tina's on the couch trying to decide which anime DVD she's going to watch next. It's Sunday, their favorite day of the week – no work at Will's House of Music, so there's no need for them to do anything other than lounge around in their tank tops and Batman shorts here at the palatial Casa de Lopez, working on new songs and having breakfast at noon. Random notes, incomplete riffs and hummed melodies waft aimlessly through the air, and Santana shakes her head, cursing at the song's stubborn refusal to get written already. She's been at it all morning, ever since she woke up with a half-formed idea in her head, and Tina knows she won't stop until it's complete.

Tina takes up her bowl of cereal and continues to peer at the blurbs on the backs of the DVD cases, munching quietly so as not to disturb Santana while she's writing. She knows very well how upset Santana gets whenever anyone interrupts her, and would much rather not incur another verbal lashing, thank you. The girl is so intense when it comes to music - it kind of awes and scares Tina at the same time. She's never seen anyone work so hard. It pays off, though, when she smiles wide and her face just glows with happiness when the song finally comes together.

An angry chord rings out. Santana throws her pencil down in disgust.

"Fuck!" she screams, running her hands through her hair in exasperation."Why is this so goddamned hard? It's rock and roll, not fucking rocket science!"

Pushing the DVDs aside, Tina tilts her head, considering the question. It's Santana's way of asking for help, but even so, it's dangerous to approach her when she's like this. You never know how she's going to respond.

"T, go get your bass. Maybe we can tag-team this shit and beat it into submission," Santana requests after a few moments. She feels like a guitar string under too much tension: one more twist of the tuning peg and she'll snap. Tina's really good at seeing what she can't, where something needs to ascend or descend, speed up or slow down, et cetera, et cetera. Santana's self-taught, figuring out the songs on her parents' classic rock albums by ear on the guitar her dad gave her when she was twelve, but Tina's the prodigy in this band. Sure, she's a moody, mysterious all dressed in black Goth girl now, but once upon a time Tina Cohen-Chang was a legit grade school violin prodigy who started playing at, like, two years old or something. It's been a while since Santana's heard the story.

She sends Tina a weak but grateful smile when the other girl rises from the couch to retrieve her bass from its stand across the room, appreciating the way she doesn't say anything, just gets up and does it. That's how Tina is. She knows exactly how to gauge Santana's moods, how to navigate through the minefield of her volatile temper. If Quinn is ice and Santana is fire, then Tina is definitely the earth in their elemental trio, solid and nurturing, a foundation for growth.

Tina plugs her bass in, pulls up a chair and sits next to Santana. The DVDs will have to wait.

Rachel Berry lies on the old, still comfortable bed in the room where she'd grown up, reveling in the fact that she's finally gotten a moment to breathe for the first time in two years. Her life has been a whirlwind since the last time she was here in her fathers' house, and it's a comfort to know that while so much else has changed, her room is exactly as she left it, down to the "Good Luck!" card Finn had given her the night before she'd gone to New York, still standing in its place on her desk. It's a remnant of a different time, a different world. A time and place in which she herself had been different, too.

One of his favorite songs had included a lyric that went, "Changes aren't permanent – but change is." Neither of them had known, could have known, how true that really was.

Rachel thinks back to the last time she'd seen him, after the going away party her dads had thrown for her, just before she left for school at the prestigious New York Academy for the Dramatic Arts, or NYADA for short.

She pushes herself up, crosses the room to the desk. A sad smile crosses her face as she runs the tip of her finger along the edge of the card. She picks it up, gazes at it, lost in emotion. On the front, it's got the words "GOOD LUCK!" written in big, brightly colored letters above a fluffy brown cartoon teddy bear, holding a bouquet of flowers; and on the inside, more brightly colored words proclaim that "We all know you can do it!" Surrounding them are Finn's scrawled signature, Kurt's impossibly neat one, and the rather more ordinary signatures of Finn and Kurt's parents, Carole and Burt, and of course her two dads, Hiram and Leroy, and in the remaining blank space, a little message from Finn. It's short but sweet, and even though she's long had it memorized, she reads it aloud anyway.

Rachel – I never understood why they always say 'break a leg' to actors before they go on stage, because you need both legs to stand up there, but here I am saying it anyway. Kurt tells me it's a tradition in the theater, a way to say 'good luck,' but even though this card has those words printed in big letters on the front, I know you don't actually need it. Luck, I mean. You're the most talented person I've ever known, and Broadway's not going to know what hit it when you get there. I'm so proud of you. Can't wait to be there at your first opening night! - Love, Finn.

Her eyes blur with tears. She hastily puts the card back on the desk, not wanting the ink to be smeared by a fallen teardrop. He was her best friend, her biggest cheerleader besides her dads, always there to give her a hug when she needed one, and the occasional kick in the ass when she needed one of those too. Rachel knows that Finn had loved her, had been in love with her, and even though he had been his usual understanding self when she'd told him why she could never love him back – not like that, anyway – it still makes her a little sad when she remembers the way the light in his eyes had dimmed, the way his large body had deflated when she'd said the words. It was the most difficult thing she'd ever had to do, but after that one moment of hurt and sadness, he'd given her that lopsided grin of his and said, "Okay," and just like that, everything really was okay.

The next day, he'd given her a rainbow pin to show his support, and she'd pinned it to a piece of pink notepaper and taped it to the inside of her locker. Now she carries it in her purse always as a silent reminder of him, and her gratitude for the gift of his loyalty and encouragement.

It's still hard for her to believe that he's gone now, vanished from their lives in an instant. His large presence had become an aching void the moment she'd learned that he'd succumbed to the injuries he'd sustained in the act of pushing some kids out of the way of a car that was traveling too fast down the normally calm side street on which he and Kurt lived. The memory of Kurt's frantic, sobbing voice on the phone, informing her in jagged, broken bursts that his brother had passed away, is forever seared into her mind, and as it rises now, she hugs herself to ward off the chill of sadness it always brings.

Finn himself had just settled in at Ohio State on a football scholarship – he'd been home for the weekend when the accident happened - but they'd still planned for him to visit her in New York to see her perform at her very first NYADA showcase the very next week. Instead, she'd swallowed her tears, sang her songs, accepted her second place award, then taken a cab to the airport almost immediately afterwards. Her memory of the flight to Columbus is still, even now, just a blur of sobs and restless, fitful moments of sleep.

And after the funeral, when she'd finally gotten a moment to herself, Rachel had sat in this same room, on this same bed, and dedicated her career to the memory of her best friend. She had sworn that his name would be the first one she would mention in her thank-you speech whenever she won her first Tony Award.

Neither of them could have imagined that she'd get to fulfill that promise a mere two years later. Two years that had flown by in a mad whirlwind of classes, performances, awards and auditions that had culminated in the improbable winning of the lead in a Broadway revival of her all-time favorite musical, Funny Girl, and then the even more improbable Tony for Best Lead Actress in a Musical. The actual moment when it happened was both like and completely unlike the dreams she'd had of winning a Tony since she was old enough to know what the prestigious theater awards were. Her fathers had been seated to one side of her, Kurt had been on her other side, and when Neil Patrick Harris had torn open the gold envelope and announced her as the winner, they'd practically had to lift her from her seat and push her into the aisle to begin her walk towards the stage, to the realization of her destiny.

She had just become a Tony Award winner, but she was also a nineteen year old girl, and when she'd nearly tripped over her long gown as she'd made her way up the stairs, somewhere in the back of her mind she had known that there would be as many pictures of her almost face-planting at NPH's feet as there would be of her accepting the statuette and thanking Finn Hudson for everything.

So much has happened in these last two years, she can hardly believe it. Two years of a relentless, grueling eight shows a week schedule, singing her heart out for packed houses and adoring fans. Two years of learning and adapting to being not only in the Broadway spotlight, but in the media spotlight as well. First she was a New York musical theater celebrity, and then a national celebrity, appearing in Time and Vanity Fair, being interviewed by Ellen and Jimmy and Stephen, simultaneously receiving praise for being an 'out' star on Broadway and condemnation for not being 'out' enough to satisfy some people's idea of what such a star should be. Through it all, she cultivated a charming, personable and slightly self-deprecating public persona even as she hid the private pain of a lonely personal life.

It had been hard for her, growing up as an intense and somewhat socially awkward child in small town Lima, Ohio. She'd had few friends growing up, the result of a combination of her single-minded dedication to her future career on Broadway, her lack of social awareness, and a personality that most of her peers would describe as 'self-involved' at best and 'grating' or 'obnoxious' at worst. She couldn't help the fact that she was more talented than everyone else, and a good deal more intelligent as well; nor could she change the fact that she'd known what she wanted to do with her life since she was three years old, even if she'd been inclined to do so. She just wasn't that great around people who didn't share her interests, and where she grew up, that wasn't many. Even so, although Kurt was just as interested in theater, he had seen her more as competition than as a friend. Thus it was that for some time, Finn hadn't just been her best friend; he'd been her only friend. It was only through comforting and consoling Kurt over the loss of his brother that Rachel had become close with him.

(Although, in retrospect, it really hadn't been the best idea to come into school affecting a different accent every week for a month while explaining to anyone within earshot that it was part of her study of the great Meryl Streep's acting technique.)

Romantic relationships had been just as difficult for Rachel to establish. After she'd graduated from high school and gone off to NYADA, she'd arrived at school knowing who she was and what she wanted in terms of a relationship, but without the faintest clue as to how to make it happen. As with many things, she was naive to the ways of sex and love, and lost her virginity at a party to an older girl who had plied her with sweet words and cheap alcohol, then left her without so much as a 'good morning' the next day. It had been a bitter but valuable lesson to learn. She'd called her dads crying, saying that she wanted to go home, that she hated it there, but they'd managed with their trademark saint-like patience to calm her down and talk her through the hurt and shame, and from then on she was a little more wary and a little less trusting, though she still believes in seeing the good in everyone.

And now she's here, taking her first real break in two years, fresh off her contract with the producers of Funny Girl. They'd wanted her to extend it for another year, but truth be told, she's more than a little burned out, and ready to do something else. The problem is, she's not sure what that something else is going to be just yet. Shannon Beiste and Sue Sylvester, her agents back in New York, have secured a lucrative recording contract for her with a major label, so it seems that doing an album would be the logical next step. She's always written her own songs in addition to learning all the requisite classics and standards, and the idea of recording and releasing them is kind of exciting to her; yet she's still a little insecure about her writing, wonders if they're really strong enough to stand on their own, in comparison to the legendary songs she's been belting out on stage every night for the past two years.

The battle of desire versus distance being waged in her head is threatening to drive her crazy. She needs to get out, distract herself from all these conflicting thoughts, deflect the sadness of all these memories. She puts the card face down on the desk, symbolically turning it away from her, if only for a little while.

Picking up the entertainment section of the Lima Times that she'd brought upstairs with her – she's got an interview scheduled with them next week – Rachel flips through the pages in search of some mindless entertainment. There's nothing playing in the movie theaters that interests her, so she checks to see if there are any good clubs in the area where she might at least dance and drink a little.

(Just a little, though – that unfortunate experience at NYADA has always stayed with her.)

Then she sees it: a small, square ad for someplace called "Will's House of Rock." The goofy name brings an odd smile to her face; it sounds like the kind of place Finn would have loved. It seems like a sign, strangely enough. Peering down at the ad, her interest is piqued still further when she reads that there's an all-female rock band playing a mix of covers and original material there...when? Tomorrow night? She lifts her eyes heavenward and mouths a silent thank you to Finn, thinking maybe it's his hand that's guiding her somehow.

Perfect.

Rising from the bed, she turns to her closet, where her clothes were hung with great care only a few hours ago, and bites her lip as she tries to figure out whether she brought anything that might be appropriate to wear to a place like "Will's House of Rock."