"Jesse, please answer the phone," Rachel begged after hitting the answering machine for the fourth time that day. She wanted to talk this through, now that she knew what had happened, after he confessed everything she had to get her word in. It was a lot to handle at first, but the pieces were all starting to fit together. After leaving the bar that Saturday night, Rachel called Tina, one of the couple people she was still talking with since high school ended.

Tina didn't have anything to do with what happened that year, so she was hearing it all for the first time as well. She was shocked, to say the least but she remembered some things that opened Rachel's eyes. "Finn was in on this," was the first thing that Tina said after Rachel tearfully went through the last few days events.

"I said Quinn, not Finn. I know they sound alike but I need you to keep up with me…"

"I know you said Quinn, but I said Finn. I remember that when Jesse ran, we were all so shocked, I mean we all really started to think that he was in it for you. You two were so perfect and all, but Finn wasn't surprised. At the time I just figured Finn never trusted Jesse and knew something was up, but now I know that Finn wasn't as clever as we'd like to give him credit for… And he was more than willing to sweep you off your feet moments after everything blew up," Tina explained.

"Finn and Quinn were in it together. It makes sense. They both wanted nothing more than to see my heart broken by Jesse, but for different reasons. So Quinn told Jesse that I was with Puck, knowing that was his weakness, and Finn came in as my knight in shining armor. Oh Tina, thank you for listening. How's the baby doing these days?"

Tina Cohen-Chang had just had her first child, Ben just two months previously with her husband, Jacob. Rachel had yet to meet the child, but made sure to keep updated on his progress. He was doing well, and the two women chatted about his future for awhile before Rachel was too tired to continue.

Three days later and Rachel finally had gotten the courage to call Jesse and try to tell him about her side of the story. Frankly she didn't go very long without thinking about him and what he had said about always loving her. She had been in a quite a few relationships since she was in high school but she always found herself comparing the guy to Jesse and was always disappointed when they couldn't stack up. They couldn't sing like Jesse, they couldn't make her smile like Jesse, their touch was not as gentle yet seductive as Jesse's.

The moment in the bar, that near kiss played over and over in her head. She tried to forget what had happened that night, knowing that Jesse probably didn't want to hear from her, but when she got a callback for the audition that started this mess, she knew what she had to do. Call. And she did, many times.

The ringing noise was the new soundtrack to her life as she tried to call so many times. She finally was starting to give up and decided she would just leave a message that consisted of more than "Please answer."

"Jesse. It's Rachel, you are getting some sick thrill from me calling continuously, and I get that. I got a callback for the show we auditioned for, so I will be at the Palace theatre tomorrow at 11am, but I plan on going to that coffee shop after, and I am inviting you to just come meet me. I shouldn't have reacted the way I did, and we shouldn't have gone this long without clearing up what happened at Regionals all those years ago. But Jesse, every man in my life since we were together never stood up to you. I always compared them to you, and they never were better than you, if that means anything at all to you, please come to the coffee shop…" Rachel was cut off before she was able to finish what she wanted to say, and it wasn't the first time that she had taken too long with a message on an answering machine. It was the first time since her life fell apart though, and she wondered if just maybe Jesse was going to bring back the old Rachel.

Jesse listened to her message. He listened more than once to make sure that he heard it correctly. He figured that she would have moved on, met someone great and never thought about him again, but now he knew that she never forgot. People say that you never forget your first love, and maybe that's true, but Jesse knew that Rachel was always more than that to him. When he blurted out everything that he had been holding inside he ran, not only because he was angry, but he was afraid that she didn't feel the same way. Rejection should be second nature to an actor, yet it still hurt each time it happened, and Jesse, like most people, liked to avoid it.

Jesse also received a callback for the show that caused the two to run into each other, so he knew whether he went to the coffee shop or not he was going to see her. Putting on one of his nicer button-down shirts he knew that he was not dressing to impress the director, but for Rachel, and that didn't really bother him. The possibility of a job was second to Rachel.

Walking into the theatre he saw the sign-in for the callback and at the table, leaning over to sign her name was Rachel. He froze, not knowing what his next step should be. Does he pretend that he doesn't see her? Does he walk up to her and say hello?

Rachel spun around and saw Jesse, frozen in place from the look of horror on his face. She too froze but snapped out of it before he did. She walked up to him, put on a calm face and said, "Are you going to meet me after?"

She was glad that she was a great actress because she was more nervous than she ever had been. Nerves were never something she had really dealt with; she had always been a ball of confidence except when it came to boys. Men nowadays, but the change in status hadn't gotten her any better at talking to them. Rachel would either talk incessantly or freeze up. Acting cool was harder than it looked.

"I… I don't know," Jesse stammered. Rachel couldn't help but pout and give a look of disappointment. Jesse was unable to say no to those brown eyes, and she knew it. "My heart says yes. It screams, 'Say yes, you idiot!' when my head thinks it's probably not a good idea."

"What is with you always trying to follow what your head says?" Rachel asked. Jesse looked at her like she was crazy, the Rachel he knew always thought everything through first. "I know that me saying that to you probably seems kinda weird, but I hit this wall in college and it's when I realized that my head wasn't going to get me what I want. So I changed. You should try it sometime."

"What changing? You can't tell me that I am exactly the same person I was in high school. I would like to think that I have matured a bit," Jesse replied.

"I meant listening to your heart."

"Well that would lead to some trouble, but maybe I'll try it." Jesse figured that he was probably going to end up in that coffee shop after the callback no matter how much internal conflict he went through, so he was just speeding up the process by admitting to it sooner rather than later.

The two ended up paired together for a reading almost an hour into the audition, and the scene was of two lovers fighting. The scene almost came too easily for the couple as they were able to get out all of the frustration they were feeling. The scene ended in a kiss, but as they worked together Jesse made it more than obvious he wasn't going to kiss her. Rachel thought that he was disgusted by her, but in reality it was because he knew that if he started he wasn't going to be able to stop and neither of them would get the part.

After practicing a few times through, Rachel finally said something about the lack of a kiss. "Jesse, there's a kiss at the end of this. I know you aren't super glad to be working with me right now, but we should probably work out the mechanics. You know, tongue, no tongue, how long, and all those things."

"I know myself, and when I get onto that stage it all becomes second nature, and I'm sure that you are the same way, so stop fretting about it and it will happen as it should. Let the moment take you. I thought you were ignoring your head? That didn't sound like it, that sounded like the crazy obsessed Rachel that I remember from Lima, Ohio."

"You're probably right."

And he was. Once they were on the stage the passion of the fight took over, and when he grabbed her face and forced his lips on hers, it was exactly what the directors were looking for. She gasped in surprise but quickly fell into the rhythm of the kiss. As Jesse pulled away, something in his gut screamed out as if to say "What are you doing? Kiss the girl!"

Rachel's whole body shook with the end of the passion found in the kiss and she found herself stepping back towards Jesse hoping that it would all come back. That's when she heard the directors clap and realized that it was all acting, and her shoulders dropped as she wondered if what she had just felt was real. The stage manager shuffled them off the stage and before she knew it her audition was over and she was heading to the coffee shop, hoping that Jesse was somewhere nearby.

She ordered an iced chai, and then sat down as far from the windows as she could. She couldn't stand the idea of sitting by the windows waiting if he decided not to show up. Rachel waited as five minutes, ten minutes and twenty minutes passed. She had finished her tea and was now wondering if she should just assume that he wasn't going to show up.

As she started to gather her things, Jesse came through the door, running. He jogged to where she was standing with her mouth wide open, and he kissed her. She grabbed his curls, making sure that he wasn't going anywhere. The kiss seemed to last for an eternity before he finally broke it and looked into her brown eyes.

"Rachel…" was all he could mutter as he grabbed her again and held her close.

"Jesse, I was just about to leave, I thought that you weren't going to show up. I was so worried. I know that we have a lot of things to figure out, but I am willing to, if you are. Please don't ever scare me like that again…" She started to ramble, and Jesse just smiled as she went on and on. He wasn't actually listening to her, just staring, taking in her presence. "Jesse are you even listening to me?"

"Well… no," he laughed. She smiled as she went in for another kiss. It was soft and sweet, not frantic as the first had been.

"I should have figured that. But we really should think about a few things. First, can we go back to the night at the bar? I will answer your question about New Directions this time, because now I know what really happened to us, back then. Jesse what would have happened if I had known? If you had known it was a rumor?"

"Can you stop talking for a second? It's like teenage Rachel all over again." Rachel let out a little giggle. "If we had worked it out then, we wouldn't be here today, so maybe this is just fate. We would have had our time together, I would have gone to UCLA promising to be faithful but really sleeping with every drunk girl I met, and it would have ended just as badly."

Jesse finally sat down on the couch and Rachel slid into the spot closest to him, so that she was almost sitting on top of him. 'Some things never change,' Jesse thought as he placed an arm around her.

"Well, I spoke with Tina yesterday, she and her husband just had their first son, and from the pictures he is just the cutest little thing. Quinn and Puck gave their daughter to this couple that my dad's know, and it was an open adoption so Puck spends a lot of time with her. Her name is Sydney and she will be turning nine soon, wow it's been a long time since I've talked to them. Finn went to Ohio State and he now owns a record store in Cleveland. Artie went to… Wisconsin that's it. He and Tina broke up our senior year, it was really messy. He is a pencil pusher somewhere… Um… who else? Santana sadly got into drugs in college and I have no idea where she is, I don't think anyone in Lima does. She went to Chicago. Brittany and Mike Chang got married, crazy huh? They run a dance studio in California somewhere. Kurt went to fashion school, and it working for some designer in New York. He designed a dress for me a couple years back that was just fabulous, he will be famous one day that one. Oh Mercedes. She is huge in the Christian Music world! I didn't know she was even Christian until Tina sent me her first CD."

Jesse just sat and listened as she told him of all of the people that he barely remembered. It took him a few minutes to remember that Brittany was the name of the dumb cheerleader that once told him that she once saw SpongeBob when she was swimming in Florida. He tried to explain to her that he wasn't real and she told him that TV didn't lie.

"What about Mr. Shue?" Jesse asked. Although he was only with New Directions for a short while, he remembers the teacher that taught him that there was so much more to life than just being the best. It was about caring for other people and helping others, and Jesse never forgot the lessons that he learned from Will.

"Oh! That was the scandal of the school the summer after graduation! Turns out that he had been dating Quinn since junior year. He got fired for it, it was huge! But the two of them are very happy and have a kid of their own. Talk about weird!" Rachel was noticing the change in herself. She was sounding more like she did before her world had fallen apart almost a year ago.

"She deserved a happy ending. I know she was a bitch, but being a teenage mother really changed that girl." Jesse told Rachel as he turned to look her in the eyes. "You deserve a happy ending too," he said as he went in for another kiss.

A week later, Rachel was cast in the part that they had auditioned for together. Jesse was more than a little disappointed that he was not cast, but knew that this meant that Rachel was going to be staying in Chicago, and his agent told him of an upcoming audition that he felt like he could have in the bag.

They were seeing each other every day, trying to bridge the gap that the years had made. He learned that Rachel did end up dating Finn for nearly a year after he left. At first that made him a little jealous, but knew that Finn was an idiot for letting her go. He told her about his adventures at UCLA and the jobs that he had since then. After that day in the coffee shop, Rachel called and told him that they would need to figure out who the other was before she was comfortable pursuing a romantic relationship. He agreed, knowing that no matter what Rachel told her, he was still going to love her.

They spent an entire day apartment searching, since Rachel now needed a place to live while she worked on the show. After seeing ten different places together, he invited her back to his place for a drink.

"What did you think of that place with the balcony?" Rachel asked as she poured herself a glass of red wine.

"Which one? Three of them had balconies…" Jesse called from his place on the couch.

"The one with the black appliances in the kitchen and the bar…" Rachel said as she sat down on the couch.

"Oh, I liked that one. That's the one where you had a little freak out session because of the large walk in closet?" Jesse asked.

"Yes that one. I think I am going to make an offer on that one. What do you think?"

"Sounds good… It was close to the theater and here…" Jesse said, hoping that she would catch the clue that he was trying to give her. He was trying to get her to make the first move, since he knew that she would run if he did anything.

"Yeah, not far at all," she said, not getting the hint. Rachel wanted nothing more than to kiss Jesse again, well more than kiss him, but she knew that it would be better for them to wait. She got up from the gray leather couch and walked over to the bookshelf that was full of DVD's. He had complete seasons of all her favorite shows, she noticed as she browsed through the selection, touching each one as she read the title.

"Oh, Grey's Anatomy, I can't believe you watch that! We have to watch the one where Meredith and Derek get married on a post it note, I love that one," Rachel said as she grabbed the season and walked over to the DVD player.

"I like the cases. I have a thing for medical dramas if you didn't notice," Jesse said. He owned all the seasons of ER, House, and Grey's Anatomy. Next to those he stored his other favorite type of show, crime dramas. His collection included Law and Order: SVU, CSI, CSI: NY, Law and Order: Los Angeles, Bones, and Crossing Jordan.

"Yeah I see that. I didn't know you liked TV so much. I don't seem to remember that about you…" she said as she came back to the couch. Jesse grabbed the remotes and got the episode playing.

"It started when I was in college. I had too much free time, and I was in a couple of these shows, remember?"

"Oh yeah, I saw the CSI one where you died because your ex-wife's lesbian lover killed you. I called it when we first saw her, who else had access to an aquarium, that size!" Rachel laughed, her smiling taking up her whole face, which made Jesse smile too.

"Yeah we aren't watching that one," he laughed as he turned on the correct episode and got comfortable. He grabbed her wine glass and took a sip.

As the episode continued, Rachel snuggled closer and closer to him until his arm was wrapped around her small waist and her head was on his shoulder. Jesse had really stopped paying attention to the show, and just watched her reactions to different situations on the show. When Meredith is writing the post-it note that has the rules of the marriage, she turned her face up and looked at Jesse.

"Is it sad that I sometimes I hope that I can have a post-it note wedding? I mean as the show continues all the couples go through such hard things, but this post-it note marriage is stronger than everything else. I love that, and I want that someday," Rachel said looking into Jesse's eyes.

"That's not sad at all. They have a great marriage, even if it's not 'official' in a traditional sense. You just want a life partner like they have and that's romantic, not sad," Jesse replied as he moved his face towards hers as he took a kiss.

She was the one that deepened the kiss, allowing him to take his tongue and explore her mouth as she wrapped her arms around his neck. He laid her down on the couch and got on top of her to keep the kiss going as his hand went under her shirt.

"Jesse…" she said, almost as if it were a question. Jesse shot up, not wanting to go too far or push any boundaries, even though he wanted to break down them all.

"Rachel, I can understand if you… if you don't want too… but I think I am making my intentions more than clear. Seeing you after all these years was a whirlwind, and I wasn't even sure who you really were. As I get to know the new you, I realize that although you're different and I'm different, I still want you. I want the new you, I want the old you, I want you for you. I want nothing more than to be with you," Jesse let out everything that he was holding inside.

Rachel was quiet for a moment, and Jesse only assumed that she was forming the words of her rejection, trying to place the words correctly. "Jesse. I am so glad that you said that, because I feel the same way, but I don't want to rush it, you know? We barely know each other, but I know that I want to spend more time with you, to be with you. We can see where that takes us? But right now? Kiss me."

He obliged, and they became entangled in one another for the evening, leaving Grey's anatomy playing in the background.