Title: Words I'll Never Say
Author: Claddagh Ring

Disclaimer: I do not own Glee.

AN: post-Nationals.

"You're a very lucky girl Rachel Berry."

"Thank you so much Madame Tibideaux," she gushed, clutching her admittance package to her chest. "You don't know what this means to me and I know you don't give second chances, so I swear, I promise you won't regret this and I won't let you down. I'll work harder than I ever-."

"You will," Madame Tibideaux interrupted, and Rachel sucked in a breath, waiting for the dean – her dean – to continued, "and you will do it without complaint or requesting a do-over. You will sweat, you will cry, you will bleed, and you will curse my name, but you will push forward and live up to every promise you have made me. And do you know why you will do all of this?"

Rachel couldn't do much but shake her head. It wasn't that she was lacking an answer – she's had those stock-piled since she was two months old – but that it was blatantly obvious to her that Madame Tibideaux wasn't interested in her answers or promises. She had her own reasons and expectations and Rachel, despite the nervous flutter in her stomach, was honored that a woman of her caliber would even consider putting that kind of stock in a little girl from Ohio.

"You have talent my dear," Madame Tibideaux said with a nod, "but you're wrong where you say that is what sets you apart, neither is it your passion or even your joy. I see hundred of kids, just like you whether you believe it or not, who feel they are something special. What I have never seen is the kind of friendships you inspire from the people around you; the kind of people who would walk up to a random person on the street and tell them how one day, some girl named Rachel Berry is going to be a star. Those people are the reason you will succeed. They are the ones you owe it to. Not me, not even yourself. But your little friend in the yellow dress, the ones who stood behind you in your solo at nationals, and the one who put aside the sting of his own failed audition of Giants in the Sky just to utter your name in my direction."

She knew that song and she knew in her heart the only person who would even attempt performing it as an audition piece. She gasped a little, much to Madame Tibideaux's amusement, but Rachel's mind was spinning as she tried to imagine him approach Madame Tibideaux, to hear the words he might have said or how he might have smiled just slightly as he walked away, hands in his pockets without another word to anyone about it.

Jesse.

"Don't let them down Miss Berry," Madame Tibideaux remarked with a casual wave as she sauntered away from Rachel. "I'll see you in the fall."

"Thank you," Rachel whispered and made herself one last promise; that one day, she would say those words to him.