New York (2016)

She takes a deep, shaky breath to calm herself down. She is nervous. For a moment, she contemplates the possibility of giving up the plan.

The plan: to declare her love for Rachel.

"I can't do this Santana." Quinn whines.

"Sure you can and you will."

Santana thinks the moment is perfect. Finn is in Lima with the glee club and his relationship with Rachel is closer to the edge. Rachel is starting to shine and she is walking towards her destiny: Broadway.

"But she is with him and…"

"Look, they're almost breaking up. They just didn't because, well, you know Rachel and her "Finn dependence."

"I'm scared."

"I know, but do you want to hide your feelings for her forever? If I knew she was happy with him, I'd never encourage you. I think…" She sighs. "You guys will be good to each other."

"But, I don't think she is… she is straight…"

"Okay. I'll be straight, that girl has the hots for you and I could tell it in high school, now? It's even more obvious."

"But she never… you know, with any girl…"

"She is a repressed little bitch. It took me a long time to figure her out. I know she says she is a very open minded person that she has two dads and whatever, but I don't know…"

She pauses thoughtful.

"When she made that comment about my performance with B, you know? With Miss Holliday? I just… At the time I got pissed off with her, but after thinking about it, I got curious, she should've been the most understandable person in that room, right? But you know what? She seemed jealous and resentful… anyway… I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, but she was trying to hide something."

"You can't know for sure."

"Don't you want to find out? This is the moment." Santana gestures to the stage where Kurt and Rachel were singing moments ago.

A few steps away, Kurt helps his best friend down the stage and they walk together toward the two girls.

"Soooo?" Rachel beams.

"Amazing!" Quinn says prideful. "As always…"

"Kurt? Let's get some drinks?" Santana and Kurt stare at each other for a moment and then the fashionable boy gets the hint.

"Yes, sure!"

"I'm going to miss NYADA." Rachel states as Quinn smiles at her. The blonde is once again nervous and fidgeting on her chair. Rachel notices though. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah…" She says in low voice. "I need to tell you something."

"Okay," Rachel nods, eyes glazed over the blonde as she observers her friend attentively. She notices how Quinn seems oddly nervous as the blonde closes her eyes, her hands shaking.

"Hey, it's okay… it's me…" Rachel holds Quinn's hands.

"I'll be straight…" She sighs. "I love you." She bursts out the words.

"Oh, I love you too…" Rachel says happily, her denial in control.

"No, I meant, I'm in love with you Rach…"

Rachel freezes, eyes wide open.

"Please say something..."

"I..."

Lima, December 2022.

"Little star!"

Hiram shouts happily as soon as he opens the door. He hugs his daughter and lifts her up in the air. It really doesn't matter to him that she is almost thirty.

"Where is dad?" She asks as he puts her down again.

"Right here!" Leroy beams and walks toward her.

"Hi dad!" They hug each other.

After telling everything that has happened in her life recently, she excuses herself and retires to her bedroom. She takes a nap. When she wakes up, she can feel the smell of cookies. She goes downstairs and finds her dads singing while baking.

"Hello baby girl…"

Leroy kisses her cheek.

"What are you guys doing?"

"It's Christmas eve Rachelah!" Hiram says excitedly.

"Yeah, and you're Jewish…"

"Well, I blame that husband of yours, you know, Finn loves these cookies and he loves Christmas."

"Yes he does… there is something I need to tell you…" She sighs. "Finn and I…"

How can she say it?

"We're getting divorced."

They both open their eyes widely.

"Oh, how are you?" Leroy promptly asks.

"I'm fine, it was my decision." She clarifies.

"That's why he is back. He said he was missing his mom." Hiram states thoughtful.

"It's been a while since we've decided to get a divorce." Rachel explains. "I'll always love him but…"

She trails off, she never talked about Quinn with her dads.

"He will teach again, I suppose. He says he doesn't want my money, but I want to buy something for him here or at least help him buy something in here…"

If she keeps talking about trivial and mundane things, maybe she can avoid the heavy subjects, which means, her feelings.

"That's great, but how are you, really?" Hiram is the one asking this time.

"A little sad, but I don't want to talk about it now, okay?"

"Whenever you're ready." Hiram waves her off.

"Sure." She nods. "You know what? I miss this town. I think I'm going to walk around." She smiles. "Do you guys want something?"

"I think we have everything covered, but we could get a little more wine." Leroy answers.

"Got it!"

She kisses them both and then she leaves the house.

Walking in an almost empty street, snow falling down on her, she looks at the windows of the closed shops along the way. It is almost night, she should have known, it's Lima after all. But then she sees an open deli across the street. She goes toward it and when she reaches the doorway she walks in.

After Rachel takes everything she wanted and is ready to go, she hears a commotion.

"Oh yeah...yeah, yee-ah! She's a certified winner... paper-thin, but good as gold." A black man is talking to himself in a rather fussy way.

In alert, she takes the groceries and her wine and goes toward the counter.

"Y'all do the lotto here? `Cause I got me a winner... I know, I know, Lotto keeps the black man down... but not me..."

Rachel keeps looking at the scene, curiously.

"...06...14...18...48...right there. Four numbers! that's two hundred and thirty eight dollar. Merry Christmas and shit!"

"You drew in lines with a pencil."

The man behind the counter says, he barely looked at the ticket.

"What're you talking about?"

"You drew lines with a pencil! I know about this!" He gestures his arms in the air as the few people that are in the deli get nervous.

"What!? Look at the ticket!"

"Get out, I'll call 911!"

"You're lookin' at me; you're not even lookin' at the ticket!"

"Next customer in line!" The man calls out.

"You first generation, xenophobic, money-theistic!"

"Get out!"

The black man throws the ticket on the other man's face.

"LOOK AT THE GODDAMN TICKET!"

Rachel decides to step in.

"Let me see the ticket."

"Was I talking to you?!" He says threatening then he walks toward her. Rachel looks around at the scared customers.

"Maybe I'll buy it from you." She tries out.

"Trying to be a hero, sweet thing?" He gets closer and smells her hair. The angry trouble man turns to the coffee machine. "What?! Oh no, not another lookie-loo. You know how big a job this is?"

Rachel gets confused.

"You're double bookin' me! You're gonna get double billed! Shit!"

He throws a bottle of Perrier against the wall, it shatters.

"Hey, you don't have to-"

In a flash, the trouble man whips a .38 from the back of his pants, pointing it at Rachel's face. They hear a woman screaming.

"Do you want to die?" He asks to Rachel. The Broadway star stares at the man trying to keep herself and the man cool. "Do you wanna die?!"

"No." She says a little tense.

"Yes you do." He smiles.

"Look, I'm talking about a business deal here. I buy the ticket for two hundred, take it to a store where the guy behind the counter-" She looks at the other man. "Doesn't have a death wish." she turns to the black man again "I just made myself a quick thirty eight dollars."

He gets closer to her.

"Like I said, it's a business deal." she says with certainty.

"Damn, you are the real thing." He narrows his eyes at her, and then he smiles as he puts the gun back into his pants. "C'mon, Rachel, let's get outta here..." He turns to the man behind the counter. "You were lookin' at me, papa, you shoulda been lookin' at the ticket. That ticket was legit, you're fake."

He starts walking toward the exit and Rachel follows him.

"How do you know my name is Rachel?" She says as soon as they are out of the deli.

"Just because I'm black doesn't mean I don't appreciate Broadway." He shakes his head. "You know you seem pretty relaxed for a woman who just had a gun pulled on her."

"There's no way I was going to die in that deli. Let's just say I've been on a lucky streak lately."

"A lucky streak, huh?"

He laughs hard. Frowning, Rachel hands him the money.

"Sound pretty sure of yourself, don't you?"

Rachel nods nonchalantly.

"So you're telling me, you've got a gun to your head and you don't think for one second, what if this, what if that, maybe I shouldn't do this, I should've done that."

"I don't do that. That's just not for me."

"Okay, Rachel, nice doing business with you."

"Hey." She calls him out. "What do you want carrying that gun, anyway? You're just going to do something you'll regret."

"You want to talk about regrets? You're talking to the wrong person."

"I'm just saying that you seem like a smart guy. At a certain point you're going to do something, and then there's no turning back."

"Yeah, in most cases that'd be true."

"I mean there must be programs out there, opportunities..."

"Wait a minute, wait a minute..." He cuts her off. "You're trying' to save me?" He laughs. Rachel glares at him. "Oh man, you're serious..." he goes to the middle of the street."This woman thinks I need to be saved!"

"Everyone needs something."

"Yeah? What do you need?"

"Me?"

"You just said everyone needs something."

"I've got everything I need."

"Wow. It must be great being you. You got it all."

"Look, I'm not saying you'd be able to do it without some hard work."

"You still think this is about me, don't you?"

"Sure it's about you. But it's about society, too…"

"Oh man, I'm gonna enjoy this one. Just remember, Rachel, you did this. You brought this on yourself." He turns and leaves her totally confused.

Moments later she walks in her dads' house, takes off her gloves and overcoat and goes toward the kitchen. The Berry family talks a little bit more, Rachel tells them about her early encounter, less the gun part, and then they have dinner. After dinner, she goes to her bedroom; she puts on her pajamas and crawls into bed, drifting off to sleep soon after.

Rachel opens her eyes. The room is filled with the sunlight.

What?

Something seems to be different. She looks down; there's a woman's head resting on her chest. A look of confusion crosses her face, she is trying to remember.

Did she meet a woman last night?

It wouldn't be the first time. She feels like an idiot, she feels like the worst person in the world when she thinks about it. She broke Quinn's heart but years later there she was fooling around with girls because she was feeling depressed about her break up with Finn (another one).

Well, it's Broadway…

No! She hated what she did, she lost her friend, she lost her… No, it's past, she needs to move on.

She turns her head to find a dog sitting beside the bed, wagging its tail. Did this woman have a dog?

Rachel looks around to analyze the room, clothes and toys are strewn about, family photos on the dresser. How weird… She looks down at the woman again, craning her neck to get a look at her face. And then she sees her, a look of utter contentment on her beautiful face, she is sleeping soundly.

Quinn?