These strange steps

23

Notes:

Dear everyone: 4 chapters in 2 days. I DESPERATELY NEED A BREAK FROM RACHEL'S HEAD, so probably no updates for the rest of the weekend. See you all early next week! xo

Chapter Text

Day 21

"So," Joel says, giving them both an encouraging smile. "Did you sleep well last night?"

Quinn snorts, pulls a hand through her hair, and then just rolls her eyes. "Sure."

Rachel shakes her head after a moment, and then takes a deep breath. "Can we talk a little bit more about-about how much I expect from Quinn."

"Sure," Joel says, tilting his head and looking at her curiously.

"I think I actually kind of-let you tell me how I feel a little too much yesterday," she says, tentatively.

Joel looks at her in surprise and then says, "That's totally possible. You know that, right? I don't know everything."

"Okay, well, in that case... I want a rephrase. Because I don't actually... expect anything," Rachel says, trying the words out and then swallowing around them, with some difficulty. "That ... would imply that I had any sort of ... I mean, it's been almost eight years since we last saw each other, prior to this summer. I didn't-spend years trying to break onto Broadway so she would approve. I didn't think I'd ever see her again. But-her opinion matters to me, more than a lot of other people's. I want-I want to understand at what point that becomes bad, because-and I'm sorry, but I'll just be blunt about it-"

She glances at Quinn for a second, who has her most neutral face plastered on, and then looks back at Joel.

"I'm in love with her. And, leaving that aside, she's also one of the smartest, most accomplished people I know. Of course I care about what she thinks. I just don't know-"

She stops, immediately frustrated at-well, at least she has a fucking name for it now. For all those years of just blurting out everything she thought and said, she never thought this would be her problem: not actually being able to use the right words.

"You raise a valid point," Joel says, after a small pause. "I mean, we all have people that we would like to be impressed by us, right?"

Quinn's tongue runs past her lips for a moment, and then she says, "I'm pretty sure that half of what I do is still to somehow prove to my parents that-they don't own me, and I'm capable of more than they ever thought I was."

Rachel's hand involuntarily reaches across to Quinn's chair, and she glances at Joel with an almost ashamed look until he just stares back at her and says, "It's not my arm, Rachel."

Quinn glances over, and then after a very long, deliberate pause, lifts her own arm and holds Rachel's hand, until their arms are sort of uncomfortably dangling in the space between them. But-

She doesn't know what this is, either.

Joel rubs at his cheeks for a second, then up to his temples, and says, "Say Quinn-hates your next project. What does that do to you?"

Rachel shrugs. "I mean, she hated this one. I really couldn't care less."

"Are you sure?" Joel asks, narrowing his eyes a little.

Rachel hesitates, and then slowly says, "I don't... care if she thinks what I'm working on is bad. I'd care if she thought I was bad in it."

"What are the chances of that?"

"They're slim," Rachel says, and then snorts softly. "I don't know. I don't-Q, we don't talk about my job much, do we?"