
HarmonVerse! Follow-up to Jack's storyline in TWTIA. He finally finds his mother, but will it be the reunion he is hoping for? Or will it be a repeat of Rachel and Shelby? OCxRachel friendship. Smatters of Finchel. R&R everyone.
Rated: Fiction T - English - Humor/Friendship - Rachel B. - Chapters: 3 - Words: 10,420 - Reviews: 9 - Favs: 4 - Follows: 2 - Updated: 11-12-10 - Published: 10-31-10 - Status: Complete - id: 6440859
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Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot to this story and my OCs. The rest all belongs to Ryan Murphy, Ian Brennan, Brad Falchuk, the various songwriters, and to the writers of any joke that may not be mine.
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So, here's what you missed last time in case you've been under a rock or been in jail, completely missing on on the best GLEE fanfics of all time…
Sectionals was replaced with a tournament for the best glee clubs in the state.
Naturally, New Directions won the tournament.
Jack wants to find his mother and Rachel wants to help because she went through the same thing last year with Shelby.
I think the most important question of this is: Will Sue ever get more screen time?
And that's what you missed on…GLEE!
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Jack Harmon swung through the open door of the music room of McKinley High School, his perfect vision scanning the room for any members of the glee club or members of the jazz band, pretty much anyone who had a place in the musical pecking order of the school. He found no one. He entered the room, closing the door behind him.
Jack reached into his satchel, withdrawing a yellow legal pad, and placed in on the piano. Once again, he thanked his father for forcing him to take the placement tests before entering high school, it gave him a free period to do whatever the hell he wished. Well, to be honest, he always did whatever the hell he wanted, but this sort of thing didn't end with him getting sent to Figgins' office or placed in detention, the sort of things that ruin any normal student's day were the things the threw off a megalomaniac's time table. And that was the last thing anybody would want to do.
Jack studied the pad on the piano, pulling out his sheet music. He began to play the piano, his long fingers covering a lot of ground as he did.
"Just like a leaf that keeps blowing in the wind, and where it happens to fall, no one, at all, can plan," he sang, his eyes still distracted by his notepad.
Jack stopped singing, eyeing the pad a little longer. The names on the list were conspiring to torture him like he was a character in a Shakespearean tragedy…Or a comedy depending on your definition of torture.
His feet tapped the ground, his nerves were jangled. How did that happen? A Harmon is never jangled by life-changing circumstances, especially this Harmon. He sat quietly for what felt like eternity, which is a rather rational thought when you spend most of your day talking the ears off of everyone you meet.
'Where the hell is Rachel?' he growled mentally. 'She said she'd be here.'
This was one of those moments where he believed that friends were about as useful to him as a comb is to his bald Uncle Roger. Luckily, Rachel restored his faith in friends when she entered the room.
"Okay," she said, "I've lost Finn; he's actually skipping the rest of the day with Noah. Though I don't know why, he needs to spend as much time in class as he can. I'm not saying that he isn't bright, simply that-"
"I know what you mean, Rachel," Jack said. "But, you have to admit, the teachers make it hard to pay attention."
He stood up from the piano, the notepad now in his hands.
"How was the trip to Maine?" she asked.
"Not without its revelations," he replied. "My Aunt Juliet told me that she saw my mother once. And that she was a blonde woman. She couldn't tell how tall she was because she was sitting down and couldn't tell me what she sounded like, my dad kinda forced her out of the house and she never saw her again, not even after I was born."
Rachel remained silent; a rare action on her part, but it was mainly because she had never seen Jack in such an emotional state. It may not have seemed like much to the uneducated eye, his unchanging facial expressions would indicate that he didn't care, but she and Sam had been around him enough to know that it was killing him to know how cold his father had been in the past.
"So, I, um, I narrowed down the list of people that it could be," he said. "Mostly people I know, or wanna know."
Rachel took the notepad from his hands.
"Why is David Bowie on the list?" Rachel inquired.
"Why wouldn't David Bowie be on the list?" Jack replied. "We're both attractive, talented souls. Bowie and my father are contemporaries and we do look a little alike. The age thing might crush that dream, but-"
Rachel cut him off. "You are aware David Bowie is a man, right?"
Jack closed his mouth, then opened it again, but no words came out. He pursed his lips, as if confused by this sudden revelation.
"Really?" he asked.
"Yes," Rachel nodded.
Jack snorted. "Next thing you're gonna tell me is Janis Joplin's a woman."
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"So, we've scratched Bowie off the list," Rachel said, Jack reluctantly crossing off the name. "Who's next?"
"Sherie Rene Scott," Jack declared, pulling out a file on the noted Broadway actress. "She was making her first big splash on Broadway in The Who's Tommy, a perennial favorite of my father's. Still, the time in between doing that and Rent can be a strain financially, so my father, while attending a show, offered her the chance to make enough money for in between jobs."
"You're grasping at straws with this one, aren't you?" she asked.
"No more than you were with Patti LuPone," he stated.
"That's low," Rachel said.
"I warned you that I'd use that against someday," Jack drawled. "Though, I knew it was a bit of a crapshoot with her. Besides, if she is my mother, I would need more therapy than I thought."
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The bell rang, ending Jack and Rachel's free period, their research and conversation yielding nothing but an idea for their weekly movie night. Rachel insisted on Phantom whereas Jack wanted How to Succeed. Considering the week before they watched Hounddog and were sufficiently depressed for the better part of the week, a musical was just what the doctor ordered. Seriously, both of their therapists insisted on it.
They were still debating this by the time they got to glee.
"Because if we don't go back to the classics, we get trapped in a theatre world of the 1990s and I know you don't want that," Jack argued.
"See, this is why the theatre can never move forward and try to expand it's avenues. Because of people like you who afraid of change…"
"I am not afraid of change!"
"Where the hell is Mr. Schuester?" Mercedes asked, rubbing her temples.
"I don't know," Artie answered. "Ever since he and Miss P got back together, he's been visiting her in office every chance he gets."
"You know, I'm gettin' some play while workin'," Puck said, "but, come on, isn't he a little old for that."
"I doubt they're doing that," said Quinn, rolling her eyes at her perpetually-horny boyfriend.
"Admit you are threatened by change!"
"Says the woman who hasn't altered her room since the debut of Wicked!"
"Rachel, Jack," Finn tried to interject.
"Stay out this, Apache Chief!" Jack shouted.
Finn hopped back, stunned that Jack actually watched the Super Friends. Finn joined his friends as he watched his girlfriend and her best friend tear into each other over everything from their taste in theatre to their choice of attire for the day.
"Those two should just bone and get that shit over with," Puck chortled.
"Shut up," Finn growled.
"No, I think they should," Kurt added, exchanging a devious smile with Puck. "Far be it for me to ever want Rachel or Jack to be a situation where they could reproduce, much less with each other, but it's hard to argue that they have certain chemistry together."
"They do not have chemistry," Finn argued, turning back to the arguing friends.
"Anything you can sing I can sing higher, I can sing anything higher than you!" Rachel lilted.
"No, you can't!" Jack countered.
"Yes, I can!"
"No, you can't!"
Finn turned back to Kurt and Puck.
"Okay, so they have chemistry, that doesn't mean anything is going on between them," he stated. 'Getting jealous doesn't work with Rachel.'
"Do they or do they not," Kurt queried, "have a weekly movie night that you are never invited to?"
"Yeah," Finn said.
"And why don't they invite you?"
"Puck!" Quinn growled. "Don't listen to them, Finn; they're just trying to get you mad."
"Well, I'd be mad too if Harmon was tryin' to get with my girl," Puck declared.
"What do you see in him?" Mercedes whispered to her friend.
"God only knows," replied Quinn.
"I know, Quinn. I know they're messing with me. They have a movie night, big deal. It doesn't mean they're, you know, having sex." Finn said firmly.
"And you're trying to argue with the guy who wrote the book on that lie?" Puck asked, his smile growing with each word.
"That means a lot," Kurt interjected. "Considering that Puck's never read a book in his life."
"Up yours, Hummel," Puck shouted.
Kurt sat back and crossed his legs. "Not even on your best day," he said in his primmest belle of the ball tone.
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"See, you're talking and I'm still not listening," Jack said to Finn as he gathered up his books from his locker. "Get to the point and don't play the stupid card with me, Hudson, I know you're smart enough to know I'm smart enough not to fall for it."
"I just wanna know what you and Rachel do on your movie night," Finn said.
He knew this was one of the dumber things he could be doing, he trusted Rachel and, while he still was trying to get over the fact that Jack had used him as a human shield during the annual Slushie Shower Day, he trusted Jack.
"We watch movies," the egotistical balladeer stated, ducking under Finn. "And then we make sweet passionate love. She told me she's never orgamsed with you the way she does with me."
Finn's eyes went wide.
"Joking," Jack said. "We heard the whole conversation you had with Hummer and the Man-Ho, I figured I'd teach you a lesson for listening to them."
Finn's teeth were grinding together. "I guess it was kind of stupid to think Kurt and Puck could actually agree on something.
"One of the sure signs of the Apocalypse," Jack said. "Listen, Slow Learner, I understand that it's easy to get jealous of me considering that, at any given moment, I could snap and take your spot in glee, but believe me, I'm not the type of person to steal somebody's girl."
Finn studied Jack's face, deciding not to bring up the fact that Jack had tried on numerous occasions to steal Quinn away from Puck. He knew that the entertainer would wave that off.
"And, if you're wondering, it was Rachel's idea to give you a night off from her ramblings and that's why you're never invited to the movie night. She knows that she can be pushy and controlling and she just wanted to give you some time off from that."
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"I don't know why you listen to Noah or to Kurt," Rachel said. "Those two love to play your mind, Finn."
"I know," Finn said, the smile on his face growing wider.
"What're you smiling about?"
"Jack told me why you two never invite me to the movies," he confessed. "That's actually kind of sweet."
Rachel looked up at him. "Finn, I didn't want to tell you because I didn't want you to think that I didn't want to spend every waking minute of the day-"
Finn quickly covered her mouth.
"Rachel, it's cool. We don't have to be the couple that spends all of their time together. We've never been a normal couple, right?"
Rachel nodded.
"Let's keep doing that," he suggested.
"I'm alive, I'm alive, I am so alive and I feed on the fear that's behind your eyes…" the voice of Aaron Tveit sang, signifying that Jack was on the other line.
"I don't have to get that," Rachel whispered.
"Go on," Finn said. "I'm supposed to be hanging out with Puck tonight. I need to kick his ass anyway; I kinda don't want you to see that."
Rachel giggled as she answered the phone.
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"I still don't understand why we always go to my house to watch our movies," Jack complained. "Your TV is just as big and it's got surround sound. I haven't even managed to talk my father into that yet."
"You can't come to my house, remember what you said to my dads the first time you met them?"
"No."
"You said, and I quote, 'Holy expletive deleted, I didn't know Eugene Levy and Samuel L. Jackson were actually a couple.'"
"Can I help if they look just them? And, be fair, I say stuff like that all the time when I meet people for the first time."
"And you wonder why you don't have many friends," Rachel countered. "You could've salvaged the rest of the night, but then you followed them around quoting scenes from the movies of Samuel L. Jackson and Eugene Levy. Since then, my dads don't want to see you in the house."
"Okay, fine," Jack said. "My house it is."
"Have you picked out a movie?"
"Yeah, I decided to go with Phantom, but not the one you wanted."
"Which one?" Rachel pressed, not likening the look in Jack's eyes.
"Well, when my father and I were in Toronto last summer, I came across a bootleg of Phantom of the Opera starring the one and only Paul Stanley of KISS."
"No!" Rachel screamed.
"Arguably the worst Phantom in history," Jack proclaimed. "So, I had to buy it. Tonight, Fraulein Berry, we get to play Mystery Science Theatre 3000!"
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The night progressed as discussed, they made fun of the Christine, who sounded like a cross between Minnie Mouse and Olive Oyl, while Paul Stanley systematically took the brilliance that was Michael Crawford's original performance and the grand spectacle of Colm Wilkenson and Howard McGillin's almost ethereal work, bent them over a table, had his way with them and then peed on them.
Jack and Rachel spent the better part of the evening mocking the performances and coming up with ways they could improve on the show from the casting to the lighting. They seemed intent on putting their fruitless search for his mother behind them. Little did they know, as they slipped off to sleep, their search would reach it's climax.
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Jack Harmon was never the type to rely on dreams to help him figure out a problem, it was the empirical nature of his Uncle Edward rubbing off on him. But, this was one of those nights were his Aunt Juliet's belief in the divine seemed to be equally rational. It was one those moments where, if Jack had believed in the power of prayer, he would've used it years ago to figure out his conundrum.
"Hey, you," a voice began to sing, "you're a child in my head. You haven't walked yet, your first words have yet to be said…"
He knew that song, almost as well as he could remember that voice. It was his mother. Jack scanned the room around him, he could only move his head. The voice could still be heard, moving further and further away from his auditory line.
"I'll pick the stars from the sky, pull your name from a hat," the fading voice resounded. "I promise you that…"
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"I promise you that, promise you that, promise you that you'll be blessed," Jack's sleepy voice crooned before his eyes snapped open.
He sat up, ready to jump out of bed when he was suddenly stopped. Jack remembered that he and Rachel must have fallen asleep watching Paul Stanley rape The Phantom of the Opera. His eyes readjusted to the light; sure enough Rachel was lying next to him, with her vice-like grip clamped around his waist.
"Rachel," he whispered, nudging her. "Rachel."
"Papa, can you hear me?" she sang in a hazy voice.
"Dreams of Barbra too," Jack observed. "Why can't she have dreams about being a puppet or being Judy Garland, like me?"
He looked around the room; nothing he could use to pry her off or wake her up was handy. Cursed father for taking away his bullhorn.
"Wow," Jack said, "and here I am standing next to Barbra Streisand!"
Rachel's eyes opened as she sprang up.
"Where," she shouted, "where?"
She scanned the room, looking down to see Jack smiling like a Cheshire cat.
"What was the one thing I told you to never joke about?" Rachel growled.
Jack stood up. "Consider it payback from the time you tricked me into thinking Michael Crawford was going to be at the school."
The King and Queen of the Drama Llamas glared at each other, the room deathly quiet save for the snow sound made by Jack's TV.
"Then, I guess, we're even," Rachel said with finality.
"For now," Jack replied.
"So, why'd you wake me up?" she inquired. "I was having a wonderful dream, I was Barbra in Yentl."
"I know," he interrupted. "I heard it."
"I'm sorry if it annoyed you, not all of us can be Judy," she fired back.
"One of these days, Rachel, one of these days."
"I know, bang! Zip! To the moon!"
Jack laughed, soon joined by Rachel.
"Why'd you wake me up?" she asked again.
"I think I figured out how to find my mother," he declared. "I remember something from when I was five years old."
Rachel took a seat.
"I had asked my dad about my mother," he began. "He didn't say much, he sat me down, and placed a tape in the VCR before he left the room."
Jack pursed his lips, the answer was son close.
"After I watched it, he took it and put it…" his face strained. "He put it in his office. In the secret safe."
"Your father has a secret safe?" Rachel asked.
"Yeah," he said casually. "I have one too. Doesn't everyone?"
Rachel sighed.
"Yes, Jack, everyone has one," she simply said, gritting her teeth at his strange revelation.
Jack raced past her, moving toward the foyer of his home. He disappeared from Rachel's sight when he opened the office door. Rachel followed after him, unsure if he wanted her around at this moment. She reached the door, it was closed.
'That could be a sign,' Rachel thought.
"I'll be out in a minute," she heard Jack say.
He emerged from the room a few seconds later, the tape secured safely in his arms. He ran into the living room, quickly changing the settings of the VCR-DVD player. That was the moment he paused.
"Are you okay?" Rachel asked, moving cautiously toward her friend.
"I've never been this nervous about something in my life. What if she's singing like in my dream? What if terrible? Worse, what if she's better than me?"
Rachel couldn't help but feel a case of déjà vu. She knelt down next to the usually confident and calculating singer, her hand resting on his shoulder.
"When I found my mother last year," she began, "I said the same thing."
"Really?" he inquired. "I guess we really are twin flames."
"Maybe," Rachel smiled. "But, I learned something from that whole experience with Shelby. And that is you can't be scared of something like this. Yes, it's big, but if it's something you want, you have to go for it."
Jack chuckled. "You're starting to sound more and more like Mr. Schue, did you know that?"
"I'll take that as a compliment," Rachel said, standing up and stretching. "And I'm here if you need me."
Jack, his hands shaking, placed the tape in the VCR. Quickly, he tapped the play button and the screen lit up. Jack's eyes widened in recognition of the face.
"Hey, baby," the strikingly high, almost helium influenced voice of April Rhodes spoke from the past. "Wow, that sounds weird as hell."
Jack slumped back on the floor, left completely speechless.
"I mean, you're not going to be mine, not really," his mother said. "But, I just wanted you to know what I looked like, hear my voice. And I've always wondered what it would be like to sing to my baby, but I guess I won't know that for now."
Jack hadn't moved since the tape began.
"So, I guess this will have to do," she said, pressing the tape recorder that played a familiar tune.
April took a breath and began to sing:
"Hey you, you're a child in my head, you haven't walked yet, your first words have yet to be said. But I swear you'll be blessed."
Rachel looked away from her unmoving friend to listen to the, for once, sober Ms. Rhodes sing to her pregnant womb.
"I know you're still just a dream, your eyes might be green or the bluest that I've ever seen, any way you'll be blessed."
Jack suddenly began to move, the upper half of his body stretched toward the entertainment center. His voice seemed to break when he started to sing with her:
"And you, you'll be blessed, you'll have the best, I promise you that. I'll pick a star from the sky; pull your name from a hat…I promise you that, promise you that, promise you that you'll be blessed."
Jack switched off the TV; his labored breathing was now the only sound in the room. Rachel stepped forward; her hand hanging apprehensively over Jack's heaving shoulders. He was quiet for a few minutes, Rachel didn't even try to count how many, she just waited for him to do something, anything that said he was okay, or disappointed, or angry, all the emotions that come with something this big.
"You know," he finally spoke, "the last time I cried, I was seven years old. It wasn't anything big, my grandfather had just died. I haven't cried in almost 10 years."
She stared at him quizzically.
"I say this because, if you tell anyone what I'm about to do, I will make your life miserable."
She knew he was lying, but she nodded anyways just to give him the desired response he needed. Jack finally let out the pent-up emotions Rachel seen in his face from the moment they began this project. She quickly wrapped her arms around him and held her sobbing friend.
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A/N: And that is the first chapter of the story. It's supposed to be a three-shot. As always I love to hear what you think of my work. So, press the little button in the center of the page, give me a critque or a review that fluffs my ego, or just tell me what you think so that I can become a better writer.
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