These strange steps

3. Three

The rest of the week is plainly torturous. Rachel considers taking a freezing shower and then standing outside in the night air for like five hours just to give herself pneumonia by Thursday, but while that would get her out of her nightly performance commitment—which she can't focus on in the slightest—it would also give her ... pneumonia.

There's basically nothing she can do but count the days, twisting desperately under a top sheet each night while Quinn whispers next time in her mind.

The times when she's not singing her way through Broadway and popular classics on autopilot, she's picking at meals with Puck and Kurt while wondering what else Quinn can do to torment her. She knows she should stop it—she's an adult, for God's sake, and Quinn might not want to have a conversation with her but she doesn't have to keep going into the club and paying for Quinn's time. She can also just... what, exactly? Wait outside of Rapture for Quinn to finish, and stalk her outside of her car? Take her out to an early breakfast or a really late dinner, and discuss where they've been for the past seven years over some Eggs Benedict and diner coffee?

There is no way Quinn would agree.

And honestly, the more questions she asks Quinn, the more questions she herself will have to answer. Things that Quinn seems to enjoy prodding at as it is; her ridiculous crush, her sexuality, her inability to do anything about either of those things.

The reality of it is that those thirty minutes she buys are the only window she's ever going to have, and she's going to have to work within them. Quinn needs to dance to keep some semblance of dignity, and Rachel needs to give her money out of some sense of irrepressible do-gooding, or whatever.

There's a reason she supports five different charities. Maybe this is just the sixth one.

... and that, right there, is the real problem.

She's letting Quinn Fabray torture her with her body out of some misguided sense of pity, and that's just not okay.

She's going to have to change the way they relate to each other if she ever wants it to be about more than that.

...

By the time Sunday rolls around, Quinn is all she can think about.

The show is a disaster; she trips on a cue and almost face-plants into her male dancer's lap, which would've probably given a bit of extra swing to the bad impression of Mariah Carey she's currently powering her way through—if not for the part where it's decidedly not sexy, and just kind of amateurish.

She's not an amateur, for God's sake. She hasn't been an amateur since she was five and won her first legitimate singing competition. Even so, she can't seem to stop acting like one: almost flubbing lines, flopping cues and nearly freezing on stage every time she sees shoulder-length blonde hair or a woman wearing a suit.

She already knows that she's going to get reamed out by her vocal coach by the time the summer's over. Her voice is strained and the rest of her is too tired to compensate for it with technique.

Kurt starts looking guilty by the time the Monday rehearsals roll around, at which point she asks that some of the dancing numbers are replaced a few sit-down numbers.

For one moment, he drops the concern about her career and her choices and just says, "I have an idea."

His voice is out of practice, but next to hers, it doesn't even really matter; she introduces him as her best friend and "the only other Evita worth hearing" and they get a standing ovation from the audience after a toned down, hand-held version of Don't Cry For Me Argentina that brings tears to her eyes.