Archive of Our Own

When the federal LGBT Protections Act is passed in 2017, Beth Corcoran is nearly eight and going through a crazy identity crisis. It's all so messed up, and Beth blames adoption for everything. That is the core issue at the root of all of Beth's incredibly complicated problems. Except that Beth is full of issues that can't be put into words. Beth tries but the words don't come out and there's nothing that can be done.

Beth's mother, Shelby, puts her daughter into therapy. It's a suggestion from her own mother, and Shelby trusts her. She's a smart woman, skilled in dealing with overly emotional issues. After all, she's dealt with a daughter who rented out her womb for a wonderfully in love gay couple in a time when that sort of thing simply wasn't done. Her mother is wise and Shelby always listens to her, without question.

The doctor is a kind-faced older gentleman who takes Beth's hand and leads the little girl into his office and asks her questions about her feelings. It takes a few weeks before the concerned phone calls from Beth's therapist start.

Shelby never expected this, but she's been surrounded by queer issues all her life, and when the therapist suggests that they raise Beth's estrogen levels to counteract the dysphoria and make her feel more feminine, Shelby fires him on the spot.

Together they find a new therapist, a young woman who's been through exactly what Beth is going through, and suddenly everything is starting to make sense. Beth cuts her hair short, wears pants all the time, and asks to be called by a different name.

Shelby fights it at first, guilt over her failure as a mother, but Beth is genuinely happy now. Shelby signs off on consent forms and soon her son is beginning to look more and more like a boy from her memories that she can scarcely recall.

A bit like Noah, too much like Quinn - Lucy, Shelby corrects herself violently, Quinn has always been Lucy to her child. Even when Quinn could not be Lucy to anyone else.

That particular mental disconnect has always confused Shelby. She remembers submitting the gender marker change form to the Lima county government and writing out Quinn's name as Lucy Quinn Fabray for the first time. Shelby remembers shaking her head and sending in the forms. She couldn't pretend to understand Quinn Fabray.

Still, to hear her child chatter on happily about 'Lucy' writing letters and telling awesome stories (Quinn's a published novelist now) is oddly disconcerting. Shelby agreed to an open adoption to help Quinn work through what she herself had had to go through, but mostly Quinn stays away.

She knows why. It's because of Rachel. Because Rachel is still uncomfortable in Shelby's presence, because Rachel is still full of hurt that Shelby took Quinn's then-little girl and rejected her own daughter. They're friends now, tentative ones, according to Quinn. There's potential there, and Shelby hopes something will come from it.

Until they get into a terrible fight one October day and to this date haven't spoken to each other since. Quinn's all but disappeared off the face of the earth, and Rachel's so much of a workaholic that she's going to end up in an early grave.

They all hate it, but there's really nothing that can be done. The mistakes of the past cannot be made right without divine intervention at this point, Shelby thinks.

Regardless, there's no sense in worrying about it at any length. "Jesse!" she calls up the stairs after her errant twelve-year-old, "You'll be late for your choir practice!"

x

Brittany S. Pierce-Lopez builds a time machine after completing her second PhD in Astrophysics. She is thirty five and hailed as one of the brightest scientific minds of her generation. She’s got tenure at Boston University and has been working on several projects that have gotten her hailed as everything from a madwoman to the next Einstein.

It's funny, she’s smarter than anyone gives her credit for upon inspection, but she never actually expected this. Jesse Corcoran comes to her and asks if he can use the machine to go back in time and see if he can't fix the estranged relationship between his mother and sister, she tosses him the keys and explains how exactly it works without question.

"One thing, Jess," she says, ruffling his hair. He's almost taller than her, gangly at just-fifteen. Brittany remembers when he was born, how they lost that competition to the baby in the process of forcing its way out of Quinn's stomach. It makes a lot of sense to Brittany; Jesse was always that sort of a kid. The kid with impossible dreams. Like Rachel Berry before him. "Don't use eggs this time."

"Eggs?" He blinks, confusion clouding his features and Brittany thinks he looks more like Noah in that moment than she's ever seen before. His eyes are different then. Quinn's eyes and Noah's face. It's hilarious somehow. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Brittany rises on her toes and kisses his forehead. "You'll understand in time."

xJesse didn't anticipate a lot of things about the past. He's brought a prescription with him that states that his body doesn't produce enough testosterone, so he's got that angle of his personhood covered. He's got to pack all the time, which is kind of uncomfortable, but at least the anti-androgens he's been taking since age twelve have saved him from having to bind all the time.

He's lucky, he knows a lot of guys who have to bind. They hate it. His early issues with life, the universe, and everything that landed him in therapy have saved him a lot of trouble. Which is good, Jesse's not really a fan of trouble.

He is, however, a fan of acting. And sickeningly good at it.

Getting into Vocal Adrenaline is almost easy. His mother is so young and yet she looks so utterly devastated when he grins up at her and sings to her perfectly. He picks a song that she used to sing to him when he was little and she just stares at him as though he's the second coming.

It's awesome. They accept his talent and make him their leader. He can be as inanely stupid as he wants and they just assume that he truly is that foolish.

Soon Jesse is integrated into the Carmel landscape. He stays for so long that he almost forgets his purpose, until his mother - Ms. Corcoran - comes to him with a proposal.

"I need you to transfer to McKinley High for a little while."

Jesse doesn't question her, and goes for the kill.

xHe thinks his non-sister-non-mom is hot as all get out. And she sings beautifully. He saw her at the New Directions Sectionals performance and she took his breath away then too. Rachel's so impossibly young, his own age - and she's cute too.

It's so strange, when Jesse suddenly finds himself flippantly asking Rachel Berry out, that it doesn't feel weird. He can see himself growing in his mother's stomach, and flashes a smile at her that's nearly charming.

(Lucy doesn't like him and Jesse can't figure out why. He's charming and has great looks and he knows he's way more dashing than his father is. She just glares at him like she knows his deepest darkest secrets.

It's unnerving, really.)

The first time he kisses Rachel, he knows it's a mistake, and then she pulls away and tells him that she can't do it.

Yes, Jesse wants to say, because she is outrageously gay and in love with someone else.

Instead he's just as kind and dashing as ever, and offers to cuddle instead.

xIt is really hard to remember to call Lucy by her middle name. Jesse's caught himself slipping more than once, in anger and in passionate debates. He likes this version of Lucy a lot. She's very... intense.

Terrifying even.

He remembers how she was when he was very young and it sort of makes sense. Lucy Quinn Fabray is a girl full of regrets and always has been. He supposes that he's the root of a lot of these problems, but he's only a mitigating factor of the larger issue at hand.

They're sitting together in the back of the auditorium, watching Rachel sing. "She's really talented," Jesse says frankly. "She's going to go far."

Lucy's eyes harden as she stares at him. "Why are you talking to me, St. James?" she demands as though she's so far above him she could crush him with the heel of her shoe.

"Because you're there, obviously," Jesse rolls his eyes. High school is so ... he doesn't even know. He doesn't like it at all. "And because you think the same thing."

"I couldn't-" Lucy begins, looking indignant but Jesse raises a finger and shakes it at her.

"You care far more than you think, Lucy." It's a risk, but Jesse wants to test a theory.

Lucy's eyes widen and then narrow, "And you know far more than you let on." She hisses, standing and stalking out of the auditorium.

The next day he finds Rachel talking lowly in very low and urgent tones with Lucy by their shared row of lockers.

Jesse smiles and walks on.

xHe goes back to his time for a visit and his mother is beside herself at how much he's grown. He throws himself into her arms and breathes in her smell. Ms. Corcoran won't hug him in that time, and he's missed that.

"Jesse," she breathes, her hands fisting in the back of his jacket. "Where did you go?"

"To fix things," Jesse whispers. "Dr. Pierce-Lopez helped me - let me use her time machine."

His mother looks stricken, but Jesse's got three days of unshaven-beard and has grown again and she's just looking at him, taking him in.

"I um... may have made out with Rachel," Jesse rubs the back of his head.

"You're a terrible child, Jesse Corcoran," she smiles at her son. "Please don't do it again."

Jesse sticks out his lower lip, pouting, "I will if I have to. I have to make it right."

"Jesse," Shelby says to her son, her expression suddenly serious. "No eggs this time."

Everyone keeps telling him to avoid the eggs like it’s something that he can actually control. Like they know he’s been there before.

Has he?

Jesse isn’t sure how to ask if they remember him.

xHe's never been much of a method actor, but when he's back in Ohio, in the past and one of his Vocal Adrenaline team mates shoves an egg in his hand he just follows the role.

He crushes the egg on his vegan sister's forehead and leaves her there. He sees Lucy glaring murder at him as she pulls a towel out of her backpack and starts to towel off Rachel's head. He knows then, as he gets into the passenger seat of his team mate's Range Rover that it's going somewhat okay.

And he hates himself.

xHe's - well, she's born in the middle of one of Jesse's crowning moments. He's singing Queen because he knows that Lucy loves the band even now despite her father's hatred of all things homosexual, and he's doing it for her.

It sucks though, only Rachel is there to see them, and Jesse almost frowns mid-verse. Rachel was supposed to go with them to the hospital. Rachel was supposed to see him get born, a squalling awful pink baby girl.

So when he has to ask, "Is this the real life?" He's asking her, staring at her in the audience and demanding to know what the fuck she thinks she's doing.

They're too young, too closeted, he decides as he dances. They're far too deeply connected for this to be the end of things, he finds himself rationalizing.

He'll have to let it develop organically for a while.

He's already faked his acceptance to UCLA and they'll win Nationals for sure this year, no matter how good the Journey Mash-up New Directions did is. Four in a row, the future is set in stone, he can only try and influence it at its edges.

xHe stays home for nearly a year, and gets Dr. Pierce-Lopez to write him a letter explaining that he went to high school in the past as part of a long-term test of her time machine. And he applies and gets into NYADA. Rachel calls him up and tells him she's proud of him.

"I'm sorry," Jesse tries, after they've fallen silent on the phone for a moment, "For the egg thing."

Rachel sighs, "It was a cruel thing to do, Jesse. But you sold the part well." She gives a fond little sigh. "You’re creating a lot of paradoxes right now, you realize that right?"

Jesse's mouth falls open and he makes a spluttering noise because what the hell? He's eighteen and he just wanted to make things better not fuck up his current time-line. He hasn’t been paying that much attention, he’s so wrapped up in fixing things. "W-what do you mean?" He asks, twirling the phone cord between his fingers. His mother still keeps a retro phone in the kitchen, and Jesse loves it. He misses cords - it gives him something to do with his hands while his sort-of sister is accusing him of messing up the time line.

There's a pause and Rachel's smile can be heard in her voice from her Manhattan apartment, "I remember you and I remember how you..." she trails off, obviously thinking. Jesse wonders if this has anything to do with Lucy. "You pushed us together didn't you?"

"I... I wanted you to have happiness, Rachel," Jesse says simply. "It's all I've ever wanted."

"You're an extraordinary young man, Jesse Corcoran - or should I say St. James?"

"I'm Jesse Corcoran, I always have been."

xIn passing conversation (and some totally awesome snooping on Jesse's part) he finds out that he apparently took Rachel to prom. And then got kicked out for kicking Finn's ass. His doctor's just upped his T prescription, so Jesse's feeling pretty damn boss right now as it is, and hitting Finn Hudson is always a good idea, so he goes back to Dr. Pierce-Lopez.

"Please don't ruin it this time," Brittany says, tossing him the keys. She pauses, her head tilting slightly to the side before she asks him to wait a moment before disappearing off into her office at the back of her messy lab deep in the bowels of one of Boston University's oldest research buildings.

Jesse shifts awkwardly from foot to foot until Dr. Pierce-Lopez comes back clutching a bright red book that looks more like a scrap book than the yearbook that Jesse recognizes it to be. She flips it open and rifles around in the pages until she finds what she's looking for. It's a picture of himself, his arms wrapped around Rachel. Mercedes and a boy that Jesse doesn't remember from his first trip to the past are in the picture as well.

There's a fondness on Dr. Pierce-Lopez's face as her finger traces over Rachel Berry's face. Her tone is soft when she tells Jesse something that he never dared to hope for. "She tells Finn what to get Quinn for her corsage."

"What did she tell him?" Jesse asks, because he's honestly curious. Rachel knows the language of flowers, ever since her first summer job at fifteen at the floral shop in downtown Lima. She taught them to Jesse when he was younger, when he was still Beth. Jesse's never forgotten.
The doctor thinks for a moment, her whitening blonde bangs falling into her eyes as her lips purse. "Gardenias. And a nice green ribbon."

Jesse rolls his eyes, "Secret love."

Typical girls.

"Yeah." There's a comforting hand on his shoulder and the woman who he'd never bothered getting to know in the past spun him around and pushed him towards the time machine. "Don't mess it up for them again, St. James."

"It's Corcoran," Jesse mutters, irritated.

It will always be Corcoran, because he can't be a Fabray (Lucy would kill him for taking her bastard father's name) and he can't be a Puckerman (Noah's a great older brother figure, but he still doesn't quite get the whole gender thing. Jesse's tried. He really has) so he has to be who he was meant to be all along.

A saint.

xRachel's singing Adele and she's amazing. Jesse's never really been a fan of the British singer, but her work is vocally very challenging, and he'll never back down from a good challenge. He finishes out the song with her, leaning against the piano, a smile playing across his (still too damn feminine) lips. He grins sheepishly as Rachel looks at him warily.

He spins a completely ridiculous story about how he failed out of UCLA because he's functionally retarded and apparently didn't know how to go to class. Lucy Fabray is his biological mother, it's against Jesse's DNA to do poorly in school. The thing is, Rachel doesn't know that about him, not yet anyway. He's this caricature of himself to her, obsessed with show choir with little interest in much else.

Jesse doesn't really care about show choir. He cares about Lucy and about finally having her be happy. She's been sad for so long. Jesse just wants to fix it. He owes it to Lucy for bringing him into the world.

"I'm sorry about the eggs..." It's all he can do to get the words out. It was a really fantastic bit of acting. He used the emotion he'd tapped into in his NYADA audition.

"Water under the bridge, Jesse," Rachel laughs with a smile as he slings his arm over her shoulder.

And then he asks Rachel Berry to prom because he's had enough oddly incestuous interactions with his sort-of-sister to date that one more date (and it is a group date) can't hurt. It's not like he plans on kissing her or anything.

If his calculations are correct, that should be Lucy, tonight after his awesomely boss fight with Finn. It should happen in the bathroom of the school, and maybe this time they'll finally get it right.

xHe happens upon Lucy as they get to prom, hanging on Finn Hudson's arm like he's somehow her ticket to prom queen. Jesse jerks his head towards the door and Lucy follows him without much fuss. He's glad that she's still giving him the time of day after what he did to Rachel. He supposes that he'd better count his blessings.

"I heard what happened," Jesse says quietly. Lucy is a secret that Quinn Fabray keeps from everyone but him, he can understand how Lucy being dragged out into the open would hurt his mother. He reaches out and touches Lucy's shoulder. "You're beautiful, you always were."

Lucy stares at him for a long moment before her head dips down and she fiddles with her corsage. Gardenia. Rachel. Jesse smiles.

"How did you know about that, St. James?" She demands, her voice a low dangerous hiss.
It's in that moment that he wants to scream that he knows her better than anyone, because she's his mom. But Beth is still a girl and there aren't that many trans-positive laws in this day and age and Jesse really doesn't feel like getting beat up for being a freak.

He pulls her chin upwards, and looks down into her eyes with the same eyes that stare back up at him - angry and confused. If she were thinking, she'd figure it out. Lucy's eyes are unique and stunning. And Jesse's best feature. "I'm not an idiot, you do little things. Eat small bites, even when you were pregnant, I saw it. Everything about you is regimented, Lu-Quinn. It wasn't hard to put it together."

"But how did you know about that name?"

Jesse shrugs, "The same way that that mannish woman figured it out. I used the Google." He raises his eyebrow and bends to whisper in her ear, "And you told me about her the first time I met you."

He walks away full of purpose, leaving a stunned Lucy behind him.

xHe gets back and Dr. Pierce-Lopez raises her eyebrows at him and asks if he's quite finished messing with the past. Jesse's got a test in his history of theatre class tomorrow and doesn't want to hear about any further meddling. At least for the time being, but apparently he doesn’t have a choice. Dr. Lopez-Pierce shakes her head at him, muttering about paradoxes and the continuum and getting it right. He opens his mouth to protest, that he’s done, and finds himself unceremoniously shoved back in the time machine and told that it's not over yet.

He’s panicking about his history test now on top of everything else.

Joy.

Rachel comes to find him at his fake-uncle's house. (In reality, Jesse just rented the house in his name and filled it with stuff that he'd found at yard sales - enough to look like a bachelor pad. He'd faked his paperwork at Carmel and then again at McKinley.) He's studying for his test and has to shove his books quickly under a blanket as she sits down on the edge of the couch and stares at him.

"How do..." she begins, looking surprisingly at a loss for words. Jesse finds it unnerving, as Rachel Berry always has known just what to say to him. "How do you feel, as a queer individual living in this town? Do you feel ostracized? Are you constantly looking over your shoulder for the next transphobic slur or lewd act to be flung in your direction?"

Jesse's mouth drops open and he backs away slowly, eyes wide and terrified. How could she know? How could she possibly know?!

Rachel smiles sadly at him. "I figured that you didn't want anyone to know. You've transitioned brilliantly, but when you're making out with someone, generally it's pretty easy to tell when..." she trails off, her cheeks flushing bright red and Jesse curses the lack of research and surgeries available to people like him.

He looks away, his cheeks burning. "I don't really think about it... but why are you asking, Rachel?"

Her cheeks are still burning bright red she when says, "Quinn kissed me last night, after prom. I took her home."

Jesse wants to sing and shout from the rooftops because finally, but he tries to act surprised. Because Jesse St. James is sort of a douchenozzle and he has to play his part or else they won’t get together and he’ll have to go back and try again. "I didn't know she was… or that you were for that matter..."

"I believe sexuality is fluid, I told you that when Kurt said you had super metro hair," Rachel laughs, "Now I know it's just transguy hair, which is why I forgive your terrible haircut."

"HEY!" He’s indignant because his hair is quite awesome, thank you.

Rachel sticks her tongue at him. "I'm kidding, Jess." Her expression softens. "How long have you been on T?"

"A while," Jesse confesses. "Since I was fifteen. I was on androgen blockers before that."

She pokes his chest, "Explains that."

He raises an eyebrow at her. It's very Lucy and very Noah. She doesn't pick up on it. No one in this time will. "Yeah."

"I don't care, that you're trans, Jesse." Rachel scoots closer and leans against him. "I just wish I knew what to do with Quinn. I- well, I never expected it from her. Santana, maybe."

"Like Dr. Pierce-Lo-" Jesse clamps his mouth shut and hopes Rachel doesn't demand details.
She looks at him oddly, head tilting slightly to the side and biting at her lip; but she stays silent. "I don't think we can date anymore." She says finally, "I think I might have feelings for someone else."

He leans forward and kisses her forehead before wrapping his arms around her. "That's fine, Rachel."

xHe gets himself fired from consulting for New Directions because he's sort of a douchebag. Also because he has finals next week and he needs an excuse to disappear for a few days. Rachel gives him a hug when he says that he's going to go visit friends at Penn State for a few days, and tells him that she'll see him at Nationals.

Jesse goes back in time and back to Boston and tells Dr. Pierce-Lopez that he wishes that she'd chosen to focus in molecular biology rather than physics and engineering.

"What's wrong Jesse," she asks, sitting him down with a cup of strong tea. "I thought you were fixing things."

"I can't fix myself," Jesse mutters darkly. He stares down at his hands, at his body that still occasionally betrays him. "Rachel figured out that I'm not entirely biologically male because I didn't get um..." He flushes.

"Hard?" Dr. Pierce-Lopez supplies helpfully.

"Yeah," God, Jesse wants to die, "When we were making out."

The doctor contemplates this for a moment before finally saying, her tone deliberate. "You could have told her that she's sort of your sister and sort of your mother and that it's really bizarre and not in a unicorn way for you two to be making out in the first place."

Jesse runs a hand though his hair. "I suppose I could have done that too."

xNew Directions doesn't win Nationals. Jesse is top of his class at NYADA and has a role in their summer show. His life is going well, but in the past it's crumbling. He wants to go back there, but he knows he has to let it sit for a while.

He sees Lucy.

"You're an awful meddler,” she tells him, fingering the ring on her finger. The ring he doesn’t remember. “An awful, terrible meddler.”

“You’re still not speaking,” Jesse folds his arms across his chest and pouts. He’s leaning back in his chair in the small café that he and Lucy usually meet at, rocking back and forth as he watches his mother nurse her way through three cups of coffee. The memories of happier times flicker through his mind, as though he’s seeing them anew. “You’re married, for god’s sake, talk to her!”

Lucy says nothing for a long time, spinning the ring around her finger like a nervous habit. She pauses, mid-spin. Her voice his hard, like the Lucy that Jesse knew from the past, “Do you know why we are not speaking? Why we haven’t in years?”

“Because she’s a workaholic, high maintenance and a total diva?” Jesse asks with a raised eyebrow. “I did date her. Briefly.”

That earns him a glare that Jesse knows he whole heartedly deserves because what the actual fuck Rachel is sort of both his sister and mother and it’s all very, very wrong but he had to do it to sell the part.

That’s what he keeps telling himself.

“It wasn’t that at all,” Lucy shakes her head. Her attention is on her coffee and her voice still maintains that hard edge. “We were at two very different points in our careers at the time. I wanted to settle down, start a family, Rachel wanted to get her EGOT. I started to spend more time with Noah because he sort of got what I was going through.” Lucy sighs and pushes her hair out of her eyes. “I don’t know where she got the impression that I was sleeping with him, but she told me that I needed to leave and if I wanted to have more kids with Puckerman, I was more than welcome to.”

Jesse frowns, that doesn’t sound like the Rachel he knows. “That sounds like a heat of the moment thing.”

“It wasn’t the first time she’d lashed out like that,” Lucy shakes her head. “I do it too. We’re toxic together, Jess. Stop trying to fix what can’t be fixed.”

His chin, so much like her own, is set resolutely. “I won’t give up.”

Lucy laughs, “I know you won’t.” She looks away, and he can see that her jaw is set in a hard line, as though she’s resigned or something.

Jesse’s pretty sure she doesn’t expect him to give up. Their family? Tenacious as all get out.

xThe next time he goes back it’s their senior year. Lucy’s in a wheelchair because of some freak accident and Rachel is goddamn engaged to Finn motherfucking Hudson. Jesse doesn’t usually swear but he thinks, that somewhere along the way, he really fucked up.

He finds Brittany Pierce and sits her down and explains the whole thing, beginning with, “Rachel and Lu-Quinn, Quinn are unicorns.”

Brittany gives him this look and asks what he wants her to do about it. Because she’s not that good at unpressing lemons, that’s more Santana’s territory and they’ve got a lot on their plate right now with Nationals on the way.

Jesse sits back and sighs. “When I was born, you want to know what my father named me?”

He’s greeted with a serene smile, “He named you Beth.” Brittany leans forward and prods his nose. “And Shelby calls you Beth Corcoran.” She glances down at him. “I see that Quinn and Puck messed something up along the way.”

“I see that you are far more observant than you let on.” Jesse counters. “What gave me away?”

“You and Quinn have the same eyes,” Brittany nods. “I guess I completed my time machine then?” Jesse doesn’t say anything but Brittany pats him on the shoulder, “You can tell me because I know that I’ll do it one day.”

“Yeah, when I’m fifteen you finish it,” Jesse replies as she wraps an arm around his shoulders. “and I foolishly got you to let me try and change something in the present. Something that probably can’t be changed from the past.”

Brittany cocks her head, “Is that what Quinn told you?”

He nods.

“She’s like that, you have to know how to speak the Quinn language. I have a dictionary in my locker if you want.”

Jesse smiles up at her. “I’d like that.”

xThere isn’t actually a Quinn dictionary at Brittany’s locker, but there is a sense of purpose that pushes Jesse back towards Rachel and telling her that she’ll rock her NYADA audition (she won’t) and that nothing can keep her from her dreams. Rachel looks after Quinn who looks like she might break at any moment and Jesse finds himself nudging Rachel in Quinn’s direction.

“Don’t marry him,” is all Jesse says as he pulls her in for a hug and stalks off down the hallway.

In an alternate version of this timeline, Jesse later realizes, he’s the coach of Vocal Adrenaline this year. How messed up is that?

xLucy calls him when he gets home and says that she’s talked to Rachel about what he’s doing, and that they’re both very unhappy with him.

Jesse tells her that he’s glad that they’re speaking to each other again, because honestly? That was the point of this whole exercise and they should have realized that Jesse can make anything happen. He’s just that good.

He’s her female-to-male son, whom she loves more than life itself.

Jesse buys a train ticket to Connecticut, goes home and hugs his mother tightly. Shelby Corcoran’s hair smells like home and like peace and when Jesse mails Dr. Pierce-Lopez back the key to her time machine, his mother nods with approval.

Jesse’s done messing with the past, the future looks promising.

xHe’s three weeks into NYADA’s summer play rehearsal when he realizes that he hasn’t actually fixed anything. Jesse hates that about himself, band-aid on a gunshot wound and all false bravado. He gets it from his father.

He knows that he has to go back, but that his schedule won’t allow for him to spend much time back there. That he can’t miss any more rehearsals due to family drama (Lucy and Rachel are together again, yes, but fighting constantly – about him). The whole situation is just - ugh. He’s gotta figure this out and fast.

He buys a train ticket to Boston and takes the high speed rail up the Massachusetts and Connecticut coasts. It’s peaceful here, as he watches the small towns full of yuppies fly by.

Santana Pierce-Lopez meets him at the train station in Boston and drives him out to the University. He’s on pins and needles as she asks him about how school is going, how he’s liking the play. She doesn’t say a word about how he’s fucking with their pasts and making paradoxes.

She doesn’t follow him in when she drops him off in front of the building where her wife’s lab is. She’s got to get back to the office, something about a trial. “Get it right,” is all she says to him, watching as he stands there, hands shoved in his pockets as the hot Boston summer air ruffles his new haircut.

He likes to think that he looks dashing. Rachel says it makes him look manly and Lucy just fluffs it and tells him that if he ever dyes it blond she’ll murder him.

“You’re still trying?” Dr. Pierce-Lopez asks as he stands awkwardly in the doorway of her lab. “They’re together, that should be enough.”

Jesse shakes his head, “It’s not quite right though.”

She smiles at him, and touches his cheek. “You’re a good kid, Jesse.”

She’s humming the tune of Get It Right, a Rachel Berry original, as she initiates the time machine’s start up sequence.

xHe’s in a coffee shop, in New York City, street signs indicate the Village. At least it’s not Ohio. He was getting rather sick of Lima.

The papers indicate that he’s far in the future of where he’s been traveling to now. Rachel’s first show is reviewed in the Arts section of the Times, and Jesse knows that if he went looking for it, he could find Lucy’s first book.

They’re older now, late-twenties and this is when it finally happened, when they split for good (or not so good).

He sees Rachel nursing an iced tea and slides into the seat across from her, all coy smiles and cocky attitude. He’s the Jesse St. James that she’s always known, even if she’s just getting to know him in this time. He’s probably nine or so. Definitely a boy.

“Jesse!” she says, squeaking excitedly. Her straw goes flying and Jesse leans forward to catch it before it hits the floor. He grins at her as he passes it back and she flushes adorably. “What are you doing here?”

Jesse shrugs, he doesn’t really know. This is when he has to get it right, when all the paradoxes will sort themselves out. “Getting it right,” he says eventually. It’s a theme in his life, Rachel’s song to Finn Hudson (written because Lucy is really good at pushing buttons).

Rachel doesn’t say anything, her eyes are hard and angry and Jesse finds himself leaning forward to pull the sunglasses off of her face. He knows that this is the conversation that ends it all.

“She isn’t sleeping with him, you know,” Jesse says quietly. They’re in the middle of a crowded room and he’s sure that if he doesn’t say this perfectly, everything will be ruined forever. He picks his words carefully, as Jesse Corcoran, not St. James. He’s not the idiot he pretended to be. “He’s a good friend who understands what she’s feeling.” He runs a hand through his hair. “If you tell her that she’s no better than the girl she was at sixteen, sleeping with him to prove something to herself and the world, you’ll lose her forever.”

Rachel spins her straw around in her drink. “I’m… I’m not ready for all of that.”

“Then tell her,” Jesse prompts. They’re all still so young. She’s older than him now, but she looks up at him as though he’s a soothsayer of yore. He can’t tell her everything.

“Tell me what?” Lucy is there in her sundress and sweater, eyes flashing sadly from Jesse to Rachel and back again. He wonders if they’ve all figured it out yet. His secret. Probably, he didn’t exactly hide it and Brittany Pierce in any time has a big mouth and a love to gossip.

He stands, wraps an arm around her shoulder, and whispers, “Get it right.”

“I’ll be seeing you,” Jesse says. His memories are rearranging themselves in his head as he steps forward and back to his own time. He initiated a frank conversation, that’s all he could do.

xLucy is waiting for him in Dr. Pierce-Lopez’s lab. She’s flipping through a copy of Scientific American with a disinterested look on her face as Jesse materializes in front of her. His memories are hazy, but he knows that they’ll right themselves in time.

“Hi,” he says quietly as she steps towards him.

Lucy’s smile is quiet, serene, “Hi.”

And then she slaps him and Jesse raises a hand to his cheek and hisses in pain.

“Don’t you ever do that again, young man! I cannot bear the idea of you messing with the time-space continuum and somehow meddling your way out of existence!” She’s angry, angry and using more words than usual. Jesse rubs at his cheek.

Dr. Pierce-Lopez floats by and pats Jesse on the head, “I’m banning you from this lab, St. James.”

“I’m Jesse Corcoran!” he protests, loudly. But no one’s listening to him as Dr. Pierce-Lopez and Lucy are talking about how their children are getting acclimated to elementary school and Jesse’s left to stand there and wonder how he missed that they all had children.

He spent four years in the past. Everyone had been tip-toeing around him since he’d returned to his present time. They’d made sure that he was in the past at certain moments.

How the hell did he not realize that he’d gotten it right the first time?