This is an extremely short oneshot that I just felt like writing on a Saturday night at 12:23. It's been nagging at the edge of my mind for a while. I hope you like it! There are spoilers so please beware.

Finding Out

Rachel dropped slowly to her knees, crippled by the extreme weight of the last terrible ten minutes of her life. She could feel her mouth forming that unattractive, gaping frown that snuck up on her whenever she started to cry. And she did. She started to cry.

The concrete under her knees dug into her, leaving rivets of sharp gravel in the skin there. Her world was literally spinning and gravity pulled her shoulders into a dramatic slump. A sob dug through her chest. She couldn't believe it.

The worst thing was that she should have -might have unconsciously- known. It was the obvious answer, reason and rhyme. It fit perfectly into the melodramatic portion of her life that she kept locked in the imaginary land of her mind. She just felt utterly stupid.

Tears gushed from her eyes and she covered her mouth as she cried. She was extremely embarrassed at the public scene she was making. As she let another heavy sob explode and looked around bewildered. She couldn't believe this had happened.

Jessie was fake. He wasn't her Jessie. He had never, never been hers. And his pretenses? They were deplorable. His coach, her mother… Her MOTHER. The way she plotted her boyfriend against her to gain access into her life... The fact that she actually had a living, breathing mother alone! She shook her head and cried and cried and cried.

She felt like she was falling apart.

She let her mind speed through the past few months, barreling through her memories of Jessie. The implications he had made… The kisses. Her heart seized and she never wanted to hide as much as she did right then. She couldn't even feel music. She always felt music.

She bit her lip and hoped to hold the sob that was building in her chest back until she could find a way home. She was still crying like a child and as she looked to her right, she noticed a girl who she thought went to her school. The girl's staring made her face hot and she looked for her car. With a crashing sense of dread, she realized that Jessie had been her ride.

But he was gone.

Rachel began to panic. She hated that her panic pushed the sob through, which brought more tears. She loathed herself. Her hair whipped as she turned her head to look for her best exit. The football field was to her left, along with student parking. The school behind her was definitely not an option. She started to stumble blindly to her left.

Her stomach churned and her knees ached. The wet feeling that was growing on her chest where her tears had collected grossed her out. She tried to breathe in a long breath of cool afternoon air. She forced logic. What did she need? A ride. Where did she need to be? Ballet class. The thought of missing her class, the normality of it, made her cry again. She forced herself to think. What can you do, Rachel? She thought of her cell phone. The one she had left in her locker. She mentally kicked herself and drew in a shaky breath as she turned for the school to retrieve her lifeline.

"Rachel?"

She jumped and let out a gasp as she came face to face with him upon turning. Finn. She repeated her thoughts.

"Finn?" She gasped, instinctively reaching to wipe the heavy layer of tears from her cheeks. She placed a hand gingerly on her chest, as if to feel her kick-started heart. It was pounding in high gear. She involuntarily sniffled. Finn frowned down at her.

"What's wrong?" He immediately asked. She raised her eyebrows in incredulity at the situation she had put herself in. She struggled to get a hold of herself as she sobbed for the hundredth time.

"I'm fine!" She looked up at the sky as she tried to blink back her tears and think of excuses. "I need to…" She swallowed, lowering her chin to look instead at the grass under her feet. She hiccupped.

She didn't have to worry about excuses, though. That was what Finn had been trying to get Rachel to see for so long; he didn't need any of that. He wrapped his arms around her.

At the contact of such a warm gesture, Rachel found herself crying again. The only thing she could pride herself in was that she was doing so silently. She stood, with Finn's arms wrapped around her, wondering how she could have gone so long, blindly walking without him by her side. She leaned against his chest and concentrated on his breaths. They calmed her.

She wished she'd been there the whole time.

Sorry if this spoiled anything for you. But I did warn. This is a very slim possible outcome of Rachel becoming privy to the events Shelby and Jessie have created. And the guy who's always been in the background of Rachel's life. He's the knight in shining armor! Or some such crap… Thank you a thousand times over for reading! I would really, really appreciate a review! Yours matters most. Yes, yours.