Hey guys! I promised you new material right? I decided to make an AU story, one without jealousy or crazy ex-boyfriend fighting. Okay, maybe a little jealousy. I'm not going to lie, but I hope you enjoy it anyway!

Prolouge

The first time Finn Hudson came across Rachel Berry was in McKinley High Kindergarden's playground on the day of September 27th, 2000.

"Mom! I'm going to be fine!" Finn wriggled out of his Mom's tight hold on him, who was kissing his cheeks and the top of his head repeatedly. He's been in kindergarden for a few weeks already and this was the first time Carole was bringing him to school, not the bus and Carole was making a huge deal out of it, embarrassing poor little Finn. Carole pressed one last kiss to his forehead, before kneeling down to the level of the six year old.

"Okay, so I packed you a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, an apple and a pudding cup. Be good okay? If you come back with one more referral slip..."

"Yes Mom, I know. No more TV for the rest of the week. But Puck said..."

"I don't care what your friend Puck says. No more pushing people okay?" Finn nodded solemnly, shifting his Power Rangers backpack over his small shoulders. Carole slipped two dollars into Finn's hand, smiling softly. Finn was all she had left of Chris and she would do anything for him. He was a kid. He messed up sometimes, and the guilty look on his features was almost enough to take back all the punishment he had last week after getting a call from his teacher about pushing an innocent girl down in the playground, resulting in a very bad calf gash which needed stitches.

"Okay, get to your classroom now. I'll be here at noon okay? Right here. Have a good day at school honey!" Carole finally let Finn wriggle out of her arms as he dashed into the school building just as the school bell rang. Finn walked into the classroom and saw his friend, a kid with a mohawk called Puck, sitting next to a really big girl who looked mean. Finn frowned as the seat beside his only friend was taken.

"Ah Finn, there you are. I reassigned the seats and you will be sitting next to Rachel." Mrs. Flint pointed to the seat next to a small girl with a butterfly clip in her hair, wearing a skirt and a shirt with a dog on it. She looked familiar, but she wouldn't look up so Finn just looked at Puck, who looked disgusted and sat next to the girl. The first thing Finn noticed was a long bandage on her leg, extending to under her sock.

"What happened to your leg?" The girl completely ignored Finn, continuing to draw something that looked like a stage and a microphone on her notebook. Finn looked up and frowned. Why didn't she want to talk to him?

"Rachel? The school nurse would like to see you now." The girl stood up and started limping towards the front of the classroom, where the school nurse smiled and waited for her, handing her a lollipop before helping her head out to the nurse's office. Puck frowned. Why did she get a lollipop?

"Mrs. Flint? Why did Rachel get a lollipop? She's weird and-"

"Noah, come here. I'm going to call your mother to pick you up and tell her all the insults you've been giving to Rachel." The class remained silent as Puck stomped out of the classroom and followed Mrs. Flint to the principal's office as the assistant teacher, Ms. Janice, took over the class. Finn really liked her. She was nice and if you were good enough, she'd give you candy.

"Okay class, let's start with addition!"

Around thirty minutes into class, Rachel walked back into class, an elastic bandage now around her leg as Ms. Janice helped her into her seat, handing her a piece of chocolate.

"Just feel better okay? I'm glad you're in class today." Ms. Janice winked as the rest of the class glared at Rachel as she quietly ate the Hershey's bar that was placed on her desk.

"What happened to your leg?" Finn asked again, looking down at the elastic bandage. She also had a pink bandage on her elbow with a gold star sticker in the middle. She looked at Finn and Finn knew he had seen her from somewhere.

"I don't like you. Can you please stop talking to me?" Finn was taken aback. He didn't even know this girl and already she didn't like him? Instead, she took out her pink, fluffy pen and started to draw again on her notebook. What did he do? He never talked to her before. Finn instead focused his attention on the board, where Ms. Janice was drawing animals on the blackboard and making their animal noises. Finn glimpsed at the small girl next to her often, wondering why she didn't like him. Finally, the bell rang, signaling the start of recess. Finn walked out of the classroom while Mrs. Flint stayed in the classroom with Puck, who didn't have any recess for calling Rachel weird. He didn't know anyone else besides Puck, since Puck was the first person who came up to Finn and shared his Sour Patch Kids with him on the first day of school. Finn never really thought about making any other friends. He spotted that girl he sits next to in class sitting alone under a big tree and decides to talk to her.

"Hi." Finn says nervously. The little girl looks up at him with her big brown eyes before looking at him meanly and looking back down to her drawings. Finn kicked a rock with his worn out sneaker.

"Um, why aren't you on the playground?" Finn tried again as the girl looked up with tears in her eyes.

"My dads said I can't because of my stitches."

"You have two dads?" Finn thought that was super cool. He only had his mom. The girl looked down and nodded softly, as if she was ashamed.

"Really? That's cool! I don't know my dad, so that's awesome." Finn said, smiling at him with a tooth-gapped grin. He lost his front tooth the other day, and he got one dollar from the tooth fairy the next day.

"That's really neat. My tooth's loose too." She smiled and pointed to her front tooth and moved it back and forth a little. Finn sat down beside the little girl, who put her sketchpad and pens aside.

"Awesome. After it falls out, you should put it under your pillow! The tooth fairy will come and give you money for your tooth."

"Yeah, my dads told me about her."

"I still find it super cool that you have two dads."

"If you want, you can borrow one of mine. They're very nice." Finn's face lit up at the thought of having a dad, even if it's just a borrowed dad.

"Really? That's awesome! My name is Finn by the way. Finn Hudson." The little girl stuck out her hand as Finn shook it.

"My name is Rachel Barbara Berry, future Broadway extraordinaire." Finn scratched his head, looking confused. That was a really big word he's never even heard of before.

"What's a extrardinore?" Rachel giggled as she smiled up at Finn.

"It means someone who's special."

"Oh cool. So am I an extradinore?" Finn asked, curious. She was really interesting. She had really big brown eyes and her voice was really sweet too. Rachel looked up at the boy. All of a sudden, he started talking to her and he seemed like he really wanted to listen. And when she told him about her dads, he didn't call them "fags" or "homos," like that mean boy David said. Her dads told her that he said something very bad, and she should never ever try to say it, ever. It was really nice of Finn to be really good about her having two dads, not like a lot of people.

"Yeah. I think you're someone special." Finn grinned a big smile. His smile dropped though as he saw the bandage around her leg.

"So, can you tell me what happened to your leg now?" Rachel's expression dropped as as as well and tears began to form in her eyes. Finn hated it when girls cried. One time, Quinn Fabray cried 'cause he didn't want to play princess with her. So he went and played princess with her just so she'd stop crying.

"N-Noah and you pushed me off the monkey bars. I had to go to the hospital to have my leg stitched." She was the girl they had pushed? The one who burst into a million tears and was bleeding really badly? Puck and him got so scared that she was bleeding that they ran to MRs. Flint and told her what happened. An ambulance took her away and his Mom got really mad at him when he got home. He wasn't allowed to talk to Puck after that and if he pushed anymore people, he'd get no TV, which meant no Ghostbusters, for a week.

"I-I'm sorry. My Mom told me not to push anymore people down or talk to Puck. But now, I don't have any friends." Finn said, looking down at his sneakers. He didn't want to be friends with Puck. Especially if he was going to get him to hurt girls like Rachel.

"It's okay. I don't have any friends either. We can be friends." Rachel said, smiling up at him as Finn smiled back.

"Friends?"

"We could be best friends if you wanted. I've never had a best friend before."

"Me neither. Being best friends would be awesome." Rachel held out her pinky finger with a questioning expression.

"Friends?" Finn hooked his pinky around hers, smiling.

"Best friends."

This is lostinthelights, formerly CertifiedGleek. I changed my pen name, just for a little change. :) So, here's the new material I promised you guys! I have a few more chapters written up already, so not too long the wait is for the updates.

Thanks,

lostinthelights