*Hi everyone! I'm here with another story idea. This one is going to be a sort of AU version of season 2. In this version, we basically get to see how the episodes would have gone if there was still an established Finn/Quinn relationship. (I wish there was!) This first chapter is basically a prologue, explaining all of the things that went down before the first episode happened, just to set everything up for you all. I hope you like it anyways, and I apologize in advance for any errors.*
Finn thought that now that he was dating Rachel, he could finally forget about things, about her. And truthfully, he was...until one day in the school library.
It was the students' first week back at school, and they had already been piled with an English exam and a Spanish quiz. That meant no matter how much Finn wanted to goof off and toss a football around with his buddies during free period, he was stuck in the school library, talking Shakespeare with his girlfriend. As his brown eyes intently studied the blank notebook page in front of him, he began to sing almost inaudibly.
"Baby, I can't fight this feeling anymore..."
He whispered. Then he looked up, half-expecting the girl sitting across from him to quirk an eyebrow at him, call him an idiot, then order him to get her a slice of anchovie pizza with honey mustard on top because she was having a craving again. Instead she beamed at him, and belted out the next line three times louder than Finn did.
"I've forgotten what I've started fighting for!"
Right then and there, it seemed as though Rachel had accomplished her life's dream, because all eyes were on her...and Finn. A few claps were heard before the librarian halted them, but it was mostly snickers. Rachel did a pageant wave and sat up straight while the brunette across from her did the opposite, sinking lower in his chair until he felt like he was in the perfect position for the ground to swallow him up whole.
"That was fun!" Rachel whispered quickly. "I think we should talk to Mr. Schue about putting that song on the set-list for Sectionals." She suggested. Noticing her boyfriend's downcast look and slouch, she began to question him. "Something wrong?" She asked worriedly. Finn sighed.
"Look Rachel, it's cool that you like singing and stuff, but I don't know, could you not do it in here? People were 'kinda looking at us." He whispered. The girl's worried look scrunched up into a look of anger.
"What's your point?" She asked defensively, her voice raising only a bit.
"N-nothing, it's just that, you know, I kind of have-"
"Your reputation." She finished. "I thought you stopped caring so much about that." Truth be told, he tried hard to stop caring completely about what other people thought of him. And he didn't care as much as he used to, but it's still something really important to the quarterback.
"I tried to, but I couldn't stop completely caring. My reputation is still important to me, Rachel." He admitted, trying to gauge the response on her face. She huffed and stood up, walking straight out of the library. Finn sighed and rolled his eyes before going after the girl. "Rach, wait!" He called once in the hallway. Swiftly, the singer turned on her heel and stode over to the male.
"What's important to me is that you don't care about your reputation. Until you figure that out, consider us to have gone our separate ways." She explained. Finn simply gaped at the petite female as she turned around and walked out of the building. Once her retreating figure disappeared, Finn too turned around and went to the only place he could officially call his sanctuary.
Entering the chior room, he realized he wasn't alone. Mercedes and Kurt were in there, messing around with notes on the piano. Wordlessly, the eternally confused boy sat down on a stool usually used by Mr. Schuester.
"What's wrong now?" Mercedes asked him.
"Do you honestly have to ask?" Kurt asked his bestie. "It's Rachel."
"Is that white girl still getting to you?" Mercedes asked Finn.
"She broke up with me because I still care about being cool and my popularity and stuff." Finn explained.
"Your reputation is important to you, Finn. I get that." Kurt pointed out a little too eagerly for the other boy's liking. Kurt's eyes shifted back down to the piano as he spoke quietly. "If she doesn't, screw her." He sighed. Unbeknownst why to Finn, it empowered something in him. It determined him to not let her bring him down.
"Yeah." Finn said happily. "Yes!" He exclaimed, laughing hysterically. "I'm going to be popular again!" He shouted. He suddenly shut up and sat himself back down on the stool. "But how?" He asked the duo.
"Don't look at us." Mercedes said as she simultaneously backed up a step.
"Yeah, that's something we can't really help you with." Kurt added.
"Then I'll just have to find someone who can." The football player smiled.
"How do you expect to do that? No one's ever cared about your rep." Kurt pointed out. The trio became lost in thought until the dark-skinned girl spoke up.
"Except..." She said, her eyes twinkling mischeviously. She turned and whispered something in Kurt's ear.
"Really?" He asked, raising an eyebrow. "Do you think she'll actually help him though?" Kurt asked Mercedes skeptically.
"It's worth a shot." She shrugged. "I know she still cares."
"Who?" Finn asked.
"Uh, hello!" Kurt said in a "duh!" tone.
"Quinn!" They answered at the same time. As the two best friends did ther signature handshake, Finn mulled over their solution in his head. Quinn! Why didn't he think of that? She really was the only person who gave a crap about his reputation other than his football team. But he tried not to count them because for the most part they're jerks. He probably should think Quinn's a jerk, too. You know, for breaking his heart like that. But in all honesty, he never really stayed mad at her. He was pretty ticked for a while, but his new found attraction for one Rachel Berry seemed to wittle away at the resentment and anger he had towards the blonde. Too bad his new found attraction for Rachel was just that: an attraction. He was turned on by her body, and turned off by everything else. And now that he was thinking about it, he may actually miss the ex-Cheerio. Like, a lot.
"Word on the street is she's head Cheerio again." Mercedes informed the two boys.
"This is perfect then. Quinn will help you be cool again, and then we may even climb higher on the food chain as well." Kurt said, a devilish grin slanting his eyebrows. The big girl next to him mimicked his look, but Finn was still unsure.
"Are you guys sure Quinn will wanna help me anyway? I mean, she may still be kind of ticked at me over the whole 'I'm done with you' thing. Plus, no offense or anything, but this is sort of a stupid idea, and you guys now how badly she handles stupid ideas..." He babbled. Mercedes walked over to the stool he was perched on to slap some sense into him. Literally. The girl's slap seriously stung and made him kind of want to cry, but he didn't want to look like a wuss so he just breathed as calmly as he could while staring into Mercedes' brown eyes.
"Finn, I lived with that girl for months. Whenever I would go in to get her sheets to clean them while she was at a doctor's appointment or something, don't think I didn't see what she kept under her pillow." She informed him. Again, the quarterback was confused.
"What did she keep under her pillow?" Finn asked quizzically. Mercedes strutted over to her huge messenger bag, pulling things out every few seconds until coming across a triangularly folded sheet of notebook paper. She lightly tossed it to Finn. Knowing by the way it was folded that it was a note, he skillfully opened up the sheet of paper, revealing one pencil-written word with a football dotting the "I", so Finn obviously wrote it. The word read Drizzle.
"Did you know that baby's full name?" She asked him, obviously referring to Quinn's daughter.
"Yeah, Beth Cocoran." He responded.
"Uh-uh. I was there when she filled all this junk out, boy. Her full name was Beth Drizzle Cocoran, and she asked Shelby to call her Drizzle." Mercedes explained.
"Really?" Kurt interrupted. 'Cedes nodded to him.
"So you think she might help me?" Finn asked hopefully. Mercedes literally pushed him out of the chior room.
"Just go!" She called. Finn walked slowly but surely to go find the girl that would make him cool again.
He found Quinn at her locker, preparing herself for the end of free period. Taking deep, slow breaths, Finn walked over to her locker.
"Uh, hey, Quinn..." He said to the blonde ponytail in front of him. She turned around and wow. Finn can't believe he forgot how hot she looked in her uniform.
"Finn." She said lightly, a slight smile tugging at her lips. "What brings you here?" She asked, a hand on her perfectly toned hip. She had a baby? You could never tell. Finn was so busy staring at her that he almost forgot what he came to ask for.
"Oh! Uh-um, well...I sort of need some advice on something..." He said, shoving his hands in his pockets and slightly rocking on his heel.
"Think of the mail, Finn." She said in a bored tone of voice.
"Um, what?" He asked, bewildered at her response. "No, that's not what I need help with." He assured her.
"Then what do you want?" He took in a gallon of air and let it out through pursed lips as he explained it to her.
"I need advice on how to be cool again." He said. The quirked brow stayed in place, ordering him to continue. "Well, Rachel dumped me earlier because I'm pretty sure she thinks I care more about my reputation than I do her, which I guess is kind of true now because Kurt told me that if she doesn't care about all the stuff I care about, then I should just forget her, and I'm going to, but now I, like, really want to be popular again. No one cares about me being cool, though...except for you. I wasn't really sure if you would help me at first because of the whole 'I'm not the father thing', but Mercedes told me about how Beth's middle name is Drizzle and that you told Shelby to call her that, so, I-"
"Shut up!" Quinn commanded suddenly. One girl could only handle so much of Finn's nonsense all at once. She took a deep breath to clear her head, and then looked up at the tall boy with the dreamy eyes she couldn't help but want to look at all day long. "How do you expect me to help you?" She asked, her mind still trying to process Finn's incessant babbling.
"Well, you're smart, so I thought you may have some good ideas. And you're popular again, and...I miss you, Quinn." He whispered. She smiled a rare, genuine smile that tickled the coneres of her cheeks. She leaned up and embraced him in the warmest hug Finn had ever recieved. He smiled, momentarily wrapping his arms around her, too. She let go first.
"I missed you, too." She whispered. She bit her lip as she studied her white sneakers.
"So does that mean you'll help me?" He asked the head cheerleader.
"Yes." She giggled. He smiled gratefully at the girl, but then he realized something.
"Hey, Quinn?" He asked, and she looked up at him almost immediately. "Uh, forget about the being cool thing, I have a better question." He said. "C-Can we be in love again?" He asked. She softly smiled at him just as the bell rang. Students began to pour out of every previously closed wooden door, crowding around the two. Without even thinking, Quinn grabbed Finn by the neck and kissed him for a good minute or two. She could feel the eyes on them and Facebook statuses being updated around them.
"Of course." She answered his question. He just stood there, a mixture of confusion and infatuation painted on his face as she grabbed her books. "And now that you're dating me again, have no worries about your popularity." She whispered to him. He simply nodded, completely dumbfounded at the girl's actions. He watched her disappear into the sea of people swarming the hallways before actually regaining his composure and starting to think straight again. Not even a minute later the bell rang, practically taunting him with the fact that he was late to Math class.
"Well," He said to himself as he walked confidently down the desterted hallway, "At least I'm popular again."
*How did I do? Please review, it's the thing that motivates me to keep writing for you guys. :) Like I said, this was only a prologue to set everything up for my version of Audition, which I hope you all will like. Like I said, REVIEW! Critiques welcome!*