Title: and don't be surprised if I love you for all that you are (I couldn't help it, it's all your fault)
Summary: It wasn't going to be easy, but when has it ever been? It was only worth it.
Character/Pairing: Finn Hudson; Rachel Berry; Finn/Rachel
Rating: G
Disclaimer: They don't belong to me, although I wish Cory did.
Note: A look into Finn and Rachel's relationship throughout the series (spoilers for Season One, no spoilers for Season Two), mentions of Quinn and Puck (friendships!). This is my first entry in the Glee fandom. I've been tweaking this for months, figured it was about time to put it out there. Comments are always appreciated, please no flames.
You really think a relationship should be that hard?
No one writes songs about the ones that come easy.
Jesse leaves on a Monday.
He transfers back to Carmel without so much as a goodbye, only a dozen eggs and a handful of words meant to break Rachel's heart, no doubt.
(I loved you, he'd said. Past tense. Of course.)
She sits on the floor of the girls' bathroom for twenty minutes before she feels small hands picking shells from her hair. "New look?" Quinn says, smiling softly and reaching out a hand. She takes it, following her to the sink and bending over to place her head beneath the spray. Quinn's gentle fingers work through her long strands and she can't help the sobs welling in her chest as she quietly combs her hair out beneath the bathroom's fluorescent lights.
Quinn leaves a moment later, as quietly as she came, but not before grasping Rachel's hand, squeezing it gently in her own.
On Friday, she and Finn sit on the edge of the auditorium's stage, feet dangling awkwardly below. They're taking a break from rehearsing a number, some weekly assignment he really couldn't care less about but for the fact that Rachel is sitting beside him for the first time in what feels like ages and ages. She smells like fresh flowers and vanilla and home; his heart clenches painfully at the thought. He's missed her so much.
When he asks how she's been feeling, he expects her usual bravado (she's a performer, after all) but is surprised to hear unmistakable hurt in her voice. "I guess you were right," she says carefully, quietly. "He wasn't who I thought he was."
"I'm sorry," he says, fighting the words out through a thickened throat. He's made it his business to act like a friend but that's hard to do when you can't even breathe and right now it feels as if there simply isn't enough oxygen to go around. The silence drags on and he reaches for her hand but she pulls from his reach.
"I'm tired of this song, Finn. These circles we're always dancing around each other," she whispers softly, pausing to look at him. "They get us nowhere," she says finally, before pushing off the stage.
He watches her go, the sound of her small steps loud in the quiet of the room. He catches a last glimpse of her, bathed in the afternoon sun's light as she pushes at the auditorium's metal doors, before disappearing from sight.
(And that's where you lose, Finn, he thinks, her words haunting him even now.)
The doors slam shut behind her, cloaking him in darkness.
A week later and he and Rachel have spoken only to exchange mild pleasantries; a curt "hello," a quiet nod. He thinks she must feel his eyes on her at practice, but if she does, she doesn't show it. He watches her quickly file out of the choir room each day, leaving him behind as he slowly packs his bag, lingering for long moments, always last to leave. Until.
"What are you doing?" a voice calls out once the room has cleared, and his head whips around almost violently.
"What?" he says confused. "What did you say?"
"I said," Puck tries again and Finn fights back a wince at his tone, "what are you doing, Finn? Rachel loves you, everyone can see it. Even you can't be this stupid."
"I'm not stupid," he says suddenly furious, and a flash of Quinn's growing belly pops into his mind, unbidden. "I'm not," he says again, giving Puck a hard look before looking down at his feet.
"I-" Puck says and stops suddenly, moving to sit beside him. "I know you're not," he says quietly. "Look, I know what it's like, okay? I know what it's like to love someone like that and not have them and it sucks, so I get it." Finn watches him from the corner of his eye but Puck's looking anywhere but in his direction. It's the first time they've really discussed Quinn and he's almost surprised to hear Puck say he loves her so casually, as if he can't really muster the energy to regret any of it, but he understands because he thinks of Rachel and doesn't regret any of it either.
This is how it's supposed to be.
"But Rachel loves you," Puck says, pushing on despite his obvious awkwardness. "So just be with her, for Christ's sake."
Finn's rendered momentarily speechless but Puck seems to be looking for a response so he takes a moment to form something coherent. "What if it's not that simple?" he says, shaking his head but Puck, he should know, isn't easily dissuaded.
"What if it is?" he says, giving his friend a last, meaningful look before walking toward the exit. He's almost to the door when Finn calls after him.
"What if she says she just wants to be friends?" and Puck nearly barks out a laugh as if he's never heard anything so absurd.
"You were never really friends, Finn, and we both know it. You were just in love," he says, turning to leave and Finn feels the corner of his mouth quirk up, a foreign something bubbling to the surface:
Hope.
"Break a leg," she says and for a moment she is all he can see, all brown eyes and shimmering fabric and passion. She looks beautiful.
She looks like the rest of his life.
He moves forward then, his feet making quick work of the space between them and it isn't until he's standing before her that he realizes what he's closed the distance to say and then it simply flows through him like rain.
"I love you," he says and he feels almost proud, the finally, finally of this moment washing over them both. It certainly isn't the way he'd imagined telling her but he thinks maybe that's okay; as long as he has Rachel, he has everything.
(The day they marry, he tells her this very thought and she buries her face into his neck to keep from crying. Instead, she hums a familiar melody low enough for only him to hear and runs her fingers through the curlier strands at the base of his neck, smiling.)
She smiles then and it hits him right in the chest, like the feeling he gets when she sings him something soft and gentle.
And so it goes. It isn't perfect – they still argue spectacularly, fireworks over small, insignificant things neither remembers later when they're laying side by side, his arm wrapped around her as he snores softly into her shoulder. But that's okay, he thinks. That's just fine.
He wouldn't have it any other way.