A/N: My first Glee fic and it's a short and sweet one for you, although heavy on the angst. The idea to this story just came to me one day in an what if? scenario kind of way and I just had to write it. At the moment it's a one shot, but I'm not sure if it wants to become a chapter piece or not. I guess it all depends on how many of you actually like it and whether my muse can come up with more to add to this story. Reviews are love and would really help me out. I need all the encouragement I can get!
Disclaimer: Sadly Ryan Murphy and Fox owns everything Glee related. I'm just borrowing Finn from them for a few hours.
It takes a while for the wave of nausea to hit him as each word slowly filters through.
"Uncle Ted is your real father."
He manages to grab hold of the nearest chair behind him, shakily lowing himself down, only to realise it's his dead father's chair – no wait, a strangers chair. He's not his father and never had been. Every fibre in his bones is shaking from the shock as he slowly learns how to breathe again.
How can this be happening?
He can feel his mother's concerned eyes burrowing into him like an x-ray, trying to pin point exactly where the arrow hit through his heart. He locks his eyes to the floor. He just can't look at her. He knows that if he does the tears already forming around the edges of his eyes would begin to fall and he would shatter into a messy pile on his mum's favourite rug. His whole world was swallowing itself into oblivion around him and sucking him into the centre. Breathe Finn, Breathe!
"Finn, say something."
Panic echoed in his mother's voice and he could hear her choking back tears. His every instinct screamed at him to hold her, to let her cradle him in her arms until the pain in his chest went away, but she was the one who had caused this pain. She was the one who had betrayed him, lied to him for 16 years. Bile rose up in his throat and he swallowed it down hard, leaving a burning trace behind.
Why does everyone keep lying to me? Am I that stupid?
He remembers Rachel telling him he's too gullible, but he never really knew what that meant; he just translated it to mean he's just too dumb.
Fuck!
Carole places her hands on his shoulders. She can't bare the lack of contact any longer, her motherly impulse kicks in and she has to hold onto her only son before he disappears before her eyes into a pit of anguish. He flinches at her touch.
"Don't!"
The only person in his life he's ever truly trusted and would do anything to make her proud had done this to him.
Why? I'm such a fucking idiot!
"Oh Finn…my baby boy."
Stroking the side of his cheek, she resists his every impulse to bat her mother bear advances away. She holds his face in her hands, lifting his head to face hers, but he still can't look at her fully in the eyes. His gaze landing on what he thought was his father's ashes. The man in that urn had always been a stranger to him, but now he couldn't even pretend to find a connection to a pile of dust. Christopher Hudson was an anomaly that ceased to exist beyond a photograph and a blanket and now he didn't even have that. The hurt was too much to bear as a tear managed to escape. His Mother's sobs bounced around the room and he closed his eyes, trying to imagine himself anywhere else but here. The only place he could think of was the glee clubs choir room.
"You're my son, I love you. I would never ever try to hurt you."
He squeezed his eyes shut tighter, managing to manifest Mr Schue in the room with him as he's getting him to do scales.
"Your father was fighting in that goddam awful war and I made a stupid drunken mistake. I only lied to you because I thought it was for the best."
Rachel was beside him now, smiling up at him and making him feel ridiculously tall.
"Your Uncle Ted is a dead beat, poison; I didn't want him in your life."
Now the whole glee club was in the room with him, their harmonies dancing circles around him.
"This is your father Finn, the man holding you in that picture. He would have been the one who brought you up, loved you, cared for you. If he wasn't taken from us Finn, he would have been your Father, not Ted."
The choir room swirled into a black mass of nothingness as he finally opened his eyes and saw his mothers starring back at him. He couldn't control it anymore, the pent up tears fell one by one as he choked back sobs.
"But I still don't have a father do I? Instead of just losing one father, I've now lost two."
She stroked away his tears as they came thick and fast down his cheeks. She placed a big wet kiss on his forehead as she cradled her broken son in her arms, her own heart breaking in two. She knew she could never protect her son from all the hurt and pain that the world threw at him, but she never thought she would be the one to cause it.