Disclaimer: I don't own Glee. I wish I did but I don't.
Author's notes: For those of you who usually read my Finchel fics, this is going to be a little different. They're probably always going to be shorter chapters because it's going to be a longer series of fics.
The first time that Finn Hudson notices Rachel Berry is in the third grade. He's sitting down in one of the seats in the back of the auditorium at Lima Elementary School with Puck, who told him yesterday that they were best friends, which is like, awesome. Puck talks about guns, which Finn doesn't understand because he keeps talking to his arms and up to that point, he hasn't seen Puck shooting any bullets out of his arms, but whatever. Finn's hoping that it'll happen someday.
Anyways, he's in the auditorium and he's not really paying attention to anything. That Artie Abrams kid is doing what he calls deaf poetry jams and Finn has no clue what that is but people are booing. Then there was that Kurt kid who sounded like Faith Hill. Actually, Finn thought it was a girl until he opened his eyes and was like – whoa, it's that kid in the funny outfits that Puck pushes into the dumpster every day.
But this girl has caught his eye. He knows it's Rachel Berry. Everyone knows who Rachel Berry. She's the resident school freak. Finn kind of thinks she's pretty, but he knows better than to say that to Puck, because he'll just call him a pussy, and even if he doesn't know exactly what that means, he knows that it's not supposed to be a good thing. When he looked up pussy in the dictionary, it told him that it was a synonym for cats. Finn doesn't really understand why being a cat is a bad thing, except for the fact that cats are supposed to be girl pets. So he thinks that Puck is calling him a girl. Finn doesn't want to be called a girl so he keeps it to himself that he thinks Rachel Berry has really nice eyes, and maybe he kind of wants to share his Animal Crackers with her, especially the zebra one because he's noticed that she has a zebra animal sweater, and he's like 99.9% sure that it's her favourite, and he feels sad whenever people say mean things about her. He knows that she's probably really cool, but Puck has told him that he's kind of popular, and he knows that talking to Rachel Berry will mean that he's not popular, so he's never said a word to her.
But when she takes the stage, Finn can't help but ignore Puck, who's talking about peeing in his neighbour's flowers or something. She's singing a song he doesn't quite understand, but he knows it's a grown up song. It's not like Twinkle Twinkle or something. It's a real song, and he can tell that she's not really paying attention to anything going on around her. She's in her own world, she's loving being in the spotlight. And she has a really nice voice. Like, really nice. There's this fluttery feeling that he can't quite shake off in his chest and he swallows hard, his mouth feeling dry as he watches her. She's holding on to the ends of her hair and he thinks to himself that that's really, really cute.
By the time the song is over, Finn is pretty sure that he now wants to hold her hand on the playground and call her his girlfriend and stuff, and gosh darn it he's going to go talk to her. If he can just show people that Rachel is as cool as he knows she probably is, he's sure he can still be popular and he can make her popular too.
Then Quinn Fabray, Brittany Pierce, and Santana Lopez come on stage in their cheerleading skirts and they're doing this dance and he can totally see their butts when their cheerleading skirts flip up and suddenly, Rachel Berry is the furthest thing from his mind.