"What's happened to us Finn?" The tracks from Rachel's tears were still drying on her cheeks. She sat on the couch studying her hands as she picked at her nails. Finn was only a few feet away, sitting with his head in his hands in the chair across their small living room, but she felt as if she could have been talking to someone on the other side of the planet.
"Come on Rachel," he lifted his head to stare blankly ahead of him and sighed deeply. "This is ridiculous, you're being overly dramatic. There's nothing …"
"See, that's what I'm talking about!" she cut him off. "You never used to patronize me like that. And I know I've been much more ridiculous and dramatic and even demanding in the past than I am right now. I'm actually being pretty rational right now. And yet you can't bring yourself support or even indulge me just a little bit. When did that happen?"
"Look, Rachel, I just got home from work. It's been a long day." Finn tried to get her to stop talking, just for a little while.
"Exactly. You just got home, even though the store closed …" she looked down at her watch, "over two hours ago. I suppose that would make for a long day. But Finn, look, I'm not trying to fight with you. I don't want that at all. I just want to talk to my husband, who just got home, and I have to be at the theater in 20 minutes." Rachel sighed, considering just dropping the whole conversation and going to work. But she refused to give up on this, she had been wanting to have this conversation for longer than she could recall at the moment. "We used to be each other's whole world. Do you remember that? And yeah, ok, sometimes it was a bit much, I think I spent more time with you my senior year of high school than I did with my dads. But you know what, here we are, in New York, both college graduates, you run your own business and I am in an actual, honest-to-God Broadway show. An ensemble show, but still. We're doing it! So obviously we didn't hurt anything by being so wrapped up in one another." Finn hadn't moved from his seat in the recliner, his head falling back against the headrest and his eyes closed in exasperation. Knowing that it was pointless to expect much at the moment, Rachel crossed the room to get her jacket and purse from the hooks hanging near the door of the apartment. "Look Finn, like I already said, I don't want to fight. And I'm not blaming you. I just want my husband back."
Before he could respond, or even open his eyes, Finn heard the apartment door open then close almost immediately. He leaned forward to prop his elbows on his knees and dropped his head back into his hands. He knew she wasn't wrong. There had been several nights over the past weeks when he had lain in their bed staring at the ceiling, missing having her body curled into his the way it used to. He didn't really know why he had dismissed her and accused her of being dramatic. He just didn't want to talk about it, like if he pretended there were no problems, then there really weren't. But he knew she wasn't going to let him pretend any more. "What now?" he grumbled as he felt his cell phone vibrate in his hip pocket.
"Hey man, what's up?" Finn tried to relax his voice, not wanting his friend to hear his stress over the phone.
"Dude! You ready to tear it up next week?
"Huh? Oh, yeah, yeah. We're both really excited for your visit. It'll be great to have you here." Finn hated that he was lying to someone close to him for the second time in about 10 minutes, but he was so distracted by what was going on with Rachel that he could barely even register his phone conversation. And he wasn't not excited for the visit, he just wasn't really thinking about it at the moment.
"I can't wait, dude. It's going to be great to get out of town, change of scenery and all. And I'm stoked to hang out with you and your girl again. It's been too long."
"Yeah, totally. We really are looking forward to seeing you." Finn felt bad, he really was looking forward to their friend's visit but he knew he didn't sound very convincing. He just couldn't keep his mind off of Rachel and the hurt on her face when he had walked in the door that evening. "Hey Puck, can I talk to you about something?"
"Yeah man, shoot."
~.~.~.~.~.~
Puck sighed and shook his head. "What the hell?" he muttered at his now-dark cell phone. He was having a really hard time wrapping his mind around what he had just heard. Finn wasn't exactly a bad ass like himself, but Puck was still pretty shocked at the way Finn's voice had changed and he seemed to lose all his energy when he began laying out what had been going on over the past months. How had Puck not known? He talked to at least one of the Hudsons on a regular basis, even though they were half-way across the country. It was easier to understand how he had never gotten wind of the issues from Finn; they always had typical "guy talks." What he didn't understand was how it had gotten past him during all of his conversations with Rachel. She was a girl, and a very emotional, often dramatic one at that. He was actually kind of annoyed with both of them for not bringing him in the loop until now. And the next time he talked to Rachel, girl was getting an earful.
At least Finn had a plan. It wasn't the best plan in the world, but just the fact that he had bothered to make one at all made Puck feel somewhat better. And apparently he had been working on it for a while, long before he had thought things were serious enough to bring them up with his best friend. That was another good sign. As long as they weren't giving up – and based on what Finn had told him about Rachel's attempt at a confrontation earlier that night and what he already knew about Rachel, she definitely wasn't giving up – he had faith that things would be ok.
At a couple different points during his conversation with Finn, Puck had wondered if maybe his friend was hoping he would cancel his visit in little over a week. The thought crossed his mind that maybe that was why Finn had brought the whole situation up in the first place. Well, if that's what Finn wanted, that was just too damn bad. There was no way in hell that he was going to just sit back in Ohio and let things fall apart. He didn't trust his two hard-headed friends to not screw this up, so in 10 days he would show up and give them both the push necessary to get themselves back in order.