DISCLAIMER: I neither own Glee nor the characters. They are the property of Ryan Murphy and FOX. This is purely for fun. Enjoy!

A/N: Welcome to the new fic! In order for the first chapter to make sense, you must remember that one of the major S3 plotlines will be Sue running for Congress. Don't forget that little tidbit and buckle up for the ride!

Out of Time

Chapter One: The Sacrifice

Lima, Ohio 2022

Maneuvering his way down the dirty, empty streets of what used to be known as Lima, Ohio, Finn Hudson checked behind his shoulder to make sure he wasn't being followed as he carried a very delicate and precious load in his arms. He'd been waiting five years for this day to finally arrive, and now that he had the final piece to the puzzle he wasn't going to let anything hold him back. Not even the soldiers who were currently trying to track him down for stealing his missing puzzle piece. When he suddenly found himself blocked by a tank and about 50 armed soldiers, he paused momentarily before tucking the package in his jacket and running for his life in the opposite direction.

"We have visual confirmation on Hudson, we're going in!" He could hear the soldiers report him in on their radio but he didn't care; it wouldn't be the first time this had happened and if his plan didn't work then it definitely wouldn't be his last. Besides, he had his gun in case things got sticky, but he knew he probably shouldn't waste his precious ammo.

But his plan tonight had to work. He wouldn't even entertain the option of what would happen if his plan didn't work because at this point, it was all or nothing. If the mission was unsuccessful, then it would be all over for him. He would rather be dead than live in this reality for a minute longer.

The soldiers chased him down the deserted alleys of what used to be his home until he was able to find one of the many secret passageways he had carved into the ruins of the town, ducking inside and hiding until the coast was clear. He held the delicate package in his hands and hoped that nothing had damaged it during his travels. He needed to get this to Artie tonight if their plan was going to work. They were so close. They had been working for so long to get to this point.

The soldiers finally cleared the streets, losing track of Finn, and he sighed in victory as he outran Sue's army for what seemed like the infinite time as he cradled the package in his arms.

It wasn't easy being the most wanted homegrown terrorist in the United States during the reign of President Sylvester. Especially when the president personally wanted you dead.

He poked his head out into the squalor of the streets and took a moment to look around the shell of the town he once knew. The houses were decrepit and decaying, the families all either dead or gone. The field where he used to play football with his friends was now the unofficial Lima graveyard, where the bodies had all been buried after graduation. He stopped by there on his way to the school and looked around the unmarked plots of land. There hadn't been a way to identify the bodies, so they were all laid out here with no markings until the graves stretched out for what seemed like forever. There wasn't a person around this area for miles, but he still refused to leave the shell of his old home.

There were too many memories here. Too many things that he wanted to fix that made leaving Lima impossible.

He knew that he had to get to Artie as soon as possible, but he approached the graveyard with his delicate package in his hands and walked through the endless rows and columns of graves. He would never really be sure just exactly where his friends had been buried ten years ago, but they were all here, decaying underneath the ground with no justice. Almost every single person he had ever known was right here, waiting for him to exact his revenge and fix it all. His mother, Burt, Kurt, Mr. Schuester; every person he had ever loved was right here in this graveyard.

Even Rachel.

"Hey baby." He sat down next to an unmarked grave, but he would never know if this was really his Rachel. Every time he came here he chose another grave to talk to, but he would never know if he was actually sitting with his one true love. "I came to see you one last time." He said, stroking the pale stone while he held the package under his arm. "I'm on my way to bring this to Artie, and we're going to find a way to fix everything, I promise. I know it's been almost ten years, but I can change things, I know it. I can make it better; I can fix this world and make it the way it should have been." He kissed the stone and his lips were cold from the chill of the marble. After all these years, the thought of her still made his heart ache as flashbacks to that hellish day plagued him day and night. "If this works, we can be together again, Rachel. I've never stopped loving you, not even for a second, and you're the reason why I'm doing this. It's all for you." He stood up then, the package in his arms, and he looked out at the graveyard for what he hoped was the last time.

He would change this life. He would change it all.

Lima Ohio 2012

"Finn, my baby boy! I can't believe you're actually graduating high school!" His mother fixed the lapel on his graduation gown and he could see the tears shimmering in her eyes as she looked him up and down. Burt shot him a thumbs up while Kurt did a little twirl in his gown, posing for the cameras with Mercedes and Tina. He grabbed his step-brother around the shoulders and pulled him in for a picture before he flounced off to find Blaine. The auditorium was a sea of McKinley red as the graduates were all getting ready for the ceremony to begin. "I am so proud of you, honey."

"Thanks, mom." To be honest, he was pretty damn proud of himself as well. He had actually survived high school and was ready to get started on the rest of his life. He was 18, he had a full-ride football scholarship to Purdue, and he was ready to get out of Lima and start seeing the world.

If only Rachel hadn't just broken up with him, he would ask her to see the world with him too.

He couldn't even blame her, really. She had been warning him all year of her impending departure to New York and her drive to succeed, so how could he stand in her way? She was destined to do great things with her life, and he knew that deep down, but that didn't mean his heart wasn't still broken over it. He loved Rachel, he would probably always love Rachel, but he had to let her live the life she wanted and be the star she had always dreamed of.

But that didn't mean they couldn't still be friends. He wouldn't be able to handle it if he had lost that pivotal connection to her. He needed her in his life too much to completely let her go.

However, it was a dependency that he would have to get over, because after today she was on her way to New York to become a Broadway star and nothing he could do or say would ever change that. He saw her from across the auditorium with her fathers and made eye contact with her, shooting her a small smile and a wave. She returned it in earnest and approached Finn and his family, giving Carole and Burt big hugs before turning to Finn.

"Hi," she said sweetly in her cap and gown. "You look really handsome today, Finn."

"Thanks," he tucked an errant piece of hair behind her cap as she blushed softly. "You look beautiful."

"Thank you." The urge to kiss her was overwhelming, but seeing as they were no longer dating he didn't want to over step his boundaries. They were friends again. Friends who would always be in love with one another, but friends nonetheless. "I can't believe we're finally graduating." She said brightly.

"I know. It seems unreal."

"But it is real, Finn! After today we're allowed to actually live our lives and start building a future." She inched closer to him as her voice dropped into a whisper. "And after a while, old paths will start to cross again, somewhere down the road." The love was shining in her eyes and he hoped that one day they would truly be able to be together once more. In the future when their lives were stable and they were more mature, maybe they could pick up where they'd left off.

"You know I'll always love you, right?" He asked her softly, their bodies almost touching, their whispers as soft as the wind. She nodded her head and her smile was shaky, but bright.

"Me too, Finn." She reached up and placed a single kiss on his cheek. "Always."

"Attention, everybody. Please start taking your seats, the ceremony is about to start." Principal Figgins' voice could be heard over the microphone and Rachel begrudgingly walked away so she could sit with the B's while Finn went to go sit with the H's. Stupid alphabetical order, he thought as he sat in the corner of the row, I want to sit with Rachel. He could see the back of her head from his position and his eyes stayed glued there for the majority of the ceremony.

That is, until Sue Sylvester stood up to give the keynote speech.

She was flanked by two bodyguards, and the American Flag pin on her lapel was shining in the bright lights of the makeshift stage as she stood with elegant poise, waiting to begin. Some booing could be heard from the audience, seeing as Sue wasn't the most popular Congressional candidate in Ohio history. In fact, the hate for her was getting so out of control that she required bodyguards wherever she went for her own protection. Finn personally thought that she was going to lose the election, since all of her stances on major issues were immensely flawed and incredibly biased. However, she took herself very seriously and as the election year was quickly coming to a close, she needed to gain all the support she could muster.

So she stood on the stage and waved to the registered voters, including the seniors who would be 18 before election day, like Finn. Her smile was forced but the majority of the crowd loved her, since Lima was her hometown and she would forever be known as a hero here. However, before she could start talking, there was a flurry of movement as someone entered the empty aisle of students in a long black trench-coat, walking towards the stage quickly while the student body and their families waited for Sue to begin speaking. Finn saw the man out of the corner of his eye and he wondered if it was someone in stage crew or something. There was a wide brimmed hat that covered his face from view and Finn thought it seemed very bizarre, seeing as it was the end of June and about 90 degrees in the auditorium.

All of a sudden, the masked figure jumped on the makeshift stage and the bodyguards stood in front of Sue with their guns raised. The man opened his trench-coat and revealed the ticking bomb that was strapped onto his chest. "DIE YOU CONSERVATIVE BITCH!" was all he could hear before everything went black and he remembered no more.

"No!" He shot out of his bed like a bullet, feeling disoriented and shaken up by his nightmare as he willed himself to calm down. The nightmares of that day would haunt him for the rest of his life, he was sure of it. It was the attack that had changed the nation; that had started all the civil wars and rebellions that had ripped their country apart.

Sue had not only survived the attack, but she'd made domestic terrorism her platform for the election and subsequently won due to a strange mix of fear-mongering and sympathy votes. After four years in Congress, she passed numerous laws restricting the freedom of Americans until people were basically slaves of the government; walking numbers whose sole purpose was to pay taxes and stay loyal to the regime.

Then, in an election that shocked the nation, Sue was elected President before turning the government into a totalitarian state through her never-ending terrorism campaigns. While she was still referred to as President Sylvester she was more like a dictator, a tyrannical politician that abused her power to the most extreme degree.

That was how the rebellions had started. Then the civil wars and the burning of the cities. The American people wanted their freedoms back. They wanted the world that they had once known, before it had become desolate and scarred by war and hate.

That was how the world had changed after the McKinely bombing. It was one of those events that had changed the course of history, and the only way to fix the world's problems was to stop the bombing of his graduation from ever happening.

The only problem was that it had taken place ten years ago.

He washed his face in the mirror of the bathroom and took a look at his tired, haggard face. Even though he was barely 30, he looked much older as the past ten years had taken a heavy toll on him. His body was partially covered in burn scars from the bombing, but sometimes he could still see the young, enthusiastic boy he'd once been under the scarring, both emotional and physical. He knew deep down that he would never be the same guy he once was, but all he cared about now was ensuring the future of his young self, not fixing the damage that had already been done.

Frowning at his reflection in the mirror, he exited his "bedroom" which was actually the old teacher's lounge in the high school. He walked through the charred hallways until he reached the science labs, where Artie had set up his laboratory. Besides Sue and Quinn Fabray, that traitor, Artie was the only survivor he knew of and had dedicated his life to science after that. Finn had been working with Artie for the past five years, trying to execute their plan to perfection.

"Hey Finn, did you sleep well?" Artie asked, barely looking up from his computer screen as he typed away at the keys furiously.

"I guess so. Bad dreams." Artie looked up from the monitor for a nanosecond but he could see the sympathy in his eyes.

"I know how you feel man, but you needed the rest before we went through with the plan. The jump is going to take a lot out of you."

"If it doesn't kill me first." He said dryly. "We can't even practice on anything."

"I know that Finn, but we only have the resources to send one person in one direction. This is a one-way trip you're about to go on so I hope you packed accordingly." Finn checked his bag to make sure he had a change of clothes and his gun. That was pretty much all he needed.

"Just make sure you set it for the right time and day, alright? I don't want to jump into some crazy time period and get stuck there for eternity without any way to save Rachel."

Artie looked over from the computer and fixed Finn with an even glare. "Finn, it's taken all of my life's research to come up with this machine, I know how to set it up properly. Besides, you're not just going to save Rachel, you're going to save the world. Remember that. Sue being elected to Congress was the tipping point in our reality, the action that plunged us all into this totalitarian hell. If you can stop her, by any means, then you would reset time into a new reality where America isn't war-torn and poverty stricken. A world where our families aren't dead. A world where we can be with the ones we love."

A world where I can be with Rachel again. . . he thought to himself.

"So, it's quiz time, buddy. What are the rules?" Artie asked.

"No talking to anyone, especially people who once knew me."

"Yes, you could damage their reality by introducing an older version of yourself to their conscious mind, what else?"

"Whatever happens to Sue must look like an accident."

"Exactly, if it doesn't it could further warp reality and create another tangent that could further damage the timeline." Artie was waiting for another one but his mind was drawing a blank. "What else, dude?" Finn shrugged while Artie slammed his fist down in anger.

"You're forgetting the most important part! Stay the hell away from your younger self. If you two consciously interact you could rip the entire space-time continuum apart and destroy reality altogether."

"Oh. I knew that." He said softly as Artie glared daggers at him.

"Finn, this is serious business. You're about to go back in time and try to change history. If you change too much then you might be messing up reality forever, the same way that the homegrown terrorist ruined our reality forever."

"I know, Artie, I know." He had been lectured on this subject every day for five years, he knew what he was about to do. He'd once promised Rachel that she would have the life she had always wanted, and he was going to change it all for the better. "I'm ready." Artie started to type away into his computer while he unloaded Finn's package into his machine.

The package that he had delivered the night before was actually a load of plutonium that Finn was able to steal from the military facility outside of Lima borders. Over the years he had gotten really good at stealing and rebelling against the government that had ruined his life, which had landed him on the top of the Most Wanted Terrorists list. Now that he was constantly being hunted by the government that he hated, he had no reason to stay here. Sometimes he wished that he had died with the rest of his friends, but then he wouldn't be able to fix anything.

Even if it turned into a suicide mission, which it basically was anyway, he didn't really care. All he cared about was ensuring a future for Rachel and his younger self. A future where she could be a star, and live a long and beautiful life with no pain.

It might not even work. It might do absolutely nothing and their plan would have been a massive waste of time and energy. The jump might even kill him. He might never have a way to come back to this place.

He didn't care. There was nothing for him here except broken promises and unmarked graves to mourn.

There was no turning back now.

He stepped onto the metal platform that sat in the middle of his old chemistry lab, trying not to panic as Artie continued to plug numbers into his machine. If it weren't for Artie, Finn would have nothing and he owed his oldest and dearest friend his life as Artie prepared the machine to send him back in time.

"Are you ready for this Finn?" Artie asked once more as he plugged in the final information. The plutonium chamber on the platform started to glow as Finn tempered his nerves.

"I'm ready, Artie. Let's do this."

"Remember the rules, Finn. Remember the goal." Finn nodded his head solemnly as he continued to plug numbers into the controls. Before Artie could press the button, the door was kicked open and a dozen of Sue's armed guards entered the room with their guns pointed right at them.

"Hands in the air! You're under arrest for conspiracy!" All of Finn's hope was obliterated in an instant while he raised his hands in the air in defeat. However, before Artie could do the same he slammed his hands on the controls and the guards opened fire on him. The last thing Finn saw before time stretched out all around him was Artie's body, shaking as the bullets ripped through him.

"Artie, no!" He screamed, but no one could hear him as he passed through the empty void of time.

His vision was as white as winter's snow when he regained consciousness, feeling the hard ground beneath his feet while he tried to shake off the disorienting feeling that settled into his bones. The ground was cold under his fingers and he could smell the dull acidity of chemicals as something hard hit into his head. When the world finally zoomed into focus, he realized he was sitting on the floor of the chemistry lab, but it no longer looked like Artie's decrepit work space.

It looked almost new. All the desks were in their proper spots and the materials were all placed gently in their cabinets. There were no broken windows or busted lights or missing desks. Everything was exactly like he had remembered it as a loud shrill bell rang overhead. He ducked out of the back door of the classroom and ran for the nearest exit, escaping the school he had once known to make sure his plan had worked. When he exited the school and saw the football field, he dropped to his knees and almost cried.

There were no unmarked graves that stretched out for miles. It still looked as pristine as it did when he was still on the team; young and carefree and clueless about the fate of the world.

He pressed his face into the fresh growing grass and inhaled, breathing in the scent of fresh life. Breathing in the scent of freedom.

It had worked. Artie had actually done it. Finn Hudson had traveled back from the future and now he had a mission.

To stop Sue Sylvester and save this reality from complete disaster.

Until next time, sings, Don't Stop, Reviewing!

Merci mille fois mes amis!