Follow Through

AN: So I was really happy with the response to my angst one shot for their senior goodbye scene. I listened to some more Gavin Degraw. FR through the college years, sequel to Stay. Each chapter marks a year. This isn't necessarily as angst laden as my other fics, more a mixture of hurt/comfort, fluff, drama & angst. Enjoy! Review=GOLD.

So you said you want to be with me, you have to follow through with every word you say.

It's been almost 3 months since she last saw him. He promised her they would always be a part of each other's life, remain friends, keep contact but like always Finn has this peculiar habit of breaking all his empty promises. She's been thinking a lot about him a lot lately.

She keeps herself busy with the NYU college theatre productions, classes and singing lessons she coaches. She's got a job as a waitress, the typical start of the budding starlet, right? Something feels missing. She thanks God she has Kurt in Columbia, a mere few miles away. Missing him is like missing a lifeline, she decides. It's like you can't breathe or live without that line that keeps you going. He has to follow through on his word cause she doesn't know what she would do without him in her life in some capacity. She misses him like air to her lungs. The image of his broken face retreating in the shadows as she boards the coach haunts her.

This wasn't supposed to be the plan. He was supposed to be with Rachel. He was supposed to wake up to the smell of her berry essence hair tickling his bare chest, her tucked intimately in his arms after a session of heavy lovemaking every night. But she was in New York living her dreams while he lived the nightmare her absence left. He feels empty now. Morning classes are the worse, he realises. He remembers her little quirky morning energy during their last summer, she would wake him at the ungodly hour of 6am on a Saturday to get him all active, insulting his sleepy doze calling him things like 'insolent'. He would simply tease her by pretending to be in a heavy sleep, ignoring her puny footsteps by his bed until she smacked the pillowcases against his muscled giant form, in retaliation he would sneakily pull her into the bed and pepper her with kisses, tickling her in torture. He smiles, his gaze miles away, breaking from his daydream. He misses her so much its unreal.

These feelings and emotions keep me alive.

He slips on his iPod, shrugging a fleece over his vest clad form and pulls on a pair of jeans, swinging his shoulder bag over his biceps as the lyrics eco into his ear making his heart ache. He steps foot out of the student apartment at Akron, the sandy concrete stairs beneath his trainer coated feet, his body numb from all the nostalgia that has been haunting him lately, sleep being a relentlessly elusive mission with images of her imprinted on his mind. He walks with his hands in the pockets of his dirty green jacket with the sun glaring at him as he shuts his eyes, breathing in the fresh air of the Midwestern town. The breeze is refreshing to his late solemn moods, he feels like he's floating in space in a mundane medium It's always the same routine: classes, sleep, work. There is so joy in his life anymore. Then he remembers he gave her up. His joy.

The green trees whistle in the autumn day as she hops down, her brown waves framing her morning face, her shoulders slouched with her little bedazzled side bag over her slender shoulders, she slips into the cab awaiting for her, the green and pristine scenery of NYC following the road as she looks out lost in thought.

She eyes her phone, hopelessly. No word.

All I really want is you, for you to stick around.

There is a picture of him on her phone and her eyes are glued to the image of his crooked smile, which to this day makes her knees knee. She rolls her eyes, cursing herself. Why can't she just forget him? He sure as hell seems have forgotten her like a lost memory. There's a wet spot the reaches the bridge of her nose, she didn't notice she was crying and subconsciously she wipes away the hot salty tear. He's probably enjoying the frat boy experience college has to offer, taking advantage of the all the flirtatious girl who throw themselves at him all willing and fast, pretty unlike her. She frowns, putting the photo of his away.

The cab driver winds down the window and she looks out of the side of the grey blue sandy scenery of the elegant New York streets. There is a building that catches her eyes. Hunter College. The Victorian writing is imprinted affront of the bold broad column of the reception. She breathes for the first time. No. No, he wouldn't. She jerks her bag from her seat beside the leather cushioned sofa of the cab and halts the driver.

'Stop!'

The short bald Italian American man looks at her with alarm. She breathes out with a shaken breath, gasping for air to re-enter her lungs, her face blotched with tear stains, her hair mussed and her eyes tired from the lack of sleep with the memories that haunt her at night. How can he forget her so easily? How could he give her up so easily? The driver stop by the sidewalk of the busy traffic and she pays him for the fare, taking her bag and deciding then and there, to forget her plans and follow her heart.

She runs back toward the bus station near the subway of the cosmopolitan New York city. She loves this place. She would have loved it even more if a certain tall oaf like idiot hasn't let her walk away. She grits her teeth and shuts her eyes, wishing her angry thoughts away. She should be fuming at him but for some reason her heat flutters. He didn't want to tie her down.

You're a real star Rachel and you deserve to shine. You deserve better than a guy anchoring you to Lima.

She blinks away her tears blurring her vision of the light blue skies and the grey decor of the station.

She walks through the barred alleyway. She runs her hair flying over her shoulders and her thin denim jacket flying off her arms, the air hitting her toned chest clad in a thin white cream tunic dress. She has to see him. She may be crazy right now. But she has questions and she wants answers. She's need to find him, she needs the truth from his lips.

Her breathing is ragged when she makes it to the ticket booth and demands the earliest coach for Lima today. She's waiting 45 minutes until the next coach boards but it's worth the wait to see him again, she decides. She pays the fee to the ticket advisor and sits in relief at a hard wooden bench, anxiously awaiting her coach. She breaths out, calming herself, she's all filled with nervous energy and she curses herself for looking a mess. She flicks out her phone from her sack and calls Kurt.

'Kurt!' She screams.

Her best friend sounds like she's just murdered a puppy in front of his eyes.

'Rachel, it's 8am on a Monday morning. What are you doing calling me! I need my beauty sleep so my pores don't break, how dare you disturb my routine?'

Seriously, sometimes she thinks the soprano is more melodramatic than herself, she rolls her eyes.

'Kurt! I need you to tell Mandy, my roommate, I won't be back tonight when you see her at the bar this evening. I'm-I'm going to Ohio.'

'What? Are you crazy? ' She cringes from his shrill screech.

She lets out a heavy sigh. 'I need to see him, Kurt'. She eyes the photo in her purse.

'Why? Look, I know my brother. If he's not calling you it's for a good reason. Maybe he's moved on...'

There is a moment of silence between the lines and Kurt wanders if he said it too soon.

'I need to ask some questions.' She says adamant.

'You couldn't do that by letter, email, over the phone?'

He doesn't get it. He has his sweetheart right next to him in his arms every night. He has no idea what it's like to be her.

She closes her eyes and breathes in again. 'I just have to, ok? Tell Mandy. I gotta go,' she says abruptly ending the conversation.

She boards her coach, eying his number that she hasn't dialled in so long. What if he really has moved on? She wishes the thoughts away. She imagines him with another girl every night while she cries herself to sleep, trying desperately to ease the pain away from the broken tie between the strings that binds them together.

She's always felt like she could feel him, wherever he was, together or part, like they were attached by this...this...tether. She looks out of the window and gulps. That tether is broken since he cut her off his life, she realises. She can't feel him anymore, he's a ghost of the man he loved, longs for and needs so avidly.

I haven't felt like this in so many moons, you know what I mean.

Her eyes drift shut and the hour's tunes into the destination hours later, her eyes sleepy and her hands rubbing the morning dew away to find her in her hometown. She'll never forget she's a small town girl aspiring to become a city girl. She'll never forget her small town boy.

She tabs on her phone again and sees messages from Kurt, texts of concern asking her if she is okay. She tabs into the keypad, her bags over her shoulders, her arms hugging her in the autumn breeze as she walks out the station into the town she knew so well. She's home.

She knocks on his door at exactly 12; 18 that afternoon and finds Carole engulfing her in a hug. The older woman who has become somewhat of a maternal figure to her guides her to his whereabouts and she swiftly takes another cab to the address scribbled down in cursive writing on the little note, thanking his mother as the older woman watches her ago, her hand on her heart.

For the first time in a long time, she smiles a genuine smile of relief and maybe even content. Her hair falls freely on her shoulders and she answer's Mandy's text about the theatre notes. She hasn't missed much of her world. But she wants so much to be a part of his world again, she sighs.

The air gust past her as the cab driver takes her to his apartment.

She shuts the cab door and thanks the driver when she arrives at the greenish blue door with the rusty grey black hand railing, sandy brown concrete stairs. Her head tilt up to eye the quaint place.

She irons out her dress with her hands and combs her hair with her fingers, trying to disguise the mess she is.

She steps in front of the door and lets out a nervous sigh. Here goes, she closes her eyes hopefully. Her tiny knuckles knock repeatedly on the door and the bell chimes from the other side of the door. Please don't let it be a girl, please don't let it be a girl, please don't let it be a girl.

He's laying on his bed after the dullest lecture ever, his legs sprawled out on the bed with his head in a book about a mind boggling part of sports science that's kicking his ass like a ninja. He breaks out of his defeated attempt at learning anything when he hears some tapping on the door. Is that a woodpecker, a bird or something? He creases his eyebrows in curiosity, leaping out of his bed and walking through the hollow hall as the bell chimes. Landon's out on training all day and he's not expecting anyone. Maybe he ordered pizza and forgot. He does that a lot, forget things like the clumsy oaf he is. He clears his throat and opens the door as the puny knocking persists.

'Coming!'

It's her. All 5ft 2 inches of her petite brunette frame, her eyes closed shut just as the air hits her face and he smiles at her cute expression.

'Rachel?'

Her chest heaves and he realises he's not dreaming this time. She came back for him.

'Hey,' she breathes in relief at the sight of him. No girl.

She doesn't have a moment to process his scruff rouged appearance, the stubble framing his jaw and the dry grown length of his hair as he engulfs her in a tight embrace, kissing her all over as she giggles, curling her arms around his neck, fingering his russet hair.

'Babe, what are you doing here?' He says excitedly, putting her down.

It's then she realises she's furious and her face morphs into a stern look.

He takes in her hard look seconds before he feels a stinging on his cheeks from her hand clapping his cheek.

'No calls, no emails, no letters. Nothing! For 3 months, Finn! I thought you were hooking up with girls and forgotten I existed!' She cries out as he holds onto her wrists as she attempts to hit him again.

He takes her in his arms and shuts the door behind her. 'Come here', he says gently, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her hair as she latches onto his waist.

He's longed for her touch for so long, it aches to have her here, like a surreal fantasy.

Her breath hitches and he eyes her as she breaks free of his hold.

'Did you give up Hunter for me?' Her eyes are hurt and blood-shot, from crying all morning and her voice broken it kills him.

'It was for the best.' He says simply and he feels her punches on his chest.

'You-you jerk! How dare you!' He stills her wrists again, pulling her to him.

'I just really love you, ok? I didn't want you wasting your future with me, Rach', he says hoarsely, rubbing her back to soothe her.

Her eyes meet his and he strokes her cheeks.

'Now I know, I never should have let you go,' he utters gently, tilting her face to locks his lips with hers as she cups his own scruffy bearded jaw, his hands picking her up of the floor as their lips tangle in a bruising fierce kiss with the twisting of tongues and teeth bitinher her lips as he sucks the air of her lungs once more.

They break apart for air moments later and she looks at him with hooded eyes.

'No, you shouldn't have.'

He offers her a crooked smile. 'We could always try long distance and have some epic make up sex to make up for the lost time,' he says suggestively.

'Hmm, let me think,' she puts her fingers on her lips in deep pretend thought. 'Okay.' She accepts perkily.

He scoops her up in his arms and guides her to his bedroom in the corner,kicking the door closed, dropping her forcefully on the bed as she squeals in delights, his lips lingering on her skin, peppering her with kisses, ready to ravish her all over.

This is the start of something good. Don't you agree?