A/N: You can all blame thank Crissy for this one, but I really wanted this scene. Writing it was second best though and I hope I do it justice for anyone who takes the time to read it. Title is from A Tendency to Start Fires by Bush.

Disclaimer: Don't own. Don't care. Moving on.

Best Of My Ability, Chasing What I Can

The last thing he needs is for his phone to ring and show the picture Santana took of them in the choir room at Sectionals before that whole hot mess.

Actually… the last thing he needed already happened so, like what does he have to lose by answering his phone? (Except he's in the parking lot at the school and he actually sort of drops the box he only sort of had between his arm and his hip because he was trying to dig out his keys and whatever. The box just lands, nothing falls out, and he's mostly sure he didn't hear anything break or whatever.)

"Hello?" he says, sounding winded as he's bending over to pick up his shit.

"Hey," she replies shortly and shit.

She didn't even call him something rude. Something's very, very wrong here. He drops the goddamn box again but he cares less this time and stands up. It's practically the middle of the night in the school parking lot. No one's around. Marley was just grabbing something for her mom and probably hightailed it as soon as she could and he definitely does not blame her. Anyway, whatever. It's been a minute since she barked out a syllable and possibly a sniffle. He's not sure.

"Hey," he says, which is a little dumb because, like, she just said that. His voice was a lot nicer about it, though. "Did hell freeze over?"

"What crawled up your ass and died?" She immediately retorts and it's silly he smiles but the sharpness in her voice feels a little like coming home. Or, like… maybe not coming home. Like pulling into the right neighborhood after you got lost. Lost. He's good at being lost. Fuck his life.

"Nothing," he says. But yeah, he also caught another sniffle and she's definitely upset. He knows the feeling. "Just, um… packing and I had a really long day." Then there's this pause. Like, an annoyed pause. And he thinks it probably says a lot about their friendship that he can tell it's an annoyed pause over the phone and when she's in New York and he's… in hell. "You don't really call me, Santana. It's kind of…"

"Flattering?" She cuts in.

He snorts out a laugh that feels better than he expected. "I was gonna say freaky but, like, sure. We can go with flattering, at least 'til you say something shitty." He looks down at the box at his feet and sighs. There was a second, there, where he forgot what happened during his day. Time's up and it crashes into him again and he bends over, picks up the box and starts walking. A teaching degree. And she said it like it'd be the easiest thing in the world, like he could just y'know… get one.

(Can he? He's not sure. Maybe he'll look into it. After he takes a good long drink 'cause… does he even have a friend left at this point?)

(Okay, seriously. Why is she calling him?)

"Oh, I have plenty of shitty things to say," she says. She takes the deep breath—and it's shaky and he feels bad because there's something really wrong about Santana doing anything that's shaky—that he knows is going to proceed, like, an avalanche of information. He wonders how much of it will be about how bad he sucks because he cannot take that right now. Although… it's been a good long while since that conversation happened so maybe they're over it. Anyway. "Plenty of things about how your ex-whatever-the-hell-you-wanna-call-her and your should-be-ex-brother kicked me out of the apartment because I have more sense than the two of them combined and they want to hate on me for being the one who's unafraid to uncolor their rainbows and sunshine into something a little more real and kind of grey like New York at this time of year because, you know me, I keep it real. That's what I do. I see the truth, I tell the truth, and there's no in-between unless it's me pausing to take a breath or a drink or something because everyone needs that sometimes."

Okay, he got to his fucking car while she was talking. He wasn't walking that fast either, like definitely not as fast as she was talking. He hits the button to unlock the doors and he's standing in front of the back hatch thingy on the Jeep when she stops and he, like, blinks. "I…can we start over? I'm not sure what you're saying. I get you're pissed off, but that's about all I caught. Oh and… something about Kurt?" He shifts the phone to his other ear and misses the beginning of her put-upon sigh. He doesn't miss the end. His phone was off his ear for a second. That's how long her sighs last, apparently.

"Let me dumb this down for you. Rachel and Kurt kicked me out. You should seriously reconsider your friendships with two people who are so fucking stupid they live with a whore."

Again with the blinking. "What?"

"Brody," she says. "That hunk of man non-flesh is a rent-by-the-hour sack of crabs."

"I…" he shuts the hatch and leans against it and he feels caught. He really doesn't want to talk about the guy Rachel's living with because it still sort of stings. It's easy for him to pretend it doesn't most of the time, because he knows the stuff he said to Rachel at the wedding is true but… well, today it stings more than it would normally because it's a reminder of all the shit he's lost. He's alone and it hurts when he lets it catch up to him. "I don't…" he lets out a breath. "So where are you living then? When did this happen?"

"That's not important. What is important is that I need to do something about Brody and you're going to help me. I have a plan."

His eyes fall closed. Heavily. He rubs his free hand over his face and is actually sort of depending on the car to hold him up. "I have my own problems, Santana," he says quietly, eventually. "I…I really don't care about Brody. I don't even wanna talk about him, honestly. Saying his name makes my stomach hurt."

There's another pause, but it's not annoyed. "Are you okay?"

"I quit the glee club. Well… sort of. It's a long story," he says and he knows he sounds as tired as he feels. "I um… you don't… seriously where are you living though? You're not calling me from a gutter or something are you? Because the last time I was in New York, I saw someone pee in a gutter and –"

Her laugh cuts him off. "No. I have money. I'm in a hotel for the moment. It's…" her voice drops and loses it's confidence and it's wrong that she sounds like that. As much as he's hated the certainty in her voice a lot, it's just… at least it belongs there. She's usually not wrong about things. "It's just a matter of time until they beg me to come back."

"I'm sure it is," he says. No one will be begging him. He feels like such a pathetic and whiny loser for even thinking it that he's definitely not going to say it out loud.

"So you finally took your nose out of Mr. Schuester's ass long enough to look around at the rest of the world?"

Yeah, he probably let the silence stretch on too long. It was really stupid of him to think she'd ever be comfortable in it. That was his fault.

He clears his throat and swallows over the lump a little. "I…I really don't wanna talk about it," he finally manages because he can't come up with anything else. "I'm kind of all talked out about it."

"Who did you talk to?"

Well shit. That's a ton of bricks, isn't it? For whatever reason, it's enough that he finally pushes off the bumper and gets in the car to drive home. Plus she's nosy and that's way easier to point out than it would be to admit to how all this makes him feel.

"Mind your business," he says. The words are sharp but his tone isn't. The radio blaring makes him jump a little and yeah… okay. He sees the collective points of Artie, Blaine, and Tina. He's maybe wound a little tight. He thinks he turned it down before she could figure out what he was listening to on his way in from the tire shop this afternoon.

"Okay, so no one then," she says, her voice basically recharged. "Look, you can pretend you're some badass who doesn't care while you're secretly crying in a corner to yourself, clutching a pillow and wondering what will make the pain go away. I know you care about Rachel and she's in a really rough position and she doesn't believe me at all. And I don't mean rough position in any sort of a way that could set you off because I haven't heard a peep of that since I moved in, which is surprising because wet plastic squeaks like you wouldn't believe and—"

He's pretty sure she's talking about Rachel and Brody having sex and he wants to throw up, like, immediately. "Stop it. Please just stop it."

He's sort of surprised when she actually does what he said. Surprised and grateful aren't the same thing though, and he's both.

"Look, you've got to be hiding all kinds of rage somewhere in that boy-band exterior. Your life is a pile of shit," she points out. "You aren't as stupid as I like to pretend, so you know that and I don't have to give you the details I'm positive you beat yourself up about every night like that weird guy in the DaVinci Code. I only hope you don't actually use spikes because that's like using a meat tenderizer on your already fatty loins." She pauses and he's afraid. "I'm just pointing out that this Brody guy is trouble and they would rather evict me than face facts. I confronted him privately—sort of—and he told me I couldn't prove anything. Now I can. I mean, a wad of cash and a pager. My go-to explanation for that was drug dealer. "

(Holy shit. She's serious. He pulls over and his heart kicks up a notch and it feels like it's beating in his throat or something. He's not always the most 'with it' guy when it comes to real-world stuff, but he's decent at reading people usually and he's way, way better at it than Kurt or Rachel. Rachel wants to give the whole world a chance or cure their problems with a song. Kurt is more skeptical than that but like… not skeptical enough okay?)

"He's not a drug dealer, though. I swiped his pager. It took me a while to figure out how to work something that was probably invented before I was born and before, also, cell phones. But you know, I have to hand it to him because the modern age has really taken away the ability to be an anonymous douchebag. It's a lot easier to function with an alias as retarded as 'Gunnar' when you carry a pager instead of a cell phone-"

Okay, she lost him again. "Santana," he says simply. His eyes are closed and he's actively trying to keep up with her, it's just… he's so tired.

"Anyway. He's an on-call booty slave. He lied and told Rachel he's a cater-waiter."

"A… what?"

"Think of it like one step up from ex-assistant glee club director."

He chokes out a laugh, like, that kind of barking noise that sounds sort of like a seal. You know, the way you laugh when something isn't that funny. "You want my help with something? That's a really bad way to ask."

"Well, I'm trying to play on your sympathies and that's not working." She pauses. "How did you drop off the planet for four months anyway? That's some James Bond bullshit that could come in handy right about now, especially when you decide you can drop the lame asshole routine and help me no matter what I say. We both know it's gonna happen. The only person more stubborn than you… is me, Finnocence."

She probably not wrong. And, even if it is being a lame and whiny asshole, he could go to New York and help her. There's not really anyone here who would notice he was gone. Actually—he could disappear entirely again and no one would really notice this time.

And really… okay, the thing is, he wants Rachel to be happy. In order for her to be happy, though, she needs to not be living with a guy who could actually hurt her. If he wants to make his way through college selling his body or being gross, that's on him. It's his life. But right now, he's obviously somehow bringing that home to Rachel. And Kurt. God. He promised Kurt he'd always have the guy's back and how can he let his brother go on living with someone who does shit like that and lies and…

He's in no way prepared for the next thing she says.

"She thought she was pregnant, Finn. And she still won't stop to take stock. She wasn't and it's seriously not cool of me to tell you and if she finds out I did, she'll definitely try to cut a bitch with a vicious Taylor Swift-style reply in song—sung anywhere but NYADA because God forbid. But… how bad do you want to let things get with this guy before you step in like we all know you're going to?"

There's some breathing and some rough math in his head of how long it might take him to just drive there, like, right now. He has spare clothes in the back from that stupid performance earlier, so he could just wear those. He just got gas, like, two days ago and his entire driving circumference is about three miles. He could just sort of turn around and go to the highway and… be in New York. "So what do you want me to do?"

"You'd have to come to New York. Is leaving Lima against your religion at this point or anything?"

"You said it yourself; there's nothing keeping me here," he says. He's trying really hard to control his voice, but like, the entire day is burning through him and he wonders if a long drive might help him clear his head.

"You're taking this all pretty well," she comments slowly. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Does she…" he swallows hard. "Do you think she loves him? 'Cause it's really easy to forgive things if you love someone enough and I don't want… if she…" he can't get out the rest of the question because the answer might kill him. It's not like it would take much at this point.

"I…" she hesitates and he doesn't know if she might maybe be trying not to kill him before he's done what she wants. "I think she's really undecided on a lot of things," she says carefully. "You could really save her the trouble."

He doesn't want to be the hero. That's what Marley said in her card—that he was her hero for saving the Glee club. Being the hero doesn't make you matter. Being a friend is what makes you matter, and Santana was just trying to be a friend. She has some really weird ways of showing that but… he gets it. She wants Rachel to focus and to be happy and to not be worried she's pregnant. (He's not telling her there's a pretty solid chance Rachel thought she was pregnant 'cause they did it at the wedding with no sort of protection involved. He'd talk to Rachel about that, but Santana just kind of asked him not to say anything.)

(Why does he always have to know things he doesn't wanna touch with, like, a ten-foot pole?)

"I can leave right now," he says, finally making the decision. Like…Santana asking him for help is a really big deal. Rachel needing him even if she doesn't know it is a big deal. His brother living with some disease-ridden possibly drug-selling freak is a big deal. Maybe the situation goes deeper than that, but he can stop at three big deals because he cares about all the people involved. Anyway, there's no other traffic on the road so he sort of swings wide to change direction. "What's this plan of yours?"

"Well, I have his pager number. I'm gonna page him for a booty call, and you'll be waiting."

"I'm not gonna have sex with him," he says immediately. "That's gross."

She laughs. "No, but we are gonna fuck with him."

If he'd thought this through a little better, he would've had his mom book a hotel room on her credit card for him. He has the cash to pay for it, but like, turns out they won't rent a room to you without a credit card on file. Bunking with Santana in the next double bed over isn't ideal but well… he's tired enough he really doesn't care. Plus he's driving back tomorrow so it's temporary.

"Jesus," she says when he walks in. Her hotel isn't really far enough away from the other one that, like, the bleeding stopped. She hurries over and looks at his hand. "I guess I should've been more clear: I didn't wanna witness and I didn't wanna go back and hide a body." She looks up from his hand and he pulls it away from her anyway. "You kill him?"

He shrugs out of his jacket and tosses it onto the bed that he'll be sleeping on. The buttons on the cuff scrape against his knuckles and he knows he pulls a face. "No. He grabbed me. I wasn't gonna hit him—" she gives him a look and he gives her one back. "—Seriously, Tana. I wasn't."

"He grabbed you?" She asks, her face crumpling into a look of disapproving disbelief that he's seen way too many times to count. "Is he half-stupid?"

Finn shrugs—because it seems pointless to say Brody's one of the dumbest, smuggest people ever and he hates that guy—and goes into the bathroom to run some cool water over where his knuckles ache. It doesn't go deep enough to help and when he thinks about it, that's because he pounded out a lot of frustration on some (deserving) dude's face—but that doesn't mean it didn't just drag all the feelings up. None of it came from nowhere, but it's like when you unpack something for the first time and you can never get it back into the box the way it was originally. He sighs and rests his head against the bathroom mirror, his eyes slipping closed while the water runs because he just doesn't know what else to do.

He's not asleep standing up when she comes in and pulls his hand out of the water and presses an ice pack against it that makes him draw in a sharp breath. She pushes it against his skin a little harder and he opens his eyes to attempt a half-hearted glare at her. He's not going to admit it's helping more than the water did. His hand is almost numb pretty much as soon as she starts holding pressure.

"You're really not okay, are you?" She asks and honestly, her asking that makes him less okay because she's being, like, gentle and stuff and it's weird.

It's weird enough he can't lie. "I… no?" He shifts his weight onto the other foot. "Neither are you."

She shrugs.

"We will be, though," he says. "I mean, we love them and they're gonna be fine so…" He shrugs and it shifts the ice pack and yeah. That doesn't feel great. "Thanks for calling me, though. I didn't realize things were so bad but yeah… you did. You're the one watching out for them now."

She offers this grin that looks like she doesn't want it to be a grin. "Thanks for coming."

"I always will. Just… don't tell anyone else that."

Santana rolls her eyes as she leaves the bathroom, throwing her last words over her shoulder. "Do not make me wanna smother you with a pillow, Henchman."