(a/n) so I put this up yesterday and then I went back and read it and said BLECH so I edited it a bit to make it better. MUCH BETTER haha! Enjoy!
When summer begins, Rachel starts to see Finn's face everywhere. When she is at Funny Girl rehearsal, when she's walking down the street, when she sees that "Grease" is on TV and she watches it.
He won't get out of her head.
She figures that when school starts again she'll stop seeing his face but she longs to hear his voice and see him now. The last time that they talked, the call was short and sweet. Rachel told him that she had gotten the part of Fanny Brice and Finn congratulated her before saying that he had to go and that he would call her later, apologizing.
He never called, though. A full week and he never called.
Kurt doesn't seem concerned. He tells Rachel that he's probably busy and not to worry about it.
When July hits, Rachel becomes restless and she decides to go to Lima for a week. Her summer has been boring and she wants a change of scenery. Both Santana and Kurt have jobs and Rachel doesn't so she basically sits at the loft all day unless she goes out to run errands. Alone.
She goes to the train station the day before the fourth of July to buy a ticket and to leave New York City for one week. She hates the train station for obvious reasons, seeing as what happened at the train station in Lima a little over a year ago never got out of her mind. That was when she lost everything. Her common sense, her ability to think before she acted, her ambition, and her fiancé. Things were starting to get better but it was taking a while for her to get back to how she was.
The train ride seems a lot shorter than the few times that she has gone back and forth to Lima. When the train stops at the station in Ohio, Rachel grabs her little pink suitcase, adjusts her skirt and walks off of the train steps. She expects to see her dads waiting for her and when her dads see her, they start laughing and waving, obviously excited to see her.
Rachel's dads take her back to their house and they pass Burt and Carole's house on the way, causing Rachel to become nostalgic. She knows that Finn is living in a dorm room now with Puck. She figures that since he lives so close and helps out with the New Directions, he stays at Burt and Carole's a lot; and since its summer he's probably there all full-time.
Rachel and her dads arrive at their house around dinner time so they decide to go out to eat, to Breadstix.
Hiram, Leroy, and Rachel are halfway through their meal when she sees him. Him. She shakes her head, doing a double take, trying to get the image out of her head. But it won't. It's Finn.
He's not alone or with anyone that she recognizes. It's a girl. A girl that seems very interested in him.
Rachel feels sick to her stomach. She pushes her food away, ignoring her father's questions as to why her mood changed so suddenly.
"I'm not feeling well, can we go home?" she mutters and her fathers agree. She lets them know that she needs to use the restroom before they leave. Her dads tell her to take her time and that they will wait for her in the car.
She halfway runs to the bathroom, avoiding eye contact with anyone at all costs. When she gets there, she goes to the sink and looks at herself.
If Finn really loved me, he wouldn't be going on a date with another girl. He would be fighting for me. She thinks as the tears start rolling down her cheeks.
As she reaches up to wipe off her tear, someone walks into the bathroom and it's not just any girl. It's the girl that was with Finn. The reason for Rachel's anger and sadness at the moment.
Rachel watches her. She's gorgeous. She is sporting a pair of dark jeans and a white loose fitting shirt and her hair is dark and super curly. She is wearing light makeup and has on a pair of white flats to go with the shirt.
The girl comes in and fixes her makeup, not noticing Rachel at all. Rachel sniffs, trying to suck up her tears. The girl looks at her, dropping her mascara into her bag, and glances at Rachel before walking out of the bathroom leaving Rachel alone again.
Rachel begins to cry again. She stands in front of the mirror for a minute before remembering that her dads are waiting for her, so she leaves the bathroom in a hurry. As she walks out the door, she runs into a familiar person. Of course, Finn.
She keeps her eyes down, automatically knowing who it is without even looking at his face. "Excuse me" she says, trying to squeeze past him. She gets two steps beyond him when he turns around.
He doesn't say anything though. Rachel wonders if he is shocked that she is there or embarrassed that she saw him with another girl.
But she doesn't ask it out loud. She doesn't even turn around to look at him.
She keeps walking. She keeps walking and she doesn't turn back.
The Fourth of July is usually boring for the Berry's but Hiram and Leroy convince Rachel to go to the Lima Independence Day Parade which comes through every year.
She's never gone before but she agrees, wanting to spend as much time as she can with her dads before she has to return to Lima. Everything that happened last night has been on her mind all day, but she's been trying to get it out. She doesn't want to think about Finn while she's in Lima anymore at all.
The parade starts at three in the afternoon but they don't get around to going until four. When they get there it's really crowded and they find a spot to stand in to watch the parade which has obviously already begun. They watch the marching bands and the floats for all of the community clubs and organizations like any other small town parade.
After an hour, Hiram and Leroy decide that they want to leave. Rachel begins to agree until she looks across the street.
Rachel sees a group of people that she recognizes and she smiles. "Hey dads, I'm going to go catch up with some old friends…mind if I get a ride home from them?" she asked, seeing as she didn't bring her car with her to the parade.
Her fathers agree and she makes her way to a group of people who she knows better than anyone. As she walks closer, they all notice her. Tina, Artie, Sam, Mike, Blaine, Joe, and Sugar.
Rachel greets them excitedly and they hug her immediately. "Why didn't you tell us you were in town?" Tina asks happily. Rachel explains that it was a spur of the moment kind of thing and that she had gotten into town just yesterday.
The group talks to her for a little while until she notices a tall guy walking towards them. She excuses herself from her friends, trying to avoid any contact that she can with her ex, seeing as he seemed to be in a relationship based on what she saw the night before.
She hears her name being called. Not by any of the group that she was talking to, but him. Him. Finn Hudson.
This time, she doesn't have the willpower to keep walking. She wants to see him. She wants to talk to him. But she just doesn't know if she can face him without breaking into a million pieces.
She stops dead in her tracks in the middle of a ton of people. There's about 15 feet distance between them and she thinks that it's as close as she can get to him at the moment. There are people walking between them but all she hears and sees is them two. Silence.
"Rach, why are you avoiding me?" he asks, curiously. She looks at her feet, realizing how much that nickname "Rach" means to her coming from him. She bites her lip.
He moves closer, closing the gap and making it harder for other people to butt into their conversation. "Do you want to go someplace to talk?" he asks softly and she knows that she has to say yes. Of course she does. She can't pass up talking to the only person that she will ever call her soul mate.
They walk an even distance apart, Finn leading the way out of the crazy crowd. It's nearing six now and it's gotten shadier so they find a tree with nobody under it and stand near each other, but not too close.
"Talk to me, Rachel." He says, almost sternly. She looks up into his eyes for a split second, and then turns them back down to the ground.
She can see him out of her peripheral vision almost reaching towards her to lift her chin, but he doesn't. She lifts it up herself, still not looking into his eyes, but at his shirt. It's green and it has white stripes on it. She remembers it clearly from when they were together. He wore it the summer between junior and senior year a lot. He always said that it was his most comfortable shirt out of any of them and Rachel remembers lying on his chest and feeling the cotton fabric of it which was very gentle.
"Are you dating someone…?" she mutters, taking a quick glance at his eyes which turn guilty. He stays silent for a moment and Rachel figures that this is the last straw. He's got a new girlfriend and Rachel is officially alone forever.
"Rach.." he says, running his hand through his hair which is shorter than it was the last time that she saw him.
Rachel takes a longer gaze into his eyes, ready to hear what is coming next. She waits for the punchline. The punch that will hit her in the heart. I'm seeing someone, yes. or I can explain, we're just...talking.
"I thought that it was just a friend thing…but then it wasn't and I didn't know what to do. And then I saw you and-" he stops. "I wanted to talk to you so badly, Rach." He sighs. "But you just ran off…"
Rachel gives him somewhat of a sympathetic look. "I wanted to talk to you too Finn…but you seemed to be on a date." She states, explaining halfway what she saw. Finn looked down at his shoes and then to her.
"It's not like that, Rachel. It's not." He tries to assure her.
Rachel nods, still not convinced. Now she wants answers about this mysterious girl but she doesn't ask. "I waited for your call." She says slowly, watching his face turn even guiltier. She doesn't let him respond; instead she walks off, ignoring his calls toward her.
Her heart aches after each step and she doesn't want to walk away but she feels like she has no other choice because she knows she'll screw up and kiss him or something if she stays another second.
Two days before Rachel leaves she goes to see Mr. Schuester and Emma. They're married now and Rachel wants to congratulate them since she wasn't there for the wedding in the choir room after Regionals.
She hasn't heard from Finn since the parade and she doesn't count on it. She figures that he has given up on her, even though she hasn't done the same for him.
They go to lunch at a sandwich shop and Mr. Schuester asks Rachel advice for next year's competitions. Rachel gives him plenty of ideas; ones that they didn't use when she was in the New Directions and she sees him make mental notes of the songs that she suggests. When it's all said and done, Rachel congratulates them both and wishes them a good marriage, hoping to see them soon.
Rachel is driving her car that she hasn't driven in months back home when she notices it making a strange noise. Her dads said that they had driven it around a little bit during the time that she's been gone but she doesn't expect to hear a noise like this.
She knows that she should take it into the car shop before she leaves and since she has the afternoon free, she decides to go to Burt's, forgetting that Finn works there. When she arrives, she lifts her sunglasses onto her head and goes to the front desk, waiting for someone to come and help her out. She's reading a brochure of prices when he comes into the room and she sees him do a double take out of the corner of her eye.
Rachel punches herself mentally for not remembering that Finn worked at the shop. She looks up and smiles awkwardly before telling him what the problem is with her car and asking how long it will take to be fixed. He tells her that it's probably just a squeaky belt and that it can be fixed in about an hour so if she wants to leave and come back she can. Rachel thinks for a moment, realizing that there is nobody to come and pick her up so that she can leave, seeing as she is leaving her car at the shop and her dads went to work for half of a day. "I'll just stay here if that's alright…" she states slowly, moving towards a chair in the office. Finn nods and leaves awkwardly, making Rachel shift uncomfortably as she sits down.
She finds it weird that almost 2 years ago she was helping him out in this car shop. Well, not actually helping, but coming around every now and then to say hello and spend time with him. Now she's waiting on her car to be fixed and not talking to him or anyone.
Finn seems to be the only one there. She figures that Burt took the afternoon off, seeing as Finn was good at keeping the shop under control and since it was a weekday, there wouldn't be as many customers anyway.
Rachel pulls out her phone and reads her emails and plays around with a few games before Finn comes back in the office. "Uh- it's done if you want to pay…" he says uncomfortably. Rachel nods and gets up to pay him, neither of them speaking a word. He prints out a receipt and hands it to her, along with her keys. "I pulled the car up front..." he says, looking her straight in the eyes.
As she walks towards the door, she tears up, figuring that it will be the last time that she sees him during her trip. Before she gets to the door, he stops her. "Rach…when are you leaving?" he asks, seeming stoic. Rachel turns around and answers, smiling with a closed mouth. "Uh..the day after tomorrow.." she says as she turns back around and out the door, realizing that this is the third time that she has left him hanging the whole time she has been in Lima.
She doesn't turn around though like she expects herself to. She halfway wonders if her brain is doing more of the talking than her heart, but she stops wondering as she gets in her car and focuses on the road again.
The day that she leaves, she gets up early, knowing that her train leaves at two in the afternoon and that she still needs to pack. Her dads pester her all day, asking her if she really has to leave. She tells them that she really should; she needs to make sure that Kurt and Santana don't kill each other and as much as she likes visiting Lima, New York is her home now. Her real home.
As she gets in her dads car, she watches the scenery of Lima through the backseat window. She observes every house and every tree so that when she misses Lima, she can just pretend that she's there with those mental pictures in her head. When they pass the Hudson-Hummel house, she looks down, trying to forget about that specific area of Lima.
She wants to just forget about Finn. She loves him more than anything but she can't just keep on doing this anymore, pretending like there's something there because there isn't and she doesn't think that there ever will be again.
They get to the train station a little bit early so they sit in the car for about fifteen minutes. Rachel is still looking out the window, although less frequently. As they get out of the car, she sees him. He's driving down the road, his eyes focused on driving.
Rachel drops her little pink suitcase and she runs.
And she runs.
She runs faster than she ever has in her life.
Ignoring her father's calls to come back and asking her what she is doing. She runs, screaming his name.
She has to tell him that she loves him. That even if he doesn't love her back, that she does and it's real. It's real love and she just has to tell him that.
She runs for what seems like hours but is only a minute. She stops, realizing that he didn't notice her, his truck looking smaller and smaller as it disappears down the long road.
Rachel falls on the ground, putting her head in her hands. She lost her chance now. Everything she wanted to say in person is thrown to pieces. Her dads catch up to her and freak out, asking her what she was thinking and that she has a train to take in just a few minutes. Rachel agrees and nods, letting them help her up from the ground.
Hiram and Leroy ask her what she was doing and she just shakes her head, saying that it doesn't matter and they don't ask any further questions.
They start walking to the station again; realizing that it's not busy at all today and they slide through the line quickly. As they leave the small building to buy her ticket, Rachel takes one last look at the road and the parking lot.
"Rachel!"
She hears her name being called from a distance but she sees no one.
The short brunette figures that it's just her imagination and that she's hallucinating, seeing as she is filled with a lot of emotions and stress at the moment.
Soon it gets louder and she stops walking, her pink suitcase stops rolling on the pavement and she turns around.
She sees him. It's really him this time. No hallucinations, no emotions taking over. It's him. It's Finn.
Her dads turn around after a second too, curious still as to why their daughter is acting so strange.
Rachel doesn't run this time. Instead, she waits for him to run to her. That's what she wants. She wants Finn to chase after her.
He catches up to her, out of breath. Rachel's dads step out of the way after warning her that the train leaves in just ten minutes. Rachel nods and keeps her eyes on Finn, who gets closer to her, closing the gap that they wanted to close so badly on the day of the parade and ever since they broke things off.
Their eyes meet. Finn finally breathes heavily one last time and stares at her. She wonders again if this is a dream and her dreams become reality when he looks at her in all seriousness and mutters a simple "I love you."
That's all it takes for her to jump into his arms and whisper that she loves him over and over, tears streaming down her face.
A few months later, when they're unpacking Finn's stuff into the loft, Rachel realizes that she is going to start seeing Finn's face a lot more often. But this time, it's really him. He's real and he really loves her.