Title: He Remembers
Rating: PG for now
Pairing: Rachel/Finn
Characters: Various cast and OCs
Summary: He remembers.
Disclaimer: Do I look rich to you?
Author's Note: This is my first Glee Fic.
Four years after he graduated from McKinley High School, Finn Hudson sat alone in his room at the Delta Sigma Phi house on the campus of UCLA. He had no idea how he gotten there.
He remembers getting rejected by every college he'd applied to during his senior year. He remembers watching Rachel get on a plane bound for New York, his step-brother joining her (much to his dismay, Kurt constantly told him. But he knew that his girlfriend and brother got along just fine. When neither of them spoke to the other.). He remembers calling her and angst-fully confessing that he was a Lima Loser and she deserved better. He remembers tears, on both ends of the phone, and her fighting to keep their relationship alive. He remembers telling her he met a girl when he was at Grand Lake – that was probably the worst lie he over told her.
He remembers his step-brother telling him that Rachel sent the old club an e-mail that she was starring in the Broadway production of Spring Awakening and that Jesse St. James was playing opposite her. And that they were back together. He lied and told Kurt that he'd read it and was happy for her. Another lie.
He remembers checking his e-mail fifteen times before finally admitting to himself that she didn't send the news to him, probably hoping it would hurt him to find out second hand. It did.
He remembers singing "Jessie's Girl" to a photo of him and Rachel that he kept on his bedside table.
He also remembers that at the end of the song he vowed to make something of himself and win her back.
He doesn't remember community college or community theater. He doesn't remember Mr. Schue ("Will now, Finn. You're not my student anymore.") tutoring him and helping him ace almost every class he took (when would he ever really need English anyway?). He certainly doesn't remember applying to Ohio State, Florida, USC and UCLA.
It's only on the day that his mother throws herself into his arms and gleefully shouts that he got into UCLA that he remembers he forgot to apply to any schools even remotely close to New York City.
He remembers wondering if that meant he was finally over Rachel. He kinda hoped it did sometimes.
But then Journey would come on the radio and he'd be right back in that hallway telling Rachel he loved her.
He kinda hated Journey for that though he knew it wasn't their fault.
So he boarded a plane for Los Angeles and the life he didn't know he was missing.
LA wasn't anything like he'd ever experienced before. Sure, he went to New York once to see Rachel but this place was so much different. It seemed bigger. Then again he spent most of his time in New York in Rachel's dorm room. And he certainly never saw people like Carmen Electra and Pamela Anderson in New York.
He loved Los Angeles.
But he really remembers the day he decided to join the Music Club. (He thought they could have named it something better but not every school could have New Directions.) He told himself it had nothing to do with Rachel. And on that day, in that moment, his name scratched and the stark white sheet of paper, he didn't think it had. He could never have imagined that signing up for Music Club would lead him to the day he had, lead him to sit, alone, in his bedroom in his frat house, on a perfectly good Friday night in Los Angeles.
He kept thinking of the showcase next week and then the State Music Festival the week after. He was one of the stars of the group, racking up multiple solos for the showcase and even more for the Festival.
Not that it mattered to him. He was just happy to be able to sing for more than a few groupies from the Hotel Café that he didn't even know had heard him. Local legend Steve Carlson had done one of his frequent shows at the bar and Finn, a part-time busboy and full-time bartender, was cleaning up after last call, and he had starting singing one of the tunes he'd heard performed. That was when a girl from the Music Club came up to him and drunkenly told him that he would be a good fit for the group.
But this was different. This was competitive singing at its best. Better than American Idol even.
Not that he watched American Idol.
He was moving on with his life and he finally felt good about it.
But at 2:45 earlier that afternoon he was transported back to that day six years ago when he first heard Rachel Berry sing. Because she was there. Right there. Right there in his music room. His. In California. He blinked a few times and tried to focus on her song – something he thought he'd heard Kurt singing over Christmas one year – but he couldn't hear anything over the blood rushing through his ears, his pounding heart, the echo of her sobs when he lied and told her he'd moved on.
She was still amazing, of course. And she was more beautiful than he remembered. More mature.
He wasn't sure but he thought he might have stopped breathing.
"Hudson! Perfect! This is Miss Berry – Rachel Berry. She's an actress in New York. Broadway, you know. And she's out here with a traveling troupe doing a production of Thoroughly Modern Millie. She's the lead. Joining the ranks of great actresses like Sutton Foster," his professor, Dr. Terrance Morris, stated enthusiastically. "I saw her at a Starbucks and asked her if she would sing for me. And she did! Right there. Then I asked her if she would like to sing with us at the scrimmage and she called and asked her coach and he agreed! And as I listened to her, I had a wonderful thought! Your voices would mesh so well together!"
Finn'd heard what Morris said, more or less, but his eyes never left Rachel's. And, much to his surprise, hers never left his either.
He took a step closer and so did she. To him, it was as if there was no one else in the world. Cheesy as it sounded – even to him – he felt the last four years melt away and it was her and him and a piano. Just like it was in a small town in Nowhere, Ohio.
"Hi," she said softly as she lowered her head but raised her eyes to keep focused on him.
"Hey," he breathed as a small grin crept across his face.
"Kurt, uh. Kurt told me you were here now. Good for you," she told him.
"Yeah. Thanks. I'm – uh," he cleared his throat. "I'm an Education major. Erm, Physical Education. Gym teacher stuff, you know? Music minor though."
"I heard," she said softly. At his inquisitive look she added, "Kurt."
"Right."
They stood there, eyes connected, not saying a word. Finn couldn't decide if it was awkward or not.
Dr. Morris allowed his eyes to shift between Hudson and Miss Berry a few times. He finally cleared his throat and spoke in an overly-cheerful voice. "So you know each other already? That's excellent. Have you ever sung together before?"
"She's the reason I'm singing. She got me to join the glee club in high school," Finn responded, eyes finally breaking contact with Rachel's.
"That's not true," she denied with a blush that Finn forgot he'd been missing. "Mr. Schue got you to join."
"But you got me to stay."
Morris looked between them once again. "Anything in particular you two would like to sing? Just to warm up so I can get a feel for what you should sing next week?"
"Don't Stop Believing," they both answered at the same time. Rachel blushed and he glanced over at her and smiled before turning to his professor once again. "First song we really sang together."
Dr. Morris nodded approvingly. "I think I have the instrumental here somewhere …"
But Finn didn't want to wait. He took a deep breath and started with that old familiar song. "Just a small town girl, livin' in a lonely world. She took the midnight train goin' an-y-where."
"He's just a city boy," Rachel continued with that same glowing smile on her face, "born and raised in South Detroit. He took the midnight train going an-y-where."
Terrance Morris sat in awe as he watched the two sing and dance to the old classic. Their steps faltered from time to time but he could tell that they'd known it all by heart in the past. As he watched them perform he knew he would have to find the perfect song for them to sing together at the showcase in a week. Anything else would be unacceptable.