Author's Note: This piece was inspired by the final scenes of the past season's last episode of Friday Night Lights, especially the accompanying music of Steve Earle's great song, Goodbye. There are several videos of it on YouTube, but most apropos for this fantasy may be the duet with EmmyLou Harris (/watch?v=Rr2IY8q687I). Listen to it before reading; you won't be sorry.

...

"Hi, Will."

"Rachel. Come in."

They embrace.

"Thanks for seeing me tonight. I know you wanted to protect me, wanted to make it easier for me to leave. I couldn't stay away, I just had to see you. You may have to put up with a few tears."

"Goodbyes are hard. But there's excitement, too. It's the time you've been waiting for and planning for. Now it's here. You have to go. We've both always known you would."

"Yes, but it doesn't make it any easier."

"Do you want dinner?"

"No, I had a bite before I came. I knew I wouldn't be able to eat anything when I was here."

"Something to drink?"

"No. Please, please, just take me to bed. I need to make love to you. I need to feel you inside me again."

They undress quietly and make love wordlessly, painfully, with exquisite tenderness, burying themselves in each other.

"Thank you, Will. Thank you for that. I love you."

"I love you, too. I may just miss you a little."

"You could have come with me."

"No, I couldn't. You know that. We've been over it so many times. I thought about it a lot, even today, but in the end it wouldn't have been right for either of us. What time do you plan on leaving tomorrow?"

"Around 10. My dads are disappointed you chose not to come along. They grew to love you and are grateful for everything you've done for me."

"Yes, they've been great to me, welcomed me into their home when they might just as well have called the cops. It's a long drive to New York and it has to be immediate family, only. I'm not sure you fully appreciate how painful the trip will be for them, especially the return leg to what will seem like an empty home. I saw it in my own parents' faces when they dropped me off at college. Of course they're not saying goodbye to you forever, it's that they're saying goodbye to perhaps the most important time of their lives. I know you understand it intellectually, but it's hard for someone in your position to really feel it – you're going off to your life while, in some way, they're saying goodbye to theirs. Raising a daughter like you is something very, very few people ever get to do."

"You make it so easy to love you."

Rachel cries. They kiss.

"I'm also saying goodbye to maybe the most important time in my own life. Reviving glee, losing my marriage, and you. You, you, you."

"And beating fucking Vocal Adrenaline."

"Oh yeah! And beating fucking Vocal Adrenaline."

Lying naked together, they execute a perfect full-on high five.

"Promise you'll be kind to Sue, Will. No gloating."

"You should talk. Christ, flashing your bare pussy to get her to hit on you with a recorder running, then blackmailing her into giving us the Cheerios for a big dance number and having glee give opening acts to her in-school performances. And you really should have exercised more control and not fallen off your chair and peed your pants when Figgins gave her the Cooperative Colleague of the Year Award at spring assembly. Shame on you."

"Seventeen-year-old girls who seduce their teachers have no shame."

"Yes, you demonstrated that many a time in this very bed. And on the kitchen counter."

"And in the choir room. But my conscience is clear. I could never be ashamed of anything I did to please you. And just keep reminding Sue of the tape in my dads' safety deposit box and that bitch'll continue to be a cooperative colleague long after I'm gone. It'll be my gift to you that keeps on giving."

Kisses.

"Oh god, Will, what am I going to do without you?"

"Yes, the first two days will be real tough. After a week, when you've had a chance to sniff all the testosterone that's hanging around and you're so busy and so excited it'll be 'what was the name again of that dirty old choir director?'."

"You have no idea how deep in my soul you are."

Long hug.

"Did you find out yet who your roommate will be?

"Yes, a gay kid, per request. A violinist from LA."

"And if some night he watches you undress and decides it's all been a terrible mistake and he's not so gay after all?"

"Then I'll just have to welcome him onto our team, Will. My pussy will be a very gracious host."

"Slut. You could have asked for a girl."

"Then what if she hits on me? It happens, you know."

"That wouldn't bother me as much."

"Bother you? You'd love it. You'd be calling every night to get blow-by-blow reports, or is it lick-by-lick? Men are animals. Anyway, you could have made any such thing impossible. You still can. You could marry me."

"Marriage doesn't make such things impossible. Just devastating when they do. You're too young and inexperienced to make that commitment. In New York, at Julliard, you'll meet people your own age from all over the country and the world who have incredible talent. You'll have even wider and better choices than what you found in those summer theater sex camps you went to. I'd never forgive myself if I stood in the way of you finding everything that was possible. Grow up, see the world, and if after that you're still interested, you'll find me teaching Spanish and choir at McKinley High in Lima, Ohio. At least for now it's where I belong, it's what I have to do."

"Aren't you taking selflessness a bit too far?"

"No, I'm being very selfish in this. I could get destroyed when, not if, you discover that 18 was way too young to be making a lifelong commitment to someone. I've been through one divorce, I couldn't do another. Divorce is a terrible defeat, regardless of who does the leaving. Try to avoid it, if you can."

"If I'm going to be a star, I'm going to have to get divorced, silly. … I'm teasing. When will you come to New York to visit? Thanksgiving break?"

"I'm not sure. That may be too soon. I may wait until you've completely settled in, until you've seen how many handsome young singers and pianists and violinists from here, there and everywhere want to get into your pants."

"Are you going to sit here in Lima until I bring home some handsome young man to meet my dads?"

"When you do, I'd like to meet him. And maybe then I'll introduce a new hot teacher who isn't horrified by the thought of intermingling bodily fluids."

"I almost feel like you're threatening me."

"No, darling, I'm not. I just want to encourage you to approach your new life with an open heart and open mind, receptive to anything and anyone who might come along. If it turns out that what we feel for each other can't be surpassed, we'll find each other again. When that happens, if it happens, we'll have a level of certainty and serenity that isn't possible right now."

"I can see your point, but I don't like it. You've been right about pretty much everything since you agreed to let me pretend to seduce you."

"You can phrase my deflowering-by-student any way you like, sweetheart, but we both know you're guilty as hell."

"Are you glad I did whatever it was I did?"

"More than you can ever know."

"I love you, Will Schuester."

"I love you, Rachel Berry. But now, I'm afraid, the time has come for you to go."

They dressed, walked hand-in-hand to the door, hugged tight, kissed once hard and long, after which Rachel half-ran out and down the hall, not turning around as Will watched her until she was gone. No more words were spoken, as there was nothing left to say and it was the only way they could part.