The day Quinn sees Rachel home from the hospital holding a baby with a mini Mohawk like his father, something inside her twists. She calls in sick at work and sits on the kitchen floor, eating her weight in sadness and carbohydrates but she doesn't shed a single tear until Finn comes home, and sits next to her, holds her hand. His legs stretch out all over the place and he used to have a way of making her feel safe, a long time ago, but now, now she can't feel anything with him. She cries and he just holds her, but he doesn't ask what's wrong. They both know, they know that just because they're together now doesn't mean they're supposed to be. It's all about second choices.
It began differently in high school. Rachel never would have been Noah's first choice. He knows she loved Finn sometime in high school, everyone did. She spent her days with Finn and her nights with Noah. He didn't care she was using him, he was too drunk on Quinn for it to matter, she was his first choice. But then Quinn made it clear she was in love with Finn, and Finn made it clear he was in love with Quinn, and Rachel and Noah fell into a second pattern of sleepless days and nights, trying to forget.
Junior year, Rachel woke up next to him and never left, giggling non-stop with tousled brown hair, and he's never wanted somebody else since. He brushes her hair back from her eyes every night and sees her, really sees her, and she grins and steals all the covers. They never finish each other's sentences and they burst into arguments on a constant basis but they dance together in the living room; their children peek out from by the staircase and swoon at the romance of it all.
Rachel's never doubted she's spending her happily ever after with the right boy, even years years later. She may have wanted Finn originally but she hit every milestone with Noah. The first kiss was after she kicked him in the shins for throwing a slushie on her, the first fight when he stole her microphone to be cute, the first time she saw Finn holding Quinn's hand, she feigned sick for the first time and came home. Minutes later, Noah came with ice cream, and musicals, and they spent the day in bed for the first time. The first best kiss was when they realized there is no one else. It's his hand she wants to hold everywhere, everywhere since she first learned what home really is, the hand she never wants to let go of.
Finn isn't as stupid as everyone believes. He notices the changes between everyone then, how Quinn darkens in a room when Noah walks in holding Rachel's hand, his thumb circling her palm, tracing hearts. He sees the looks his best friend sneaks her when she isn't looking, the way his arm circles her waist, the way he kisses the side of her forehead just because he can. He assumes its' a phase they're going through, they can't be serious. They're the worst couple, they argue and fight; they never agree on anything and between the two of them, there's always some kind of temper tantrum. But the days pass, he serenades her in Glee, the weeks, they kiss everywhere, the weeks turn into months, she's wearing his shirts and sweaters, and the relationship doesn't end.
That spring day Rachel ran down from the bleachers, her hair flying everywhere behind her, she was running and running, she was flying, and Finn was sure she was finally running to him, she woke up to her senses, she was the one, when he blinked and she was hugging the wrong boy, all over again. He's never been jealous of his best friend, not until the day the girl picked the other boy.
High school comes and goes, the four graduate and the happy photographs hide everything underneath. They keep in touch for college, ignoring the lingering awkwardness. Two years after graduation, the four of them take a weekend away together in the summer house, and everyone is happy; it almost feels like old times. Until Noah surprises her one morning and proposes on the sand and she didn't let him get in a single word, and just jumped and kept saying yes. She toppled him on the sand, and Finn and Quinn clap and smile, and once back at the house, they claim work engagements and family problems, and other excuses and catch the first train away, away from the fairy tale they're never going to live. They can't bear to watch the happiness they're never going to be a part of.
The day Rachel and Noah have their engagement party, the foursome reunite again; all four have smiles but only two are genuine. Quinn tries to kiss Noah during the party, when she corners him in the kitchen, and whispers if he ever thinks of her, if he'd go back and change anything, and he looks at her, like he doesn't even know her, and he walks back to his fiancée, he walks home to Rachel because he's marrying her. Finn and Quinn plaster their fake smiles long enough until the last guest leaves and the night ends, and proceed to drink enough alcohol, separately, to stay hungover for a week. It's enough to dull them emotionally but its' never enough to dull the reality of the situation. Alcohol covers the lies for only so long.
Later that year, Finn is Noah's best man, of course, and the day she walks down the aisle to someone else, he pretends it's him she's walking to. She's barefoot on the beach sand, the same sand where someone else proposed, and she's smiling, she has the grin that makes him stumble every time he sees it. He imagines the white picket fence and the soccer rehearsals, the little girl with her mom's eyes and the twins with their dad's smile, the grumpy cat, the home they could build. He wants to say something to stop this but he can't, and he doesn't, and when Noah kisses her 'I do', actually marries Rachel, Finn wakes up long enough for something inside him to die.
The wedding is beautiful, and the toasts make everyone cry. Noah sweeps Rachel for their first dance, and his hand is in hers, like it's been there all along, and there's something about them that no one can describe. Finn dances with Quinn at the reception for old times sake, he doesn't feel anything with her hand in his but come the end of the night, he asks her out anyway. They date and date but he doesn't propose marriage until he's sure there's no alternative, that Rachel and Noah are not getting a divorce anytime soon, not when they love each other as much as they do.
When Quinn walks down that aisle, she imagines it's to the best man, not to the groom. She glances at Noah out of the corner of her eye, and he doesn't make eye contact, he wasn't even looking at her walk. She focuses back on Finn and wonders how to spend forever with the wrong one. She makes it to the front of the church and Finn is looking at her, and she sees Noah behind him making eye contact with her maid of honor, and she pretends that smile was for her, not for his wife behind her, and she makes it through the ceremony with flying colors. Finn kisses her at the appropriate time and Quinn forces herself to kiss back, convincing herself, this is what she's always wanted, this is who she's always wanted.
Finn watched Quinn come down the aisle that day, she was beautiful, and blonde and she has an edge Rachel doesn't replicate. She's supposed to have been the one since high school, since when they were attending football games and he was winning and she was cheering, when they walked through the school like leaders, when he threw paper airplanes at her in Spanish but sometimes, she doesn't feel like the one. The next day, the next morning he wakes up next to a head of blonde hair, and he's disappointed its' not brown. He rolls over to the other side and he wonders where Rachel is, and if she's happy as she looks, as everyone says she is.
Months later, the day of Puckerman housewarming party; three kids later, they had to move, Quinn catches Rachel and Noah trying to christen their kitchen counter, she stammers an apology and locks herself in the nearest bathroom and vomits for an hour. The moment she thinks there's nothing more to come, she's blindsided when it rises to the top and the cycle starts again. She can't stop the projector playing in her head, the way Rachel's legs are wrapped around Noah, the way his hand touched her face, he's still so in love with her after all these years, and she wonders where it all went wrong, why she let him go when she had him.
The next day, she learns she's pregnant and Finn says all the right things and makes all the right midnight runs, but she catches looks from him sometimes, but she shakes her head and pretends its' not real. She's perfected the art of pretending, just like in high school when she stayed with Finn because it was safer.
The four grow, and they build families and homes, and two learn sometimes its' best to pretend. They spend a lifetime together, the four of them, as friends and they were so lucky to find each other, but not lucky enough to end up with the right one.