Please keep in mind that this story picks up at the beginning of season two, meaning it is just about four months after their first loss at regionals, and Finn and Rachel are just on round 2 (if you count their short time before Jesse as round 1).

"Finn, we need to talk. I know this isn't one of our pre-arranged date nights, so I made a list of times that I am available tonight for you to come over so we can have this conversation. You can pick the one that interferes the least with your schedule, although I'm sure you don't really have much going on after football practice other than playing video games. And that will just have to wait this time." Rachel handed Finn a sheet of paper with four different 30 minute blocks of time written on it, times that would not conflict with her many extracurricular activities and lessons. Today was Thursday, which meant she had ballet and jazz dance practice, as well as her vocal lesson, and she insisted on being in bed by 9:30 sharp on school nights to ensure that she got the recommended eight hours of sleep and still had time in the mornings for her workout routine. As Rachel knew, stars didn't come out of nowhere, they were made. "You can let me know when you'll be coming over during glee club."

This ambush so early in the morning, before the first bell had even rang, left Finn so surprised and confused that he was barely able to catch Rachel before she walked away from the lockers. Realizing that she was almost gone and he had no clue what was going on, he grabbed her arm, then quickly let go, afraid of hurting her. He was always afraid of hurting her. There was something different about her, something … fragile. Not like Quinn, who he had sometimes thought was stronger even than he was, always making him feel like she controlled the world. Sure, Rachel had a strong personality, too strong at times, and she tried to come across as if she was in charge of everything, but he knew there was more in there. She never let anyone else see it, and he had only gotten small glimpses, but he knew there was something incredibly soft and vulnerable in there. That was one of the reasons he loved her, it was their connection. She turned to look at him, waiting patiently for whatever he had to say. "Rachel, I … I've been trying really hard not to screw things up this time. So, whatever I did wrong, I'm really sorry, ok? Just tell me what it was, and I promise, I won't do it again. Ok?"

"No, Finn, it's nothing like that. You've been a wonderful boyfriend ever since regionals. Really great. It's just … We just need to talk." He was used to being confused. But not with Rachel. In fact, she had always been the one person who he just felt at ease with, she understood him and was always able to communicate with him in a way that never left him wondering what was going on. Not this time.

It was no secret that Finn wasn't the greatest at schoolwork, and Rachel was in more advanced classes than he was. And she didn't come to lunch most days, spending that time "fine-tuning" one of her many talents, as she put it. So, glee club was Finn's one chance during the school day to talk to her. But today, Mr. Schue was in a particularly good mood, taking up the entire period with some upbeat song and elaborate dance moves that Finn was having even more trouble keeping up with than usual. Rachel was out the door practically before the bell rang. She was never one to linger after a class was over, preferring to beat everyone else to her next class, but today she seemed to be especially anxious to leave the glee room. He barely had time to tell her what time he was coming over, and he couldn't help but feel like she might be avoiding him.

Finn had chosen the 6:00-6:30 timeslot to go talk to Rachel. Football practice always made him hungry, and Rachel's dads were great cooks. He hoped that choosing the dinnertime slot would allow him to at least get a little food in while Rachel was dropping her bomb on him. After all, he felt sure that this would be his last opportunity to escape to Rachel's instead of having dinner with his mom, Burt, and Kurt.

He rang the Berrys' doorbell at 5:58. Rachel was a stickler for punctuality, and he didn't want to add tardiness to whatever crime he had apparently already committed. He felt a drop of water slide down his forehead as he waited for someone to answer. He wasn't sure if it was sweat from his nerves, or if the water was dripping from his wet hair. Finn had stumbled through football practice in a fog, and the Titans' new coach was a lot tougher on them than Tanaka had been, making them all stick around until Finn finally got it right. That meant he had to rush through his shower and run out the door to get to Rachel's on time, wet head and all.

Rachel came to the door, and Finn could see pizza boxes on the foyer table. Normally this would excite him, but he had really been looking forward to having one last Berry home-cooked meal. "My dads had a dinner party tonight, so I ordered pizza. Supreme, I know that's your favorite."

"Yeah, that's great. Thanks a lot." Finn lightly slid one arm around her waist onto the small of her back and bent down awkwardly, not sure what kind of greeting was appropriate under the circumstances. Especially since he didn't know what the circumstances actually were. He settled on a soft kiss to the temple, closing his eyes and taking in a deep breath of the sweet, fruity scent of Rachel's hair. He suddenly wished he had taken the time to find out what kind of shampoo she used.

She smiled up at him then dropped her eyes to the floor. "Come on, let's go in the kitchen." Rachel led the way, picking up the pizzas from the table.

"Look, Rachel, to be honest, I'm really nervous here. I've been a wreck all day. I need you to just tell me what's going on. And if you're dumping me, I can just go. You don't have to feed me first." He leaned on the doorway, watching as she took sodas from the fridge and struggled to reach paper plates on the top shelf of the cabinet. He sighed and pulled his hands from his pockets as he walked to stand behind her, reaching over her head and pulling down the plates. She turned to face him.

"I promise you Finn, the last thing I want is to break up with you," she said softly, shuffling the sodas to put her free hand over his heart. For a moment, relief flooded through him. But when he looked at her face, the anxiety came back. She said she didn't want to break up with him, but her face looked so pained, so sad. He didn't know what to think. When she dropped her hand from his chest, he backed up to let her walk around him to the table. He took a moment, then followed her with the plates. When he joined her at the table, she was fidgeting with a large manila envelope, not looking at him or the food. He decided to give her a minute to think over whatever was in that envelope. He opened the top pizza box and put two pieces on her plate, piling the rest onto his own. He closed the box, then folded it in half and walked across the room to shove it in the trash can. When he returned to the table, he waited until after he had taken a sip of his soda to speak again. He hoped maybe the drink would calm him, keep the shakiness in his voice and the quickly forming lump in his throat from coming through.

"So," he said, as casually as he possibly could, "What's in the envelope?" She slid the envelope across the table to him, face down.

"Maybe this would be easiest if you just read it yourself." Finn opened the envelope without even flipping it over to look at the addresses. He pulled out the stack of papers, noticing the official-looking letterhead that was the first page.

"School for Creative and Performing Arts," he mumbled, so low Rachel could barely hear him. She picked at the toppings on her pizza while she watched him read the letter from the prestigious Cincinnati school.

Miss Berry,

We are happy to inform you that we have an opening for you in our fall class. We want you to know that we would have been happy to accept you upon first receiving your application, but it did not seem prudent to take you out of your current high school and insert you into classes here with only four weeks remaining in the spring semester. We regret that this letter is coming to you with such short notice, but we hope you understand that we had to confirm that there would be a spot for you after we accounted for all of our returning students. The first day of the fall semester is September 27, 2010. You are expected to have all provisions made to be in class at that time.

This packet contains all the information that you will need to get prepared for your first day as a student at School for Creative and Performing Arts:

Registration forms; to be completed and returned no later than September 24, 2010

Course catalog

Supply list

A list of host families who would be happy to provide you with a temporary home in the event that your family chooses not to relocate to Cincinnati

We look forward to having you become a member of our family, and we know that your unique set of talents will be appreciated and utilized in our nourishing environment.

Finn flipped through the rest of the pages, barely looking at any of them and stopping at the list of host families. He stared at that one blankly before moving. Suddenly, he jumped up, knocking his chair over in the process. He turned to look at the chair, then at Rachel, then back at the chair, clearly confused over whether to pick it up or move on to the reason he jumped in the first place. He decided to forget the chair. He grabbed Rachel tightly and lifted her out of her chair. He moved so quickly that he knocked over her chair as well. "Oh!" Rachel squealed, but she couldn't help but smile as she wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder.

When Finn put her down a few seconds later, he had a huge smile on his face. "Rach, babe, that's awesome! I'm so proud of you!" He couldn't help it, he scooped her into his arms again, lifting her feet off the floor, and kissed her, hard. In that instant, all the awkwardness and fear he had felt over the last 12 hours melted away. And for just a moment, she didn't seem quite so breakable to him. He lowered her back to the floor, and kissed her one last time on the top of her head, smiling and making a mental note to find out what that shampoo was as he smoothed her long hair with his hands. He righted her chair, then his own, and dug into his cold pizza. Rachel stood, hands clasped in front of her, watching him with a smile. But as she stood there, her smile started to fade a bit and something clouded in her eyes.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

As she walked away to her first period class, Rachel felt bad for upsetting Finn and maybe even misleading him. He really had been a great boyfriend since that devastating loss at regionals. That part she was not misleading him on. Rachel had never really lost anything before then. Sure, there had been things she had wanted that she didn't get, but this was different. And she was prepared to spend her entire summer locked away in her room practicing in front of the mirror, only leaving for lessons with her vocal coach and private dance teachers. But Finn didn't let that happen. The day after school ended, he showed up on her doorstep with his copy of the relationship calendar that she had made for the two of them. He told her that he knew she had all her "lessons and stuff" through the summer and he would have football camp, so he wanted to sit down right then and make sure they were going to have time for each other. He said he let her slip away before because he didn't realize how much he needed her, and he was pretty sure that now she needed him too, so he wasn't going to let that happen again. She tried halfheartedly to turn him away, because she felt that she should be grieving over her failure. But really, she was ecstatic that he was putting so much effort into their relationship. And after just a couple of dates, which had been arranged that day in her backyard, the pain of losing was almost forgotten. Finn always made her laugh, and he spent every moment they were together lavishing attention on her and making her feel like a queen. Her relationship with Jesse, the only other boyfriend she'd ever had, had always felt like a production compared to this one. It was like she was always competing for center stage, and not just around other people, but even when it was just the two of them. She liked feeling like someone's girlfriend and not someone's costar, or even supporting actress.

And she wasn't mad at him. For anything. She honestly couldn't think of one thing in the past three months that he had done to upset her. No, he wasn't perfect, he forgot things a lot and often showed up late, but she really only scolded him for those things because they were bad habits that he needed to get rid of, not because she was mad at him. When it came to the things that really mattered in their relationship – considering her feelings, supporting her goals, working to have a good relationship with her dads even though she could tell he still felt a little awkward with them – Finn was beyond reproach. And now she felt like she was being unfair to him. She knew it was awful to tell him that they "needed to talk" without giving him any clues to what it was about. But there was no time to get into details now, and by their next scheduled date it would be too late. She had to make sure he was going to show up at her house that night so they could talk this through.

Rachel only had about three days to make her decision – go to Cincinnati to the School for Creative and Performing Arts, or stay in Lima with Finn and New Directions. She knew 16 was too young to make these kinds of life decisions based on a boyfriend, but she didn't feel right making a big decision like this without at least talking to him about it first. After all, it would affect both of them, and not just romantically. New Directions was probably Finn's only ticket out of Lima, let's face it, he's not going to get any academic scholarships and the Titans' football team was horrible. Without Rachel, he probably didn't even have that chance. Sure, Mercedes and Quinn and Tina all had nice voices, but none of them had the leading lady quality that would be necessary to really showcase Finn's talent at nationals next year. She had to talk to him before she could decide.

It would be hard to be around Finn without telling him what was on her mind, but luckily their paths didn't cross very often throughout the school day unless they made it a point for them to. They had no classes together other than glee club, and Rachel often spent her lunch period practicing either her singing or dance, so he wouldn't be suspicious if she didn't come today. She caught a break in glee club too, Mr. Schue was really pumped up on one of his questionable 80s numbers so there was practically no time left over for chit chat. She let Finn tell her what time he would be coming over, then made something up and ran off to her next class. Once again, she felt awful for acting this way. The look on his face when she hurried away from him broke her heart. She didn't trust herself to talk to him normally, and she just couldn't risk starting this conversation at school. She had to make sure she handled it properly so that he didn't misunderstand anything that was going on. If she let something slip without having time to fully explain the situation, he might think that her desire was to leave him, or that she didn't care about his input, neither of which was true. Her greatest fear in all of this was causing him hurt. He had been through enough already. She had to make sure that the conversation was handled with care and that she was fully prepared. She had until 6:00 to get that way.

When Rachel's doorbell rang at 5:50, she jumped. Finn wasn't supposed to be here for 10 more minutes, she wasn't ready for him yet! But as she walked toward the front door, she could see the pizza delivery car through the window. She had completely forgotten about ordering pizza. She grabbed the $20 and the $10 her dads had left her from the hall table, letting the delivery boy keep the change, even though the bill for the two pizzas was barely over $20. She just wanted him gone, she needed every second she had to prepare herself for her conversation with Finn. She left the pizzas on the hall table and went back to practicing what she was going to say in front of the mirror.

When the bell rang again eight minutes later, she tried to calm herself and make herself appear more stable than she felt. She told herself over and over again, "It will be fine, he's going to understand," as she walked to the door. She put her hand on the knob, took a deep breath, and plastered on a smile as she opened the door for her sweet, caring boyfriend. Finn was a mess. His hair was still wet from his post-practice shower and when he greeted her it was clear that he was unsure how to act. The kiss he lightly placed on the side of her head was sweet and caring, but also painfully awkward. She could feel and hear him smelling her hair, and she wanted to cry.

She picked up the pizzas and led Finn into the kitchen, where she had decided the conversation would take place. He always seemed comfortable sitting at a dining table. While he stood in the doorway watching her get drinks from the refrigerator, he asked her to just let him go if she had brought him there to break up with him, and her heart broke. When he came to her aid without her even asking, as always, to get down the plates from the high shelf that she couldn't reach, she tried to make him understand that she absolutely did not want to break up with him, but she could see that he wasn't convinced. She took a seat at the table and picked up the envelope from the school in Cincinnati. When Finn joined her at the table, she couldn't meet his eyes. She just kept turning the envelope over and over in her hands. She watched as he fixed both of their plates and got rid of the empty pizza box, then came back to the table and opened his soda.

"So. What's in the envelope?" he finally asked, with faked lightheartedness. After all of her rehearsal, Rachel just couldn't bring herself to say what had to be said. Instead, she pushed the envelope across the table and told him to read it for himself. She watched as he pored over the acceptance letter, then flipped through the rest of the packet, not seeming to understand what he was looking at. He stopped, staring at the names and addresses of the families who had offered to host Rachel while she attended the school over two hours from home. She could only imagine what he was thinking. When he finally jumped up, knocking over his chair in the process, she jumped too. She had seen him kick chairs over before, but she never dreamed she would be the cause of it. She watched as he looked from the chair, then to her, then back at the chair, clearly confused. Before she knew it he was coming straight at her. All of her instincts, and self-defense training, told her that she should be scared. But she wasn't. She could never be scared of him, never believe that he would actually hurt her. She would just sit in her chair and wait for whatever came next.

What came next was Finn's arms around her waist, lifting her out of the chair and pulling her close to him. She gasped as her breath left her body, but she felt so amazing, so right, in his arms that way. She closed her eyes and buried her face in his shoulder with her arms around his neck, trying to memorize that feeling. She barely heard when her chair went crashing to the floor as well. When he put her down, he was smiling and from her fog, she could hear him telling her how proud he was of her. Before she knew it, she was off her feet again and his mouth was pressed hard against hers. He had never kissed her like that before. He always treated her like a delicate flower, and while she appreciated the care, she sometimes wished he would show more urgency, like the first time he told her he loved her. This kiss had that urgency, and she liked the way it felt. When her feet were safely back on the floor, he placed one more sweet kiss on the top of her head, then righted both of their chairs and sat down to eat his pizza. She watched him as he ate, happy to see him so happy and at ease. But as she stood there, a sadness that she couldn't yet place started to creep over her.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

Once Finn had finished his first slice of pizza, he noticed that Rachel was still standing in front of him, watching him with a somewhat strained look on her face. "Hey, sit down and eat, before it gets any colder," he said as he took her small hand in one of his own.

"Yeah. Right." She shook her head to try to clear away the fog as she sat down, still holding his hand as she picked up a piece of pizza with the other. He couldn't help but notice that she seemed distracted, but he tried to push those thoughts away and just bask in her good news, as well as the knowledge that she was still happy to be with him and she wasn't planning on getting rid of him any time soon. As he thought those things, another thought came to him. If what she had to tell him was such great news, why had she seemed so weird all day, and why wasn't she happier now? Again, he tried pushing these thoughts away. He didn't want to ruin what he knew should be a happy moment.

Rachel took a bite of her pizza, then stared at it. Something just didn't feel right. He was so happy, so proud of her. So why was this eerie, sad feeling creeping in on their nice moment? Why couldn't she be as happy about it as he was? She was pulled out of her reverie by the feeling of his thumb gently rubbing circles on the back of her hand on top of the table. She looked from their hands to his face and saw the pride in his eyes as he looked back at her. Suddenly it hit her, where this indefinable sadness was coming from. She was sad, because he wasn't sad. Not even a little. Of course, the last thing she had ever wanted was to hurt this wonderful person that she loved. But it bothered her that he didn't even seem a little distressed about the idea of her leaving Lima in less than a week. She didn't like this feeling, it made her feel selfish, and she hated that feeling. It was one she had often, she knew many people thought she was selfish and demanding because she had such strong ideas about what she wanted and would go to such lengths to get it. But she never wanted to be selfish about Finn.

I hate to even say it, but please leave reviews, especially if there is something specific you like or don't like. That is the only way I will know!