DISCLAIMER: I know the pairing says this is a Finchel fic - because it is, being from Finn's POV, but at the same time it's really, really not. If other couplings bother you - don't read this. I can't believe I just said that, but there you go.
I think this little one-shot is a hangover from the epic 2 part, 300 page Glee fanscript I've been writing for the last month. It started as a gift for my friend's birthday, and now my Finchel foundations are shaken - because I got so into it.
Nevertheless, please remember, this is my first Glee fic I'm posting here, so kindness would be appreciated. :)
glee
"errant vows"
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Its funny, the insignificant details you focus on.
He's lost the little flower he kept pinned to his lapel. For the life of him, he couldn't remember what it was called. Kurt had told him a dozen times, but it just went right out of his head.
It started with a B – he knew that much.
Button? No, not a button, you moron!
But it sounds like button. Like a foreign button. A button that speaks French – if buttons could speak.
If buttons could speak?
God, he was losing his mind…
Boutonniere!
That was it! He'd lost the goddamn boutonniere somewhere!
Maybe it was still down at the Justice of the Peace. Probably trampled into those marble floors outside the room where he was supposed to… supposed to…
Yeah, that was probably it. It was almost a stampede to get out of there when the call came through. He remembers the rush of hot blood gushing through his body, swirling with panicked adrenaline. He remembers his vision clouding over – the long hallway in front of him narrowing to the eye of a needle. It felt like running through treacle.
No sound. Just the heavy thump of his heart.
And her name, screaming through his mind – the cry of the lost…
Quinn!
Rachel got the call, seconds after she stepped through the door. He was at the end of the aisle – his brother and his new dad flanking him – waiting for the love of his life.
He remembers smiling at her.
He remembers her smiling back.
Then the phone rang. She'd refused to turn it off. Refused to give up on the idea of Quinn making it to the wedding.
Except, it wasn't Quinn. It was a man named Bill Hicks. He was on his knees on a deserted country road – his hands so covered in blood that all he could do was hit redial on Quinn's phone. Her last call had been to Rachel.
He watched her face as she took the call.
Saw her jaw go slack – saw the fear and the panic light in her eyes. Before her dads even knew what was happening, her knees buckled.
Somehow, he caught her.
He didn't know how. If it wasn't something confined to comics and TV shows, he could have sworn he developed instant super speed. But he made it. Got his arms around her before her beautiful dress could stain on the floor.
She looked at him without any recognition. Her mouth flapping uselessly – no sound coming out.
He held on tight, urging her to speak, to tell him what was wrong.
He made out only two words: "Quinn… accident…"
He grabbed the phone. Spoke to Bill Hicks himself. Got the full story.
By that time, her dads had commandeered her care. They were fanning her down. Someone produced a bottle of water.
That's when the tunnel vision kicked in. That's when his heart decided to enter NASCAR. That's when his world came down.
He ran, and ran…
He had a feeling he would never stop.
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She's crying again. Or, rather, she's crying still.
She hasn't stopped for the last three hours.
He stands in the doorway, watching her. Watching them. Only two visitors allowed at a time – and Quinn's parents still aren't here yet; her dad's in New York, her mom's in Palm Springs.
Great time to plan a trip, Fabrays!
Everyone else is forced to come in one by one, because Rachel refuses to leave her side. She sits there, holding onto Quinn's lifeless hand, her tears forming dark little dots on the lily-white of her dress.
This is his second time around. He steps inside. She doesn't even look at him. He crosses to the end of the bed, curls his hands round the banister, staring at this… this apparition that just can't be Quinn.
She's so still… God, she's so still!
And those machines!
He knows they're necessary – knows they're pumping air into her lungs and keeping her with them – but he has the almost primal urge to rip them out of her so he can uncover her face. Give her a chance to smile again. That Quinn smile.
He turns to Rachel – unable to trust himself not to do something stupid if he has to keep looking at Quinn.
"Do you need anything?" he asks.
She just shakes her head. Keeps holding tight.
"You should eat something," he insists, "It's been three hours."
"I'm fine."
"You're not fine."
She doesn't respond to that. If she weren't actually answering him, he would swear she didn't know he was there.
"You're not much good to her if you collapse yourself."
"I'd deserve it," she says.
A jolt running straight through him. A slap to the face. Suddenly, he's more awake. He rounds the bed.
"Don't say that."
"Why not?" she counters, "This is my fault. That man…"
"Hicks."
"He says she was looking away when he hit her. She was texting. Texting me," her voice cracks, "'On my way…'"
"Don't do this."
"Please leave."
"What?"
"I want to be alone with her."
"No."
"Finn…"
"No, I'm not leaving you. Not like this."
"Get out!"
The pitch and power of her voice – that voice that can take a song, any song, and wrap it in the cadence of angels – knocks him back a step.
Her scream brings a nurse rushing in. After quick assurances that they're all okay, the nurse leaves, but not before giving them the beady eye.
"You're still here," she says. An accusation.
"I'm not going anywhere."
"You didn't care," she says, her voice fairly dripping with bitterness, "You wanted to get married even if she didn't make it. Well, here she is. She's not gonna be able to put on that pretty bridesmaid's dress and stand beside me, but who cares, right? They have a chapel here, don't they? I'm sure they can throw us a quickie."
He almost knows why she's doing this. Its pain, and guilt, and helplessness waging war inside her and if she doesn't lash out, she'll lose it.
But it still hurts. So… almost.
"I'm not gonna apologise," he tells her, "Not for wanting to marry you. I'll never apologise for that."
"This wasn't supposed to happen today," she says, "Not today. Not for a long, long time. You saw her, these past few weeks, she was…"
"Different."
"Yes, different. She was happy. Her future was calling, and for the first time, she could hear it clearly."
"The doctors think she'll pull through."
"The doctors don't know anything!" again, that venom, "She's in a coma. They can't even tell us when – if – she'll wake up."
"She will," he says, trying to sound sure, and failing, "She has to."
A knock at the door. The same nurse. She tells them visiting hours are up.
"Okay," he says.
When he turns back to Rachel, she hasn't moved. Not even a little bit.
"You're staying," he says. It's not a question. She nods.
"Call me the second there's any change," he says.
"I will."
"I love you."
She doesn't appear to hear him. He swallows the sting. Not like it matters, in the grand scheme of things. Not like it stacks up to getting sideswiped by a racing hunk of metal weighing over a ton.
He leaves. He gets as far as the waiting room, where his friends – his true family, the Glee club – are still sitting, and then he stops. Turns back.
No, he's got to make her leave. Take her home. Get her out of that dress and hang it up. Tuck her in. Make sure she sleeps. And be there to hold her when the nightmares rip her from slumber.
So… he makes the biggest mistake of his life.
He turns back.
A few feet from the room, he hears Rachel's voice: "I wrote this for you."
He stops just shy of the door. He doesn't know why. What impulse makes him hesitate. But he hovers there, just out of sight, listening in.
"I was up all night, trying to write my vows. I didn't think I'd struggle so much. It was the 'My Headband' incident all over again. I kept thinking about me and Finn, how much we've been through, the fight to get us to today. I love him. I do. So much. But the words… just wouldn't come."
He wants to speak. Clear his throat. Bang into the door. Something to alert her to his presence. But he doesn't move.
"I put on the radio. Trying to find some inspiration in music. But Barbra wasn't working. Neither was Celine. Nothing worked… until I found this one song…"
For some reason, he's holding his breath. He winces as she starts to sing.
.
"Time, I've been patient for so long.
How can I pretend to be so strong?
Looking at you, baby.
Feeling it too, baby.
If I'm asking you to hold me tight,
Then its gonna be all night.
Its gonna be love, its gonna be great,
Its gonna be more than I can take.
Its gonna be free, its gonna be real.
Its gonna change everything I feel.
Its gonna be sad, its gonna be true.
Its gonna be me, baby…
Its gonna be you, baby…"
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He finds his fingers inching up the seam of his lapel. To the little pinholes where the missing boutonniere should be. Suddenly, it's urgent that he find it. Put it back. Fix things. Make them… the way he always thought they were supposed to be.
But she wasn't done…
"Suddenly, I was writing. The words were coming out in a rush. My hand cramped, but I couldn't stop. Only… only they weren't the vows I was supposed to write."
He's screaming again – inside his own mind. Begging, pleading with himself to run – just run away. Never look back. To tear himself away from what he knew was coming next.
But man is just flesh and blood and weakness, and he can't.
He hears the crinkle of paper being unfolded. He can picture it in her delicate little hands – see them sweep across the surface in that busy way he's so used to.
"Today… I marry my soulmate. And that's a funny thing, because I never believed in soulmates. Until now. I understood the concept. I could appreciate the grandness of it as a closing song to a wonderful show, but feel it? I could never feel it.
To me, soulmates were always just a fairy tale. A dream we tell ourselves to help us keep going when the nights grow cold, and the darkness closes in. Like a bedtime story for a shivering child.
But, not for the first time, you proved me wrong. Just by being… you. The one who calls me on all my bad habits. The one person who was never afraid to be honest with me about everything – even if it hurt. The one who dared me to believe in a future that was everything it promised to be, and more. The one who showed me the path to that future – by being brave enough to walk it alone.
I don't know when it happened for us. When did the bitterness melt away? When did the fighting turn to friendship? When did sharing become love?
I don't know. I don't care. All I know is it's your face I see I see in the stars and your voice I hear in the music. Your lips I daydream about. Your touch I want forever.
Right or wrong, I love you. Now. Always. Until the music finally stops…"
She's crying. He hears her sharp battles for breath as she rails against the tears; and loses. He's in a waking dream, where the world has lost it's colour and, for the life of him, he can't find a way to wake up.
He moves. Just a half turn. Just enough to glance through the open door, and see her surge suddenly to her feet. See her press Quinn's hand to her heart as she calls out with so much longing…
"Quinn! Quinn, it's me! Are you awake? Quinn!"
He sees her tears turn to relieved laughter. The kisses she plants all over Quinn's face as her eyes flutter open. Sees all the promise in those vows reflected in Quinn's eyes…
He sees that there's no place for him here.
So he turns away.
No interruptions, no explosive accusations, no demands for answers that would never come.
His eyes downcast – he spots it against the skirting running along the wall. A tiny flash of colour in the hospital grey. Kicked there by someone on their way to somewhere else – who knew no better.
He bends down, picks it up, smooths out the bruised petals.
But it's no use. It's broken now. Even so, he pins the boutonnière back on his lapel. For show, if nothing else.
And then he just leaves.
To find the pieces of his broken heart… if he's not already too late.
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