I didn't originally plan to write any fic even acknowledging Finn's death, but then this idea showed up and needed to get out. It may be cathartic. Or not. Read at your own risk.
I do not own Glee. And honestly, I wouldn't want them to do anything like this on the show, at least not involving Rachel, for Lea's sake. But I do not need a performer, and so can give Finn at least a bit of what he deserves.
Rachel arrives back from the memorial in Lima to find the envelope sitting there, waiting for her in the loft. Santana came back to New York earlier and is now at work, so Rachel's mail is on her dresser: a magazine, and a letter. A letter from Finn.
She feels like her heart stops, which is the first sign she's had in a week that it was actually still beating.
She would know his writing anywhere, even if it didn't have "F. Hudson" scrawled in the top left. Especially his writing of her name, she always enjoyed reading notes from him, seeing the love in how he wrote her name out. And there it is, front and center, "Ms. Rachel Berry" in Finn's most careful lettering, complete with a hand-drawn star.
It breaks her, again. She's been broken so often in the last week the pieces never have a chance to rejoin. She thinks they never will, or at least not join in the same places.
Through her tears she stares at the envelope, like a bird fascinated by a cat, terrified but still not able to leave. She can't open it, it could wreck her completely, and yet...
Rachel chokes back a sob. She really hopes this isn't some "in case I die" letter. He might have had one when he was in the army, but surely this wouldn't be it. She doesn't want to think about Finn thinking about dying, or read him telling her how to live without him, in a world where he is no more. She lies down and stares at her ceiling, the letter on the bed next to her.
An hour or so later she gets up the nerve to check the postmark. It's from before. So he sent it himself, before. She still doesn't know how she can open it.
Why would he send a letter? What sort of thing would be a letter instead of a text, or a phone call, or an email?
She puts it aside. It's not going anywhere, it will still be there when she wakes up.
.
Except she can't sleep anyway.
She misses him so, so much, the emptiness inside tearing at her. She missed him before, but not like this, not knowing it would be forever. The hole isn't just in her life, it's in the world. And this – this is something of him, for her.
She gets a knife, and carefully slits the envelope. Then she sits and looks at it until she can convince herself to reach inside, take out the single piece of paper.
It's a photocopy of a letter. On letterhead, typed, official, welcoming Mr. Finn Christopher Hudson into the Music Education Program at Queen's College, City University of New York, for the Fall 2013 semester.
There's a note attached to it, handwritten.
Rach – here's the other part of my dream. Leave a light on for me, okay? – Finn.
Rachel stares at it, her heart twisting at the proof of what might have been, what was supposed to be. Torn away from her, from both of them, never to get back. The future they were going to have had together, so close to becoming real.
There's a little more, at the bottom: P.S. I used the Cheerios copier.
It makes her smile, which she had thought impossible. One last funny touch from the man who just wanted to see her smile.
He was coming to her. Not any more could she hide in the thought that maybe the future he lost wasn't her future too. He was coming to her, he had found the dream she hoped he would find. The man she has lost was indeed her match.
There in her hand is proof of how profound a thing is now gone. She cries for that, harder than she knew she still could.
And yet it is also proof of something good. That Finn wasn't lost, at the end. That he had found in himself what she had always seen, his potential, and he was taking charge of his future. That he knew he was New York good, and that others had known it too. That her city, her world, had accepted him, and he had known it and been proud of himself.
Finn had found himself, that wonderful person she always knew he was. And ultimately he had been happy. Happy in himself, in what he could do, and in loving her.
Her heart warms at that, the twist in it vanishing as it fills with love for him. It still hurts, but she feels the love too. The note doesn't say 'love', but she knows it's there. Just like while she still regrets not telling him she loved him, in their last call, she knows he knew it anyway.
One night she lights a candle in the window. It's not his birthday, or the anniversary of anything, even of their first kiss (though she remembers that so well). It's simply the night she lights the candle. It feels right.
Leave a light on for me.
Rachel is amazing as Fanny Brice.
Most don't know what she puts into the role, of course. Even the press who do some quick background research on "Broadway's stunning new ingenue" don't find out much. They assume the same things that people at NYADA had, her first year, that Finn Hudson was just a high-school boyfriend who should be left in her dust, not to be mourned particularly. Jacob ben Israel probably told them as much, and though it hurts that people are selling Finn short yet again, she's grateful for the lack of intrusion. Finn knew differently, and that's what really matters.
Her show family helps; they can sense something unusual about her, and while they don't ask, they do listen to whatever she feels like talking about. It's never Finn, and yet somehow it's always Finn. And every night she belts out "My Man" for the one it was always about for her, the one who gave her up so she could do it.
Sometimes she looks out into the audience and sees a tall young man in the shadows, but – no.
She wins the Tony, and if most people assume that she's shedding tears of joy, and that when she raises the trophy to the heavens it's in celebration, well, she's not going to correct them. But when Patti LuPone congratulates her at the afterparty, and it's clear the legend remembers her from their prior meeting... she does her best to not break down. Finn wouldn't want her night of triumph tarnished.
Finn would want... becomes her guide, her lost soulmate growing into part of herself. Finn would want me to be kind to others and help people. Finn would want me to be the real authentic best me. Finn would want the Buckeyes to win. Finn would want me to be happy, to love and be loved.
She keeps lighting the candle, year after year.
There are other men who come into her life, tall men and short men and older and younger. Any with attitude don't last long, even those who get past Kurt, she can hear Finn's voice in her mind telling her they're jackasses (and he's right, or the part of her that's grown to reflect him is right). The kind ones and funny ones last longer. But there's no way that any of them can be the one person who loved her and believed in her back when she was nothing, they can never prove their love by knowing she is a star when others don't and sacrificing to help her on that path. Everyone knows she is a star now. But some see the real her through all that, and she's grateful.
She marries eventually. Max is a kind man who loves her many moods, all the complexity of her, and he doesn't ask about how she gets sometimes, or about the candle she still lights every year. He's had loss too, his sister when he was thirteen, so he gets it. And really the dots are all there in her life for anyone to connect up, into the shape of a tall freckled boy. She knows he knows.
It's when they find out they're expecting a daughter that she tells him. She loves them both so much, Max and the growing little one, and it doesn't feel right to hold any of herself back. He lights the candle for her a couple of months later, when she's on bed rest. She's sure Finn must have sent him to her, somehow. And maybe made her the right person for Max, too.
They call their daughter Carolyn, melding all their losses into love. Her uncle Kurt spoils her, of course, though her childish enthusiasm never goes away, her eager warm brown eyes and smile always lighting up their world. And many years later she too lights the candle, as that night comes again and Rachel grows weak.
Leave a light on for me.