A Story About Love by Rachel Berry

After Finn loses faith in Love, Rachel tries to restores his faith in it, all the while they race to New York to stop Puck from making the biggest mistake of his life. This is not a Finchel story.


Nearly everyone had gathered around to see Puck off, Puck and his new boyfriend Scott were offered jobs that needed them to travel a lot, its not everyday you get to tour with a famous band. Puck took in the sight in front of him, the girls, his mother and sister included all with teary eyes as well as Kurt, who he'd grown close to during his sexuality crisis. Everyone was there but one person, Finn Hudson, the person who Puck truly fell in love with but grew unable to trust him after his affair with Rachel, Puck wanted to hate girl but he couldn't, he found it extremely hard to hate his friends unless they bitched about Scott as most of them did not like him especially Mike, Rachel and Finn. But Puck found himself attracted to air of danger surrounding him, his scruffiness and his sense of style weirdly enough too.

The girls except Rachel were pulling Puck into final hugs before he set off on his new journey. Rachel was fighting an on going war in her mind as to tell Puck the truth about Scott. He tried recently to come on Mike but failed miserably. Rachel and Finn had witnessed it without Scott's knowledge. Unknown to Puck, Scott was planning to dump him until Puck got them the jobs with their first stop being in New York. Puck uttered a final goodbye to everyone before getting into the taxi.

"Wait!" a voice calls out. Finn runs up towards the taxi and knocks on the window asking to Puck to step outside. Rachel smiled when she saw this, she began silently praying that Finn would admit the truth about his feelings for Puck.

"Please Puck don't go!" Finn pleads with Puck holding onto his arms whilst an annoyed looking Scott sat in the waiting taxi glaring daggers out at Finn.

"Give me one good reason why" Puck asks.

"Scott's not good enough for you!" Finn replies. Rachel and most likely everyone else mentally kick Finn for that stupid comment. Everyone can see that Finn and Puck are made for each other, even Puck's mom used to call Finn her future son in-law and vice versa and that was even before both boys realised their love for one another went way past brotherly love. Puck just shakes his head before saying

"Goodbye Finn" and Puck re-enters the taxi, while Rachel's heart breaks as she watches Finn and Puck leave.


Rachel arrived at the Hummel-Hudson household with the intent on finding Finn. It didn't take her long to find Finn in the garage taking his anger out on his motorbike. Rachel approached him with caution, she learned once not to get in Finn's way whilst he was working on vehicles, but Rachel really hated the things unfolded earlier on that day. She may not have liked Puck but Rachel knows just how much Puck and Finn care about each other and she knows that Finn loved Puck more than he loved her. She eventually grew to accept this and loving Finn only as a friend. But that's where a plan formed in her mind, she's going to get Finn and Puck together before she heads off NYADA. But first she needs to trick Finn into going to New York.

"Hey Finn, what are you doing?" Rachel asks.

"Fixing my bike" Finn replies.

"Does it work?" Rachel asks again.

"Yeah it does! It can get us to the moon and back!" Finn replies enthusiastically getting up and turning around to face Rachel.

"What do you want?" Finn asks sounding serious.

"What? Am I not allowed to see if you are ok?" Rachel replies sliding herself up onto the counter behind her.

"Why do you care anyway?" Finn asks eyeing Rachel suspiciously.

"Because of the way Noah left, we didn't say goodbye to him" Rachel replies.

"I already did" Finn says turning back to his bike.

"No, if I recall correctly, you told Noah that Scott wasn't good enough for him" Rachel says hopping off the counter and walking over to Finn.

"Why are you doing this Rachel?" Finn asks raising his voice slightly.

"I'm not doing anything, I just want to go say goodbye to Noah properly and I know for a fact that you want to say goodbye to him too, so get up and lets go!" Rachel says hopping onto Finn's motorcycle.

"But this piece of crap won't get us to New York" Finn says tapping his foot against the back tyre.

"You just said that it will get us to the moon" Rachel replies pulling out two helmets from the seat compartment.

"Yeah but…"

"Oh Finn, or fuck sake just stop stalling, If you don't do this you will regret this for the rest of your entire life and there's nothing worse than regret, trust me, I know. So come on! Before Noah leaves for good, because when he does, you and I both know we won't see him again. So let's go!" Rachel says extending out a helmet for Finn.

"Why are you even doing this? I mean you don't even like Puck" Finn asks eyeing up the helmet in Rachel's outstretched hand.

"Because I want to put the past behind Noah and myself behind us and start a new chapter. I don't want to leave Noah with a bitter taste in his mouth whenever he mentions my name. So are you with me?" Rachel asks.

"Yes, let's go" Finn replies taking the helmet and hopping onto the bike.


"Wow, I've never seen farm land before" Rachel comments from behind Finn as he speeds down the rural roads.

"Me neither, well not up close anyway, only seen them in airplanes" Finn replies. The two continue awkward small talk until a spluttering noise attracts Finn's attention.

"Finn, what's that noise?" Rachel asks.

"Oh no. oh fuck no!" Finn shouts pulling the bike to a stop.

"Finn?" Rachel asks.

"This stupid is after giving out on us!" Finn replies.

"What? Can you fix it?" Rachel asks jumping off the bike.

"Do I look like I brought any tools with me" Finn says shooting Rachel a glare.

Rachel gets her answer from Finn's glare. As Finn moves his bike off to the side of the road, Rachel starts rooting through her handbag, finding a marker and a banner (1), she began writing. Finn looks back to see Rachel writing on something and wonders were the girl got that stuff in the middle of nowhere.

"What are you doing?" Finn asks.

"Getting us out of here" the girl replies not looking up from her banner, she contuines with her work even though all she is trying to do is catch someone's attention to get them a lift.

"Hey Finn, the other day, you said that you don't believe in love anymore why's that?" Rachel asks admiring her handy work.

"Hey I'm not leaving my bike here!" Finn says ignoring Rachel's question after he see's what she has written on the poster like banner.

"You didn't answer my question" Rachel says picking it up and holding in the direction of the road.

"Put it this way, love is like Father Christmas, you believe it for a while then you realise it was never there" Finn says walking back to his bike.

"Was that what you thought when you were with me? Puck too?" Rachel quietly asked.

"…" Finn didn't even answer, he couldn't. If he did he knows it would be the wrong thing to say.

"You know I reckon you don't believe in that Father Christmas stuff" Rachel says walking over towards Finn.

"Yeah I do" Finn mumbles beginning to push his bike along the road.

"What about your family?" Rachel says.

"My dad left us in time of need" Finn says walking on.

"What about everyone else" Rachel asks but Finn continues walking onwards.


"Finn, talking about these things help" Rachel says walking behind Finn but he ignores her.

"Hey Finn, look" Rachel says gesturing towards a car slowing down towards them.

"No! Rachel, I'm not leaving my bike here!" Finn says clutching the handles.

"Do you want to see Puck or not" Rachel asks walking over to the stopped car.

"Hey, so you think you could bring my friend and I here?" Rachel says pointing at her sign.

"It's your lucky day my dear, I happen to be heading there myself to do some business, so hop in you two" the old man replies from behind the wheel.

"Hey Finn-" Rachel turns around to get Finn but she see's him opening the door for her, she pull Finn into a brief hug before entering the car. As Finn gets in he gets an uneasy feeling growing in the pit of his stomach, but he shakes it off and closes the door, looking at his bike as they speed away.


"So what are your names?" the old man asks from the front.

"I'm Rachel Berry, I'm from Lima Ohio, I go to McKinley High…" Rachel rants on until Finn stops her.

"Rachel, he asked for our names not your life story and my name is Finn Hudson" Finn says putting his hand on her shoulder, while she crosses her arms.

"Hehe, it is quite all right, my name is Cameron Blisset(2)" the man replies momentarily glancing at the mirror to get a view of the two teens.

"So what is bringing you two so far from home to go to New York?" Cameron asks the two teens.

"We are going to say goodbye to our ex" Rachel states looking out the window.

"Our ex? Do you mean your ex?" the man replies.

"No, I meant our ex, we both went out with this guy, he's leaving so we are going to say goodbye" Rachel says while Finn blushes furiously at Rachel's reveal.

Finn notices Cameron eye twitched as Rachel gave Cameron the information about them but Finn chooses to ignore this putting it into the back of his mind. He see's the window had fogged up and writes a message on it. Rachel glances over at what Finn wrote and giggles. She playfully punches Finn in the shoulder. However the interaction between the two doesn't go unnoticed by Cameron, who is secretly seething at the two teen's interaction. He notices that he's reaching the end of the town they were passing through, he getting ready to put his plan into action, screw the list, these two are on it.

"You know you two, there is a saying, that you shouldn't take rides from strangers…" Cameron says gripping the steering wheel.

"What?" Rachel asks very confused while Finn's uneasy feeling increases tenfold, his main thought right now is for Rachel and himself to get out of there and right now. But it's too late as Cameron locks the car doors on the unsuspecting teens. Rachel suddenly realises what's going on, she shares a frightened glance with Finn before banging on the windows.

"Don't tire yourselves out, those windows are unbreakable" the man casually says to the horror of Finn and Rachel. Finn suddenly sinks back into the seat and brings his legs to his chest, using all his strength he kicks the back of Cameron's chair which forces the man head first into the steering wheel, knocking him out. With no driver the car veers off the road and straight into a tree and before impact Finn throws himself over Rachel protecting her from injuring herself. The force of impact blew the side door clean off. Rachel and Finn slide out of the wrecked car and run back as fast as they can back to the town they just passed.

"I dunno why I decided to listen to you in the first place!" Finn shouted at Rachel when they came to a stop.

"…" Rachel remains silent but walks over towards the rails looking down on the marina.

"We almost got murdered by some freak! I lost my motorbike! None of us have any money and to top it off we don't even know where the fuck we are!"

"Westerville…" Rachel mumbles pointing up at sign earning herself a glare from Finn.

"That's just great now we are even further from were we are supposed to be!" Finn says dropping to the ground.

"Aren't you even going to say anything?" Finn asks glaring up at Rachel who stares into the distance.

"I've got an idea!" Rachel says fist pumping the air.

"Oh no! I don't want to hear anymore of your dumb ideas!" Finn says crossing his arms, but before he knows it Rachel is running off towards the marina.

"Rachel!" Finn calls out getting up and running after the girl.

When Finn finally catches up to Rachel, she is trying to talk to one of many truck drivers around.

"Excuse me, are you heading to New York?" Rachel asks a scruffy old man.

"No" the scruffy old man replies before returning to his conversation with the man beside him, to which Rachel moves onto her next victim.

"Excuse me-".

"Beat it kid!" another man says to her.

"Rach…" Finn says cringing at Rachel.

"I'm sorry to interrupt but are you heading to New York?" Rachel asks another truck driver.

"Yes I am" she replies in a strong Texan looking at the girl, Rachel hops up and down with glee while Finn perks up slightly.

"Oh my god could you please bring us to New York?" Rachel asks hopping up and down.

"And why would I do that?" she replies instantly stopping her hops while Finn scoffs earning a glare from the truck driver.

"Well if you don't…" Rachel tells her story moving her hands around a lot to emphasis her story making it slightly dramatic, while Finn drops his head in embarrassment.

"Well doesn't that tickle my stomach?" the woman says uploading the last of her cargo into the truck. Rachel smiles again at the woman while Finn leans back against the wall looking slightly annoyed.

"Oh wait I think it was that dodgy chicken I ate earlier" the woman says laughing as she shuts the door to the cargo and walks away from the visibly pissed off Rachel and sad looking Finn.

"See Rach, I told you this was a bad idea" Finn mumbles looking away from Rachel.

"What a bitch…" Rachel mutters. She waits until the trucker woman is out of sight before creeping her way over the door and opening it.

"Rachel? What are you doing?" Finn whispers loudly enough to Rachel to hear.

"Getting us to New York what does it look like I'm doing! So come on and get it in!" Rachel says holding up the door.

"But-"

"No buts Finn, I'm going whether you like it or not!" the girl says moving into the truck, she turns around to close it but see's Finn pulling down the door engulfing the two in darkness. Rachel uses the light on her phone to guide towards the back of the container. She sits herself down in the middle of bags littered around as does Finn.

"Finn?" Rachel asks sniffing.

"Was that you?" Rachel asks pulling her scarf up over her nose.

"Damn Rachel I thought that was you!" Finn replies pulling his t-shirt over his nose.

"What make's you think that was me?" Rachel quietly asks.

"Rachel, you and curry is a bad combination!" Finn states through his tshirt.

"That's not funny" Rachel huffs.

"But what is that smell though?" Finn asks waving his handing in front of his nose.

"Omg, Finn, look!" Rachel says shining the light of her phone on the bags they were seated on. In big bold print the bags said "Fresh Manure". Although Rachel can't see him that well she knows if looks could she'd be six feet under right about now.


"All right come on, tell me about the first time you liked someone" Rachel says knowing this will probably sting her a bit.

"Do I have to?" Finn moans.

"Yes, you do" Rachel replies using the bright light off her phone to illuminate the container.

"When I first saw I Alisa (3), I liked her tons, and I knew she liked me too" Finn says, Rachel remains silent and continues to listen to Finn, she knew this would be hard as this would be a touchy subject for both of them.

"After awhile I realised that if were to last we both had to want the same things, but we didn't and soon after we started to fizzle away from each other, at first we thought we could work things out but we eventually realised that we never could. And then I met this girl called Rachel" Finn says pointing over a Rachel.

"Yeah, I know a bit about her" she says smiling briefly.

"Then, there was Puck, my best friend. At first I started to hang out him again to forget about you." Finn says which makes Rachel look away from Finn.

"But then there was this one weekend, we had nothing to do, we in stuck in house playing videogames all night, then the weirdest thing happened, I realised I liked the way I was with him, I was being me" Finn says while Rachel grows slightly uneasy, one of her eyes begins to water slightly but she blinks it away.

"And then we kissed" Finn says wearing a smile.

"Yeah, well then you can't let him go now" Rachel says blinking back another tear.

"Look, she's made up her mind" Finn says dropping the smile.

"Well get her to unmake it!" Rachel replies.

"But I'm on here with you" Finn says quietly staring at Rachel.

"Well I'm here for you…" Rachel says staring back at Finn. An awkward silence falls over them until they can both hear Christina Perri – A Thousand Years playing from the truck driver's compartment. Finn gets up stating that they need to get out of here and begins to thump the sides of the container while Rachel wipes her eyes on her scarf.

"What is it? That song, it reminds you of Noah doesn't it!" Rachel states while Finn drop back down onto the bag, tears beginning to form in his eyes.

"Yeah, so what?" Finn spits back.

"Whenever you talk about Noah, you whole face changes!" Rachel says as Finn drops his head into his hands.

"So what's stopping you from telling him how you really feel?" Rachel says rasing her voice loud enough to compete with song that's playing.

"Because it hurts! So fucking much! People leave and you get let down! They break your heart!" Finn shouts at Rachel, who doesn't even flinch.

"Not everyone…" she calmly replies.

"Most of my family did after dad died, they had choice but no" Finn says looking away from Rachel wiping the tears threatening to spill from his eyes.

"Your mum had the choice, Burt and Kurt did, and your friends do too, we choose to stay with you every day so what is it?" Rachel says still calmly before eventually shouting back at Finn. Finn pauses and takes a deep breath before looking back over at Rachel.

"It's you" Finn says a tear falls down his cheek, Rachel loses her breath when she hears this and turns away from Finn. Finn searches his pockets and takes out his phone and he shows a message from Rachel.

"ILL ALWAYS B HERE FINN. LOVE U X" is written in the message.

"I can't even delete it" Finn says, his voice quivering slightly while Rachel remains silent.

"How pathetic am I?" Finn mumbles watching Rachel take her phone from her bag. She wordlessly shows Finn what's written in the text.

"ITS U RACH, & ALWAYS WILL B X".

"Not that pathetic" Rachel says breaking her own silence as Finn smiles slightly.

"I never left you Finn, it's just that Rachel, she never really existed" Rachel says placing her phone back into her bag.

"It was me, but I was pretending to be someone else, and deep down you knew it, that's why you could never have her, but with Noah, you can! That's what scares the shit out of you! Love is so scary and it's so fucking painful! It drives you mad! It tears you apart! But it's worth it. It's always worth it…" Rachel cries out with emotion dripping off every word.

"I don't want to lose him…" Finn mutters staring down at his shoes.

"Then don't lose him" Rachel says putting her hand on Finn's knee.


Rachel and Finn felt the truck come to a stop. They got up and crept their way towards the door out, waiting for the Texan truck woman to open the door. They heard her heavy footstep finally make their way to the door. Finn and Rachel share a brief glance while getting ready to run. Texan finally opens the door and the two teens sprint out and down the street in front of them while the woman screams abuse at the two of them. As they were running they stop in front of guy to ask where they were, wearing a look of disgust the man tells them they are in Manhattan, a bit far from where they are supposed to be, but their happy they finally made it too New York. The man coughs before covering his nose and jogging quickly away making the two teens remember where they had been for the last few hours. Rachel goes to take deodrant out of her bag before she see's Finn running towards a taxi.

"Finn wait, we got no money!" Rachel calls out running after him.

"Hey, can you take us to Queens (4) please?" Finn asks desperately.

"Yeah sure hop in" the taxi driver replies.

"For free?" Finn says hesitantly.

"Get lost you bums" the taxi driver says driving away.

"Asshole" Finn shouts out.

"Come on Finn" Rachel says putting her hand on Finn's shoulder.

"How long would it take to walk?" Finn asks starting to pace.

"Too long" Rachel says sadly.


After jogging down a few streets they make their way towards a bridge and stop to catch their breath. The two laugh until Finn spots a bus.

"Look Rach a bus!" Finn says running towards the bus. Rachel takes a deep breath before following Finn.

"Hey are you going to Queens?" Finn asks man collecting tickets at the buses entrance (5).

"Yeah going straight through it" the man replies to which Rachel and Finn go to get on the bus, but the man stops them.

"Wait you got your tickets?" he asks them.

"No" Rachel replies looking away.

"I haven't got anymore money either" Finn says to the man who shrugs at them and closes the door.

"Ok listen here! My ex leaves her tonight eighteen minutes after this concert starts, so I'm here to stop it from happening!" Finn says starting to get pissed off.

"Come Finn, just leave it" Rachel says but is cut off by Finn.

"No! Look we've come all the way from Lima Ohio, I had to leave my motorbike behind in a field, we were almost killed by some freak, we were stuck in a truck full of crap and now we are this close!" Finn says bring his index finger close to his thumb.

"If you don't let us on, it will have been all for nothing" Finn says taking a breath.

The man stares at the two for awhile and he can smell the two as well even from behind the closed door. He smiles at them and opens the door.

"Must be the one then?" He asks Finn.

"Yeah, the one" Finn replies smiling as the man steps aside to let them in. The two run upstairs to the open roofed part of the bus and took a seat. They were both completely unaware that they still smelled foul until some passed Finn a can of deodorant. Finn thanks them and sprays himself with it before passing it back to the owner. Rachel takes out her own and sprays herself from head to toe very happy to get rid of the horrible smell she can worry about the damage to the ozone she did later. The two start pointing out landmarks they saw the last time they where in New York.

After a while the bus stops and Finn gets up muttering that they have arrived at where they are supposed to be. Rachel gets up and follows him to the exit of the bus, she watches Finn walk over to the bridge as the man tells them that this is Queens. Rachel takes one long look at Finn before saying to the man

"I'm staying on".

"Suit yourself" he replies closing the door, while Finn turns and is confused to still see Rachel on the bus.

"Rach?" Finn asks confused. Rachel blinks away tears starting to form before she runs back up the stairs leaving a confused Finn standing outside as the bus slowly starts to drive away.

"This trip was to say goodbye and it wasn't for Noah it was for Rachel, me. For both of us" Rachel says her voice breaking.

"But I don't want to" Finn says walking along side the bus.

"Finn, I want to be your friend, more than anything" Rachel says with a tear falling from her eye.

"So why are you going then?" Finn shouts up at her.

"Because you gotta do this bit on your own" Rachel says trying to regain her composure.

"I can't" Finn replies his voice quivering slightly while Rachel gulps.

"Finn, find that text. You know what we must do" Rachel says taking her phone out as does Finn.

"You ready?" she asks as another tear falls from her eyes. Rachel gets her answer when a heartbroken Finn looks up at her.

"I'm ready" Finn replies his voice breaking.

At the moment they both silently remenice all the interesting times they had together, from the first time they kissed, when they started to have problems, when they both cheated, when they both became an item again and going on again until the second and the final spilt, all the obstacles they both overcome from Finn and his sexuality crisis to Rachel and her cutting. They look up at each other tears welling up in their eyes and it is at that moment they delete the texts.

"And don't you dare think that this means I don't love you Finn Hudson, because I do!" Rachel calls out to Finn letting her tears spill.

"Hey Rach" Finn calls to Rachel smiling.

"What?" Rachel asks.

"I err. I think I believe in Father Christmas again" Finn replies making Rachel smile through her tears.

"Don't come back with out him" Rachel says turning away from Finn as he starts to slow down.

"Wait Rach! What do I say? What do I say to Puck to make him stay?" Finn asks coming to a stop. Rachel chooses to ignore this question, Finn needs to find out on his own what he needs to do. Rachel doesn't even look back at Finn knowing her heart will break even more if she does. She starts rifling through her bag while the tears continue to fall until she finds what she was looking for, a voice recorder, so Rachel says to it.

"I hope you heard everything

Because sometimes

Love is about holding on.

And sometimes

It's about letting go.

But it's like Finn says

Love hurts

So much

But life is short

And

Without love

It's nothing.

Whatever it takes

You got to give love a chance.

My name is Rachel Berry and this is my story about Love"


Well that's the story, it was based off something I saw recently, some parts were mine. The OC is mine. This story is complete for now but I am writing a sequel that involves Puck and Finn. And the now for the references.

(1) Most us girls can store some amazing stuff in out handbags.

(2) This character was a slightly crossover with my other story Sinister Intentions featuring Big Time Rush and Cameron Blisset the evil serial killer who targets Logan and Kendall.

(3) Alisa is based off of Alisa Bosconovitch, because I was watching Tekken Blood Vengeance while I was writing this story.

(4) I suck at geography ok, so I don't mean to sound all weirdly stupid when I'm talking about places and stuff.

(5) I dunno if Americans do this but us Irish and English do :)

Zoey xx