A/N: because I had a take on this in my head that I needed to work out before I could get back to other writing. It's a little different from others, I think.

Disclaimer: Don't own Glee. But if those who do want to have any of this, go right ahead.

Rachel sat numbly on the train to New York, still wrenched from her abrupt parting with Finn. When she woke up that day, she had been so happy, it was her wedding day... until it wasn't, and Finn tore himself away from her. But despite her misery, the rocking of the train started to soothe her, and she eventually dozed off.

On awaking she went to her suitcase to dig out her cleanser, but at the top of her case was a letter, addressed to her, in Finn's handwriting. She almost didn't dare to look, what he'd already said had hurt so much; but he clearly had something more to say, and she decided that if she was going to suffer she might as well suffer it all at once.

Dear Rachel,

By now you're on the train, at least, and you're hurt by what I've just done. There won't have been much time to explain, so here is my attempt to help you understand why I had to do what I did.

I love you more than anything. And I do want to marry you, I want forever with you. But I've been thinking about all that means, the whole thing the Jewish ceremony says about a man and woman joining together, giving up their pasts and becoming one soul – and the more I want it the more I know I can't do it, not now. I can't walk away from my past, not from my dad. I have to clear his name and get closure on all that before I can become this new thing with you that I want to be so much. His name is my name and I have to redeem it. And I need to do this on my own, I can't get in the way of what you need to do and I also need to do this by myself to prove that I can. To prove that I can accomplish something by myself, as a man, because so far I never have. And you have so much ahead of you, I can't accept that you defer it for me, I could never live with myself if you gave up NYADA and Broadway for me, now or ever. You are a star and you need to shine, that's what stars do. (Told you I didn't sleep through Stardust.) I need to earn what I get, earn this redemption for my family and earn my place at your side before we can really be together. If I can't – I don't want to think about that, but then you have to move on without me, and either way I have to set you free.

Ultimately no matter how many times I think about it, it always comes out the same: you need to go to New York, and I have to go somewhere else.

I am so sorry that it has to be like this, so sudden, but I can't take the chance that I'll bail on going ahead with this as soon as I see you cry, because I'm pretty sure I would. I know I'm going to cry then too. So I'm not just boxing you in so you have to go, I'm boxing myself in so I have to make you. And I want to have these last few days to enjoy being with you, I know that's selfish but you should try to remember those days too. (Tenses suck but you know what I mean.) I'm doing my best to make them wonderful and make it so you can't tell how much this is tearing me up inside, but it is. I have to set you free to fly and shine and do what you were meant to do, even if it puts you out of reach. And someday, if we are really meant to be the way we think we are, then the universe will bring us back together.

Love,
Finn

Rachel read this letter over and over on the train, seeing the discolored spots that showed how Finn had cried while writing it. She added her own tears too, making crying over that letter the last thing uniting them, in some sort of sick symbolism.

On arrival in New York, she met her dads and got a bit of a sense of how Finn had approached them, how upset he'd been, and how conflicted they were. They certainly hadn't been sorry that the wedding hadn't happened, but they had been touched by what he'd done, and they could tell how upset and miserable she was without Finn. Without the man who had made himself so essential to her only to push her away, supposedly for her own good.

But she read the letter a few more times, tried to remember as well as she could what he'd said at the train station (as opposed to things she'd said that he simply hadn't disputed), and eventually composed herself. This wouldn't be forever, or even necessarily that long. It couldn't be, she couldn't live with that. And as far as she was concerned, they were still engaged; he hadn't said otherwise and she refused to let that go.

But since Finn had arranged everything to effectively not give her a chance to have her say, she needed to do that now. She took her time, and after several hours produced an email, which she sent to him.

My beloved Finn,

I have cried and raged over what you sprang on me, turning it over in my head, thinking about the things you said and the questions you didn't answer. I miss you so very much. But thank you for your letter, it helps me hope that this ugly and heartrending separation is just temporary.

I don't entirely understand what you're doing, and I certainly don't agree with you pushing me away. But I accept it, for now, and you have to know that I always support you in whatever it is that you are trying to accomplish. I believe in you, I always have and I always will. So if the support you need is me going on with my studies at NYADA, and letting you do what you need to do – whatever that is – then you will have that. You send me to New York out of love for me, and I go out of love for you.

However, you need to understand two things.

One, no matter what you say or do, you cannot set me free, not completely. I love you, Finn. And despite how hurt and angry I am at having the life I thought I was going to have with you snatched away at the last minute, I do understand why you did it, and your sacrifice, however potentially misguided, just makes me love you more. I can't be free of you and I don't want to be, so give that idea up. As far as I'm concerned we are already one soul.

Two, this works both ways, and I do not set you free. I have reached my limit of how many times I will let you walk away from me. You came back, so: you are mine, Finn Hudson. As long as you love me, you are mine, and I am not giving you up even if we have to be apart. We made a promise to each other, one that you were quite insistent on making, and I am holding you to it. As for the universe, I fully intend that it should bend to our will when it comes to us. If it keeps us apart for too long then it is a pathetic and cruel universe and I don't want it. You wouldn't let me stop trying when it came to getting into NYADA, and I'm certainly not going to stop trying when it comes to you. But I will do what you need me to, for you, because I love you.

Keep yourself alive and well, do what you need to do, and come back to me. Come to New York and look for the star that always shines so much more for you. I'll shine as brightly as I can, for the sake of the dream I have (but only part of it – the rest of my dream is you) and because you dream it for me too. When you've honored your past, proven to yourself you are the man that I know you are, and redeemed the name that by rights should some day belong to our children, honor your future too. Our future. Because as I said, my home isn't New York, it's you; I won't be at home here until you are with me.

Yours, always
Rachel *

Two days later she received Finn's reply, a text message of a single word: Understood.

She still desperately missed him. But she had work to do and so did he.

END