A/N: Thanks to all those who have read, reviewed and alerted my story. It truly means a lot. I'm glad that you liked it. Please continue on.
Disclaimer: I do not own Fox or Glee.
Part II
The snow covered the ground, a beautiful white blanket purifying the land. The frost nipping at his nose as he stood on the porch watching it all flow. There was an innocence to this picture that struck his heart and reminded Finn of her. The drastic falling of the snow looked like the flowing of her hair as she withered beneath his touch. The frost biting his toes showed them standing at the pier in the quiet little town. His hands clung to the coffee cup in his hand, the smell reminding him of her kiss.
It had been months since he's seen her, his body aches for her as he recalls their last time together. They had spent every moment they could together once she opened up. He even got her to sing for him, the power and beauty of her voice struck him like nothing ever had before, it still beats in his heart today. He even missed her little dog who would jump in excitement every time he seen him after a while.
They had been together a month when both had received calls from their loved ones inquiring when they would return from their journeys. That day still lingers in his head, as crisp of the winter snow.
Her lips had tasted even the sweeter that day perhaps because he knew it was the last. He chose to take his time and devour each and every piece of her before they were to bid farewell. He has kissed her from head to toe, absorbed her laughter and the smile that would now reach her eyes. He even sang with her a little bit.
"You are quite talented Finn," she smiled with her arms around his neck as they dance to the radio playing in the background. How she was able to rope him into dancing he would never know, she just had this way about her. She made him feel things that he never knew existed. "I would know I'm talented too," the smile that graced her lips cause a shine in her piercing brown eyes. Eyes that one could just get lost in.
Upon arriving home, his life went back to normal. The motions just started flowing, only there was a bit of difference then the regular routine seemed harder and harder to get through. This house no longer felt like home to him. The man whose face smiled back from the wedding picture on the mantle no longer seemed like the same man that got off that plane months ago. He had left in order to find himself in that little sea town; to find himself and find some peace, only his trip has turned him cold. Quinn had even noticed a changed but he could tell she was shrugging it off. It's easier to live in denial then see the distance that was tearing at the seams.
This was his life and no wish upon a star would change that. He promised his life to Quinn for better or worse. Rachel had not tried to come and sway him any which way, so he was stuck here. Alone, far, far away from her.
He was there to help her grieve and say good-bye to the young girl that she once was and now knew could never be again thanks to the passing of her fathers. He helped her from drowning, saved her from the sea, but she was no longer falling into the deep waters. She was home, her life was not sad, so he must stay back and drown. Drown in his emotions that still seemed to linger in his heart for her.
"I was going to be a big Broadway star," the brown of her eyes sparkled as she spoke. There was still this passion that lived within when she spoke of Broadway. It warmed his heart. "My dads they believed in, they believed in me so much, because it was what I was meant for." Her eyes fell after that and she stopped talking of the subject after that. Something had happened to change her plan, something that she didn't want to relive so Finn never pushed her, he just changed the subject or would kiss her senseless. He would kiss her until they ended up withering beneath each other.
He loved it most when the curve of her was curved on him. The simple thought and feel of her next to him warmed his very core.
"Do you ever wish that we could just stay here forever," he smiled down at her as they lay naked next to each other. A fire burning between them as Rachel bit her bottom lip.
She had shaken her head and Finn knew her next words would not please him, "We can't always run from life as wonderful as staying here with you in this bed is." Her lips crashing into his almost instantly to forget talk of not being together and the world that still beats around away from them.
He had to stop thinking of her, Finn knew that but it was just so easy to be pulled in. Shaking her off Finn turned leaving the porch with his stolen thoughts of her.
The days continued to past along and just like the months before she was ever so present in his every waking move. Thoughts of her still haunted him, he needed some kind of medicine to kick the habit of Rachel Berry. It had been one month, they spent one month together and yet the thought of her completely disintegrated him.
His trip was meant to make him start over again and get a second chance at his life to see that everything was no longer irrelevant, and on many levels it did just that. He could still be who he was, his time with Rachel made him a little more grateful.
The meaning of life
The ships that flowed ever of effortless just completely lost to everyone were suppose to teach him the meaning of life, his ships in a bottle were meant for the same thing. The endless staring and complexity of fitting such a massive detailed thing into such a small space, it was an art and now a hobby that he obsessed over. Even that little thing reminded him of her. The flowing of her long beautiful locks, the birth marks that freckled her face, the curve of her hip, the tingle her touch sent through him.
The thoughts were taking control, his breathing slowly picking up as his teeth bore into his bottom lip. His chestnut gaze staring intently into the glass as he slowly pulled the sails up.
It's not much of a life he knows, these ships though were what got him through the everyday. Staring at the ships made it ok to move, kept him holding on, a meaning to life.
This desire he carried for her it was dangerous that much he knew, but everyday it would get through became a success. It was like death of a love one you never forget, and it always haunts you, but you force yourself to keep moving. Keep allowing the day to day to flow and pass you by. Much like those ships at the pier, flowing so effortlessly rocking back and forth with the motion of the ocean.
Placing the finished bottle on a special shelf in his office reserved for his ships, a small smile graced his face as he looked at the many ships finished in such amount of time.
"I cannot think that you respect me," the tingle of her fingertips sent an electricity through his body as her words slowly began the descendent to his ears. He lay with her securely in his arms, her heartbeat against his chest, a heat still through them post lovemaking.
There was a purity in her words, a young naive appeal making him see how little of the world that she was aware of. She spoke like a repentant sinner, but she spoke from depths of the soul that he had never seen before, this was conscious talking. The utter soul-bearing that she would never be able to escape.
Her words tortuous, eating at his inside. He had wanted her so much and now he wondered if she regretted it and was leaving him in the cold for the snow to cover him up and leave him embedded in the frost. The words catching in his throat, "Why would you think such things?" He wanted to say something more, something that would destroy everything, but he just kept the splash at a minimum.
The tears began to fill her chestnut gaze, as her hair tickled his chin. Playing with the band that rested on her finger, her eyelids slowly drifting, "May God forgive me." Was she praying or stating, who knows, but the words echoed through his ears and soaring through his conscious. "I despise myself, I am a wicked fallen woman. I don't even seek some self-justification. I do not worry of deceiving my husband, because it is myself that I have been lying to. Not only with us, but all along."
Where she was going with this Finn did not know, part of him was hoping she was going where he was feeling, or utter mortification that he had made her feel so terrible. He had said from the go of it, that she was dangerous and the more she spoke the more scared he became. His feelings were undeniable she made him feel things that he thought were nothing but made for movies and romance novels. His lips kissed the tip of her head, the smell of her shampoo filling inside him. A scent that would haunt him forever, he could make out nothing distinct just a wonderful fill of smells that all were hers.
She nestled her nose into his chest before daring to continue. "My husband, he is an honest man, a worthy man. I do not know what he does, but I cannot say that I ever really cared to know. I was young when we married, barely out of my teens, just a child that was curious of life and what it all could mean. I had this idea of life and all that I was meant to know and feel and do. My fathers were killed but before that life it killed a dream I dream. Kill part of me that will never return, I know that now, and I told him that I needed to get away. I needed to find me without anyone, because for so long I had been their daughter, no matter what happened, or what failures and lost dreams. I may have married Brody, but I belonged with the Berries." A silence fell over them for just a moment before she continue on, "I told myself that there was a different kind of life, a life that was higher...I went off like a mad woman crazy with grief and perplexity. I have become an ordinary, worthless woman, and everyone has reason to despise me."
Her voiced echo through his entire being, as she through his soul fell into the landfill. The dirt just piling on with every passing word. He was just a simple escape, he understood that now, but her words did change the beat that played within his heart for her. "I don't understand. What is it that you want?" Tears filled his gaze. A cold filling inside him as he felt lost out at sea, a numbness beginning to take over his every soul.
Her face buried deeper into his chest as she thought of her words, thought of what he did not know. All he knew was he wanted her to say that this, them, it was no mistake. These stolen moments of time that they together in this past month did not give her such self-hatred.
"I believe in all that is honest and pure," she spoke. "I believe in truth and justice, but yet here I am the biggest criminal of all."
Their time was up not long after that, he wondered if that was when she had heard from home, but such thoughts were frivolous to think of now. They were a moment in time, a constant craving on his part. He shook his head at the thoughts with the sound of his front door opening. Their moment in the sun long gone, he and Rachel had parted ways. Quinn was his life, his wife, and therefore his future.
Picking himself up, he was going to start again. These past few months haunting him, he needed to remember who he was before he met her. He needed to remember that boy that lived in the wedding photo on the mantle, and leaving in the past to remember that without the blonde that stood in the kitchen did nothing so maybe being with her will change that.
"Hey," his voiced echoed through the kitchen as her eyes stared blankly out the window. His heart was racing as he slowly found his way towards her. Maybe she could be his medicine, save him from the hole that now filled his aching heart. He loved Quinn once, and she him, everything that dies someday comes back, maybe they could come back.
His arms slowly went around her waist, as he pulled her close. The feel of her back against his chest took him somewhere else.
He was at the promenade, her hair done pretty, the light of the candle shining between them. He had moved his chair to sit beside her slowly pulling her into his arms, a small smile gracing her face. The sound of the sea echoed in the background, a light breeze flowing through the fall air. The aimless walking of the people around them and the horn of the boats, her warm body pushed against his gave him a new lease on life.
"You're beautiful," he muttered into her ear.
She never believed him, always tried to find ways to get him to say he was lying. She never thought herself as a beauty or seductive, or romantic. She waited for him to just call her ordinary, but Finn never failed.
Their romance had been magical, more so then anything he had ever felt before. That even now as he was forced back into reality with his arms around his own wife, did he feel what it was that she was talking about on one of their last night's together. He had become an ordinary man, not worthy of love from an extraordinary woman. The moment he saw her she looked like she was someone of importance, and she was. Quinn felt so strange and foreign in his arms, her hair did not smell of Rachel, no electricity shot through his veins, a cold sweat did form on his brow. His heart just beating ever so slow.
Not really sure how to feel about it, he just stood in that spot, watching the snow gather on the ground. Perhaps she always felt this way, cold and indifferent, but it took a bit of passion to realize just how broken they were.
"It's the intervention of fate," she spoke with her bags surrounding all around her. Her coat was bundle up around her with her scarf hung loosely around her neck. Around and around they went, this merry go round of emotions that became them lately. The small dog cried a little in the crate she held her in. The tear sprung to her eyes, but she had not wept.
He knew he needed to let her go. This is what she wanted, and as much as taking her back to the room and hiding out appealed to him it was not reality. Telling her to stay was not an option, her insecurity that he caused was not much of a life. The roaring of the train coming up the tracks is all that filled that moment as they stared into each souls.
The deep chestnut of her eyes made him ache beyond belief as the train pulled up and he took one last look at her. The words right there on his tongue as he watched her board. She turned back to look at him one last time, "I shall think of you all the time. Think of me kindly," she ran from the train for just a moment as her lips crashed lightly onto his. "Goodbye Finn Hudson."
"Good-bye Rachel Berry," he breathe, and like that she was gone. The doors of the train quickly closing. The roar of the train soon silenced as if the world was conspiring to erase this sweet madness from his life, as quickly as it had come. Finn stood even as the sight of the train was long since gone, and finally in this moment of all this time does he feel as if he had been awakened. In all his time with her, he never express that she should stay, he never truly asked. A slight remorse now existed inside of him.
He shook his head of the memory, she felt the same he was sure of it now. He felt alive, and she did too. She had to there was no way, there was too much, too many moments not to feel it. There was a current that flowed through them. They rocked together and stayed afloat like the ships out at sea because they had each other, it had to be. She would think of him, that is not words of a woman who regretted a time.
"I'll be going away on business for a few days," he breath out holding she would believe it.
"Take as long as you want," she slowly unfolded herself from his embrace walking out of the kitchen and away from him.
The coldness of her tone hit me, as he tried to make sense of what had just happened. What does all this mean? Finn did not know, but one thing was certain, he had slowly fallen for Rachel Berry and he couldn't go back.