Finn is the first person to find Rachel after the Vocal Adrenaline egg ambush. After cursing loudly and resisting the urge to drive to Carmel and throw something a little bit harder, like his fist, at that coward St. James, he takes Rachel to the football locker room to clean up. After checking that no one else is in the room, he locks the door and leads her to his locker. He pulls out the shorts, and t-shirt that he always keeps there for when he forgets to bring them one day and hands them to her with the promise that he won't look. The shirt looks like a tent hanging off her small frame, with the sleeves reaching her wrists, but at least it's clean. She tries to tie the shorts on in an acceptable manner, but they fall off even when tied tight, so she just wears the shirt. It covers more of her legs than her ruined skirt does anyway. After she's changed, Finn offers to help her rinse out her hair. So they pull a bench over to the sink and he tries to ask her what exactly happened. Instead, she laments the deaths of all those poor, innocent, baby chicks, and the only thing he can think of to comfort her is "They probably wanted to die after being touched by those slimeballs anyway." This hypothesis is met by a gasp, followed by "That's a horrible thing to say!" Secretly, though, she's grateful that Finn's the one that found her because she knows that, even after everything they've been through this semester, he'll always be there for her. And also because he's the only one that could be so vehemently angry at those monsters and still make her want to laugh in spite of herself.
Finn doesn't know how he and the rest of the glee club make it from the auditorium to their bus traveling toward home, but they do. He was understandably devastated by the results, but he still had hope. Those judges were crazy. Mr. Figgins couldn't possibly want to end the club after their performance. Surely Mr. Shue could convince him to give them another chance. Coach Sylvester was on the judging panel after all, and Figgins has to know by now that she's been out to get them all along. A small voice breaks his train of thought. "I failed." Rachel whispers. "What are you talking about? You were perfect today." Finn assures her. He tells her that they would've had it in the bag if it weren't for that witch and did she notice that cackle when she announced that the evil ones had won? So the rest of the bus ride is spent listening to Finn and Artie make jokes about how Coach Sylvester is secretly green and warty and uses Cheerios as test subjects for new spells, which explains why Santana is such a bitch and Brittany is so stupid. The former even chimes in with a joke about how Kurt was allowed on the squad under the condition that he be the first test subject for the anti-gay potion she's been perfecting. And it obviously wasn't perfect enough because it was clearly ineffective, despite Kurt's brief butch phase. This sends the entire group into howls of laughter until Brittany kills the joke when she asks if the coach is the real daddy of Quinn's baby. Somehow, Rachel knows that somehow, they're going to be okay.
As Finn waits for Rachel before their maybe-date the day after sectionals, he begins to wonder what the hell he's doing. He doesn't deserve her, he's already proven that. He's dumb and untalented, which was made perfectly clear the night before. She couldn't possibly want to be with him. That kiss in the stairwell was just a reaction to his emphatic plea to motivate the glee club and that smile when he told her he loved her had to be a holy-crap-why-did-he-say-that-I'm-just-going-to-smile smile. Right? He's still thinking about how he doesn't deserve her when she arrives at her front door, so he gives her a I'm-totally-freaking-out-but-I'm-really-happy-to-see-you-right-now smile. His act doesn't fool her though, so when they get seated at Breadsticks, she is quick to ask him what's wrong. "I don't deserve you," he says simply because he knows he'll never be enough to keep her happy. "You take that back this instant!" she demands. She hates hearing him talk like this, he's a great guy who deserves everything the world has to offer. Any girl would be lucky to have such a loyal boy, no, man, in her life. What she doesn't understand is why he seems to have chosen her. She's too dramatic and neurotic. And she's damaged goods, still reeling from her sham of a relationship with Jesse. Somewhere in that tirade, Finn realizes that the feeling of inferiority he's had is really just a drive to be better, instilled in him by the brilliant young woman sitting across the table from him. Seeking to remedy their current situation, he slides out of his side of the booth and into hers, breaking her long-winded speech with a kiss before she even thinks to ask what he's doing. Their embrace is broken only when their server arrives to ask what type of breadsticks they would like before their meal. Why that question even needed to be asked, they will never know, but after ordering bread sans garlic, they resume their previous activity.
Two days after their first date, Finn and Rachel are at the grocery store debating which type of ice cream to get. Rachel's vote is for the low-fat vanilla frozen yogurt. Finn, on the other hand wants the chocolate ice cream with chocolate syrup and chocolate chunks. As Rachel suggests that he buy a dark chocolate bar to melt and mix in with the yogurt, Shelby Corcoran turns the corner and catches her eye. Finn watches dumbfounded as Rachel stands frozen to her spot and Ms. Corcoran approaches them with baby Beth in tow. As mother and daughter make small talk, Finn contemplates the fact that he is now dating his almost-daughter's sort-of sister. And his ex-girlfriend is his new girlfriend's sister's mother. When he remembers Puck's role in this whole mess, Finn checks back into the conversation to hear Rachel congratulating her mother on her victory at Regionals and on her new baby. Ms. Corcoran politely thanks her and explains that Beth was just released from the hospital and she couldn't wait to get her home to Carmel. She doesn't mention anything about who Beth's biological parents are, that information is unnecessary and could only hurt the fragile girl in front of her. Rachel manages to keep her happy façade for the rest of the conversation, but crumbles as soon as the woman who never wanted to be her mother is out of earshot. "Why am I so completely unlovable?" she asks as Finn pulls her close and rubs her back. All she's ever wanted is to be wanted, yet here she was, spurned by her own mother, traded in for a newer model. "You're not unloveable. I love you." Finn murmurs. Rachel thanks him, but tells him that it's not the same as she opens the freezer and takes out the triple-chocolate ice cream. She'll spend an extra hour on the treadmill tomorrow, this just became a chocolate kind of day.
Rachel finds Finn slumped against his locker on the last day of school. When she asks him why he's not jumping for joy at the prospect of an entire summer to themselves, he hands her his report card and says "I'm an idiot." As Rachel scans the paper, she sees a column mostly comprised of Cs with an F at the bottom next to the words 'World Geography.' When Rachel asks him what he's going to do about it in her important business voice, he tells her that he's going to have to retake the class in summer school, throwing in another comment about how stupid he is. "Don't say that." Rachel protests. She'll never understand how he can get so down on himself so quickly. Confidence has never really been his strong suit, but this is a new low for him. She's never seen him so down on himself, not even when he first joined glee club and found out about Quinn's pregnancy. The closest he's ever been to this level of self-loathing was right after the news of Quinn and Puck's affair broke, but he had been so angry with them at the time that he seemed to ignore his part in the equation. Of course he isn't stupid, the school setting is just not conducive to his learning style. She'll work with him this summer to find a study plan that works for him. Finn begrudgingly agrees to work with her, if only because it might be the only time they get to spend together this summer. Or maybe it's because he knows that at least some of her brilliance will have to rub off on her eventually.
Finn sneaks into Rachel's dressing room after Rachel's opening night performance in the Lima Community Theater production of South Pacific. She gives a soft shriek when he covers her eyes, but jumps into his arms for a kiss when she realizes that it's him and not one of those creepy stalkers that stars always have to worry about. "Wait, you can't be here." She says when he sets her down. This is a girl's dressing room and no one is allowed backstage unless they are part of the cast or crew. Non-theater folk have a tendency to ruin the sets, and they can't let that happen on opening night. "But I'm already here." Finn points out as he stoops down to kiss her again. Rachel gives in for a moment, but quickly recovers and tries to push his large frame toward the door, telling him exactly what the director would do if he found him, a civilian, backstage. She's seen others receive the punishment and she wouldn't wish that on that scumbag Jesse St. James, let alone on Finn. But of course, he refuses to budge and Rachel relents after he promises to stay behind the door so that no one can see him. He thinks that it would be better to be caught in the open than to be caught hiding behind a door like a creeper, but she insists, so he waits for her to tell him the coast is clear before the sneak outside. He tries to make it a spy game by somersaulting past a corridor, but gives up the act after knocking over a broom, eliciting a hiss of displeasure from Rachel. Still, she is unable to contain her laughter as they slip into the safety of the unrestricted parking lot.
