Back to Glee club after the Christmas break. This can be read as a standalone but really a continuation of "I don't wanna hurt" since it's my take on what should happen for Finchel.

Rated T, I guess?

Disclaimer: I don't own anything but my writing :)

Finn's first instinct when he got to school on the first Monday of January was to go over to Rachel's locker, as he always did before class to greet her and with hope get some smooches before a dumb lesson. He had met Sam in the bus ride over to McKinley High and they had been engrossed in a conversation about football tactics for the upcoming game, in a fortnight. Sam's ideas were good and they agreed to take them to coach Beiste as soon as the day was over, well before Tuesday's practice.

When he got to Rachel, however, the look of surprise and questioning on her face reminded him that he wasn't meant to be there. It wasn't like he had forgotten that they weren't together anymore but it seemed like old habits really did die hard and his legs had brought him here before his mind could have stopped him.

"Hi" he said, cringing a little.

"Hi", she answered, "happy new year" she added quickly, giving a faint smile that faded immediately.

"Yeah, you too", he smiled meekly. "Hey, I didn't see you at Quinn's New Year's Eve party; it was a lot of fun!"

Her breath caught in her throat and she sighed heavily, "I guess my invitation got lost in the mail" she said softly, shaking her head and averting her eyes.

"But she didn't send invitations, she called every… oh…" Finn trailed, finally understanding the bitterness in Rachel's voice. She hadn't been invited. And by the look of it hadn't even known about the party before this instant. It was not good, was it supposed to be a secret?

He hadn't asked Quinn about Rachel's absence at the party because he didn't want to seem interested and when no one had mentioned her to him he figured that they were being sensible about the breakup and didn't want to hurt his feelings. Then again, he hadn't told anyone specifically that they had broken up. Not that it was going to stay a secret long, considering the fact that they shared pretty much every piece of information, but still, it felt weird that no one had talked to him, now he thought about it.

He hadn't noticed Rachel's absence before late in the evening, when Santana had suggested they kissed at midnight, actually. He'd watched around to make sure Rachel hadn't overheard them. He had declined her offer anyway and, when the countdown had started, made a dash to the kitchen on the false pretense of refilling his cup so that he'd been able to avoid the effusions of joy and hugs and kisses that went with the starting of the new year.

He'd stayed at the party until the early hours of day, playing Wii with Puck and Mike and had again wondered, when everybody had gathered to sing, when Rachel could have been.

He hadn't called or texted her the next day. Mostly because he didn't know if he ought to, despite the fact that he wanted to. And by Sunday it was too late anyway so he'd dismissed the thought entirely.

But now that he was in front of her in the hallway he wondered what she had done for the occasion, since he knew for a fact that her fathers weren't supposed to be home this year, having been invited to a party of their own. She'd been the first to say to Mr. Schuester that nobody should be alone for Christmas, even inviting him herself before Coach Sylvester had organized the surprise party for their teacher. But spending New Year's Eve alone was nearly as bad, he felt. And finding about a party you hadn't been invited to wasn't so much fun either, he realized with shame.

He felt an urge to hug Rachel to comfort her. The look in her eyes was really sad, almost resigned. He gave a tentative half smile and his eyes trailed to the inside of her locker door. It was bare. No more cat calendar, no magazine cutout with his name on it, nothing but the remnants of the tack that had been holding the tokens of their time together. She observed him for a couple of seconds as he eyed her locker, then shrugged and closed it, waking him up.

"Well, see you at rehearsal I guess", she murmured, turning her back to him and heading to her class.

He watched her go. Would they ever get pass the awkward small talk? They'd been best friends for a long time and losing that on top of everything else was hard to bear. And seeing her depressed wasn't great either. Watching her try to make him forgive her had been upsetting, with her hopeful looks and overexcited attitudes, he'd wanted her to stop but, now that she had, he was wondering if he didn't miss it a little. He'd never seen her as the type to give up. But he had been clear enough officially breaking up with her. He'd also walked out on her, for which he had felt bad afterwards since they had come with Burt's truck and he had left her stranded at the Christmas tree farm.

The bell shook him back to reality and he hurried to his Spanish class. He sat next to Puck just when Mr. Schuester started talking to them, wishing them a "feliz año nuevo".

Next period was English, he'd be able to talk to Quinn. He wanted to ask her why she hadn't invited Rachel to the party.

"Oh, so am I supposed to invite her now?" the cheerleader asked. "I thought you'd be bringing her I guess, not that I really wanted her there anyway. So why didn't you?"

"We broke up", he answered.

"I don't understand why you'd have wanted her there then," Quinn added questioningly.

Finn shrugged, "it's just … she spent the night alone, it doesn't feel right."

"Who broke up with whom anyway?" she asked raising an eyebrow.

"I did." The look on her face clearly screamed "so why do you care?"

"Forget I asked" he whispered when he saw the teacher eyeing them suspiciously.

He'd never noticed the things were that bad between his two now exes. But now that he thought of if, the last thing Quinn had said to Rachel that he knew of was that she wanted to punch her in the face every time Rachel talked. And that she'd been the one telling Mercedes about him and Santana. Ouch, how had he missed that?

He quickly shook the feeling off. He had ended things for a reason. He had to stick to what he believed and not give in to some stupid urge he might have to protect Rachel Berry. She didn't need him anyway; she'd always been big enough to take care of herself. And he was still deeply wounded by what she had done to him.

"Before we start with this week's assignments" started Mr. Schuester "I want you to hand me those forms signed by your parents as soon as possible, I need their permission to take you see Vocal Adrenaline's sectionals. We need the emulation of the competition and seeing them without Jesse and with Sunshine might help see what we need to do at Regionals."

At the mention of Sunshine's name several heads turned towards Rachel.

"Guy, guys, don't start on Rachel. I don't think anything can compete with a condo and a green card, anyway, so let's focus on our strengths and not on how we could have beat them, had things been the other way around."

"Thanks Mr. Schue," whispered Rachel, looking at her hands clasped in her lap.

"So for this week, I want you to choose a country song that speaks to you and present that in Friday's class," some people scoffed. "Don't laugh guys, there's a country music festival coming up and I want us to perform on their open mike night. So if you're interested, put your heart in the sing-off and the winners will decide on the songs we do there." The sniggering ceased, being replaced by hooting and cheers from the class. A performance, whichever one as long as it was not in front of their fellow students at MKH, would always be welcomed amongst the Glee club.

They spent the rest of the session harmonizing over a canon song which was really fun to do and took their minds off anything else for a while.

Finn really liked the song, "the chain" by Ingrid Michaelson and promised himself he would check her music online later.

He'd started to notice that since he'd broken things with Rachel, or rather since she had stated that last Christmas she'd asked for him just after singing "Last Christmas", he was paying more attention to lyrics in songs. He realized that he had often just listened to the melody of certain songs, especially ballads, not necessarily listening to what they said and figured he was probably missing something out of some of them.

So that night when he checked Ingrid Michaelson's myspace and finally found this other song with canon in it that Mr. Schue had mentioned, he concentrated on the lyrics for once and let the song surround him.

It wasn't the kind of music he usually listened to, more the one that Rachel did. Again, he was thinking about her, that would be dated soon he berated himself, trying to get back in the song. But it was no good. The harmonies were fantastic and the canon part was really touching but the lyrics ate at him, between "is love alive?" repeated over and over again and verses like:

This is my winter song

December never felt so wrong

'Cause you're not where you belong

Inside my arms.

How was he supposed to move on?

It kept reminding him of "her" and the fact that she wasn't there anymore, on his decision of course, but still. He couldn't help himself thinking about her all the time, and every time it hurt to remember that she had cheated on him. Every single time.

He had to get past this. She had been his girlfriend, he had loved her, they had had something great, had been part of something special, but it was over, done, case closed and filed. He'd have to be very accurate with the past tense, and not find himself thinking about her as if they were still in the present.

Finn turned off his laptop before going downstairs for dinner. He would have to change his computer's wallpaper in the morning he thought with gloom, as he watched his and Rachel's faces smiling back at him before the Apple© logo took over and the screen finally turned to black.

TBC

I promise I am going somewhere with this, just be patient! :)