This was a hard chapter to write. Rachel is HARDDDD to write! Hope I did it convincingly! Enjoy and review! :)

Disclaimer: not mine not mine not mine. well, the story is but not the characters.

Rachel taps her fingers impatiently on the cover of a magazine. She has started and given up reading the thing three times already. She glances over at Kurt and sees that his eyes are shut. "Yes," she thinks to herself; this is her chance. As quietly as she can, Rachel rises from her seat on the plane. Apparently she's not quiet enough.

"He's sitting by himself for a reason, Rachel." Kurt says dryly with his eyes still shut.

Rachel snaps her head back around and answers, "I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about. I'm simply going to the bathroom." She turns from him and continues walking, ignoring Kurt as he murmurs "Mhmmmm."

Okay so she doesn't have to go to the bathroom, but is that any of Kurt's business? Absolutely not. God, she just wants to see if Finn was okay. That is hardly a crime.

She lets out a sigh as she looks at her reflection in the plane's bathroom mirror.

Finn.

How she managed to walk away from him once was beyond her, but TWICE?

She loves him. She really does, and she was completely thrilled all through their date, but something happened when he leaned down to kiss her. She was excited and afraid all at the same time, but in the end her fear took over and she ran away leaving him with nothing but a quick apology.

Ever since, she's tried to wrap her mind around what happened. She told him it was because she wasn't going to let anything keep her from her dream. It wasn't a complete lie, but it wasn't the truth either. Deep down in her heart she knew that Finn would let her go. He was always clear about how much he believed in her, and that's why it hurt so bad. If she and Finn got back together, he would let her go when the time came. He wouldn't beg her to stay in Lima - he would want her to be in the city living a dream. But would she be able to let him go? God, if he only gave the city a chance he could be successful too. This was just too frustrating.

Then she wondered if she was getting ahead of herself. Would Finn and her even make it through senior year? Because she was pretty sure if she had to go through something similar to what happened this year.. well that just wasn't an option. Too much pain. If she actually kissed him would he see fireworks like he saw with Quinn? Would he see anything? There were just so many risks, and she was so insecure when it came to this. So she ran. Ran from him at the end of their date, and turned away from him after they sang Pretending.

She told Kurt she made up her mind after they sang on the stage of the Gershwin Theater. She said that her choice was already made and it was New York.

She lied. She wanted both.

So there she was staring at herself in the tiny mirror of an airplane. Finn had been sleeping when she passed by to slip in to the bathroom. A smile plays on her lips at the thought of him sleeping. He seemed okay, so maybe she should just slip past him again on her way out of the bathroom unnoticed and return to her seat.

She cracks the door open as quietly as she can, but she notices he's not sleeping any longer. She frowns as she notices him rubbing his head, and as though it was instinct she asks if he's okay.

She doesn't only want to know about his head.

Or his ears.

Somehow, after she hands him the gum she bought him, she breaks the force holding her to him, and turns around quickly.

It takes all her might not to sit next to him. It takes all her strength to walk back to the front of the plane.

But Kurt was right. He was back there by himself for a reason. To avoid the pain that she was causing him.

Rachel was pretty sure she stood at the front door for fifteen minutes before she actually worked up the courage to ring the doorbell. "Please don't open the door. Please don't open the door," she whispers to herself. But really, some part of her wants Finn to be the one to open up the door. She breaths out a sigh, half of relief, half of disappointment, when she sees it's Carole who appears.

"Hey Rachel!" Carole says and gives her a quick hug. "I'm so sorry about nationals, but I heard you were fantastic as always."

"Thank you Mrs. Hummel," Rachel replies shyly "I'm quite positive we will have another shot next year. Kurt's upstairs?"

"Yes. He's very excited about the marathon you two are going to have. He was talking so fast I couldn't even understand him. What are you two going to watch?"

Rachel's face lights up. "Oh, well, since we just got back from New York we decided to watch the classic broadway movies. We'll probably start with 42nd Street or Gypsy, and then who knows!" She was probably talking just as fast as Kurt had.

Carole laughs, "Well okay, go on upstairs and get started."

"Thank you!" Rachel sings, and bounces upstairs, thankful that Kurt's room is the first on the left.

"Kurt?" Rachel says as she swings his door open. He's sitting at his vanity rubbing one of his thousands of facial products onto his skin.

"Hey Barbra," he replies, "let me just finish this, and I'll go down and get your crazy vegan snacks, and we can start!"

"Wait, before that I have something I want to show you," Rachel walks over to Kurt and he realizes what she has in her hand immediately: a stack of sheet music.

"No, no, no," Kurt shouts automatically. "School JUST ended this afternoon. I do not want to hear you talk for three hours about what songs you think we should do for Sectionals next year." Kurt then rose from his seat at his vanity, grabs the music out of Rachel's hand, and places it in his dresser drawer. "There. Now you wont even be able to look or think about it."

Rachel pouts for a second, and then squeals in surprise and Kurt takes her hand and spins her around. "We're going to eat weird vegan food and enjoy ourselves tonight, okay?" he looks at her with big Kurt eyes, and she lets out a loud genuine laugh.

"Fine. But we are certainly going to look at some of the selections I made tomorrow morning." Rachel gives in.

"I'll just ignore that last thing you said." Kurt claps his hands and skips out of the room.

Rachel rolls her eyes and sits down on Kurt's bed. She tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear, and looks out the window just in time to see Finn's car pull out of the driveway. Automatically, her head drops down and she shuts her eyes. Well, it was only a matter of time until her mind wandered back to him. What had it been, ten minutes? That was probably a record.

"Rachel!" she hears Kurt yell from downstairs. "Can you go in Finn's room and take the batteries out of his X-box controller? He always takes them from my remote."

Her eyes go wide, "N-No, Kurt-"

"I can't hear youuuu! Just do it, I'll be up in a minute." he answers, ignoring her again.

Rachel pushes herself off the bed and stomps her way down the hallway to Finn's room. Why couldn't Kurt find the batteries while shegot the snacks? She was supposed to be here hanging out with Kurt. Not thinking about Finn. Nonetheless, she pushes open his door, and her mood softens instantly as she inhales the scent of his room. She stands still for a moment, and then shakes her head as she remembers what she was there for. What did an X-box controller even look like? She picks a few odd things up and examines them, until she finds a small green controller resting on his nightstand. She moves to grab the controller, and that is when it catches her eye.

Rachel's lips part slightly at the sight of the snow globe resting next to the controller. She sinks down onto the edge of his bed, and picks it up, causing the snow to move slightly through the glass dome. Had Finn really bought a snow globe with the New York skyline in it?

She lifts her hand up to her chest to find her heart pounding, the other hand grazing over the bottom of the souvenir. It's impossible for her to focus on any of the ten million things running through her mind at this moment, and - god her heart is beating so damn fast. She's not going to cry, no she absolutely will not under any circumstances let herself cry. "Put the thing down and go back to Kurt's room," she tells herself, but as she launches off the bed she trips over the garbage can, knocking it over and causing papers to fall out all over the carpet.

"Oh!" she squeaks and crouches to the floor to gather the garbage. After all the papers are in a messy stack, she glances down at the shiny cover of what appears to be a brochure on the very top of the pile.

As soon as she sees the three letters she falls from the crouch so that she is fully sitting on the carpet. "NYU". She blinks her eyes a few times to make sure she's seeing it right, and then moves the brochure a little to see what's under it. "Marymount Manhattan," reads the second brochure cover in big white bold letters. Short of breath, her throat chokes up a bit, and she is begging herself not to lose her composure.

But the rest of the pile is the same. Brochures from schools in New York. In New York City.

When she reaches the end of the pile, one of her hands rises up to cover her mouth, and she lets her tears fall freely. Her eyes shut tightly, and she feels the warmth rolling down her face, and listens as the tears drop down onto the papers in her hand. She brings the pile of brochures up to her chest and hugs them tightly before she opens her eyes again.

She tries to catch her breath.

Why.. why were all these brochures here? Deep down she thinks she knows the truth, but she needs some answers. She needs to see him.

Before she can stop herself she's practically running out the door, clutching all of the papers in one hand. She passes Kurt, nearly knocking a bowl of popcorn out of his hand. She zips past Carole before she has a chance to say anything, opens the front door, and leaves the house.