"I'll be awake and I'll be with you..."
He may be the only boy in Ohio who drives like an eighty-year-old woman. He gets honked at a lot, especially on the freeway. But he doesn't care. Driving is scary. He's glad Mr. Henry, the mailman, is doing well. And didn't press charges. But he has a hard time keeping the speedometer at twenty tonight – he feels like he wants to speed as fast as he can to Rachel's house. He feels like all his cells are flying apart, like he's going to explode if he doesn't see her right now. He eases the accelerator down a touch and chances going twenty-eight on the empty, dark roads.
He remembers driving her home after their date at the bowling alley. Yes, it really was a date, wasn't it? Their first date. It should've been totally awesome but he ruined it all because he was lying to her, manipulating her, even though he really did want to be with her – the truth and the lies-by-omission got so mixed up in his head, he didn't know what he was doing. He was a bundle of nerves, even more so pulling up to her house to drop her off because he knew he wanted to kiss her again but didn't think it was right.
She solved that problem for him, leaning over the center console to kiss him quickly on the mouth before leaping out of the car and running to her house, giving him a little wave and a big smile as she went inside, leaving him stunned and more confused than ever and longing for her more than ever, wishing more than ever that things were different.
He's a bundle of nerves now, too, but for so many different reasons.
There – that's her house up there. And he can see her! She's standing on the porch waiting for him! Now she's running down the lawn toward his car. He wants to run to her but she's done it already, yanking open the passenger door and jumping in as soon as he's come to a stop. Who but Rachel Berry would ever run to him? Would Quinn have ever agreed to get up in the middle of the night and meet him like this? No. No, because she's a lying, selfish, cheating, terrible-
He grabs her, pulls down her raincoat hood so he can bury his hands in her soft hair as he kisses her greedily, like he hasn't seen her in a month. Her lips are cold, her skin is cold and damp, but he does his best to warm her up, kissing her all over her face, holding her as close as he can. It's not enough - he wishes his mom's car had bench seats up front.
"Rachel, I need you," he tells her, his throat feeling tight with tears.
"I'm here, Finn." He moves his hand, finding the zipper on her jacket, pulling it down, easing his hand inside. She whimpers a little, so softly, but touches his face, leaning back. "Finn... Finn, wait. Let's-let's go somewhere else."
Good idea. She's so smart.
"this precious time when time is new..."
He drives like a bat out of hell, pushing thirty-five but feeling like his body is moving twice as fast, as she instructs him with turn-by-turn instructions to a dark, secluded road running between a wooded area and the Oak Lawns Golf Course where he used to caddy when he was fourteen. He holds her hand the whole way.
He turns the car off but leaves the stereo on, low. They sit in the dark for a moment, holding hands, looking at each other in the thin light from the sole streetlight down the way, his stomach fluttering, his skin buzzing like a hive of bees. She absently sings along to the song on the radio, softly, "All through the night to day, knowing that we feel the same without saying."
And in the space of a breath, they're kissing, they're touching, he's taking off her pink raincoat, she's pushing off his gray hoodie, the center console is driving him mad, she's still so far away and so they're climbing between the seats to get to the back, their hands everywhere, his fingers nervous and shaky on her fastenings, their lips fighting to stay together as they work to get each other's clothes off in the small space and it reminds him of their first time earlier that day, a lifetime ago, on his narrow bed, the same outrageous urgency, the same eager nervousness, the same awkward fumbling with the rubber.
He's still going crazy the way he was then, he's still not nearly close enough to her, his body and his mind flying all over the place until finally, finally, they're both naked and pressed together, she's there upon him, sitting down on his lap, straddling his hips, and he's inside, burying himself inside her, the most wonderful secret world he could ever imagine, burying his face against her breast, burying his fingers in her hair, and only then do all his atoms and molecules and cells come back together again and he feels whole, feels grounded and calm, oddly calm for a teenage boy in the midst of a sexual act, and it's not like that first time at all because it feels so peaceful and easy and he suddenly understands everything, everything makes sense, and it feels like he's home - she feels like home.
She is his home.
"once we start, the meter clicks and it goes running all thru the night..."
He lays his hoodie over top of her as best he can, trying to keep the chill off her teeny tiny (but rockin') body. She is his blanket, her skin warm and soft on his as she snuggles on top of him, tucking her head under his chin, so he's good.
He's very good.
He's really really really good right now.
He can't stop grinning.
"So what did you want to tell me about your talk with your mom?" she says.
He stops grinning. Oh yeah. That. He actually forgot about all that for a while. He wishes he could forget that forever. It makes him angry and hurts like hell, like he's being kicked in the kidneys.
She lifts her head up to look at him. Her eyes are huge and like shining crystals, even in the darkness here. "You can tell me anything, you know," she says in a small voice. She's scared of what he might say, he knows it. But she'll listen anyway because she wants to hear what he has to say, because she's Rachel Berry, because she's awesome, and because she said "I love you" like she's been saying it to him for years.
"I love you," he says. He likes the way she smiles when he says it. It reminds him of the way she smiles at him when they sing together.
"I love you, too." He knows he could get lost in that smile. He wants to. But instead he strokes her hair and gently presses her head back down onto his chest. If she's looking at him, he'll just stay lost in that moment and never say what he needs to tell her. He keeps stroking her hair as he opens his mouth and starts to talk.
Starts and just can't stop.
"Quinn's baby isn't mine, I couldn't have gotten her pregnant because we never had sex, not the way you and me have sex, I mean we never had any kind of sex, me and Quinn, I didn't mean we had oral or anything like that, that's not what I meant, not butt sex either because that's weird and-and, yeah, and so you can't get pregnant in a hot tub like how Quinn said it happened, that's what my mom explained to me and I'm such an idiot for believing her, Quinn I mean, I believe my mom because she's smart and old and my mom and stuff and she was all frowny and shaking her head like that time I washed her car with steel wool when I was nine so I know she thinks I'm an idiot even though she didn't say it and I just wish I'd googled all of this months ago but I believed her, I trusted her, you know? and if it's not my baby, whose is it then? why did she say it was mine, why would she do that, why would she cheat on me, why did she lie to me, what'd I ever do to her that she'd play me like that?" He gasps for breath, shaking, wild-eyed but not seeing anything. She doesn't say anything but reaches up, takes his hand, the one that was touching her hair. He realizes how hard he was just stroking it and freezes, terrified. "Oh god sorry, I'm sorry! Did I hurt you?"
"No, baby bear," she says gently, kissing his fingers, holding his hand close, tucking it under her chin.
"Sorry," he says again. "I just...I'm just so..."
She sits up a little now, scooting up so she can look him straight in the eyes, hovering over him, her hair falling around her face. He reaches up and gently, so carefully, tucks it behind her ear. "Finn," she starts in a serious voice, her I'm-Rachel-Berry-and-this-is-the-truth-dammit voice, "you didn't do anything wrong. You didn't do anything to deserve what Quinn did. It's not your fault."
"But I should've known better."
She doesn't say anything about that, instead saying, "I'm glad you spoke to your mom about all this. As lame as parents are, sometimes they come in handy. They're not always wrong about everything." She grins as she adds, "Just most things."
That's one of the hundred reasons why he loves Rachel Berry – because she never calls him a moron or stupid or puts him down because he doesn't catch on as fast as other people. He knows he can be a total idiot sometimes and he knows he can't dance and he knows he drives like an old lady but she just accepts him and always knows what to say to make him feel better. She makes him feel like a better man.
But... But he's still not good enough.
"I know I don't deserve you," he says aloud. It catches her by surprise and she opens her mouth to protest but he goes on. "I know your dreams are bigger than me-"
"Finn, I didn't-"
"I'm not good enough for you, Rachel. But I want to be. I will be. I'm going to be. I promise."
Her surprised face suddenly crumples up and she starts crying. Oh shit, he didn't mean to make her cry! Oh shit, oh shit! He's about to apologize but her lips are crashing down onto his, stealing his words, claiming his tongue. Her hand is leading his down to her bottom, making him grab her there the way he knows she likes. For a second, he's still, doesn't know what to do - are those happy tears or sad tears? Why is she still crying? He will never understand women, like, ever ever ever.
But then her hips shift over his, rubbing in a slow circle, and he knows exactly what to do.
"keep with me forward all through the night..."
Sex makes him hungry, he's learned with great joy. Playing video games makes him hungry, too. So does watching TV and singing and dancing and suicide drills and eating and thinking about stuff and thinking about sex and driving. But having sex makes him particularly hungry; he could eat a whole pancake house right now. She starts giggling when his stomach starts growling like, well, like a bear. Now he thinks he understands why she calls him that nickname.
He's got to think of a good one for her, too. Something as cute and sweet as she is. A berry name? Strawberry? She's not really red though. Blueberry? Cute and sweet and a little tart. And blue. Which means sad, too. Blueberry Pancake? Those are sweet and not sad and warm and taste delicious with syrup on top (and so would she) and would be really good right now with a side of bacon. And two eggs sunny side up.
"There's an all-night Big Boy just up I-75, near Beaverdam," he tells her eagerly. It's three a.m. but he's not sleepy at all. "Wanna go?"
"we have no past, we won't reach back..."
He takes her hand as they walk across the parking lot toward the bright, warmly lit, inviting Big Boy. It's like a lighthouse, surrounded by a sea of dark, empty farmland and freeway. He can see a few people inside, truckers it looks like.
"You know, I thought about being a truck driver. When I um...when I thought I was gonna have to support Quinn and everything," he says, trying to swallow down the sharpness that rises in his throat. Her hand tightens around his.
"Finn?" He looks down at her. Her face is very serious. "You'd make a terrible trucker."
He grins. "I know, right? If I were hauling food, it'd all be rotten by the time I got where I was going."
"But you don't have to be a trucker. You can be anything you want to be now," she says brightly, leading him through the front door, a bounce in her step.
"You think so?"
"I know so," she says with confidence.
A spread of warmth fills his chest as he follows her to a table and sits down across from her. He stares at her, wide-eyed, smiling, amazed as always. He believes her, what she said. He believed what Quinn used to say, too, but...but he never loved Quinn, he knows, and he knows Quinn never loved him, never believed in him, not the way Rachel does. And that makes all the difference.
Rachel doesn't know how to do anything less than all the way. When she sings, she's giving it every ounce of her heart and her body and her soul. When she stands up for something or someone, usually him, she does it with every cell in her body and every word in her vocabulary. She holds his hands on top of the table, smiling at him, and he knows that she loves the same way she does everything else – completely, thoroughly, astoundingly, powerfully.
"So what do you want to be now?" she asks.
"I want to be..." He has no idea what he wants to be, job-wise. No idea. Though, fireman might be pretty rad. But he knows other things he wants to be. "I want to be your best friend and I want to be wherever you are, all the time. I want to be with you forever. What do you want to be?"
Her eyes are giant and her mouth is hanging open a little. "I-I-I-"
"You kids know what you want?" a voice interrupts.
He looks up at the waitress hovering by their table and says immediately, "Blueberry pancakes with maple syrup, a side of bacon, and two eggs, sunny side up, please. And coffee. You want coffee?" Rachel still looks stunned, speechless, but nods slowly. "Two coffees. With lots of cream and sugar. You want something to eat, honey bear?"
Her eyes get even bigger but she fires off, not missing a beat, "The fruit plate without the cottage cheese and with whole wheat toast, no butter, please."
"I'll be right back with your coffee," their waitress says, and he catches the way she looks at them as she goes, a knowing glint in her eye. He feels his face get hot. They may as well have 'We've been boning all night in the backseat of a car' stamped on their foreheads.
He's nervous at being caught out by the waitress, nervous because Rachel is still staring at him in that way she gets when he says really dorky things to her. Like earlier in the day, when he said they could name their own baby Pink Lady. And gosh she looks so pretty right now. Her hair is all messy and she's-she's, what's the word... Glowing. She glows.
And he's a wrack of nerves.
"See what I did there? 'Honey bear'? Because you call me baby bear, so it's like that, but you're sweet like honey and your skin is like honey and your voice is like honey and you're also kind of a bear sometimes, like a mama bear, but I didn't want to you call you 'mama' because that would be weird."
Holy shit, what are these words coming out of his mouth? He's just dorking it up even more!
"And-and 'bear' is like 'Berry', I just realized! Bear-Berry, Berry-bear. Ha, I didn't even think of that before I said it." Like always, dorkus. "But if you don't want me to call you that, I can- Hey, where ya going?"
He's scared her off - she's sliding out of their booth. But then she slides in next to him and puts her arms around him, kissing him. He smiles and asks, "Is that how you're always gonna get me to shut up?"
She bats her long lashes and her dark eyes at him winningly. "Yes."
"I have no problem with that." He leans in to kiss her again but the waitress is back, clearing her throat, setting coffee in front of them. They look up sheepishly, pulling apart a tiny bit.
"Thanks," Rachel says politely.
But the waitress doesn't go away. "Aren't you kids a little young to be out so late?" the lady asks.
"Oh no, ma'am, we're eighteen," Rachel says automatically, smiling reassuringly.
"Oh yeah?"
He swallows, suddenly imagining cops rolling up and taking them away. For being young and out late. But his Rachel is unfazed. "We're driving across country, you see. We're from Boise, Idaho, and we're heading to New York. We can't really afford motels so we're just driving straight through."
"Really. What's in New York, then?" she asks skeptically.
"Broadway," he blurts. Rachel turns to look at him, the tiniest smile of surprise twitching at her lips. "We sing and dance and act, so we're going to audition for Broadway shows and stuff."
Rachel's smile softens. "We're going to be stars."
"Totally."
"And live on Park Avenue. And have lots of fans wanting our picture and autograph."
"But right now we don't have any money so we're gonna have to find a cheap apartment and take the subway and get jobs."
"We'll work nights in one of those cabaret cafes, where we sing songs in between serving meals. And we'll find a little studio with a fire escape balcony. In the summer we'll sit out there and listen to the city and run lines and listen to music and sing and we'll have a cat, a stray who adopts us."
"And sometimes late at night after work, we'll go down to Times Square and walk around eating hotdogs-"
"Tofu hotdogs," she interjects.
"And we'll look at all the big theaters and talk about the day when our names will be on the posters."
"And then we'll both get cast in 'We Will Rock You' as leads for the touring production, so we'll have to pack up our little flat but we'll ask the nice old lady downstairs to take care of the cat while we're gone."
"And we'll go all over the world together for the show and save up our money so when we come back to New York, we can get a slightly bigger place. And a dog. And an engagement ring."
She gasps. "Really?"
"A big diamond one."
Her smile goes all wobbly and she blinks a lot. "Oh!"
"But we have to come back home to get married so our families and friends can be there."
"Of course. And so we can tell them the big news."
"You're pregnant?"
"Better. We just got cast in the big budget remake of 'Saturday Night Fever.'"
"Seriously?"
"Yep. You're being hailed as the next John Travolta. But without the Scientology."
"Wow, cool!" He smiles brightly at her, matching the smile she's giving him. The future's gonna be so rad. But then something occurs to him, something real, something serious. "But...if I don't make it..."
"Don't make it?" She looks confused. "What are you talking about?"
"On Broadway, I mean. I mean, you will, obviously. But if I don't, I'll go to fireman school and become a fireman for the FDNY."
She frowns briefly, biting her lip. "That's a pretty dangerous job, baby bear."
"But I get to wear a cool uniform."
Her eyes light up and he sees something wicked in them. "Good point." She reaches up and strokes his cheek, saying earnestly, "You'd be a great fireman, Finn. Running into the flames, saving lives, being a hero." Her touch is the only thing in the world. "You're already my hero."
Her words fill him up better than any pancakes ever could. "I am?"
She nods. "And you're already my best friend."
His heart swells. "I am?"
"The best friend I've ever had. And I want to be right by your side forever, no matter what."
He draws her in close, hugging her tight, burying his face in her hair, moved beyond his ability to speak. To say it's been an emotional thirty-six hours would be an understatement; to say he's highly emotional right now doesn't even come close to describing the rush of everything swirling through him. His emotions usually confuse him and pull him in ten different directions and leave him washed ashore, lost and alone.
He's not lost now. And he's not alone.
He turns his head to kiss her, murmuring his favorite pet name for her, "Rachel..."
"Here you are, kids," says the waitress with the worst timing in the world, setting their plates down in front of them. He groans a little and they pull apart reluctantly. But-but wait, hadn't she been there the whole time, listening to their fantastic tale? "I had orders up – what were you saying is in New York?"
He rolls his eyes a little and gives his girlfriend a lopsided grin. She smiles, a secret smile only he can understand, as she answers sincerely, "Our dreams."
"the sleep in your eyes is enough, let me be there, let me stay there awhile..."
The sky above the stretch of empty cornfield is slowly turning gray and blue and purple, pale and washed out but clear, the clouds and rain from yesterday gone. They'll have to go soon, he knows; he'll have to get back on the I-75 and take her home, then drive back to his own house so his mom can take the car to work. Then he'll have to get ready for school, just like he's done every day for years and years. Just another day at school. Except it's not.
Everything's different now. Everything is new.
His stomach drops at the thought of going back, just like it did yesterday, so long ago, when he was walking to school alone and thinking of what he'd face there, what he'd find. And then everything changed. Rachel found him. And then they found each other.
He knows what he'll find at school today and it won't be easy or simple; it'll be messy and ugly and hurtful. It would be easier to ignore Quinn, pretend she doesn't exist, never talk to her again, ignore the issue at hand and call her a bitch behind her back. But a good man, the man he's going to be, doesn't do that; a good man faces the hard things and deals with the consequences, accepts the repercussions. Tries to forgive. He knows he can get through it because Rachel will be with him, right by his side - she said she would be and he knows he can believe everything she tells him.
They have to go soon but she's peacefully asleep in his arms and he doesn't want to wake her. It's cold in the car but they're warm under a wool blanket he found in the trunk. It kind of smells like tires and cheap carpeting but it's better than huddling under his hoodie. He'll make sure he has a soft, clean blanket for next time.
"We should go soon," she murmurs sleepily. Ah, she's awake now. He hopes he didn't wake her with all his heavy thinking.
"Yeah, I guess so." Neither of them move. He can feel her eyelashes flutter against his neck.
"I don't want to."
"I don't either," he grumbles.
She lifts her head so she can look at him and bites her lip thoughtfully. "I wish we could go to New York instead, baby bear."
He likes that. "Yeah, totally. Just take off right now."
Her eyes light up. "Right now. Like Bonnie and Clyde but without the crime. Just...go."
It hangs in the air, the idea. He can almost feel it and see its shape. The temptation to just go is so strong. Go - on their own. Go - start living their dream. Go – together because what else matters? The bright spark in her eyes tells him she can see it, too, and wants it just as much as he does. A mad, brilliant, beautiful, insane, wild idea.
He smiles at her. "Come on, let's go, honey bear."
"until it ends, there is no end..."
He walks her to her front door. He half-expects the door to swing open and a baseball bat to come flying at his head, the two Mr. Berrys out for his blood for stealing their daughter away in the middle of the night. But the porchlight is still on so she theorizes that her dads aren't even up yet.
"Good thing," he says softly, keeping quiet in the early, still dawn. He thinks about something she told him yesterday and asks, "Are you gonna tell them about this?"
"No, I don't think so. I like you a lot and want to keep you around awhile, so would prefer not to see you killed."
He's relieved. He doesn't want to be killed, either. He wants to be around for a good long while, too. He leans down and kisses her, just once, tenderly - any more and he knows he'll end up dragging her back to the car. Her eyes stay closed for a moment, like she's savoring his kiss. He savors the sight of it.
"I'll be back at seven-thirty," he tells her, "so we can walk to school together."
"Because that worked so well yesterday," she says wryly, grinning, saucy.
"Don't tempt me," he warns, reaching for her.
She gives him a little shove, pushing him away. "Go on, I'll see you later." He slowly backs down the porch steps, his eyes glued to her beauty at this moment, with the first rays of morning light kissing the side of her face, turning her skin to gold and her eyes to amber and her lips to roses.
"Finn?"
"Yeah, angel?"
"Everything's going to be alright, you know," she promises.
"I know."