Chapter 2 Tackling the Teachers

Going back to school came with mixed feelings for Finn. He wanted to talk to the teachers, but it was also difficult seeing Quinn. She was well and truly crazy now. On some level, he did still love her bit, but how she was behaving and acting toward him was troubling. He carried his 'Quinn is Crazy' notebook in his book bag at all time, just in case.

"Hudson!" Sue Sylvester called down the hallway. Finn's head snapped toward the voice and saw her beckoning him into her office; this made him a bit wary, but he knew that she was on his list of people to talk to. He went over and entered into the inner sanctum of Sue Sylvester. "Sit. I got your email. No one ever voluntarily wants to meet with me. Spill!"

"I find myself in a situation that I'm going to need help getting my grades up and I'm probably going to need homebound tutoring once March rolls around."

"What on earth are you talking about?" Sue questioned, a note of frustration in her voice.

"Quinn is pregnant and I wanna keep the baby," Finn said quickly, taking the 'rip off the Band-Aid' approach to the situation. Now Sue was a tall woman, and when she was standing over you, it was even more intimidating than if she were standing and almost looking you in the eye.

"You got my Cheerios captain pregnant and you want my help?" Sue was dangerously quietly, the sneer seemingly etched on her face.

"Yes," Finn said, steeling himself for Sue's wrath, keeping his eyes locked with hers. His heart was going a mile a minute, waiting for Sue to slice him across the jugular.

"You've got some nerve," Sue said. "But even bigger balls for coming to me. She's been more vindictive than normal toward the freshman."

"You'll help?" Finn asked incredulously. "You're not going to kill me?"

"Did you practice safe sex?" Sue demanded.

"Yes, but obviously it wasn't enough," Finn grumbled, that fact still pissed him off. "Don't say you're protecting yourself, when the only thing you're doing is praying that you don't get pregnant."

"Then I can't be mad at you, but angry at the corporation for their faulty prophylactics," Sue said. "I'll get everything set up; you just meet here after football practice."

"You have my schedule?" Finn asked.

"I can get it easily enough," Sue said cryptically. "I assume you want this on the down low?"

"Yeah, Quinn just told me two days ago that she wanted to give up the baby. I already met with child and family services. But she is crazy, and I don't want her to do anything to jeopardize me getting custody."

"Don't screw this up!"

"I won't," Finn promised.

"Good, get to homeroom, Hudson," Sue dismissed him. Finn left her office, feeling strangely accomplished but confused at the same time.

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Finn went about his day and acted as normal as possible around Quinn and his friends. He told Quinn that he got a job at Burt's garage and that he was ready to help her in whatever way he could. "You'd better, since you're the reason we're in this mess," she replied snidely before stomping off. He just looked after her, dumbfounded.

"It took a lot more than just me to make this baby," Finn grumbled to himself. He lied and told Quinn that he had a meeting with Beiste after football practice. He wouldn't be able to walk her home. Quinn was fairly accepting of this; since cheerleading and football were her life. Finn made his way to Coach Sylvester's office and she was waiting for him.

"Hudson!" She greeted brusquely. "Health classroom, let's go. All the teachers are meeting there."

"Thanks Coach," Finn nodded and followed her down the hallway to the health classroom. All of his teachers were there, separately working on a binder full of papers. "What did you tell them?"

"That you were going to need help with your grades," Sue said succinctly. "Turns out you're not a dummy, just forgetful. You don't turn in your assignments."

"I have a pile of assignments here for you that you just haven't completed," Mr. Key said. "But your sponsor here was real vague about the reasons for your sudden interest in academia."

"I have a goal, and my whole situation is kind of complicated. You see, Quinn Fabray is pregnant, and I am the father. Currently this information is not out there for people to know, but I know that I can trust that it won't leave this room." Finn began his spiel with the necessary information and trying to get a promise from the rest of the teachers. When the rest of the group slowly nodded at him he continued. "She is against keeping the baby, but that's not how I feel. I am working toward keeping the baby. I know it sounds crazy, but I needed a sign. This is the sign that I need to get my crap together and do something with my life. I went to family services yesterday to look at my options. It's definitely possible. I want to get my grades up to help. I've already got a job lined up for the rest of the year."

"Quinn is pregnant?" Mr. Shue asked. His jaw couldn't quite match up with the way his mouth was hanging open.

"Yes."

"Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked.

"I'm pretty sure he's thought about this," Sue snarked. "He already went to the appropriate places to check and see if it was possible. And I'm involved, you know he is serious."

"I don't know if you've noticed, Mr. Shue, but Quinn is bat shit crazy. I don't want her to know that I'm going to try to keep the baby. I mentioned it once and she looked like she was about to kill me."

"I hope everyone can get on board with this plan," Sue said, staring the rest of her colleagues down. "It's not many in this new generation who are willing to step up, much less a guy. And this will be kept quiet until Finn here lets us know otherwise. There is also the issue of homebound tutoring once the baby is born."

"I'm in," Mr. Key said. Slowly but surely all of Finn's teachers agreed; Beiste even hugged him, with tears in her eyes. There were a few teachers who weren't able to do the home bound but quickly offered up some names of students who would be more than willing to go help Finn. Finn jumped on the chance for Artie to come tutor him in science and Dave Karofsky was being offered to tutor math. Schue was the last one to agree. He still wanted to tell Quinn, but when Finn got out his notebook and read some of what Quinn had been doing and saying, he shut right up.

"I feel that I should interject here," A pip squeak voice said from the back of the room. Miss Pillsbury popped her head up. "I think what you are doing is quite admirable. I also feel like you're going to need someone to talk to. I'd like to offer my counseling services. Maybe once a week we could meet during your study hall?"

"I'd like that, actually," Finn said gratefully. It was certainly nice to have one of the teachers that weren't super intimidating like Sue, on his side.

"Good," Sue said. "If you have all of your binders of work that needs to be accomplished by Mr. Hudson here. He will get them done as soon as humanly possible and return the binders."

"Yeah, it should all be done by the end of next week," Finn agreed. All of the teachers gave him their binders. He headed to his locker to pack his bag with the binders and all the rest of his books. He was going to be on the ball with school work. He walked the five blocks home and dumped his bags at the desk in the living room. He organized his books and began to work on the homework from today.

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Carol came home from work to smell chicken baking. Finn was just finishing his work he missed yesterday. "Honey, you cooked dinner?" she asked, coming to kiss the top of his head.

"Well, I've been sitting here doing homework, so I figured I would pop some chicken in. The water is on boil for some mac n cheese."

"That you so much, sweetie," Carol said. "I'll finish it from here." Finn smiled up at her. He had one more assignment and then he could call a break for dinner. Once he was finished, dinner was nearly done. Finn sat at the table and waited for his mom to put finishing touches on the food.

"So, I had a meeting with my teachers today," Finn said.

"That's good," Carol said. "How'd it go?"

"Sue Sylvester really helped me out," Finn said, serving himself some food. "I have a bunch of work to make up. They are all going to help me get my grades up and will help when I told them about the homebound tutoring."

"How long do you have to do that work?" Carol asked.

"I told them I would have it done by the end of next week," Finn replied. "I haven't gone through it yet, but I thought that was a reasonable amount of time."

"That seems reasonable, and it's work since the beginning of the year?" Carol asked. Finn nodded. "Did you start yet?"

"Nah, I had today's homework and yesterday's classwork and homework to do," Finn said. "But there was a general agreement that I'm not dumb, but just forgetful."

"I'm glad you're starting to believe it," Carol chuckled. "Just you make sure you make definite plans for when you need to be at the garage with Burt."

"Yeah, I'll call him after we finish dinner."

Finn managed to set up a schedule with Burt. They were going to meet Mondays, Wednesdays, and either Friday or Saturday – depending on football games. But after football, Finn would be working a lot more. He would go there after school and work until 6 or so. Burt would be teaching him the basics for about two weeks and then he would be able to do basic car maintenance on his own.