A/N: Well, this is the last part. It took me a long time to finish this one part, mostly because I couldn't figure out how exactly I wanted everything to go. I do hope you like it though, cause I am somewhat proud of this. :)
Disclaimer: I do not own Glee or the song Breathe. They belong to much luckier people than I.
one year later
there's a light at each tunnel you shout
cause you just as far in as you'll ever be out
and these mistakes you've made, you'll just make them again
if you only try turning around
"Hello, I'm Finn and I'm an alcoholic." Finn said, standing up from the hard plastic chair that he'd been sitting in. The chorus of 'Hello Finn' surrounded him as he tried not to look too closely at the people around him. "I've been sober for three months."
"Welcome Finn." The lady next to him spoke, and he noted by her air of authority that she was probably the leader of the group. He wondered, briefly, if she would consider being his sponsor. He quickly pushed the thought out of his head as he realized she'd asked him a question and he hadn't been paying attention.
"Huh?" He asked, hoping he didn't look like a complete idiot. Then again, the people in the room were not so quick to judge.
"I was wondering how long you've been in New York." She repeated, her voice smooth and calm.
"Oh." He said, recovering as best he could. "My brother lives here. He's in the Funny Girl revival on Broadway. I moved here to be closer to him." And Rachel, he'd moved here for her too, but he didn't say so.
The woman looked slightly more interested in his story than he would have expected, but she soon turned her attention to the small woman to Finn's right. Finn didn't pay much attention as the rest of the group went around introducing themselves, only paying attention to the names as he mumbled the standard "Hello Gertrude" or "Hello Ron" when it was appropriate. It didn't take long for the general introductions to end and soon people were mingling around, most gathering near the refreshment table, gorging themselves on cheap coffee and day-old doughnuts.
Finn, however chose to remain in his seat, unsure as to what to do with himself. He was about to get up to leave when a hand on his shoulder drew his attention to the person behind him. Turning in his chair he was surprised to see the lady who had been leading the meeting looking at him as though he were an old friend.
"Hello Finn." She said as she sat down in the seat next to him, her posture as stiff as board.
"Hello Cindy." Finn said, remembering her name from earlier, though he wasn't sure what else he should say. This was his first AA meeting and he wasn't sure what exactly he was supposed to say or do.
"Is this your first meeting?" Cindy asked, her steady gaze making Finn squirm in his seat a little.
"Uh, yeah. I just moved to the city and my brother thought it would be good for me to go to a few meetings." Finn blushed, looking at the floor. "When I was living in Lima, there were meetings there but I was too ashamed to ever go to any of them."
Cindy didn't say anything so Finn drew his attention away from the floor back to the woman next to him. "Well, I'm glad that you took your brother's advice. Making such a dramatic change like moving, especially to a place like New York City can be especially difficult for anyone. And we both know that your condition makes the change even more difficult. Tell me, Finn, have you had an increased urge to drink since you've moved to the city?"
Yes. He wanted so badly to say yes, to admit to this stranger that he had been fighting the urge to drink since his first night in the city when it had taken him three hours just to fall asleep because the noise had been so loud. "It hasn't been that bad." Finn lied, once again turning his eyes to the floor.
Cindy sighed next to him. "Yes it has. I was in the same position as you when I moved to the city. To be honest, I even fell off the wagon for a few months. What it took to get me back on again was the help of people who loved me and a sponsor who wasn't willing to let me fail."
"I have people who love me." Finn said, thinking off Rachel, Kurt and Santana who were back at the loft.
"Then you just need a kick ass sponsor." Cindy said, her mouth turning up into a small smirk. "Luckily for you, I'm pretty kick ass."
two am and i'm still awake, writing a song
if i get it all down on paper
it's no longer inside of me
threatening the life it belongs to
Rachel sighed as she looked at the clock once again. She couldn't believe that she was going through this again. She'd told herself that she would be extra careful, always making sure to use two different types of protection. That's why she'd always been diligent about the time of day that she took her birth control. Still, here she was, two weeks late and sitting on the edge of the bathtub staring at that damned plastic stick, wishing that it didn't contain all of her future plans in it's contents.
Three more minutes...
This wasn't supposed to be happening. She wasn't any more ready for this than she had been three years earlier, but here she was. All because she'd had strep fucking throat. Of course now she knew that antibiotics messed with her birth control, she hadn't known that when she'd had sex with Finn just a few short weeks ago. She remembered the day exactly, because it had been the only time they'd ever had the condom break during sex.
Two more minutes...
Suddenly there was a loud banging on the door. Rachel cursed out loud as she jumped up from her perch on the bathtub. She'd made sure the loft would be empty when she took this test. Santana was supposed to be at work, but then again, things didn't seem to be going her way here lately.
"Look, Berry, you better not be flicking your bean in there." Santana's voice was obviously annoyed. "I have to pee like race horse, and I'm not in the mood to wait around out here while you get your jollies from your stupid hand. Besides you have a man-child to do that for you now. I know this because our walls are about as thick as paper."
"I'm not doing that Santana. I'm just going to the bathroom." Rachel said, checking her watch. One more minute.
"Bullshit." Santana said, trying the knob but finding the door locked. "I've been home for like two minutes and no sounds have been coming out of there. So if you're not flicking your bean, what the hell are you doing in there?"
Rachel sure as hell wasn't going to tell Santana what she was doing in the bathroom, not after all they'd gone through together years earlier. "I'm just tweezing my eyebrows." She said quickly, opening the medicine cabinet and getting out a pair of tweezers. She plucked a few stray hairs quickly and set them back down. Thirty seconds.
"Alright, well can you hurry your shit up. If you're not out of there in one minute I'm going to go and pee in a pair of your shoes. I'm not going to tell you which pair either, I'm just going to let you figure that out on your own." Santana said from the other side of the door.
Rachel ignored her, knowing full well that her threats were anything but empty. The time had come to check the results. Taking a deep calming breath she took the few short steps over to the toilet where the test was sitting on the tank. Reaching out she gingerly picked up the contraption and stared at the little window on the front.
and i feel like i'm naked in front of the crowd
cause these words are my diary screaming out loud
and i know that you'll use them however you want to
Rachel couldn't sleep. She'd been lying in her bed staring at the ceiling for the past two hours; she'd counted the number of cracks in the ceiling sixteen times, and she'd mentally gone over her plans for the rest of the week at least ten times. Still, sleep refused to come and she was growing increasingly tired of the battle. Not tired enough to fall asleep though, she thought bitterly.
Finally, giving up, she threw her blankets off herself, standing up and making her way to her closet. She didn't pay much attention to the clothes that she threw on, she just hastily dressed herself. She knew the reason that she couldn't sleep was tucked away safely in the bottom of the waste basket in the bathroom. She also knew that the other part of that reason was a few blocks away, probably sleeping in his bedroom in the loft that he shared with his brother.
She had debated on whether it was a good idea to take a cab over to Finn's place, finally deciding that since it was so late that a cab was the safest way to go. The ride had been quick, traffic in the city was light at two in the morning. The entire trip had taken less than ten minutes. After quickly paying the cabbie, she made her way to the building that Finn and Kurt lived in.
The building didn't have a buzzer like most buildings had, instead you could just walk up to the loft that you were going to. This was a good thing for Rachel since she didn't want to run the risk of waking up Kurt. She wanted to talk to Finn alone, and she knew that if she rung the buzzer Kurt would definitely ruin that chance. She took the stairs two at a time and eventually came out on the fifth floor, walking down the hall to stop in front of 5C. Pulling out her phone she sent a quick text to Finn's phone.
A few seconds later she heard the tell-tale sound of Finn's ring tone for her. Just a few moments later she was inside of the apartment, looking at a clearly rumpled Finn. She'd obviously woken him from a deep sleep.
"Is something wrong?" Finn asked as he rubbed his face with his palms, his voice was heavy with sleep.
Rachel wasn't sure how exactly she was supposed to start this whole conversation, so she decided the best thing she could do was to just jump right in and see where it took her. "I took a pregnancy test today."
She wasn't sure what she was expecting to get as a response, so she stood back and watched as Finn's face cleared almost instantly, the sleepiness disappearing. "What?" He asked, although she was sure he'd heard her correctly.
"I took a pregnancy test today." She repeated.
Finn nodded his head, clearly trying to figure out where this was going. "And...?"
"I'm not pregnant." Rachel moved to sit on the couch.
"You could have fucking led with that." Finn's voice was void of anger, mostly all there was in his tone was relief. "You should have just said 'I took a pregnancy test today, and it was negative.' You almost gave me a heart attack."
Rachel didn't smile; she knew that this was the time she'd been dreading for the past three years. She needed to tell Finn the truth about her past with Brody. He knew that she'd dated Brody when she'd been going to NYADA, but he didn't know the whole truth about their past.
"There's something I need to tell you, and I need you to not say anything until I'm done." She turned to face Finn and patted the couch cushion next to her, wanting him to sit down. "Promise me you wont say anything."
Finn looked confused, obviously he'd thought the conversation was over. Still, he slowly made his way over to sit next to her on the couch. "I promise."
"So three years ago I was dating Brody, we'd only been together for a few months and I found out that I was pregnant." Rachel started, keeping her eyes focused on the wall on the other side of the room as she told Finn the whole truth about her past with Brody. About going to Planned Parenthood with Santana. About how she'd kept the truth from Brody for three months before she broke down and told him what she'd done. About him breaking up with her, calling her a slut and street trash and so many other degrading things, things that had taken her so long to stop believing about herself.
Finally when she was finished she turned her attention back to Finn who, true to his word, hadn't said a single thing during her entire confession.
but you can't jump the track
we're like cars on a cable
and life's like an hourglass glued to the table
no one can find the rewind button now
sing it if you understand
"So you just left?" Santana asked as Rachel finished retelling the events of the previous night. "You didn't let him say anything?"
"He hadn't said anything for five minutes. I figured he just needed time to process everything." Rachel said, fighting back the tears that had been threatening to spill from her eyes since she'd woken up that morning.
After she'd told Finn everything about her abortion, she'd expected him to yell at her, call her names, do something. Instead he'd just sat there on the couch, looking like a six year-old who'd just found out that Santa was really his parents. So after a few minutes of silence she'd gathered her things and left, asking him to call her when he was ready to talk to her again.
"I don't see what the big deal is." Santana said, trying to keep her tone light and free of judgment, after all she'd settled her qualms about Rachel's past years ago. "It's not like it really has anything to do with him, he has no right to judge you for anything."
Rachel sighed, pulling the blankets closer to her as she lay down on the couch, turning her full attention to the sitcom that was on. "I don't want to talk about it anymore."
"No problem." Santana said as she stood up and walked to the door. "I have to go to work now though, so if you need anything just call me."
Rachel wasn't sure if she was glad to be alone in the apartment or not, but she knew that she didn't really have much of a choice in the matter. She turned her full attention to the television, though after a few minutes she found her eyes drifting closed. Minutes later she was fully asleep, the television droning on in the background.
She wasn't sure how long she'd been asleep when she'd woken up. Judging by the show that was now playing on the screen in front of her, she'd have to guess that she'd been out for two hours. Sitting up she tried to figure out what exactly had woken her up. It wasn't until another knock came from the front door that she understood what had woken her up. Standing up and shaking out her clothes she made her way to the door, checking the peep hole before unlocking the door and opening it for the person on the other side.
"Are you ready to talk now?" She asked, trying to keep the anger and bitterness out of her voice. She stepped aside though and let Finn into the apartment.
Finn made his way into the room and turned to face Rachel, his face alive with so many different emotions that it was difficult for Rachel to determine what he was going to say. "Would you have gotten an abortion this time?" His voice was hard.
"What?" Rachel asked, this time she was the one who was still too tired to comprehend.
"If you had been pregnant would you have gotten an abortion?" Finn asked again.
Rachel hadn't even given the idea any thought. She'd been scared out of her mind that she'd been pregnant again, but the idea of another abortion had never once crossed her mind. But then the whole thing had turned out to be a false alarm, so she'd just dropped the whole idea altogether. Still the answer was clear to her. "No."
Finn obviously hadn't been expecting her answer because all of the tension left his body in that one instant. One word had been all it took for him to find release. "Okay." He said slowly.
"Finn, the reason I told you about what happened before wasn't because that's what I had been planning on doing this time." Rachel took a few steps towards him, taking his hands into her own. "Don't get me wrong, I was scared out of my mind. Still, I never once considered getting an abortion."
"Why not?"
"I don't know." Rachel was being honest. "Because I love you, and I know that you love me. It's hard to say, but I think that one of the reasons before was because I didn't want to have that kind of a connection with a man that I didn't even love."
Finn didn't say anything else and neither did Rachel. She knew that the conversation was far from over, but for the time being they just wanted to pause everything and come back to it later.
and breathe
just breathe
oh breathe
just breathe...
It had been one week since Rachel had told Finn everything about her past and Finn was still having a hard time wrapping his head around the whole thing.
Sure, he'd known that Rachel had a past, that she'd made a few bad mistakes that she'd never been comfortable sharing. He'd never expected her to confess what she had though. The only people he'd repeated the story to though were his shrink - who he was seeing once a week - and his sponsor. Both had pretty much told him the same thing, that he shouldn't let Rachel's mistakes define her. She was still the same woman that he'd fallen in love with, and that her past shouldn't change their present and their possible future.
Still...he couldn't figure out what was wrong with him. And why he couldn't just let the whole thing go.
He was waiting at Rachel's for her to get home from work when Santana came in and found him on the couch watching old reruns of Family Guy.
"Hey there, Lurch." Finn had gotten used to Santana's insults, finding some of them slightly endearing. "Waiting for Rachel?"
Finn turned off the TV as he stood up to follow Santana into the kitchen. He'd been meaning to ask her about the whole Rachel situation, but he hadn't been sure how to bring it up. "Yeah."
Turning away from the refrigerator where she'd been getting a bottle of water Santana turned her full attention on Finn. "What's wrong with you?" She asked. "You look like you're either constipated or you have something you want to say to me and don't know how to say it."
"Did you know about the whole abortion thing?" Finn said, getting the whole thing out of the way. There was no point in jumping around the subject with Santana, it was always best to be straightforward.
"Of course I knew." Santana moved from the fridge to cabinet, pulling out a bag of chips and opening them, popping some into her mouth. "What I don't know is why you're making such a big deal about the whole thing."
Finn wasn't sure either. "I don't know, it seems like a big thing to me."
Santana put all of her things on the counter and turned her full attention to Finn. "Okay, listen up Finnegan, cause I'm only going to say this once. What Rachel did, it nearly killed her. It took me months to put her back together, and then Brody finally found everything out and it took me another three months to put her back together after that. You act like this was just something that she decided to do. She didn't just decide to get an abortion like she gets a haircut. It was the most difficult choice that she'd ever made in her life, and I know for a fact that if she could she'd go back and undo it, but she can't."
Santana grabbed the chips and her water and walked out of the kitchen, leaving Finn standing there in shock. She turned around one more time, "What you need to do is stop punishing her for something that you have no right to punish her for."
Finn wasn't sure what he should do or say to that, but he didn't get a chance to do anything because Santana shut herself in her room.
It wasn't long after the whole Santana incident that Rachel came home from work. He could tell that she was surprised to see him, but in a good way. "Oh, hey, babe. What are you doing here?" She asked as she took her shoes off in the doorway.
"I wanted to apologize." Finn said, knowing that wasn't the reason he'd come over, but realizing that it needed to be done.
Rachel was clearly confused. "For what?"
"I've been punishing you for your past. I have no right to do that." He stood up and walked over to her, placing his hands on her shoulders and looking her in the eyes. "We've both made choices that we're not proud of, and I think it's time we stop letting those mistakes define us."
He wasn't sure what he was expecting Rachel's reaction to be, but he stood there and waited as her face showed a variety of different emotions, finally ending on relief. He was almost caught off guard as she threw her arms around his neck and pulled him in for a hug. He pulled her closer to him though, placing his nose into her hair and breathing in her scent.
They were going to be alright.
and breathe
just breathe
oh breathe
just breathe...
The End.
