All the talk about parties set Rachel to thinking.

"You know, Finn," she said, on the train back to Bushwick, "We ought to throw a party at the apartment to just celebrate us and living with Kurt and, well, everything! "

"Sounds good to me," Finn said, grateful that, at least for now, they weren't discussing planning a party for the obviously reluctant Marge.

"It can be simple, just appetizers, drinks…music…"

"How about a karaoke machine?"

"PERFECT!" she squealed, rewarding Finn with a huge kiss, garnering them strange, but at least tolerant looks from the few passengers in the car with them.

The next morning was a Saturday which Finn did not have to work, so he, Rachel and Kurt enjoyed a late breakfast together. Kurt, surprisingly, was on board with the apartment party idea, and immediately they were immersed in a discussion over the guest list.

Finn mentioned two of his classmates, Clement and Eli. Clement would probably bring his girlfriend, Ally, who was at Rutgers, if she could make it. Eli was currently unattached.

"So we should probably make sure we invite some unattached girls."

"I'm inviting my friend Amanda and her friend Megan," Rachel chimed in, then looked at Kurt, "You've met their friend Morris, right?"

"Yeah…I've met him. He seems okay." Kurt looked a bit uncomfortable.

"Oh, Kurt," Rachel said with a sigh, "I'm not trying to set you up with him."

Kurt laughed, then. "Oh what the hell, we can't have me be the only fabulous one in the room." Things with Blaine had been improving, but, with the distance, at a glacial pace.

Rachel beamed at him. "That's the spirit!" She continued. "We must invite Geoff, of course." Finn and Kurt nodded enthusiastically. Then she looked at Finn and took his hand. Her eyes dropped. "Finn, what do you think about inviting Patrick? "

Finn appreciated Rachel's concern. After all, the guy had tried writing a song to win Rachel's heart. But things were different now. Everyone knew where they stood. And Patrick had taken the results of the contest graciously, unlike Brody. He smiled.

"Sure, baby, invite him. He's cool." He squeezed her hand, and loved the relief in her eyes.

Finn laughed suddenly, causing Rachel and Kurt to look over. He shook his head slowly.

"I was thinking of inviting Brody, but that would mean him bringing…no….just, no." All three laughed.

The source of their mirth was one of the biggest scandals to hit NYADA in years.

Soon after the contest, Brody seemed to drop out of sight. Somebody thought he was dating some other freshman girl, but nobody could confirm.

Her name was Anne Neilson, it turned out. She was a gorgeous, well-connected blonde from San Francisco, furious and humiliated over being dumped by Brody after only a few weeks. She revealed all in a dramatic confrontation one Wednesday, right in front of Finn, who was waiting for Rachel.

"I was just minding my own business, reading a book," Finn told Rachel as they walked to the train station, "When the next thing I know, this girl is standing right in front of me, giving Brody a killer stink eye, saying loud enough for New Jersey to hear, 'Don't even try and look at me, you slimy teacherfucker!'".

"What?" Rachel asked, giggling, "We heard some commotion outside, but couldn't quite make it out."

"I don't know how you couldn't have heard every syllable. God, she looked so pissed."

"What did Brody do?"

"He tried calming her down, and put his hand on her shoulder, saying 'I'm sorry', but she just exploded. 'Get your hands off me, asshole', she said, then wacked him with her gym bag across the face."

"Oh my God!" Rachel's eyes widened.

"That's not the best part." Finn grinned at Rachel's incredulous expression. "She hit him, then said, 'If you think you can sleep with me, then just suddenly end it after two weeks to go fuck that drunken has-been Cassandra July, you're very much mistaken!', right as Carmen Tibideaux came round the corner."

Finn wished he had his phone ready to take pictures, because Rachel's face at that moment was priceless.

"Brody's sleeping with…Cassandra? What did Carmen do?"

"She stopped dead and just stared at them. Brody tried to say something, but Carmen held up her hand. And the girl just looked like she was going to explode." Finn tried to imitate her look, and Rachel, as much as she was stunned, almost collapsed in giggles on the street. "Then Carmen said, 'Ms. Neilson, Mr. Weston, follow me.' And she turned around and the three of them marched off, to her office, I guess."

"So it was Anne Neilson," Rachel mused. "I would love to have been a fly on the wall listening in on that meeting. I hear her parents have considerable clout with the Board."

Details trickled out, despite both the meeting and disciplinary hearing being closed. Neither Anne nor Brody were officially disciplined: lovers, it seemed, were not forbidden from having spats in the halls, and nobody could find the specific regulation in the student handbook forbidding a student from having sex with a teacher. Rachel commented wryly that just being yelled at by Carmen would put the fear of God into anyone. Neither of them was allowed to talk about it on pain of expulsion. Cassandra, however, did not fare as well. Anne's parents made a formal request that she be fired. There was an announcement that Cassandra July had left on "sabbatical", and that her Spring semester Dance 101 would be taught by a a TA, Andrea Blasucci, until a replacement could be found. Everyone assumed that she had actually been dismissed.

Kurt managed to find out what actually happened, from a student who overheard a conversation between staff members. When Finn got home from school one evening, he and Rachel were waiting at the dinner table, overflowing with excitement. Rachel was nearly bursting, because Kurt had made her wait.

It was a disciplinary hearing befitting a school dedicated to the dramatic. Cassandra showed up for it, hand-in-hand with Brody, insisting that he be with her during the entire proceeding. She then made an impassioned plea, revealing that this was no shallow affair. She and Brody, it seemed, had fallen deeply in love. She could not, in good conscience, refrain from seeing him. But she admitted having broken policy, since she had appointed Brody her TA. In the end she threw herself on the mercy of the committee, causing one of the members to wryly note afterward it was one of her best dramatic performances.

The decision was compassionate and fair: Cassandra was given a forced one-and-one-half year sabbatical, to coincide with the rest of the time Brody needed to finish his degree, after which she could return to the faculty. Her tenure status was retained.

Kurt was determined to write a musical based on the whole thing. "This has turned out a far juicier plot than Pippa Middleton."

The experience had a profound effect on Brody and Cassandra. He moved in with Cassandra, shed his Casanova image, focused on his work, and, Rachel noticed, looked actually happier than she had ever seen him. Cassandra, heartened at Brody's steadfast support and love, found the courage to use the time off to audition again. At the time of the hearing there was buzz about an upcoming off-off-Broadway production of Chicago. Marge and Rachel were talking about it one night at The Arabica. Rachel happened to mention that she heard Cassandra was auditioning for the role, and in typical fashion, said Cassandra would be perfect for it, but being an ex-teacher with the baggage of her old reputation, she faced some stiff competition. Marge, as everyone had come to realize, was exceptionally well-connected: she had worked for one of the producers. She made a call.

She also quietly made sure that Cassandra knew it was Rachel Berry's recommendation that got her the part.

"Okay, okay, so Brody and Cassandra are out", Rachel said, laughing.

Sean was added to the list, with the possibility of his bringing his girlfriend Emily, who was upstate at Syracuse.

"We also need to start thinking about Geoff's party," Rachel said, then, somewhat defensively, "And I still think we ought to do something for Marge," then added, responding to Finn's arched eyebrows, "But only if she's good with it."

Late that night, spooned together, they talked.

"So, do you still like living with me?" she asked. "Is it what you expected?"

"What brought that on?" he wondered out loud.

"I don't know. I still have to pinch myself to make sure we have this life together, after all that has happened. It's important to me that you love it as much as I do."

She felt him shift, then pull her even closer.

"It's not what I expected." Fortunately, his easy tone reassured her. "I thought it would be harder, to tell you the truth."

She smiled in the darkness, and squeezed his hand, which was cupping her right breast.

"I remember you describing the moisturizing thing you did in high school. I was expecting to have to work around that, but I haven't seen you do it. Kurt takes longer than you do now."

She chuckled softly. "There isn't the time that I had in high school—the train ride into Manhattan and back makes it impractical. Amanda has given me some tips on how to streamline the process, since she grew up sharing a bathroom. I've never shared a bathroom until now…and I had two doting dads."

"Are you saying I don't dote on you?" He playfully squeezed her breast, and was rewarded by her turning in his arms and giving him a kiss.

"You do more than that," she said, stroking his face. "You make me want to grow up."

"I do?"

"Yeah. I want to spend time with you, instead of moisturizing. I want to make you dinner instead of having it served to me, yet still adore your making my coffee every morning, starting breakfast during the week, and cooking it on weekends."

She paused for a moment. "You want to know what really makes me feel like I've grown up?"

"Sure."

"Before I lived with you, I thought my Daddy made the best pancakes in the entire world."

He kissed her forehead. "I'm glad you like them. I used to make breakfast on the weekends for Mom and me. She taught me all I know."

"You're a lovely man," she said.