a/n: I'm sorry I've been so slow about updates, but here finally is chapter three. Thanks to Quinn (find her fabulous fic via her penname Quibily!) for editing.
It's still light out when the SUV whips into the Wal-Mart parking lot.
Finn recognises the car, and he steps out of his Explorer, smiling when he sees Rachel wave eagerly at him from the passenger seat window as Santana parks the car a few slots down from Finn. Rachel hops out of the car. "How do I look?" she asks, skipping over to him and twirling around. She's dressed in some sparkly green shirt and a jean skirt, her hair in a pony tail.
"Awesome, babe," he says. "You're gonna blow Mat Kearney away."
Rachel giggles, pleased, and stands up on her tiptoes to kiss him lightly.
"I'm out," Santana calls. "I'll call you if you need to haul ass back here."
"Thanks, Santana!" Rachel replies brightly.
"Yeah, thanks," Finn adds, smiling at her.
From inside her car, Santana nods, eyes unpleasant as she glances at him. She hates him. He knows that. But she's pretty loyal to Rachel. She's kept the secret, and she's helped with dates like this, and she's just really cool, so he can't really complain.
Rachel climbs up into his car as Santana drives away, and Finn lets her put in that CD she made him of the best Broadway ballads. It's over an hour drive to the concert hall, and that's a lot of Broadway ballads, but he'll let Rachel have her way on this. She pretty much always has her way, because it's impossible to say no to her. He doesn't think anyone ever has.
"Are you excited?" she asks. "I'm excited. I'm so excited. I've never been to a concert before!"
"That's kinda crazy," Finn tells her. He still can't really believe that. "You live in New York, you've seen a thousand Broadway plays, and you've never been to a concert."
"Noah and Santana go to them sometimes, but usually as a couple, and it's always awkward to be a third wheel with them. They don't understand the concept of inappropriate public displays of affection. And I did go to a Wiggles concert with Jesse —"
"But that doesn't count," Finn says. "This is your first real concert." He kind of likes that he's the person to take her to her first concert, okay? Plus, that makes this a totally awesome one month anniversary date, even if Rachel doesn't like that term, because an anniversary is a year, or whatever. They've been together for a month now, and he's about to take her to her first concert.
She smiles at him, breaking out into song a moment later.
He merges onto the highway and then risks a glance from the road to watch her for a minute, her head tilted back, her eyes bright. She's always so happy, more so than anybody he knows. It's kind of infectious. He knows she's never really wanted for anything, but she's not a brat.
She's just, like, spirited, or something. And, yeah, that sounds totally lame, but it's like nothing can bring her down, and anything is possible, and she'll make the most of her life and you better not say otherwise, thank you very much. He loves it.
They may have only dated for a month, but it's been really awesome so far.
She's let him try to teach her how to play basketball, and he's watched Funny Girl with her on his laptop in an empty batting cage, and they've seen three different shows at these random little theatres that she knows all about. He's taken her for ice cream after school a couple of times, or to see a movie, or to the arcades once, when he learned she'd never been. He'll never forget the sight of Rachel Berry bouncing on the balls of her feet and shouting "die!" at a pinball machine. It's been an awesome month, 'cause she's awesome.
It's easy to pretend she isn't who she is.
Or, like, that her dad isn't who he is. They never really talk about their families at all.
They talk about movies and music, they talk about Broadway and baseball, they talk about school and his friends and her friends, but they don't talk about family. It'd be too weird. He knows her parents are divorced, and she told him once that she doesn't really need to know her mom, because her dad and his boyfriend, her papa, are all the parents she needs. He kinda just nodded. It's strange that her dad is this big mob boss and he has a boyfriend. But, like, it doesn't really matter, does it?
"How late do you think the concert will go?" she asks.
"I don't know. It's at nine, so it'll probably be over around midnight. That's not too late, right?"
"Oh, no, definitely not," she assures. "Santana said I could call her to meet up back at Wal-Mart anytime! She's gone out to a few dance clubs, but she has her phone on her. I think it's crazy for her to go out by herself, but she really likes that, and it works perfectly for us, doesn't it?"
"Yeah," he says, nodding. Like he said, Santana is cool. It'd be nice if she didn't hate his guts.
"I did some research on Mat Kearney," she tells him. "He's from Oregon. Isn't that fun? I've never been to the West Coast before."
"Me neither," he says. "I've never really been anywhere."
She nods. "As much as I love New York, I can't wait to explore the world. I even wrote a list of all the cities I want to perform in — I'll show it to you sometime! Noah says that New York is the best city in the world, but I'd like to see that for myself. Of course, he's never been anywhere either. We did go to Detroit once, and that was a lot of fun. . . ."
They don't usually talk about Noah anymore than they do their dads.
She brings him up a lot, 'cause he is her cousin and pretty much one of her best friends, but she seems to know that Finn isn't his biggest fan. He hasn't told her about what happened with her beloved cousin, but he knows it's gonna be a problem eventually. Her cousin is an ass, even if she thinks he's the best thing since sliced bread.
"And California, too," she tells him. "I want to see the Golden Coast." She smiles.
"Yeah," he agrees. "I've thought after school I might just take my car and go, you know?"
She smiles, taking his hand. "It'd be an adventure."
He parks in a garage a few blocks from the concert and takes her to dinner at this place that looks like something out of a sitcom, and then they're on their way to their concert, and he kinda loves how they can walk down the street like totally normal people, her hand in his as she chatters about all her research on Mat Kearney. It's kind of cool to sneak around, but it also sort of completely sucks that they can't even look at each other in school or let anyone they know see them near each other.
But people here don't know who Finn is, or who Rachel is, or that they shouldn't be together.
The place is packed when they arrive, but Finn kind of likes how that keeps Rachel so close to him, pressed to his side. When the opening act finally ends and Mat Kearney comes out on stage, she jumps up and down so enthusiastically she nearly takes his eye out with her elbow. She knows the words to every song, and she claps and sings and dances, and he claps and sings and dances right alongside her.
"She don't know what she wants to be," Rachel sings, grinning at Finn.
"With all the pictures in the magazines. / Holding hands when she's mad at me / 'Cause she don't wanna go, don't wanna go. / I met her at anthropology, / Purple boots and her golden dreams, / Standing there like a Tennessee queen, / Singing don't look at me, don't look at me. . . ."
"Singing oh, oh, won't you help me sing this song?" he sings to her, and he takes her hand and spins her around, nearly knocking her into the row in front of them, but she only giggles as she hugs him, and presses her face into his arm, her eyes still so bright and happy.
"Singing ee ee ee, / She don't ever want to go to sleep. / Singing hey mama, don't want no drama, / Just a kiss before I leave. / Hey lady, don't say maybe, / You're the one that I can believe."
She rests her hands on his shoulders, and his own hands land automatically on her waist.
"I can see it in her Cherokee eyes, / Those baby browns and the golden thighs. / What you doing for the rest of your life?, / 'Cause you don't want, don't wanna go."
He holds her gaze and sings to her, pulling her a little closer.
"Couldn't be more opposite, / I'm hard to please and you're hard to get, / You're Mississippi and I'm Oregon, / You're sun tanned and I'm porcelain skinned."
It's the same song that's stuck in their head hours later as they make their way back to the parking garage. Rachel nearly dances down the street, belting out all the words.
"Singing hey mama, don't want no drama, / Just a kiss before I leave. / Hey lady, don't say maybe, / You're the one that I can believe. / Hey lover, don't want no other / finger for my ring. / Hey mama, hey hey mama. . . ."
She sings as they start the drive back, too, and she startles the man at the gas station with a rendition of "Chasing the Light" when Finn and Rachel stop in to pick up drinks. A few minutes later, sitting on the hood of his car with, slushees in hand, she sighs happily, leaning against him.
"That concert was amazing," she tells him.
"It was pretty awesome," he agrees.
She tilts her head to rest her chin on his shoulder. "I wish I could tell everybody."
"About the concert? You could tell people you went with Santana, and then just fill her in on it."
"No," she replies, "I mean about us."
He glances at her, and she shifts to sit up properly, still pressed close to him, with her arm on his shoulder now, her face so close to his that he can see the stain of purple slushee on her lips even with only the gas station parking lot lights to illuminate her.
"It seems so silly, this secret, doesn't it?" she asks.
He sets his drink down on the car beside him. "You say the word, and I'll tell everybody that Rachel Berry is my girlfriend." He will. He wants to tell Sam and Mike about her, wants to walk down the halls of school with her, wants to take her by his house and show her his drums.
And his dad might be pissed, but —
"I don't think that'd be such a good idea until everything is settled between our dads," she says, sighing a little and taking another sip of her drink. He watches her for a minute.
"It'll never really be settled between them," he says, aware of the thin line he walks.
"I . . . I've thought that maybe after everything with Matt is put to rest, after justice is served and your dad doesn't feel the need to pin that crime on my family, maybe then if we told them we were together, we could help them see that they don't have a reason to fight each other, even if —"
She doesn't finish, but he knows what goes unsaid.
The problem is that his dad will still be a police chief, and hers will still be a mob boss.
"But nobody needs to know about us for me to be your girlfriend, right?"
He smiles a little. "Right," he says, and he tucks a little of her loose hair behind her ear. She glances at him and then away shyly like she seems to do so often.
"You've never called me your girlfriend before, you know."
"You're my girlfriend," he says, leaning down towards her.
"And you're my boyfriend," she whispers, and her eyelashes brush his cheek.
He kisses her, and he tries to kiss away everything else, to kiss away thoughts of their dads, of their families, of expectations and secrets and murders, and she moves slightly, following him as he turns to lie on his back, and he can't possibly care less about the windshield wiper that digs into his lower back as Rachel straddles his hip and kisses him, her hands in his hair, her lips cold and sticky and as eager to kiss away the rest of the world as he is.
Her skin burns his hand as he grips her thighs, and then his fingers catch on the sequins of her top as he lets his hands slide up, and abruptly she jumps when he brushes against the underside of her breasts, and she sends his slushee flying as she snaps up like a spring board. They stare at each other, startled.
"I'm —" he starts, propping himself up on his elbows, unsure what to say.
And she starts to laugh suddenly, tilting forward and burying her face in her hands.
"Look at us," she gasps, "in a gas station parking lot."
He touches a hand to her back. "Come on," he says, catching her gaze to smile at her. "You can call Santana in the car." They both slide off the hood, and she smoothes out her hair and her skirt as he collects his slushee cup and throws it out with hers. He turns back to her and can't help another smile as he sees her lips, a little too pink, a little too kissed.
It's not until they're back in the car that she says something.
"I've never . . . the only boy I've ever even dated is Jesse," she says, "and we never went very far."
He pauses with his hand on the radio dial and meets her gaze. "I've never been that far, either," he admits. "I don't really know — I'm not very good at, like — I just . . . I don't know how to — how to act around you sometimes." He sounds like an idiot.
She leans forward and kisses him sweetly over the console. "Act like you," she says, "and I'll act like me, and I think that'll work." He smiles against her lips, kisses her again quickly, and then flips the radio on and puts the car in reverse.
Santana looks bored when Finn pulls into the Wal-Mart parking lot, but she smiles a little when Rachel rushes to her and immediately starts to gush about the concert. That small smile fades, though, when Rachel turns back around to give Finn a kiss goodbye, but Finn doesn't care.
She'll get over it.
His dad is asleep in front of the television downstairs when Finn tiptoes into the house, and he finds his mom asleep in front of the television upstairs. He turns her television off and pulls the blanket up over her, kissing her forehead, and he finds some aspirin in the bathroom and leaves that by her bed with a bottle of water.
She must take the aspirin at some point, 'cause she's pretty chipper when he wakes up the next morning. "You want waffles or pancakes?" she asks brightly as he lumbers into the kitchen.
He shrugs. "As long as —"
"I put chocolate chips in the mix," she finishes for him, "you don't care. I know." She smiles, and he pulls the orange juice out of the fridge. "And how was your night?" she asks him. "You were out with your friends, weren't you?"
"Um, yeah," he says, "just, like, hanging out and stuff."
She nods, and it's quiet for a few minutes as he flips through the Sunday comics.
But soon enough she sets two plates of chocolate chip pancakes on the table, and he tosses the paper aside and moves to sit at the table with her. They don't do this that much, but it doesn't totally suck when they do.
"Okay," his mom says, "out with it. What's new in your life?"
"I don't know. Nothing."
"I love when you open up to me like this."
"I know." He folds a pancake, she smacks his hand, and he makes a show of slowly cutting the pancake up and eating with his fork. She applauds. "I went to a concert last night."
"Oh, that's fun. Who'd you see?"
He tells about the show, but it seems so weird to lie completely and say he went with some random friends from school rather than with this amazing girl. And, honestly, he thinks maybe if he told his mom the truth, she wouldn't care. She would keep his secret, even, and encourage him.
It's easier this way, though.
"Before I forget," she says, "you need to stop by the station today. Your dad wants your help with something." She must understand his expression, because she sighs and reaches forward to cover his hand with hers. "You want me to call to say you feel a little under the weather?"
He glances at her. She offers to do that for him a lot, and he knows that's her personal style, lying.
"No, it's cool," he says. "I can stop by." He stands and carries his plate to the counter.
"Sweetheart," she says, stopping him before he can leave the kitchen. "Your father loves his life as a police, and he wants you to be that happy, too. But your life isn't his, and I don't want you ever to forget that, okay? You need to do what makes you happy."
He nods. "I know. Thanks for breakfast, Ma."
"Anytime, hon."
He texts Rachel to ask her if she maybe wants to hang out that night, and then he drives down to the station. It's almost already noon, and the place looks pretty empty. It is Sunday. He waves at Sally, the front desk lady who always works the worst hours, and starts towards his dad's office, only to see his father and a circle of detectives, all gathered around a tiny television.
Finn hangs back at first, but his dad calls him forward a moment later, the instant he spots him.
"You're here! Good. Get on over here. Come see this, kid. Take a look at this!"
His mouth goes dry when he sees the screen. He stares in kind of disbelief at her tiny little picture on the screen, at Rachel, standing pin straight in her seat, hair falling into her face, hands tightly clasped in her lap. What the fuck is this? He recognises that room, a small, gray room with a battered table and two worn desk chairs. It's an interrogation room just down the hall.
Why the fuck is Rachel on camera in an interrogation room?
He looks at his dad for some sort of explanation.
"Oh, don't worry, kid," his dad tells him, "Brady and Nick only just brought her in. You haven't missed anything good. And she looks a little ticked off, don't she, boys?" He laughs. "Crank up the volume, Marty. Let's here what she's got to say, how about that?"
Finn almost cringes when her voice, hard and strained, pours out of the television screen.
"— completely illegal! You have no right to keep me here, not without my lawyer. I don't know why you've brought me here, since you refuse to tell me, but I refuse to let this conversation go any further without my lawyer present. His name is Leroy Matthews. If you'd like to call him instead of me, you may. But I won't talk without him here."
Finn swallows thickly, his heart pounding, and simply watches as Lt. Jacobs laughs at her.
"I don't think so," Jacobs replies.
"You have to let me have a lawyer," Rachel protests. "I've seen Law and Order! Or, well, I've seen most of an episode. I'd say a solid — a solid two-thirds of the episode, and I know how this process works. I have the right to demand a lawyer!"
"This ain't Law and Order, Ms. Berry," Jacobs says, leaning back in his seat. "Nobody said you were in any trouble. I don't want to interrogate you." He smiles. "I only want to talk. And we can start as soon as you tell me why you think I've brought you in here today."
Rachel crosses her arms over her chest, mouth a thin line, and Finn can't watch any more of this.
"Dad," he murmurs, "what . . . ?"
"That's the Berry girl," his dad says, eyes still on the screen. "Hiram's precious little angel."
"Yeah," Finn says, "but why is she here? Dad?"
"We needed a new lead, didn't we? It's been a fucking month, and I'll be damned if I let another murder slip through my fingers. And if she don't know a thing, at least I can make Hiram piss himself mad about his baby, eh?" He laughs with Major McCraty, and Finn feels sick.
He watches her tiny screen on the television and tries to think of a way to stop this.
She tries not to look at the camera, set in the ceiling corner above the door, but she almost can't not.
If her daddy had been at the house, he never would have allowed this. This officer has no right to do this. He doesn't. But her papa will make sure everybody knows that, just as soon as Mrs. Proctor calls him. She'll call him, and he'll come pick her up, and everything will be okay.
It will.
She stares at the officer, a short, stocky man with thinning black hair, who actually came by her house, told Mrs. Proctor to step aside or she'd find herself at the station alongside Rachel, and then forced Rachel to come here, made her sit on a suspiciously stained chair, and laughed in her face as she demanded a lawyer, her legal right as a citizen of the United States.
This isn't right, it isn't. And she hasn't even done anything wrong to be here!
She's never hurt anyone, not once in her life; she's never broken any rules at all, in fact. She did speed to ballet last week, but she was very late, and she only went seven miles over the speed limit. Santana swore to Rachel that she wouldn't be in any trouble for that. But this can't be about that.
"I have no idea why I've been brought in here," she tells him. "And I don't think you have any idea either, because I've done nothing wrong, and if you don't have a reason to arrest me, then you can't keep me here. You can't."
The officer only smiles at her, and it's the wrong kind of smile.
"Rachel — can I call you Rachel?"
"No," she snaps. "Ms. Berry will do fine, thank you. And you haven't told me your name."
He chuckles again. "It's Lieutenant Jacobs," he says. "And I'm here to talk to you. That's all I want to do. So the sooner we talk, the sooner you can leave."
She crosses her arms over her chest. "I don't have anything to talk about you," she tells him. "And even if I did, as I already made clear, I won't talk without my lawyer present."
"Did your father ask you to murder Matthew Rutherford?"
She gasps. "No!" she exclaims, sputtering in indignation. This can't possibly be real life.
It's Christopher Hudson, isn't it? He's behind all of this. He's bullying her. But what about Finn? Can he help her? No, he can't, because he must have no idea about this. He's probably still asleep in bed, happy with dreams of the amazing time they had last night, as she should be right now.
"Okay, then he asked Noah Puckerman to do the job, is that right?"
"He would never ask Noah to do that," Rachel insists angrily, and she almost wants to cry as Jacobs only stares at her in mild amusement. Is this really why this man brought her in? Do the police really think she or Noah had anything to do with what happened to Matt?
"He would never ask Noah to do that," she repeats, "and Noah would never do it."
"Let's not lie, Rachel," Jacobs says, condescension dripping from his voice. "Your father is a mob boss, your cousin is a soldier under him, and murder is what they do." His expression is blacker now, his words short and cold. "So tell me straight: when did your father ask Noah Puckerman to kill Matthew Rutherford?" He stares at her across the table.
She takes a few shuddering breaths as she glares back at him.
"It's Ms. Berry," she tells him, "and my father is a businessman."
His face breaks suddenly into more laughter, and she goes on furiously, her voice rising.
"And just because your boss has a known vendetta against him, that doesn't mean you have the right to accuse him of anything close to murder!" Her eyes flicker up to the camera. "He is not a mob boss, and Noah is not a solider. And, furthermore, even if anything you said were true, which it's not, my father loves Noah like a son, and he would never put Noah at risk like that. Every accusation you hurl is completely and utterly unfounded — and I won't say another word until my lawyer arrives!"
It's quiet, and Rachel tears her eyes away from the camera to look back at Lieutenant Jacobs.
He seems to school his features to match that casual air he first addressed her with, an awful kind of smirk curling up the ends of his mouth. "Your father loves Noah like a son, you say?" he asks, leaning back in his chair again. "I'll believe that. It's his sister's son. Why wouldn't he? But, well, tell me, Ms. Berry — what happened to his actual father?"
"He died," Rachel replies. That's certainly not a secret.
"He died," Jacobs repeats.
"Yes, that's what I said," she snaps. "My uncle, Sam Puckerman, died a few years ago."
"And how'd he die, might I ask?"
"He died in a car accident."
He starts to laugh yet again, and Rachel clenches her teeth when the overwhelming urge to cry rises up in her. "That's what they tell you?" Jacobs says, acting more than a little amused now. "That he died in a car accident. And you believe that? Okay, then. Okay." He runs a hand through his hair and smiles that off-putting smile at her again. "So, did your mom die in a car accident, too?"
"If you must know," she replies, curling her hands into fists, "my mother left when I was a baby."
"She left," he echoes. "Did she end up like this?" He slides the folder across the table.
Her hand shakes a little as she reaches forward, but she refuses to look at him to see his reaction. And then all the breath leaves her when she sees the picture of Matt, dead, his head bloody from bullets. She slams the folder shut and crosses her arms tightly over her chest once more.
Why would he show her this? Aren't police officers supposed to help people?
She thinks of everything her father has ever said about Christopher Hudson, all the times something bad would happen and he would tell her that terrible Chris Hudson could be blamed. This is Christopher Hudson. She knows that. She glances up at the camera.
He must be on the other end.
After a month with Finn, she had started to believe that maybe her father wasn't entirely right about Christopher Hudson, that maybe he was something of a hardass but wasn't really a villain, because how could the father of someone as wonderful as her boyfriend be so terrible? But he is, isn't he?
She tears her eyes from the camera and looks back at Jacobs.
"Ms. Berry?" he asks, raising his eyebrows, his lips twisting in that same sickening smirk.
"I want my lawyer."
"You know," Jacobs says, clearing his throat and sprawling back in his seat again. "If you help me, I might be able to assure that the charges against your cousin aren't too harsh. He'll be in prison for years, that's for sure, but we could probably save him from the death penalty."
She stares at him. "I want my lawyer."
"You dated Rutherford, didn't you? I bet your daddy didn't like that, did he?"
She says nothing.
"And let's talk about Jesse St. James. How long, exactly, did he spend in the hospital?"
"I. Want. My. Lawyer."
"According to the papers, he had a car accident. But the doctor my buddy Roy spoke to said that it looked like somebody took a baseball bat to the poor kid. Tell me, Rachel, does your cousin own a baseball bat? I bet he does, don't he?"
He won't let up. He talks more about Jesse, and he talks about what could happen to Noah, no longer a minor. He talks about the mob again, and then he says maybe she wants Noah to go to prison so that he'll be able to escape her father. He starts to yell at one point, and his spit hits her face, and when he forces her to look at picture of Matt again, she starts to cry.
But she still says nothing. She will not give Christopher Hudson any wind to fan his fire.
And then somebody abruptly knocks on the door.
She jumps to her feet, and the officer slowly pushes himself to his, and he lumbers over to the door. Her breath catches when she sees Finn, his face stony. He murmurs something to Jacobs, who glances at her and then nods, and he leaves. Finn turns to her.
"It's Rachel, right?" he says.
She wants to tackle him. He gives the most amazing hugs, and she wants to hug him so tightly she can't breathe, wants to bury herself in his arms. He's here to help her, isn't he? Right? But she can't tackle him, or hug him, or press her face into his sweater and feel his heart beat against her cheek, and she doesn't know what to do. She manages to nod.
"That's right. And you're Finn."
He sits down across from her. She sits down, too.
"I, um, took English with Matt. He was a pretty cool guy."
"I know," she says, desperate to try to understand what this is about.
"Look," he tells her, "I don't think you killed him. I know you didn't, actually. But somebody did, and if we don't find a lead soon, that killer will walk free." He licks his lips, a nervous tick, she knows. "You don't want that, right? I mean, you did know Matt, didn't you?"
"Yes, I did," she says. "I did. And I'm as upset as everyone else at his murder. But I — I have no idea what happened. I don't. I wish I could help you, but I can't, I swear."
He nods, glancing at the camera. "Can you tell me about the dance?" he asks. "You remember the Halloween dance, right? That's the same night he died. Can you tell me what you did that night?"
"I — I came with my friend Santana. We did our hair and make-up together beforehand at her house, and then we arrived at the dance a little after eight, and we both talked with some boys and had fun, and then she left with a boy, and my friend David gave me a ride home at midnight."
Is that what he wants her to say?
"Okay. And, um, your cousin? Noah Puckerman? That night what did he . . . ?"
"He didn't come to the dance," she says. "He spent the night at his house, in a Halo competition with some college kids who go to our Temple. Ask them."
"Okay, um, well —"
There's another knock on the door.
Finn looks as relieved as she feels, and he nearly knocks his chair over as he goes to open the door. She watches again as he murmurs with another police officer, and then he looks at her, and she smiles even before he says the words.
"You can go now," he says. "Thanks for, um, talking with me."
He stands back to let her pass him as she leaves, and his hand brushes her arm.
Her daddy stands a few feet down the hall, Mr. Tanaka with him, and she's never been so happy to see them both. Rachel flies straight at her father, and he has his arms around her in an instant. She feels tears burn her eyes, and he only holds her a little tighter and kisses the top of her head.
"You're alright, Princess," he murmurs, speaking too softly for anyone but her to hear.
She pulls back, ready to tell him everything, only for her eyes to land on Finn.
He stands by his father, and she doesn't know what to make of anything. He stares at her, and she slips her hand in her pocket, her fingers curling around her phone. They'll talk soon. He'll explain everything; he has to. He has to.
"Come on," her daddy says, his hand around her back. "You're free to leave, Princess. Come on." He walks her out of the station, ignoring both Hudsons as they pass them by, and then they're out of the station, and he ushers her a block down the street to his Benz, parallel parked with Mr. Ryerson in the front seat.
Mr. Tanaka opens the door for them, and her daddy helps her into the car, following her in.
She cuddles into his arms the moment the door shuts behind them.
"It's okay, Princess," he whispers. "It's okay. You're okay."
She nods against his side.
"But what happened?" he asks. "Mrs. Proctor called me and your papa both, and I could barley make out what she said through her tears. What did the police want?"
She tells him everything, from start to finish.
She doesn't know what to say about Finn, but she tries to paint as good a picture of him as she can. His expression grows darker as she talks, but the moment she finishes he pulls her into another hug, and she takes a deep breath of his familiar cologne.
"I want you to listen to me, sweet girl," he says quietly. "There are people in this world who want power so much that they'll hurt anyone who stands in the way. I've stood in the way of Christopher Hudson for years, refusing to let him use my money for corrupt activities, and he took Noah first and now you under the pretence of suspects simply to rattle me. I'm sorry for that."
She shakes her head. "It's not your fault."
"I know. But you need to know that I won't let Hudson near you again. Your papa is just down the street, filing a complaint, and as soon as he's finished, we'll all go home, and we'll pretend this day never happened. How does that sound?" He smiles.
"That sounds perfect," she whispers.
He kisses the top of her head again, and he asks Mr. Ryerson to put on a CD for her.
She smiles a little as he asks her to sing for him, and she does, trying to pour herself into the song, and the music does make her feel better, like always. She can always count on music. It doesn't take Papa much longer, and then she ends up sandwiched between her dads in the back seat, and she feels so safe like that.
This ordeal is over. Right?
Her phone goes off halfway through the ride, buzzing against her thigh, but she doesn't answer, doesn't even acknowledge the call, because she doesn't want questions from her dads, not if it's who she hopes it is calling.
Her aunt Julia greets her at the house with a hug, and she kisses Rachel repeatedly on the face and calls her sweet affectionate Hebrew names over and over again, before she starts to make a banana split for Rachel. "You forget all about those terrible men, darling," she says.
Becca is there, too, and she wraps her tiny seven-year-old arms around Rachel, telling Rachel that she can have her maraschino cherry for their sundaes, because she knows how much Rachel loves maraschino cherries. Rachel kisses her and thanks her. She adores her little cousin, a miniature of her mother; with the occasional swear word hidden behind her sweet face, courtesy of her older brother.
"You listen to your aunt," her daddy says, "and you forget this."
He smiles at her, and he and her papa sit with her as they all eat ice cream. She lets the older woman fawn over her, and she lets Becca sing a song to make her feel better, and then her dads offer to take her to see a show tonight. They're all so good to her. But she still feels so shaken, and more than anything she needs to talk to Finn. She needs an explanation from him, and she needs to hear his voice, and she needs — she needs to talk to him.
Finally, she tells them she wants to take a nap.
She escapes up to her room, and she pulls out her phone the moment she shuts the door.
Her missed call is from Finn, just like she hoped.
He picks up after two rings. "Rachel? Are you okay?" He sounds worried.
"I'm fine, I think," she tells him, sinking down on to her bed. "I can't believe that even happened, but — but what did happen?"
"I'm sorry, baby, I'm so sorry," he tells her, the words pouring out of him desperately.
He's never called her that before.
"I didn't — I showed up at the station," he goes on quickly, "because my mom said my dad wanted to talk to me, and then I saw you on the interrogation camera, and I freaked, but I didn't know what to do. I finally told my dad, though, I told him that maybe I should talk to you to try to see if I could, like, use that we were both teenagers to make you talk. But I just — I couldn't just watch Jacobs treat you like that, and I wanted to help you —"
"I know," she interrupts, and she clutches the phone tightly. "You did. I felt so much better with you across the table." It's quiet for a moment, and she really wants to see him. She lies back on her bed, cradling her stuffed monkey to her chest. "But why did they even want to talk to me? Your dad, did he —?"
"He's an ass, Rachel. He's an ass. I don't even know. He wanted to mess with your dad, 'cause he's pissed that he doesn't know who killed Matt. I'm so sorry."
And she smiles to herself despite everything, because he still sounds so upset, and somehow that makes her feel better. He's not like his father. He's so much better.
"It's okay," she tells him. "I'm okay. I —" She freezes when the door starts to open, and then Noah peaks his head in, and he smiles at her. She smiles back at him, nodding at him to come in. "I'll tell you more when I see you, Santana," she says. "Noah's here."
"Oh, um, yeah, okay. You wanna meet up tonight? At, like, six, maybe?"
"That sounds good, San. I'll text you."
Noah envelops her in a hug the moment she hangs up the phone. "I came as soon as Ma called me. I'm sorry, Rach. I can't believe those fuckers messed with you. You okay?"
"I'm fine, I promise," she assures. "Daddy says Christopher Hudson only wanted to try to annoy him, and that he used me for that end."
"Yeah, I talked to him a couple minutes ago. He said Hudson's kid talked to you, too. Finny D." He spits the name, and Rachel's defenses fly up — if only Noah knew!
"He came in to replace this absolutely inhumane officer. And he was actually quite polite. He's — he's really not so bad, Noah. He's not like his father." She speaks cautiously, but she can't not defend Finn, she just can't.
"That's what they want you to think," Noah tells her. "It's called good cop, bad cop. They're messing with you, Rach. No matter what, you've gotta know that the Hudsons are bastards, Rach. All of 'em, even the kid."
"I don't — I don't think that's true, Noah. I think Finn is a good person."
Noah stares at her for a moment, and then he turns away, runs a hand over his mohawk and nods. "Okay. I want to show you something. C'mere." He leads her down the stairs and into the living room, and he picks a picture up off the bookshelf. "You know who that is?"
She takes the picture from him. "Of course I do," she says. "That's my dad, your mom, and our uncle Luke, when they were kids. And that's Grams in the background."
"Yeah," Noah says. "And you know what happened to Uncle Luke, right?"
"He died in a car accident when we were little," Rachel says, but Noah shakes his head.
"He didn't, Rach. That's what your dad and my mom told us, but it's not true. It was a lie to soften the blow, 'cause we were little kids, and they didn't think we'd really understand. And you know how your dad likes to protect you. You wanna know what really happened? I found out a few years back, just by accident, when Uncle Hiram let it slip."
She sits down on the sofa, the pictures still in her lap. "Okay," she says. "What happened?"
Noah sits down beside her. "He was arrested by this new cop, Chris Hudson. He hadn't done anything wrong, not really, but you know how cops are, 'specially cops like Hudson. Corrupt, ready to do anything to make himself look good. That's when Uncle Hiram hired Uncle Leroy, right out of law school, to defend Uncle Luke."
Rachel nods. She knows how her dads met, or at least that they met when Uncle Hiram hired him for help.
"And Uncle Leroy, 'cause he's a badass, totally proved that Hudson is an ass, and he got Uncle Luke off, completely free. But Hudson didn't like that. He was pissed. And he and his buddies took baseball bats, and they beat the shit out of Uncle Luke." He pauses. "They beat him to death, Rachel. And then they covered their tracks, and they set everything to look like gang violence."
"But. . . ." Rachel shakes her head.
"It's the truth, Rach," Noah says. "Your dad was so pissed, so was my mom. And they tried so hard to prove that Chris Hudson was really to blame, like Uncle Luke told 'em he was at the hospital, right before he went into surgery he didn't come out of, but nobody believed them. Hudson murdered Uncle Luke, and nothing happened to him."
"That's terrible, Noah, it is, and I'm completely shocked and — and appalled, really, and I can't believe nobody ever told me this, told me the truth, but I — but this just proves that Chris Hudson is a terrible person. It doesn't make his son the same way."
"You think the kid raised by a guy like that is gonna be a saint?" Noah asks, raising his eyebrows. "He acts all dumb and sweet, Rachel, but he's not. Okay. He's not." He stares at her so hard, as if trying to make her understand by the look in his eyes, and she glances down at her lap. He sighs.
"You wanna know about his mom?" he asks. "She's an alcoholic, Rach. And she sleeps around. I overheard Uncle Leroy saying that she's sleeping with Burt Hummel. You know who that is? That's Anna Hummel's husband. Anna Hummel. You know how messed up that is? And it's probably all a big political play that they're all mixed up in."
She gapes at Noah. Finn's mother is sleeping with Kurt's father? Does Kurt know that? Does Finn? She can't take this. She's taken by police in the morning, bullied by a terrible officer, only to be secretly rescued by her boyfriend, whose entire family is corrupt and sick, as her cousin says he is, too. This is just too much.
"I — I think I need to take a nap, Noah," she says. "I'm tired."
"Yeah," he says, "yeah, okay. I'm sorry to . . . I don't wanna make this day worse for you. I just want you to — to be careful. Don't trust Finn Hudson so easily, okay?"
"Okay," she says, standing and offering him a small smile. "I'll see you tomorrow."
He nods, and she starts to leave to head back upstairs to her room. Before she reaches the door, though, he calls out to her.
"Hey, when I talked to your dad, he said you stuck up for me. That when the police asked you if I had murdered Matt, you told them to go fuck themselves."
"I said something to the effect, yes," she says, "although in a much less crude way."
He grins, and she shakes her head at him, still smiling to herself as she starts back up the stairs. She tries to process everything she said, and she can't really believe it. She's always believed without a doubt that her uncle died in a car accident. But now Noah tells her, with complete sincerity, that Christopher Hudson beat him to death with a baseball bat?
How can that possibly be true?
And she should talk to Kurt, too. But what would she say?
Lying back on her bed, she scrolls through her contacts until she finds James Brolin, and she smiles as she texts Finn to meet her out at the drive-in at six, before she calls Santana to give her a ride.
She doesn't know how that conversation with Kurt will go, and she doesn't know what to think about everything Noah told her, but she still knows with certainty that Noah's wrong on one count: Finn isn't his father, or his mother.
He's his own person. He's Finn, simply Finn, with adorable dimples, a beautiful voice, and a kind of innocent courage. He's the boy who kisses her so sweetly at the end of their dates, who holds her hand so proudly whenever he can, who talks so sincerely about how much he loves music. He's Finn.
And she trusts him.
She hugs him from behind.
His hands are shoved in his pockets as he waits by his car at the Target down the street from the drive-in that's just outside of town, and suddenly little arms sneak around his middle and her face presses against his back. He smiles, relieved before he even realizes he was worried. He turns around and she leans up to kiss him quickly.
Santana catches his eye, nods, and slams on her gas pedal, leaving.
"How are you?" he asks Rachel, and then he flinches a little at his own words, because how can she be okay after what went down today?
But she smiles. "I'm fine," she assures. "Really. I'm just — I'm just really happy that you're not anything like your dad."
"I'm not," he says. "And, look, my dad is on a vendetta, but I'm not gonna let him mess with you, okay? Just, no matter what happens, remember that, okay?"
"I will. It's obvious that your dad simply wants to pin the murder on somebody, right? And my family is the best choice, because he —" she hesitates, "— he doesn't like my dad very much. But my dad is innocent, and so is my cousin, and your dad will have to admit that soon. He can't grasp at straws forever, and then this will be over."
He nods. He can't believe how she can be so sure and happy and confident again so quickly, but he's glad she is, even if he isn't so sure she's right. He kisses her again, and then holds the car door open for her. "You're still my boyfriend," she tells him.
"Yeah," he says. "And you're still my girlfriend."
This is her favourite drive-in, with the black and white movies, and she watches His Girl Friday with wide, delighted eyes, then she seems just as eager to watch Streetcar Named Desire afterward. She can't make it through two movies, though, and he sort of likes how she falls asleep against him.
She might be right. His entire life, his dad has told him shit about the Berrys. And maybe Mr. Berry really is an asshole, 'cause Noah certainly is, but if they didn't have anything to do with the murder, then his dad has to admit that eventually, right? He and Rachel can make this work.
They will make this work, and he definitely won't let his dad mess with her again.
She's so sleepy that he calls Santana for her, and the other girl only watches sourly as Finn carries Rachel over to her SUV and then helps her into the front seat. "She's been through a lot today," Santana tells him as he shuts the door and turns back towards his car.
"I know," he says. "She seems okay, though."
"Yeah. She bounces back fast."
"I guess so."
"She won't always," Santana says, and he doesn't know if that's a warning or an accusation.
He's too tired to care. He spent all afternoon freaked out over what had happened that morning, and it's already past midnight now. He just nods, Santana seems to accept that, and they both head home. His house seems exactly the same as it did the night before: the television plays in the living room, and he expects he'll find his dad passed out in front of it.
But when he starts up the stairs to check on his mom, his dad calls out to him.
Damn.
He hates when his dad is still awake.
He turns slightly and shuffles back down the stairs and across the hall. His dad sees him and then relaxes back in his chair. "Take a seat, kid," he says, nodding at the couch and taking a swig of scotch, and Finn reluctantly sits down. "Where've you been?"
"Out," Finn says. "With my friends. Just, like, out."
"You out all afternoon? Could've used you at the station."
"I figured I wasn't that much help, so I'd just get out of your way," Finn says.
And maybe his dad could let him stay out of the way — and leave Rachel alone, too. Or was that too much to hope for? He watches his dad toss back the rest of his scotch.
"If I want you out of the way, I'll tell you. Nope, kid, you're in this with me, aren't you! You are." He nods. "And we finally have a new lead, don't we? Finally. And that bastard Berry probably started to feel safe, to think he'd make his way scotch free out of this one." His dad chuckles, leaning back in his seat.
"You have a lead?" Finn asks.
"Sure do, didn't you see it? The girl, kid. She's it."
"Rachel?" Finn exclaims, shocked. "But she doesn't have anything to do with it! She doesn't even know her dad is part of the mob. She's completely innocent. I mean, didn't you say that yourself? You said you just want to piss her dad off, right?" He sounds a little panicked, he knows, but he is panicked.
"Oh, sure, that's what I thought, kid," his dad says, thumping his empty glass on the arm of his recliner, "but I think differently now." He grins, thumping the chair once more, and then leans forward. "She knows something, she does. I know it. I know it. She kept her mouth shut, but I've seen enough people sit in that chair to know when someone tries to bullshit me."
"I really don't think. . . ." Finn shakes his head.
"She knows something, kid, and —"
"She doesn't!" Finn insists, and his dad pauses. Finn forces himself to calm down. "Dad, I really don't think she knows anything about what her dad and her family is really like, and she definitely doesn't know about this murder."
His dad puts his glass on the coffee table, and then shifts and leans even further forward in his chair, looking at Finn with flushed cheeks. "You're my son, Finn, and that means you've got good instincts. You'll make for good police. But you have a lot to learn, and you listen to me now. That girl knows something, and you need to find out what."
Finn stares at him.
"Forget about that Puck kid," his dad goes on. "Forget him. Focus on her. Trust your old man, son, and find a way to make that girl talk, you hear me? That's how we'll do this. That's how."
He tries to think of something to say, some excuse to give his dad, some way to make this better.
But he can't think of anything.
tbc.