Author's Note: Hi everyone :) thank you so, so much for all your lovely reviews they make me so happy and also a big thank you to everyone who alerted/favourited this story :D I hope this chapter lives up to expectations! One person told me they wanted a dramatic break up and someone else said they wanted them to remain friends so I tried to incorporate a bit of both, I hope it worked. Rachel will be returning to Lima very soon so please let me know which characters you would like to see in this story and also, do you want Shelby to be incorporated in this story? If you can please let me know what you think, I really appreciate it :)

Disclaimer: I don't own Glee or anything to do with it.

Rachel rinsed her mouth and dragged herself over to her sofa. She was drained; pregnancy really took everything out of you. On top of booking plane tickets back to Lima, speaking to her dads about staying with them for a little while, without letting slip that she was pregnant, and trying to convince Kurt that he didn't need to check up on her every five minutes, her morning sickness had just started to kick in and Rachel Berry did not do throwing up. She had always led the healthiest lifestyle, which meant she never got sick and she wasn't used to the constant churning in her stomach.

She closed her eyes and was just about to lose herself in sleep, the one place where everything was ok; where she was Rachel Berry, Broadway legend and a baby was definitely not in the picture, when she heard it. The knock on the door. A knock that used to make her smile, made her excited, but now it filled her with dread. This what it. The end of the lies, the end of the hiding. Telling James didn't just mean breaking his heart, it meant facing up to the reality of her situation and she wasn't sure she was ready to do that. What was it that Jesse had told her in high school? 'That's the funny thing about reputations. Everyone thinks I'm the big heartbreaker, but the fact of the matter is you broke mine first." Rachel Berry had broken the heart of every boy who'd ever loved or come close to loving her. First there was Puck, she broke up with him and though he never loved her and they wouldn't have worked out, she knew she still hurt his feelings. Then there was Jesse and yes he did later go on to egg her, which shattered her heart into a million pieces, but didn't she break his heart first? Then there was Finn. Now she was about to do it again. She couldn't put it off anymore. So she tentatively stood up and headed for the door.

There he was, standing there smiling at her innocently, completely unaware of what she was about to tell him. He was so handsome he made her swoon! She had only met one guy who had been handsomer than James, and she was carrying his baby.

"Hey James."

"Hi Rachel, how are you?"

"Not too bad thank you and you?"

"A bit stressed out from work but other wise I'm good."

He smiled at her lovingly. She knew he loved her but she never let him say it. She didn't know what she would do if he did. She knew she couldn't say it back.

"Well come in. Can I get you anything?"

"Hey Rach?"

She flinched at the name. That was Finn's name for her. Only Finn's. Yes her friends sometimes called her Rach and she hadn't minded when James was just her friend but now that he was more than that she hated it. He meant in that same sweet, endearing, loving way that Finn meant it and it just wasn't right.

"Yes James?"

"It's me! You don't have to do this whole polite thing! What's got into you? You've been acting strange lately!"

"Sorry, I didn't realise! I just haven't been feeling that great and my head's kind of messed up! Anyway, did you want a drink?"

"Some tea would be great. I'm sorry to hear you haven't been feeling well, why didn't you tell me? Is there anything I can do to help?"

Yeah, tell me you hate me and never want to see me again and dump me now so I don't have to go through telling you myself!

"No, don't worry I'm fine! But thank you."

Rachel carried the drinks through to the sitting room and sat down on the couch. But she didn't snuggle up close to James like she used to. Nothing was the same as it used to be anymore.

James looked at Rachel, confused. She normally babbled on and on about something ridiculous when he was around her while he tried his best to listen to her! She looked pale and queasy and he didn't like the distance she had placed between them, it felt awkward and uncomfortable. She must really be sick.

"So, on the phone you said you had something to talk about?"

This was it; this was the end of everything she had grown accustomed to over the past four months. She had spent five days preparing herself for this moment; she knew exactly what she was going to say and how she was going to say it. She was an actress and she figured this would be easier if she turned it into a role she was playing, so she'd rehearsed her lines over and over again. So why now, couldn't she do it?

"I did? Oh well it can't have been very important because I honestly can't remember!"

"Rachel. You've been my friend for five years. You've been my girlfriend for four months. I know you. What's up?"

"How can you say that James? You don't know me at all! You don't know the first thing about me! You don't know that I tried bulimia once in high school, you don't know that I took performance enhancers before a competition in glee club, you don't know how much it hurt me when Jesse smashed that egg on my head, you don't know how much it hurt me when Finn broke up with me, you don't know how much it hurt me when I left Finn for good! You don't know my feelings, you don't know my history and you don't know that two months ago I slept with Finn Hudson and you don't know that I'm pregnant with his child!"

And there it was. The truth was out. Not in the way Rachel had planned, not gently or nicely. Any attempts at trying not to hurt his feelings had been thrown out the window and Rachel didn't even know why. Why was she punishing him? Of all people she deserved to be punished, he was being punished enough. Why was she angry at him for not knowing her like Finn did when she had never given him the opportunity to know her like Finn did.

She watched as his expression turned from one of shock at her sudden outburst, to one of hurt as what she had said finally sunk in, to one of anger. And there it was. This was not a movie or a Broadway show. She wasn't the stunning female lead who would be applauded at the end for her breathtakingly moving performance and he wasn't the heroic male lead who had acted his part so well in response to the shocking news he had just received. This was real life. The expressions on his face were painfully real and everything she had just said was true. And now he was looking at her like he loathed her, like it was a lifetime ago that he had told her that he knew her and he wanted her to open up.

"Well if I didn't know you then, Rachel Berry." He spat the name out like it was burning his mouth. "Then I definitely know you now!"

"James, please I'm so sorry!"

"For what?"

"For doing what I did, for not telling you sooner, for telling you in the way I just told you. And for letting you think that this relationship was ever going to work."

She stared at the floor as tears begun to spill out her eyes. She wanted to run away and hide. She wanted to be eaten up by the floor. She wanted to be that nine-year-old girl who was full of hopes and dreams. She wanted to be anywhere but here.

"How long have you known?"

"Known what?"

"Do not make me say it Rachel, you know what I'm talking about!"

"Only about five days."

"I just don't understand you Rachel. Four months we've been together, and I was starting to think you were letting your guard down just a little, that you might finally let me in. But that was all just some twisted delusion wasn't it? The truth is there's only one guy you would ever let your guard down to and you walked out on him a long time ago. And you have the audacity to accuse me of not knowing you? Well I'm sorry that I'm not a mind reader!"

"I know and I'm so sorry! I had absolutely no right to shout at you like that, you were just being sweet and kind and I hurt you so much. Please James, please can you try and forgive me. You're one of my closest friends."

"Rachel can't you see you're asking too much of me? Truth is I'm not really mad at you! How can I be? You're one of my closest friends and you're pregnant with some guy who lives in a different state's baby as the result of a one night stand, and it kills me to have to see you go through that, no matter how much what you did to me hurt. But there is a part of me that hates you for what you did Rachel, and I think it always will. I really loved you. I know you never felt that way about me but I always hoped you might and you just stomped all over that glimmer of hope I had left. I've never been much good at relationships. I really thought you would be my chance Rachel. I thought after knowing you for so long you would finally love me. I guess I thought wrong."

"James, you know I love you."

"But not in that way. And even if you had learnt to, you would never have loved me as much as you love him. So I guess, maybe, in some ways this is better. But it still hurts like hell Rachel, I need you to understand that."

"I do understand that James, believe me I do. But I can't lose you. Please just forgive me. I can't lose you."

"And you won't. But you can't click your fingers and make this all go away. Maybe one day we can get back that friendship we had. But I need you to give me time and space. You've got to allow me that much."

Rachel nodded slowly and stood helplessly as James walked out the apartment without looking back. Only then did she allow herself to fall to the floor as her body shook with the force of her sobs.