A/N: Sorry for not updating for a long time but I've been stumbling over what to do next. I originally meant to move this forward to where Finn meets Rachel, but I couldn't get this idea out of my head of having to figure out what happened in their past to get the stone rolling to bring them to the point where they had hurt each other so much they would not even want to talk to each other. So a while ago I had this conversation in my head between them, and I finally fleshed it out now. It's difficult for me because I don't usually write in Rachel's POV, but somehow that is what happened and I couldn't stop it. And then I wasn't sure if I should post it now, at this point, or whether I should make it a separate one-shot, and just have Finn revisit it in flashbacks in the story. But I really don't want yet another one-shot off-spin of this story, so… there it is. A flashback. And maybe the best way I could introduce Rachel's part of this story, at this point. You'll get to hear enough about Finn's memories of this in the future chapters anyway, I'm sure.
Chapter 4: Where there once was love
He comes to her one day, joining her in that quiet way of his as she's walking out of the school cafeteria. She doesn't know if he just waited for her to come out or if he's been in there all along; she's spent her lunch break sitting with Mercedes and Tina and Lauren and Puck and it was actually probably one of the best lunches she's had lately. (Even though now that she sees him she realizes why – she thinks it might be progress that she doesn't know if he's been in the cafeteria all along)
"Hi," he says, softly, from behind her as he catches up.
It's the first time he's talked to her in over a week. (The last time was at Regionals, and she still wishes she could turn back time and make him unsay those three words that hurt so much because they weren't the words she had hoped to hear.)
"Hi," she replies, not looking over at him as she continues walking, dodging a trio of cheerios as she does - making sure not to bump into him at the same time.
"I need to talk to you," he says, quietly, and she can feel his fingers slipping around her arm, slowing her down.
She doesn't want to, really. She just wants to hang on to that feeling she had during lunch for a bit longer; but the part of her that can't forget everything else (the part wishing she could have him back) is too strong to ignore. "Okay," she says, finally, and cringes inwardly at the tinge of resignation sounding through in her own voice.
They've stopped in the hallway.
"Not here," he says, and pulls her softly along.
Her heartbeat is racing by the time they enter the empty choir room, and not only because of the fast pace that got them there. She doesn't want to let herself hope, really, but the oddly comfortable silence on the way and his familiar touch on her arm have made her feel hopeful against her better judgment. If only she could shake the memory of him entering the room in a similar way with Quinn the day before…
But try as she might, she cannot keep her hopefulness out of her voice when she turns to face him once he's closed the door behind them. "Well?"
He doesn't meet her eyes. She watches him struggle for words for a moment until the silence in the room becomes awkward. "You seem happier," he mumbles, sounding like he forgot what he wanted to talk about.
She doesn't know what to reply to that. Does she seem happier? She sure doesn't feel so, most of the time.
"They're nicer to you now, " he adds after a moment and, as if it needed further explanation of whom he was talking about, he indicates the rows of chairs behind her with a half-hearted circular motion of his hand.
Things have been different since Regionals. It's like making her MVP was the turning point, but she's still wary of their acceptance. "Yeah."
"It's really good to see that," he says.
She wonders how long it will take him to get to why he brought her here. Surely this can't be it.
"I'm glad they are. You deserve it. I wish they'd seen it before. I mean, it's kinda sad that it took you singing it to them to make them realize it, but still – it's like a giant step…" He looks at her with an expression that is almost pleading, even if his words don't sound like a plea.
"Yeah," she slowly replies. She doesn't get what all this is about. There must be something she's missing.
"You're happy, right? About it?" Why is he making it sound so apologetic? And why won't he meet her eyes?
"Yes, Finn," she says after a moment, trying to make sense of this. Whatever it is, it's slowly making her more annoyed than anything. She can't help but ask: "Is that all you wanted to talk about?"
Maybe some of her rising annoyance is getting through to him because he finally – finally! – raises his eyes to meet hers.
"Look—I just—" he stumbles over the words, and if she wasn't so annoyed already, and if this was another time, she'd find it as adorable as always but right now she just wishes he would get to the point before she's had enough. "I-I just – we're still friends, right? I just—just wanted to make sure, you know, that you knew I'm still your friend, even with—"
Is he serious? They haven't exchanged a word or look in over a week, Quinn's been giving her pointed looks whenever they've been walking by her, hand in hand – and he thinks he can still be friends with her? Everything's changed now. Maybe before her song they had still been able to hang on to their friendship, but since then? She'd put her heart out on the line, tried one more time to get through to him, but he'd not even acknowledged her presence since the strange look he'd given her during the song. And she hadn't failed to spot Quinn hovering behind him then. So what was this?
She doesn't understand him anymore. It stopped the moment she realized he was fooling around with Quinn behind Sam's back. It made her sick to her stomach knowing about it, but she'd swallowed the feeling and her pride and had gone to him then. Hearing his admission about how kissing Quinn made him see fireworks… it had been like breaking up all over again. Just worse. Because the boy lying sick on that bed hadn't been the boy she thought she knew anymore. Everything somehow seemed false.
In the weeks that had followed she'd had a glimmer of hope again when it seemed there was nothing going on between him and Quinn, and his continued support for her ideas and her song-writing had made her think she just needed to re-evaluate him, to re-learn Finn, so to speak. It had been good to have their friendship back, at the least. It'd been what had made her stand up against Quinn when the blonde had told her about them being tog-
Suddenly she knows. All this – is his attempt to apologize; he's trying to make himself feel better about not telling her the truth.
"It's okay. I get it," she says, and her annoyance shifts to an overwhelming sadness.
"Get what?" He looks at her, startled out of his own reverie, and for a moment she wonders what he's been thinking about that made him look so… so utterly forlorn. There's something about his eyes that just makes her want to throw her arms around him and hold him, but she forces the thought out of her head. It's just a stupid remnant of their past. She doesn't doubt that he feels bad about this, but it's not up to her to comfort him now. Not like that. Still, she can't help trying to comfort him in some way.
"Look, I'm sorry. I know, I've been saying that over and over about so many things, and it really seems like all conversations we have lately always have me apologizing for something, but I mean it."
If anything, the look he gives her is one of irritation. "So what are you sorry for this time? I don't know what you're—"
Has he forgotten what he told her once – that he feels what she sings? Or was that just one of those things he said to make her feel better about herself? "My song- I mean, you said you could feel what I sing about," – does she really need to spell it out for him now? – " and I thought that maybe if I sang about how I felt about us, you'd understand… forgive… I guess I hoped for-" – she's rambling now, and she knows it; more as an observation to herself she adds, "… but I was just ignoring the truth one more time."
The irritation she saw in his eyes a moment ago has transferred itself to his voice when he asks her after a long moment of silence, "… What truth is that?"
She sighs and looks down at her feet. She doesn't really feel like explaining it all - she shouldn't need to explain it at all to him, but it's just another bitter reminder of how wrong things have become. "Your relationship with Quinn - it's obvious she is what you want and I have no right to try and force myself between you once again. I knew it, and still I tried. "
For a moment she has this surreal feeling as if the ground were slowly slipping away from beneath her all this time she's talking – they're talking; nothing really seems real anymore. She doesn't know why she's not crying yet; she's so far removed from the initial feeling of annoyance by now, and every word she hears and says just makes her more miserable. Thinking about it all, having to explain it all in such detail just so he'd understand what he should have understood from the beginning if they truly ever understood each other…it just hurts so much to try and make sense of it. Can't it just be what it is? Can't they be done with it already?
"Rachel—"
That one word by him can hold so much emotion… she looks up at him, to find his eyes trained on her, watching her, his expression pained and miserable, but she thinks there's something else. Pity.
"Don't." She doesn't need his pity.
"I-" he tries again.
But she doesn't need any of his commiseration or his weak attempts at comforting her. All she needs is to be forgiven and loved again. And for any of this to make sense.
"How-?" Her eyes are pleading with him where words are failing her. It's been a question burning and stinging on her mind and tongue forever now (since Quinn admitted it) but now somehow she finds the words won't come out right.
"How what?" She finds him looking at her with a frown on his face.
"How can you – how can you be with her? After everything she's done to you?"
"I—" he begins, his face a mask of discomfort, and then stops again, to look at her in surprise. "Wait – you said you knew it. You mean, you'd known all along?"
Had he only caught on to that now? "That you were back with her? Yes!"
"How did you know? She- we- we didn't –" She watches the surprise written on his face change into puzzled embarrassment.
"She told me, Finn. I asked her, and she told me."
"What did she say?" His voice is beginning to sound different again; there's an odd edge to it now that she doesn't know what to make of.
"Ask her." She doesn't want to revisit that day again, not even in words only.
"I'm asking you."
Why is this even important? "Don't."
"Rachel—"
She can't figure out why he would be so determined to find out. She has no intention of telling him anything about that conversation – it hurts too much. She's already dangerously close to losing control over her emotions as bitterness bubbles up inside her at the thought of her conversation with Quinn; it bursts out of her in a dry, miserable laugh as she's trying valiantly to distract both him and herself from what he truly wants to know.
"You were right, about accessing the hard pain. That was what made it possible to write a good song. You could say we have her to thank for winning Regionals. Call it her contribution to the song-writing process."
"What did she say?" His insistent request comes after a long silence broken by a gasp; she realizes that if anything, her attempt at distraction made it worse rather than anything else.
"Ask her!" she repeats her previous answer, her voice raised but just as stubborn as his.
He reaches out for her, out of reflex it seems, and she can feel his fingers slipping along her neck; the touch makes her tremble before she remembers to jump backwards, out of his reach, his fingers left hovering in the air between them. "Don't!"
But that one gesture is enough to crack the guards of her resolution; it makes her painfully aware of how much she misses the comfort of his touch. She can't stop herself anymore; what has been bottled up so carefully around him, inside her, has to burst forth with a vehemence that makes him recoil further. "What does it matter what she said? What does any of it matter? The only thing that matters is that you chose to forgive her. Her! She's done you wrong in so many ways, she cheated on you in a way so much worse than I ever could, then lied to you for months instead of confessing at once like I did; she blamed you for a pregnancy that you never caused, berated and belittled you at every turn, made you feel worthless and stupid- and yet you chose to forgive her! And me – me, you can't forgive this one stupid mistake that I told you about instantly!"
He stares at her with eyes huge and strangely liquid, his lips a thin line over a trembling chin, but she pushes on, not able to stop the onslaught anymore even if she wanted to. Her own eyes are brimming over with tears unshed – tears that spill from them as she continues, that make her unable to see past the blurredness of her own misery. "Isn't that what love is all about? Forgiveness? How many times have I forgiven you for your mistakes? For all the times you hurt me in some way? You know why I was able to? Because I love you! I've always loved you, and that's why I could forgive you. But you forgive her and not me. You know what that tells me? That you love her, and not me! "
She's sobbing now, her shoulders shaking, yet she plows on. "I n-never r-really stood a chance, d-d-didn't I? I've – I've been trying to w-win you back, to g-g-get your for-forgiveness, w-w-wondering why it's so hard to g-get that if you loved me – but you don't, so all this was just pointless, isn't it? It's always b-b-been her! An-an-and I even wrote a stupid s-s-song about it! D-did you ever even care about me? Or was it all just some s-stupid g-game to you, like you're w-w-walking through school with her on your arm n-now, f-f-flaunting your love before my eyes, uncaring how much th-this hurts me? Do you ha-have to make it so o-o-obvious how little I mean to you?"
Her misery is slowly making way to bitterness and anger over the injustice, the unfairness of it all. "I never thought you could be this mean. I thought I knew you – understood you! But you know what? Maybe you really deserve each other, you and Quinn. You can have your perfect life with a perfect house and perfect kids and a perfect garden and a perfect porch swing, and Quinn can work in real estate and you in Burt's shop and that's really perfect, too, for you. Maybe I should be grateful to her, for telling me the truth. I always felt you wanted more than that, but I guess I was mistaken. But at least it gave me something to sing about, right? At least I can take that with me – a broken and shattered heart that's forever yours. Because I'll always love you, that will never change, but I'll just have to learn to live with it as I go back to concentrating on becoming a famous Broadway star, and one day when someone asks me in an interview how I'm so convincing at playing broken-hearted I'll just-"
"Would you stop?"
His words cut through hers, a bare croak but still effective at silencing her for a moment. She forces herself to look up at him and finds him with his eyes shut tight. But a second later they open, and she's not quite sure how to read what lies in them. Shock? Horror? Shame? Pain? She's so beyond trying to understand what's going on in his mind.
She watches him swallow, once again closing his eyes as he gulps down a breath noisily. Not certain if he intends to say anything else, she's about to continue her own rant, but then he reaches for her again, and grabs her wrists.
"Rach," he says. Hearing him use the so familiar nickname hurts even more than anything after all this time; she's not heard it since the day he broke up with her. She sees him grimace, and wonders if he realizes it, too. He swallows again, and she watches his adam's apple bob up and down in apprehension. "You have got to stop this, Rach-el. Please!"
He's pleading with her and she doesn't know what to make of that.
"Don't you realize how ridiculous this is? Can you just for once let all this drama and crap go and just be honest with yourself?"
Her brows furrow as he tugs on her wrists with every word; she can't believe he just called any of this ridiculous. "How can you ev-"
"No! Listen! For once – just this once – can you just drop it? This isn't some play, you're not playing a part – can you just look beyond this fucking stage you always think you're on?"
"WHAT? How dare y-"
She's shaken off his hands, her anger giving her that extra burst of strength she needed to free herself of his hated hold of her; she's trembling with indignation at his assumption that this is all some game of hers. How dare he think that – when he himself is the one who's been playing her all this time? But the next moment his hands grab her shoulders, and she finds herself shoved backwards. Her eyes fly upwards, shocked, to meet his, and for a moment he looks as shocked as she feels before the look in his eyes changes to something else she can't read and he drops his hands. She tries to protest again, but is silenced by the glare from his eyes.
"NO! You had your say, now you're going to listen to me!" He's never sounded so angry with her before. Disappointed, miserable, annoyed, grumpy – but never angry.
"Fine." She crosses her arms in front of her chest.
"All this crap you keep saying about forgiveness, that's all fine and well, but you know what? That's not all that love is about. How about not hurting someone you love? How can you even say you love me when you had no trouble doing something you KNEW would hurt me? I'd never ever do that to you."
She's opening her mouth to interrupt him, to throw his lie right back into his face but he won't let her. "I know, I KNOW, right? I know I hurt you when I didn't tell you about Santana, but, see, I didn't tell you because I knew it would hurt you and I couldn't face doing that to you. All I ever wanted was for you to feel happy and safe and loved and, and- trusted, and hurting you in any way wasn't something I ever wanted to do. But what you did…? You wanted to see me hurt. You ch—you did what you did because you knew it would hurt me, and that's the reason you did it. To cause pain. And that's not something you do if you truly love someone."
She stares at him, her mind drawing – for the first time since this conversation started – a complete blank trying to think of something to say.
"So just stop telling yourself – or me – that you love me; fuck, can't you just be honest to yourself this once, and admit it's all just another damn role you're playing or something? It's like you cast yourself as the tragic hero in some fucked-up high-school drama and I'm just there to make you feel better about yourself when you've brought yourself down."
Her body feels numb; all that's left of her – that is capable of feeling anything – is trying to keep it together somehow. She cannot believe the words coming out of his mouth; cannot believe he's not even struggling to find the right words - that it's all just bursting out of him like he fully believes what he's saying. He cannot be.
"I know I'm about as smart as a brick when it comes to some things – but I always could tell what was going through your mind. Or that's what I thought, until you cheated and turned everything upside down. Can't you even see what that did to me? I couldn't even trust anything anymore. But you just tried and tried and tried to get me back, like it didn't matter what you'd done. You're so hung up on this- this fixation with me, that it's all you care about. But that's all it is, Rachel. You don't love me. Not really. You just need me to practice your grand tragic role on. To feel better about yourself. To support you when no one else in Glee club will. That's not love."
She closes her eyes against his words, wishing she could close her ears off against him, too, but that's to no avail. It's too late for that – his words are already ringing in her ears over and over again, firmly cementing the thought in there that he doesn't think she's ever loved him. That he himself sounds as miserable and hurt as she feels – she doesn't want to acknowledge even though she hears it well enough by now.
"We were better as friends, and that's what I'd been trying to be for you before all this; you were better off with us as friends. I'm glad you're going back to your dreams - you need to foc—"
"Do you really believe that?" she finally interrupts him, barely able to squeeze out the words. He's been looking away from her during that last bit; now he looks back at her and meets her eyes and that's all she needs to finally come apart.
Breaking out in tears once again, she flees, unable to stay in his presence any more.
It's amazing how some things – some memories - stay with you as clear as daylight. No matter how hard you try to forget, everything you do just brings you right back to where you began, and every try just makes it worse. Because it doesn't really get better with time. It doesn't really hurt less. It just makes you go over everything again and again, analyzing, reinterpreting, trying to make sense of it, trying to find something to hang on to, to give you hope or let you move on, and all you're left with in the end is the realization of how much of a mess your life is.
But the thing with memories like that is that they stay with you as you grow and learn, and sometimes you grow a little wiser, and learn a little more about life, and suddenly the mess your life is becomes the mess you made of it when you look at it again in all your newfound wisdom.
Yet for all that realization, you've still got a problem admitting its truth to yourself. You don't want to confess that you made mistakes. Because such a confession hurts. And you don't know if you can deal with any more of that. But also – and the more you think of it, the more you know it's the absolute truth – because such a confession forces change. And you don't know if you're ready for that yet.
"- the ghost of a girl that I want to be most,
I'm the shell of a girl that I used to know well –
Dancing slowly in an empty room,
can the lonely take the place of you;
I sing myself a quiet lullaby;
then you go and let the lonely in,
to take my heart again…"
She's singing quietly to herself. She doesn't know exactly at which point she failed to have the strength to continue the previous song, but it's left her feeling so tired and worn. It had been full of passion, full of misery, full of so much heartbreak – she'd sung until she just couldn't take it anymore, and broke down into yet more tears.
It had been the wrong song, somehow. This one feels more right. But it's still not perfect.
"… too afraid to go inside,
for the pain of one more loveless night,
for the loneliness will stay with me,
and hold me until I fall asleep."
Loveless she knows. Loneliness, too. A part of her can accept them both as of her own making. Another part still stubbornly insists that others are much easier to blame. But that part is slowly running out of excuses.
"I'm the ghost of a girl that I want to be most,
I'm the shell of a girl that I used to know well-"
The worst realization has been that she's been holding on to something that's long been broken, and it's not even just her relationship with Finn. It's more that her dreams seem empty and cheap now. They're in New York now – the place she's always dreamed about once living in – and yet, somehow, it's not what it should be like. And she seems to lack the power to turn it back into what she wants it to be. The part of her that's still fighting her wants to return to being that girl that could believe in this magical world of Broadway where she'd find acceptance and stardom instantly. She wants to be that girl again, because that girl is all that she used to know, and it's easier to return to that than accept that she's someone different now.
"Broken pieces of
a barely breathing story
where there once was love
now there's only me
and the lonely."
But she can't return to that version of her. She's changed. He's changed her. They have changed her. She's tried to fight it for all she could over the last few months, but it really just came down to this night and the realization that she's changed whether she wants it or not, and she can't go back to the Rachel who thought she didn't need anyone for anything.
It's kind of ironic, really, singing this song about loneliness, if that's the furthest from what she really wants to be. But it fits her, in an eerie way, because she's destroyed so much and burned so many bridges with her behavior that it's all she's left with.
"I'm the ghost of a girl that I want to be most,
I'm the shell of a girl that I used to know well –"
She pulls her feet up and onto the bench, pulling them close until she sits there curled up with her arms tightly around them. The darkness around her is almost complete, but if she closes her eyes she can almost see the edges of the room she's dancing through in her imagination.
"Dancing slowly in an empty room,
can the lonely take the place of you;
I sing myself a quiet lullaby;
then you go and let the lonely in,
to take my heart again…"
"Rachel?"
A/N #2: The song Rachel's singing here is The Lonely, by Christina Perri. I spent a long time trying to decide what song she would be singing when Finn finally finds her, and I admit a lot of my trouble with updating this story came from not finding the perfect song for my purpose. But this one just worked – it's been on my mind a lot lately whenever I thought of the Rachel she is at this point.
Anyway – there you have it in all its glory. The chapter, I mean. The flashback. The reason everything's got so messed up. Some other things played a part in it, too, of course, but we'll get to those in due time, and this one really was the catalyst to all their misery. I'd love to know what you think of it – if it's reasonable enough. Reviews would be lovely.
