Wow! Thanks so much for so many nice reviews on Chapter 3! I really enjoyed reading them! I've been enjoying writing this story, as it's a plot I've always been interested in. Plus, I've always wanted to bring some of my original fiction characters into my fanfics! My plans for this chapter changed slightly, but I hope you still enjoy it! Don't forget to review if you should keep writing!

Chapter 4: Competition

"Finn, I need you to sign these papers."

Finn looked up from his desk and saw Quinn standing there with a printout. "It's for the adoption agency," Quinn said. "They'll find potential parents for our baby for us to meet with. I already filled most of it out, so I just need you to sign it."

Finn still felt conflicted about this situation. He wasn't sure how much he liked the idea of his baby going to another family, but at the same time, he didn't think Quinn was the one, and he wanted to be married with a solid career before he had kids. Hopefully married to Rachel.

Arguing with Quinn had never gotten him anywhere, so he reluctantly took the pen and signed the papers. Quinn mailed them on the way to school, and when they got there, Quinn went off with Brittany and Santana and Finn went to go talk with Puck. "Dude, today she had me sign papers that are the first step to giving away the baby."

Puck looked horrified, much more horrified than Finn expected. "You mean you're not even considering keeping her?"

"This is what Quinn wants," Finn said. He thought about what Puck said. Her. Quinn referred to the baby as "it" so often...

"Don't you deserve a say in all this?" Puck asked.

"Apparently not," Finn admitted. "To be honest, I just want all this to be over."

"Finn, can I ask you something?" Puck asked.

"Go ahead," Finn said.

"Are you SURE that's your kid?" Puck asked, giving Finn a strange look. He lowered his voice. "You told me you and Quinn never did it."

"You think Quinn cheated on me?" Finn gasped.

"I'm not saying she did, but I know it's a lot harder to get pregnant without having sex," Puck told Finn. "Oh, and by the way, you missed some big news yesterday. We're screwed at Regionals."

"What do you mean?" Finn asked.

"We're competing against Vocal Adrenaline and Rachel's new school," Puck told Finn. "With her on the other side, we've got last place in the bag."

Rachel. Finn wished that he was with Rachel now. She would have let him have a say in all of this. He wanted to sing WITH her at Regionals! Not against her.

Puck had gotten him thinking though. Was that baby his? They never had sex... No. It was his. Quinn wouldn't cheat on him. Right?

x

"Okay girls, we have your competition for Regionals," Rachel's show choir director, Mrs. White, said.

The girls cheered as Rachel hoped New Directions wouldn't be on the list. Competing against them would be more than awkward. "We'll be facing the defending National Champions, Vocal Adrenaline... and we're competing against a new choir from a school in Lima called the New Directions."

Oh no. One of the girls turned to Rachel. "Isn't that your old school?"

"Yeah," Rachel said.

"Rachel, are you okay with this?" Mrs. White asked. "If you don't want to compete against your old friends, we'll let you sit this one out."

Friends? She was sure Quinn and Santana wanted her in a jar. "It's fine."

"Okay then," Mrs. White said. "Tryouts for solos will be tomorrow."

Then thoughts came to Rachel's mind. She knew Finn would be heavily featured in the New Directions numbers. She didn't want to try out for a solo if that meant she and Finn would be facing off against each other. At the end of practice, Rachel, Jessica and Zoey went to meet up with Sasha, Natalie and Lauren for lunch. "We're competing against Rachel's old school at Regionals," Zoey said.

"Do you think that the choir here will beat them?" Lauren asked Rachel.

Rachel didn't know if she liked this. "I'm not sure." For one thing, the choir here was a lot bigger and it was a class rather than an after school activity.

"I'm just glad we're going this year," Jessica said. "Last year the Dalton boys beat us at Sectionals."

"Yeah, didn't that Vocal Adrenaline beat them at their Sectionals?" Natalie asked.

"Yeah," Zoey said.

"Are you sure you're okay with competing against your old school?" Sasha asked Rachel.

"Yeah, I'm fine with it," Rachel said. "There's really only one person I care about on that team." Uh oh. She'd let it out. She'd promised herself not to talk about Finn here, but she'd let it out.

"It's a boy, isn't it?" Sasha asked. Already, these girls knew her too well.

"Yeah," Rachel said. "His name is Finn, he's really nice."

"You're blushing!" Jessica said. "You like him, don't you?"

"Yeah, but he's with someone," Rachel said. She didn't want to tell her friends about Quinn's pregnancy. No girl here would get pregnant in high school. This school already was so much different from McKinley. The building itself was almost like a castle and had a fountain in the lobby. There were three times as many AP classes and multiple girls got perfect SAT and ACT scores and went to Ivy League schools every year. The school had a horseback riding stable (some horses of which the girls brought themselves), recreation center, Olympic pool and Olympic ice rink and practically every sports team imaginable. The sports teams were nationally ranked and the band and choir had performed for all sorts of famous people. Rachel had gotten an academic scholarship and thought her family was pretty well off, but over the weekend she'd been to Sasha's house, and it was about twice as big as her house. Other girls here were daughters of CEOs.

"Don't worry, Rachel," Zoey said. "Once you meet the Dalton boys you won't worry about Finn."

"I bet Rachel would like Blaine," Lauren said.

"Who's Blaine?" Rachel asked.

"He's the lead singer of the Dalton Warblers," Natalie said. "He's a great singer."

"Do you guys have boyfriends?" Rachel asked, trying to keep the focus off her. She didn't want A boyfriend. She wanted Finn.

"Yeah," Sasha said. "His name is Johnny, he's a junior at Dalton and the president of the Dalton-Crawford High School Democratic club."

"You would date a guy like that," Rachel giggled. Sasha was extremely politically active, and when Rachel had gone to her house, she'd been impressed by her friend's collection of political memorabilia and photo with every major Democratic politician imaginable.

"The rest of us don't," Zoey said.

"That's cool," Rachel said.

"Oh, and speaking of your old high school, we actually have a swim meet there next weekend," Jessica said.

"Oh wow," Rachel said. She felt like she should go to support her friends - but it would be odd to be back at McKinley.

"That's great!" Natalie said. Rachel nervously smiled at her friends, hoping that things would go okay.

x

"And here's the photo from the newspaper from when we won Sectionals," Rachel said, pointing to the photo on the bulletin board in the main hallway at McKinley before her friends' swim meet. Her eyes fell on Finn, who had his arm around her. Maybe she'd run into him? There was a basketball game tonight.

"Oh, look who's here!" Rachel turned and saw Quinn, standing with Kurt, Mercedes, Santana and Brittany, all in their cheerios uniforms. Since when were Kurt and Mercedes cheerios?

"Hi," Rachel said. She figured the best policy was to keep things cool right now.

"Hey RuPaul," Quinn said.

"Are these some of the rich white girls from that preppy private school you go to now?" Santana asked.

"Wow, you guys are bitches," Lauren said.

"Yeah, Rachel's too nice to have ever done anything to you," Sasha added.

"You'd think that school of yours would teach you how to recognize a pregnant girl," Quinn said. "Rachel tried to steal the guy I'm having a baby with!"

The swim coach came into the hall. "Girls, we need to start warming up."

"It's a good thing you left this school," Natalie whispered to Rachel as the swimmers went to the pool deck to join their team. Rachel went to the stands. Luckily most of the kids on the swim team at McKinley she'd met were relatively nice, so she didn't think she'd have to worry about anyone throwing slushies at her.

"Hey." Rachel looked next to her, where a boy in a Dalton shirt was. "You're Rachel Berry, right?"

"Yeah," Rachel said. This boy was cute. He had bushy eyebrows and black hair with a lot of hair gel gluing it to his head.

"I heard you've got a good voice," the boy said. "I'm Blaine Anderson, I'm a freshman at Dalton. I'm the lead of the Warblers."

"Nice to meet you," Rachel said. So this was the boy her friends had told her about. "So, here to see some of your friends compete, too?" Since Dalton and Crawford were single gender schools, they combined for sports that had coed teams at other schools.

"Yeah," Blaine said. "Who are your friends on the swim team?"

"Sasha Klons, Jessica Ulps, Natalie Lawrence, Lauren Mann and Zoey Williams," Rachel said. "Know them?"

"Oh yeah," Blaine said. "They're sophomores, aren't they? I think I've met them at mixers."

"Yeah, I'm a sophomore too," Rachel said. "Jessica and Zoey are in the show choir, and Natalie and Lauren are in the orchestra, so you might have met them."

"Yeah," Blaine said. "I heard you transferred from here at McKinley."

News must have traveled fast. "Yeah, it wasn't the right school for me."

"That's fine," Blaine said. "Are you happy now?"

"Yeah," Rachel said. She had friends, but she was still getting adjusted. At McKinley she'd been one of the top students, but her classes were much harder here. Sasha was the top student in their grade, with Lauren the second top.

"I got bullied at my old school," Blaine admitted.

"You know, that's why I left McKinley," Rachel said. "People would throw slushies at me."

"Seriously?" Blaine asked. "That's so stupid!"

"I know, right?" Rachel asked.

x

Dalton and Crawford ended up beating McKinley in the swim meet and Rachel had enjoyed her time with Blaine. After the swim meet, Rachel's friends had changed into their sweats, and the girls were in line at the concession stands for snacks when Rachel heard a familiar voice. "Rachel?"

Rachel turned around by who she saw. "Finn?"

"Uh, hi," Finn said. "What are you doing here?"

"My friends were swimming against McKinley, so I came to watch," Rachel said. "So how was your basketball game?"

"We lost," Finn said. He looked behind Rachel. "So, you've made some friends?"

"Yeah," Rachel said. "This is Sasha, and Lauren, and Natalie, and Zoey, and Jessica."

"Nice to meet you guys," Finn said. He looked a little awkward. "Well, gotta go."

"So that's him?" Jessica asked when Finn left.

"Yeah," Rachel said.

"He's cute," Natalie said. "And he seems nice."

"Yes and yes," Rachel said.

"Why's he with that mean girl then?" Zoey asked.

"He doesn't seem like the type who'd get a girl pregnant," Lauren added.

Rachel was just glad her friends weren't judging Finn for the pregnancy. But then she realized - Finn wasn't the type to get a girl pregnant. She just knew he was the type to always use protection...

She shouldn't be thinking this way. Type or not, Quinn was having Finn's baby. Maybe there would be hope for Finn and Rachel if they gave up the baby, but for now there wasn't. Plus, Rachel was at another school now, and they were living totally different lives...

"You okay, Rachel?" Sasha asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Rachel said. As the girls left, Rachel caught a glance at Finn in the gym. She felt safer, more respected and more prepared at Crawford, but she definitely missed him.

Chapter 5 preview: Someone from New Directions apologizes to Rachel for Quinn and Santana's behavior when she was at McKinley and Rachel begins to form a friendship with that person. New Directions finds a twelfth member. More issues for Finn, Quinn and Puck.

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