She laid awake for a long time.

That was not what she'd planned when she'd told Kurt she wanted to talk to Finn. Whether or not she'd planned to actually open up to him, she hadn't known then and she didn't know now but her intentions had been purely—well, pure.

She hadn't wanted to spend the night at the Hudson-Hummel household, not under the same roof as Finn, not across the hall from the one person left in the world (conscious) who could comfort her but wouldn't because he hated her now, just like everyone else. But she was nothing if not a little bit selfish; this had been one of those times when she was a lot selfish. She knew she'd regret it in the morning, when she wasn't struggling to keep her eyes open against the burn of too many tears shed and not enough sleep.

She'd thought, though, that maybe if she got just one hug, spent just a few minutes in his room, inhaling the familiar scent—that would probably gross her out if she thought too hard about what all it contained but smelled like Finn and somehow she was addicted—maybe she'd be able to make it until morning.

If she could just make it through til tomorrow morning, then she could worry about making through the day.

But she'd opened the door to his room, and he'd been awake, sitting there in nothing but his boxers and sheets, looking exactly as she'd always imagined he would if she snuck in his room at night: confused and tired, disheveled in a way that made her want to dishevel him some more.

She couldn't remember making a decision about anything, but she was moving before she'd even realized it.

Surely this was all just a dream.

The world was still so normal, she'd stood in this exact spot in his room so many times, felt the exact same way and how should that be possible when everything was different? Her parents couldn't be dead-or-in-a-coma, she and Finn hadn't broken up because of course he hadn't slept with Santana, and how could she possibly conceive of cheating on him when he was the one she loved? It was a dream, and here she was in his room, admiring the little lines that appeared between his brows whenever he was trying too hard to figure out what was going on.

She didn't have to be lonely and sad because he was right there, waiting for her. For tonight, she could dream and forget everything that hurt. She was tired of hurting. Tired of worrying about what to do, how to apologize, tired of crying, and hating herself and hating everyone else.

The desire to burst into tears and crawl into him until Rachel and Finn disappeared and RachelandFinn were all that was left washed over her. He could either turn her away or welcome her with open arms, and she should never have even come in here to give him the opportunity for either. But here she was, and it was too late to back out, and she didn't even want to.

Before she knew it, she was crawling over him, and he was gazing at her like he used to, like he loved her, like she was beautiful, like there was nowhere in the world he'd rather be than right here with her. There was really nowhere else she'd rather be tonight either, not when this was the first time since she heard about the accident that she didn't feel like the world had ended and left her behind.

And so now she laid here, remembering the way it had all felt, the way he'd looked at her, relishing in having his arms around her waist and his face tucked against her neck. His breath was warm and steady across her skin.

She could finally breathe again without every exhale turning into a broken sob. For all her acting talent, she was failing miserably at concealing how devastated she was. Used to milking her emotions for all they were worth, hiding them wasn't a skill she'd cultivated yet. Why she felt the need to do so in the first place was a mystery; she'd never been afraid to show her emotions before. She'd always allowed herself to fall apart and feel things fully.

Maybe she'd always been able to because she knew someone would be there to catch her, not matter what. Now there was no one. If she fell apart, who would be there? Kurt, maybe, or Puck, a long shot, but being caught by a friend was different than being caught and held and cherished by a loved one.

Finn had said he loved her. After it was over, he'd said he loved her. But how could he? She remembered the greenroom before Sectionals, how he'd yelled at her, the sound of Santana's voice saying "We all just pretend to like you."

He'd yelled at her instead of defending her. Not like she had any room to complain; by that point, she'd already made out with Puck and ruined the best relationship she was likely ever to have. She was riddled with guilt, then and now.

I never thought you'd make me feel like this.

The look on his face—

But that had been her goal, hadn't it? To hurt him the way she hurt? And hadn't she succeeded? Why couldn't he understand that she'd felt the exact same way watching him check out Santana in the hallway, seeing the smirk that lit up his face even briefly.

She sat up suddenly, pulling herself from his grasp. (If there was one thing she'd learned from dating Finn, it was that he could sleep through anything.) What the hell was she thinking?

It was simple: she hadn't been. She'd been needy and desperate and fallen right back into the pattern that got herself there in the first place: seeking comfort wherever it could be found, damn the consequences. As if it had gone so well for her before. Except this time she went so much further. She'd slept with Finn, and that was something she couldn't take back or even apologize for. Not that she wanted to, because she didn't regret it, exactly, but—

Kurt was still waiting for her to come back to his room, and Finn had broken up with her. Her dad was in the hospital, for God's sake, and her daddy was dead and all she could do was crawl in bed—literally—with her ex-boyfriend because when she'd seen him in the middle of the night, he'd had a boner. Good God, she wasn't naive, but apparently she was stupid. He could've been thinking about anyone. She could've been interrupting something—personal. Or maybe in his half-asleep state, he'd forgotten all that had happened between them recently and not realized fully what he was doing (not like she had either, really. She still wasn't sure where she was or what was going on—nothing made sense anymore). She'd wanted love and comfort, had turned it into sex, which she knew wasn't the same thing. It had seemed a pretty good approximation at the time.

She stood up and slipped his shirt back on (Kurt had given it to her from the laundry room when they'd gotten to his house, saying she needed something to sleep in and he wasn't letting her near one of his while she was still apt to break into 'messy, snotty tears'—his words). It was soft and faded, well-worn and smelling like fresh lavender laundry detergent. She would bet Finn didn't even recognize the smell for what it was other than the scent of his clean laundry.

I knew you were a lot of things, Rachel, and I loved you because and in spite of all of them. But I never thought you were mean.

He'd been wrong. She wasn't mean; she was a coward. She was afraid of not measuring up, of being replaceable, of losing to Santana, of never finding someone to love and desire her above all others. Now she was running from him because she couldn't bear to see the expression on his face when he woke up and saw her; she couldn't let him break her heart again, not now.

She wouldn't survive it. That wasn't even the drama queen in her speaking, it was the real, true Rachel Berry who'd just lost everything in the world she had, and to lose anything else right now, to have him shoot her down or reject her now, after this, it would kill her.

There wasn't even room in her left to worry about whether or not he'd been disappointed with her. Her breasts weren't as big as Santana's, and she didn't have any skills or know where to touch or what to do. She wasn't waxed down there, and her nose was too big and her hands were manly. In any other variation of this situation, she'd be fretting.

Now the world was starting to spin around her, not in a dizzy way, more of an I'm-going-to-pass-out way and she'd never passed out in her life. Voices echoed in her head, Santana bragging about having slept with Finn, Quinn threatening to punch her every time she opened her mouth, Mr. Schue yelling about her horrible personality, her dads saying they loved her always no matter what, Finn asking if they're part of something special, Mercedes saying how sick she was of hearing her talk, Santana—

We all just pretend to like you.

She shut her brain down and scrambled to the floor, searching for her underwear. No more worrying or thinking or planning. She'd spent her whole life worrying about the future and look where it had gotten her. She'd planned and strategized and pushed through everything in her way because the future was there awaiting her. Only none of it had really mattered, had it? Despite sixteen years of preparation and patience, all of her dreams had died in less than a month and if she didn't find her underwear and get out of here soon, she'd starting crying. And not the type of crying that could be muffled, but the kind that came with screaming and pleading to God and pressing her face into a pillow until she couldn't breathe.

Her underwear were a lost cause, so she stalked to Finn's dresser, ripped open his top drawer, and pulled out a pair of his boxers to slip on. He wouldn't notice their absence but he would definitely notice if she collapsed on his floor wailing.

She wasn't ready to face him. Being held against him, in his arms, had brought her the closest thing to peace she'd felt all day and it was all well and good in the middle of the night when questions were harder to find and thoughts didn't seem as important, but to face him in the light of day, in the reality of their situation—she couldn't do it. Not yet.

So she ran. Across the hall, into Kurt's room, where she crawled into his double bed beside him. Curling on her side, she turned away from him and his worried gaze, biting down on her knuckles to stifle her cries.

If only sleep came when it was really needed.

After several moments of her heaving, stifled sobs, she felt the covers being lifted and tucked in around her shoulders. Kurt leaned over, pressing a kiss to her hair.

"You're not alone, Rachel," he whispered. It was the one thing in the world she needed to hear above all else. And somehow, she drifted off to sleep.

Finn woke with the feeling that the world today was going to suck a lot more than it had when he fell asleep. Of course, it took him a moment to remember when and how he'd fallen asleep but when he did, the breath in his lungs literally got stuck.

Had that really happened?

His eyes hurt in the way that meant they really just wanted to stay closed a bit longer and he could tell without looking that he was naked. With his nose buried in the nook between his pillow and mattress, it was impossible to deny Rachel's presence. How the hell else could her scent get all over his sheets? And, he thought, inhaling as deeply as his chest allowed, why did she have to smell so freaking good? It would be a lot easier to hate her if she stank.

Except he didn't hate her at all, did he? He just wanted her to be the girl he'd thought she was, not the stranger who'd appeared and made-out with Puck to get back at him for something he did a year ago before they were even dating.

It surprised him to be surprised by her absence in the morning. Had he thought sex would make all their troubles go away? (Okay, maybe, a little bit. And maybe that made him naive, but he really wanted all this crap over and done with.) The truth of the matter was he'd simply forgotten everything but the girl in his arms for those few hours when she was in his arms. He'd forgotten her sins, and his own, and he'd forgotten to be angry or hurt.

She'd been just Rachel, and he'd been just Finn. What hurt the most was he knew beyond doubt there was no better combination in the world.

The issue wasn't forgiveness. He'd forgiven her the moment he'd met her eyes last night. But all the forgiveness in the world couldn't erase what she'd done, and how much he hurt because of it.

He loved her. He knew that as well as he knew his own name. But laying in his bed, alone (without Rachel), in the growing morning light, he still couldn't forget the image of Puck and Rachel. Together. Kissing.

Forgiving was easy; forgetting, another matter entirely.

The teenaged boy in him wanted more of last night, no matter what. The two-year-old in him sat with arms crossed, pouting, urging him to forget Rachel or maybe make-out with Santana to make them even (Thank God he knew better than that. He did. That didn't mean the thought hadn't crossed his mind). Another part of him he didn't quite know what to call wanted to find Rachel, throw her over his shoulder, and lock her in his room until they worked out all their problems.

He thought he might call that particular voice the caveman. The longer he lay there, the more appealing its suggestion became.

He only knew that another month like the past one (without Rachel) would kill him.

I apologize for the shortness of this chapter. I actually had to go back to work. I'd get more writing done at work if I didn't have to switch languages all the time, which makes my grammar and spelling attrocious.

I rewatched Special Education and I just . . . cannot understand what happened with Finn. It's like he was abducted by aliens and replaced by a pod person until the last hallway scene (the breakup) and then abducted again for the performance of Dog Days. WTF writers? He's like an entirely new character in that episode, so it's making dealing with his actions and his thoughts really difficult. Mostly I think I can attribute it to being a teenager and being a guy. Teenagers rarely make sense rationally, and guys never do (I kid, of course. They make sense about 30 percent of the time).

Also, I saw some spoilers for next episode (Merry Christmas Darling video) and I just . . . really, really hope what it seems like isn't really what's happening. Because otherwise, I will lose any and all respect and liking I had for Finn. And I had a really hard time writing this with any sort of sympathy or liking for Finn after seeing that. I might end up changing around where I was planning on going with this. It'll still end up Finchel, but I might need to add in some things to deal with whatever happens on Tuesday.

We'll see.

Thanks for continuing to read and review! It's all that's getting me through this agonizing worry about what will happen next with Finchel.

Thanks for stopping by, and please remember to review on your way out! :)