After fixing her hair, make-up, nails and changing into this low-cut, sequined dark purple dress that shows her ass off perfectly, she was ready to go. She'd been wearing fancy lawyer suits for so long she'd forgotten how awesome it was to look fiercely unrespectable. Finn's in the living room showing Brittney all the different maneuvers he can now pull off without his crutches, until Santana emerges from her bedroom and he quickly freezes.

"Wow. You look…"

She raises her eyebrows in anticipation of the pending compliment but it proves exceedingly hard for him as he continues looking her up and down in awe.

It was cute and flattering for a while but dude was now bordering on perverted ogler.

"Are you going to finish that sentence or has your brain broken down again!"

"Conquer all elite!" Brittney chirped making Santana extremely confused.

"What?"

"That's what people say when computers break down and they need encouraging to work again…"

"No, they say control, alt, delete because those are the buttons you press to fix them."

"Oh…"

And while Britt begins contemplating how this new information will affect her life, Finn finally awakens from Santana's spell and finishes his compliment with genuine chivalry.

"Stunning. You look stunning."

She doesn't think she looked stunning. Hot, sexy, bangable – those were the adjectives she was used to hearing. This was new territory for her and it almost made her blush.

"Thank you." she responds with humility before grabbing her purse, clearing her throat which was suddenly dry and breaking the silence before it has a chance to get tense. "Well, let's go paint the town red!"

"With what?" askes a puzzled Brittney. "I have red lipstick. But I don't know if it's enough for the town?"

"Just go Britt." She urges pushing the blonde towards the door, putting her perfect ass to use on the way out, as she's sure Finn's still staring.

After meeting up with Puck the foursome head to a quite bar for a few quiet drinks while he and Britt catch up. While three of the four share their accolades and memories of the past 4 years, Finn adds nothing to the table but empty bottles from the drinks he's knocking back, and it seemed Santana was the only one to notice.

The group then moves onto a club and it doesn't take long for the alcohol to begin taking over, although it would probably take the rest of the night to even begin catching up with Finn. After scaring a group of girls with his attempt at club dancing, he stumbles back to the bar in heightened spirits. There are a couple of hot guys making eyes at Santana but she ignores them and heads for Finn.

"I think you've had enough!" It's hard to hear her over the music.

"What?"

"I said I think you've had enough. Alcohol!"

"Nah don't worry about it, I feel fine. I'm barely even drunked. I am however, not sober enough to not dance. Come on!"

"You can't dance. You've only got one leg and you're bad enough with two!"

Her resistance is futile however as he grabs her hand and begins dragging her through the crowds and onto the dance-floor. He's the worst dancer in the whole club. But while she'd usually be too embarrassed to stand near him for more than 3 seconds, she's too tipsy to not find the way he starts twirling her around completely hilarious.

"You have the cutest laugh!" he almost yells into her ear.

"What?"

"Your laugh. It's cute. I like it. You should laugh more often."

"Maybe I should give up being a lawyer and become a clown or something then."

"No not a clown. I hate clowns.. Maybe I'll just quit being a drummer and make it my job to make you laugh all the time."

They're dangerously close until he loses his balance and is forced back a step. She starts laughing again, until one of the guys staring at her earlier comes over and begins grinding up behind her. She turns to push him away but the creep just puts his hands on her ass trying to pull her in again. That's when Finn steps in and grabs the guy by the throat in a fit of pure rage.

"Finn don't!"

People surrounding them react quickly and pull the two apart before Finn's able to throw the punch he's so obviously desperate to. As the other guy's ushered away by strangers, she grabs Finn by his arm, pulling him away from the dance-floor.

"Finn, come on."

She drags him outside to the smoking area and sits him down on an empty chair. But he immediately stands back up again preferring to pace/hobble around it.

"You didn't deserve that! That fucker-"

He's shaking and his breathing's a little erratic. She knows how drunk he is and normally she'd take offense at any guy thinking she needed protecting but seeing him all heated up and brooding just makes her think how fucking hot he is right now. She can't deny to herself how much she wants to shove him against the wall and feel his anger and energy exude over her by crashing her lips over his. She wants to pull him close by gripping the back of his scruffy hair and to feel his raging hands move vigorously all over her body. She almost shudders with the urge and is about to take a step towards him when Puck bursts through the door with a wasted Brittney slumped across his shoulder.

"There you are. Dude let's go. There's a guy in there with some big buddies looking for you. There's cabs' waiting outside."

"No, let them find me I don't care, did you see what the prick did to Santana?"

"Fucks sake. Santana are you ok?" she nodded "Yeah? Good. Can you take this for me?" he asked handing Brittney over to her without waiting for an answer. "Move your ass!" he orders, shoving Finn towards the exit.

Finn passes out in the passenger seat of the cab on the ride home. Brittney's also peacefully sleeping in the middle in the back, using Puck and Santana as alternate pillows.

"Looks like I'll be leaving a bucket by my couch tonight." Santana piped up at Puck, nodding towards Finn.

"I wouldn't bother. Guarantee the son of a bitch will sleep straight through the night and wake up fresh as a daisy with no hangover or nothing. The perfect alcoholic don't ya think."

"Is he? An alcoholic. I keep finding empty bottles in the trash. No idea where they come from…"

"No he's not an alcoholic…. It's just a phase."

"It's getting worse though isn't it. Maybe you should talk to him."

"Nah talking does no good. I've been talking to him since we dropped out of Boston. He doesn't listen." The lack of optimism in his tone begins to scare her a little. "Woah. What was that look?"

"What look?"

"That look! The serious pout, turning your head looking concerned into the distance look? …Why the look Lopez? Are you hooking up with him?"

"Shut up that wasn't a look! I was just thinking it would be really shitty for me if the guy sleeping on my couch was an alcoholic."

"Why? Because then he might have trouble getting it up and giving it to you every night?"

She'd punch him if she could but the blonde slumped across her shoulder has her limbs trapped. Why did everyone have a conspiracy theory of them hooking up!

Puck just smiles smugly before turning to the window to have his own moment of looking concerned into the distance.

"He's not an alcoholic... I won't let him become that."

The cab arrives at her apartment first but Puck sticks around to help carry Brittney into bed and drag Finn onto the couch before saying his goodbyes to Santana and getting a cab home. She stays up for a little while longer, drinking as much water as possible in preparation for tomorrow's impending hangover.

She's staring at Finn who's looking like he's in pain already, even though he's completely passed out on the couch. She starts to think about Brittney and Puck's conspiracy theories…

She doesn't like Finn.

She can't like Finn.

First of all he was a mess. Second of all she didn't need anyone and third of all if she did she could do so much better than the guy who was dribbling on her couch.

So then what was tonight about?

Shit. She totally has a crush on Finn Hudson.

She starts pacing the room in confusion and despair. Yes despair.

But looking at him all calm and peaceful on the couch, despair turns to adoration, which turns into excitement and butterflies before turning quickly back to confusion and eventually settling into anger. Which she directs at her unaware anger-source.

"It's not gonna happen. I'm not going to have sex with you ok! Just because I like having you around, and find your stupid, dorkiness weirdly endearing and just because I had a sex dream-two sex- four sex dreams about you, it doesn't mean we're going to have sex, and fall in love and ride off into the sunset just because those two idiots think so. It won't happen… Doesn't work like that. And by the by, falling in love is just stupid anyway. It's like falling off a cliff. Sure I bet it's fun at first, you know, flying through the air, defying gravity etc. but essentially you're just falling at 800mph to your death. And if you fall, you splatter. So don't even think for two seconds that any falling will happen here because you are not worth being splattered on the pavement. Goodnight."

And with that she storms off into her bedroom, unaware that Finn had begun to stir...