(Author's note: The religious elements are getting heavier now. Warning for emotional manipulation, and some hard times for Will and Toby. I wish I could say it'll get better, but it won't any time soon. -amy)

Coach Beiste waited in the doorway to the locker room, beckoning to Finn. "What's the holdup, Hudson?"

"I had the wrong pads. Those were the ones for Artie. I'll be right out, Coach."

She nodded, watching him closely. "You're not having trouble with my decision to choose Evans as quarterback, are you?"

"No, no, he's a good player. I just want the team to win."

"You don't have a problem taking orders from somebody like him?"

He wrinkled his nose in confusion. "Somebody like… who? Because he's a sophomore?"

"Forget it. I'm glad it's not an issue. You're a good leader, but it's important that these guys know how to follow plays, not just follow a leader. Sam will run my plays exactly the way I tell him to. You've got too much initiative."

"Uh… thank you?"

The coach laughed. "Yeah. Get out on the field ASAP, okay?"

She disappeared through the outside door. Finn settled the football pads on his shoulders and took a deep breath, but before he could follow her, Rachel was standing in the doorway. She looked around in curiosity.

"I always thought the boys' locker room would be all sexy, but actually, it smells like feet in here."

"Uh, Rachel, you can't be in here."

She held up a hand. "I just want you to know that I heard everything that you said earlier, and that I respect your needs, and I'll do anything to make you feel safe and happy."

"All right," he said slowly. "Well… thanks? I gotta go."

"Wait!" Her smile dropped away. "I mean… don't you want to make me feel safe and happy too?"

He let out a frustrated sigh. "Rachel… I can't make you feel anything. You have feelings. I want to know what they are, but neither of us can control them." He paused and thought that over. I can't control my feelings. "But what I can do is tell you what I need. I need… um, that thing where I get to do my own stuff and you can't tell me what to do."

"Autonomy?" she guessed.

"Yeah! That. I need autonomy."

She looked pretty grumpy about that. "I thought you said you wanted to control me."

"No, you said I should do that. Which, Rachel, I gotta say… that's not actually letting me control you. That's you doing the controlling."

"Look," she snapped, "how am I supposed to trust that you really care about me if you're with all these other people? How do I know I'm really important to you unless you feel as jealous as I do? Let's face it, Finn, the only way that this relationship is going to work is if we agree to some rules."

He was barely listening to her words. Instead, he took in the way she was clenching her teeth, tensing up her whole body as she spoke. "Okay… come here."

Without thinking, he reached out for her and took her in his arms, clasping her firmly against his body. She didn't struggle; on the contrary, she settled right down.

He leaned down and spoke quietly into her ear. "This is how it's gonna happen. I'm going to continue my own relationships, just as they are. There might even be more of them. I might tell you, and I might not. I'll be as honest as I can, but some people's secrets aren't mine to tell. I'm going to be safe. You and me, we're going to talk, and we're going to listen to one another, and we're going to be honest with our feelings. Sometimes it's going to be hard. But we're going to trust one another because that's what people do when they love each other."

Rachel stroked his arm uncertainly. "That's very… progressive, Finn. And romantic. But… I don't know."

Finn sighed. "Rachel, you can't ask me to choose between you and everybody else."

She looked up at him resolutely. "Well, I am."

He watched her walk out with a sense of regret. Then that's going to have to be the end for us.

Puck paused by Finn's locker on the way out the door, jingling the keys to the Impala. Finn looked up. "You're heading out early? Aren't you coming to Glee?"

"I'm getting on the road to Akron now to beat the traffic."

Finn looked like he wanted to say more, but he just remarked, "You're racking up a lot of miles on that car to spend time with your dad."

"Yeah. He's trying, and I'm trying to let him. What's going on? You look like somebody kicked your puppy."

"I don't know," Finn admitted. "Something weird is happening. Quinn asked me if I wanted to get back together."

Puck raised both eyebrows. "O-kay? I mean… she knows about you and me and Kurt, right?"

"I thought she was on our side," said Finn. "She said she was, anyway."

"So what did you tell her?"

"Well, there were all these people around, so I just said I'm in love with somebody else and that I think she knows who that is." He shrugged. "I guess that was all I could do?"

"And was Rachel standing there watching you the whole time?"

"I don't think so? What, you think she put Quinn up to that?" He made a face. "Rachel wouldn't do that."

Puck patted him on the shoulder. "You know, man, your biggest problem with Rachel is that you can't see who she really is. You keep thinking of her as this honest, forthright person, but she's not. Until you get that through your head, she's never going to live up to your expectations."

Finn glared at him. "You're pushing it, man."

"I know," Puck said cheerfully. "You can take it out on me when I get back tonight. See ya."

After apologizing to Emma and returning the yellow Corvette to the dealer, Will still had one last task to complete. He wasn't exactly sure how he was going to manage it, but he figured if nothing else, Toby deserved the truth from him.

He drove his old station wagon with the dragging muffler back to his apartment and went inside. Then he called Toby's cell phone.

"I'm sorry to bother you at practice," he said. "I know Thursday night is your late one."

"That's all right, darlin'. I have a few minutes to spare while the kids finish their warmup with Dustin. He's a hell of a taskmaster. We still on for you to come out tomorrow after work?"

Will let out a shaky laugh. "I think you might want to wait and ask that after you hear what I'm going to tell you."

"Oh, Will." The background noise began to subside as Toby moved into a quieter hallway. "What'd you get yourself into now?"

"Well, Rachel sang this song for Glee today. We had a big debacle yesterday at the pep assembly; I'll tell you about it another time. But she sang a song for Finn, one that apologized for trying to control him. She said that she was trying to hold on to how he made her feel so much, she was strangling him. And that what she needed to do was to let him go, to let him be free to be himself." He sighed, settling on the couch. "I wish I'd always let you do that, Toby."

"I think you ain't never gonna stop apologizing for B-W senior year." Toby sounded amused. "You know I forgave you a long time ago."

"I don't think I've earned it yet," said Will. "I'll keep trying, though, if you'll let me."

"You scored some big points in that department with Darius this summer, darlin'. Letting him in that way."

There were no pictures of Darius in his apartment, but it hadn't been so long that Will couldn't hear his voice in his head, or feel the texture of his braids under his fingers. He closed his eyes. "I wish I had the chance to thank him for that, too."

"Nothin' says you can't call him and tell him over the phone."

"Maybe I will. Toby…" He gathered his courage. "Emma's struggling. You remember back last winter when she was my beard? Well, she needs help now. Her boyfriend Carl, he's helping a lot, but I think she might still need me."

Toby was quiet for a moment. Will bit his lip.

"Toby?"

"Need you how?" Toby asked slowly.

"Well, you might remember she hasn't been able to… to have sex with him. With anybody. When we tried it, it was a big failure. I don't know if that she can't or she won't, but either way, it's going to be hard for her to get what she wants if she doesn't have sex with him. She wants a baby, Toby. Carl thinks I'm the only person she'll tolerate doing that with. I'm not even sure if she can, or will, but… I want to help her."

"Will." Toby's voice was heavy. "You don't want to have a baby with her because you want to help her. You want to have a baby with her because you're in love with her."

"No," he protested.

"Yeah, Will. You are. I know you, and I know how you are about that woman. I like Emma. I ain't gonna tell you no. But I am gonna say I can't be around while you're doin' it."

Will caught his breath. "Toby. Are you — you're breaking up with me?"

"I'm setting my boundaries, Will. You finish up what you need to do with her. When it's all done, you give me a call. I ain't goin' nowhere. All our rules still apply. Make sure she's been tested first, all right?"

Even sitting on the couch, he felt dizzy. "She's a virgin, Toby. I can't believe you're —"

"What? Sayin' no to you? I ain't doing that. I'm keeping myself safe. First it was the way you treated Shannon, and now this with Emma. I can't deal with that kind of drama, not if I'm gonna teach these kids and stay sane. You let me know when you're done, Will." He sounded so sad. "I'll be loving you."

"Toby," Will whispered, but he'd already hung up.

There was this one thing that the men in Puck's dad's group did every time that made him feel kind of strange. It was the way they prayed for forgiveness for all the bad things they'd ever done. It was a foreign concept to Puck.

"I know I've done bad things," Puck told the group. "I just never expected God would forgive me for them. I figured I had to live with the consequences. That's what Ma always said."

"Your Ma never forgave me for my sins," his dad said sadly. "I don't blame her for that. It's not her place to forgive; it's God's."

Puck thought about the relief he'd felt, the first time Finn took on his guilt and disciplined him for it, and every time thereafter. "You don't think people can forgive?"

His dad shook his head. "I think they can, but it doesn't matter much. God's forgiveness is the only forgiveness I need."

"Do you want to confess your sins, Noah?" Ethan asked.

He'd never said them out loud before, when the other men of the group had prayed for forgiveness. Puck had just kind of sat with them in his head, wishing for Kurt's hand on his behind, or the paddle, or something more intense than that. He chewed on his lip. "I guess? There's kind of a lot of them."

"You don't have to be specific, if you're uncomfortable. We won't judge you. It's not men's place to judge one another."

Ethan looked so friendly and open that Puck found himself saying, "Yeah, okay."

They sat together in a circle with their elbows on their knees and their hands clasped in front of them, their heads bowed so that their faces turned toward the floor. Puck studied the cracks in the linoleum.

"Merciful father," said Ethan, "we come before you as men who have broken Your laws. Our sins have separated us from you. This servant of yours, Noah Puckerman, is truly sorry and he wants to turn away from his past sinful life toward you. Please listen to him and forgive him, and help him avoid sinning again."

Ethan nodded at Puck. He swallowed.

"Uh… I've done a lot of things? Things I wasn't proud of. I was mean to my mom a lot before she died. I don't talk to my brother much. I've stolen things, and drank and did drugs. I've been in a bunch of fights. I… my best friend, I had, uh, intercourse with his girlfriend, and she got pregnant." He paused. "But then she had the baby, and Beth is the best thing ever, so I'm not sure I can regret that."

"You don't have to sort through that all now, Noah," said Ethan. He put a hand on his shoulder. It felt a little like Finn's, heavy and comforting. "You just have to let God take your sins away."

Puck wasn't sure how he was supposed to submit without somebody helping him get there, but he steeled himself and tried again. "I… I've had a lot of sex? With a lot of people, guys and girls, and… I guess that would be lust. Wanted a lot of people. I wanted…" He swallowed again, remembering all the dreams about Blaine, all the times he'd woken up never knowing if he'd see him again, talk to him, kiss him. "I wanted this one boy. We both did, for months. And now we found each other, and it's — it's so good." He looked at Ethan anxiously. "How can it be a sin if it's like that? If it's so good?"

"You know the kind of man you need to be," Ethan said. "You know in your heart it's the right thing. Let God guide you on the path to be right with Him. What do you regret?"

"I regret…" He took a shaky breath. "I regret all the mistakes I ever made with other people. All the times I never told them what I really thought, because I was scared and I thought they would laugh, or kick me out, or tell me to f- to go away. I wish I could find all of them and get down on my knees and beg for them to tell me they're okay, even though I did all this bad stuff." He wiped his nose on his sleeve. "I regret not taking my mom to the doctor before she died. She needed it and I think I knew and I never did anything. I regret… pretending to be something I wasn't to get what I wanted."

"What did you want?" his dad asked soberly.

"To fit in. To be a badass. For everybody to be afraid of me." He wiped his nose again. "I regret trying to handle everything on my own without asking for help."

"You're asking now, Noah. It's not too late."

No, he wanted to say. No, I asked for help a year ago, and Finn and Kurt gave it to me. They saved me. But these men would never understand that, he was sure of it.

"All right, Noah. That's enough." Ethan put his hand back on Puck's shoulder. "Now, pray with me: I believe that your son, Jesus Christ, died for my sins, was resurrected from the dead, is alive and hears my prayers. I invite Jesus to become the Lord of my life, to rule and reign in my heart from this day forward. Please send your Holy Spirit to help me obey You, and to do Your will for the rest of my life. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen."

Puck had heard it enough times in that basement room now to know what to say. He tripped a little over the words, but he got most of them out. He wasn't sure if he believed all of them, but he said them, just as he had said the Kaddish at the synagogue in Santa Fe with Adam. This time, though, he had no one to take him home and tie him up and spank his bottom and tell him he was a good boy. He guessed he'd have to tell himself.

But what if he didn't believe it? What if he couldn't convince himself?

Maybe… maybe that meant he wasn't a good boy after all.

Is this what it feels like to be an adult? he wondered, and shivered there, alone in the basement.