Sorry for the delay guys, real life interfered… you know the drill!

Thanks to SLopez for her help on this one and her fanfics and music advices ;) you go girl!

Thanks to irshgirl for her advice on Quinn, that helped a lot :)

Disclaimer: I don't own Glee, its characters, McKinley High or anything related to the show.

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Finn was elated.

And at the same time freaked out as hell.

He'd just kissed Rachel. It had only lasted a split second but it had reminded him of all those other kissed they had shared.

He realized that except for this last one, she had always been the one to initiate their first kisses; whether by actually kissing him or granting him permission to do so, not that he wouldn't have kissed her anyway that day in the auditorium, but still.

He was feeling like the frog in the well, just like three minutes ago. Two steps forward, one step back. Part of him wanted to go after her, a huge part of him to be honest. But at the same time… He didn't even know what. He wasn't sure of anything anymore. The feelings he had when he was around her were so powerful that he had to make efforts to even remember why he was even mad at her. The good memories outnumbered the bad in such proportions that there was no way he couldn't see that. Now.

Why had it taken him so long?

"So," Quinn shook him off his internal debate, "this is a girls bathroom, do you plan on camping here tonight?" she was giving him a patronizing look, arms crossed over her chest, tapping her foot impatiently.

"I cheated on you," he repeated, nodding his head as he looked at the blonde cheerleader.

"We've already established that," she said impatiently. "It's not like I really care, I even sent you to her once."

Finn eyed her in awe, she was blushing slightly, realizing she probably had said too much.

She shrugged and dismissed the thought, "is there a statute of limitation on past relationships?"

"A what?"

She rolled her eyes with annoyance, "it means that something happened so long ago that there can't be any charge pressed, oh anyway, you cheated too so…"

She stayed silent for a couple of seconds and started explaining.

"We never worked as a couple. We were using one another for our reputations and maybe we liked the idea of being in love with each other but the truth is we never really were. I could see that you were attracted to Rachel; not that understood why. One day I actually wanted to see how things could go with Puck so I asked Kurt to give her a makeover. And it worked so well that by the end of that week you were at her place..." She shrugged as she watched him trying to remember this particular event. "Kurt went a little overboard with this one from what you told me and the next Monday you and I were back on tracks."

"We said 'I love you' that day," he remembered, tilting his head to the side interrogatively.

"Yes, but it was no more than words. You thought I was pregnant with your child, I wanted the cover. You were scared by those mixed feelings. Beside you and I know you've only been in love with only one person, and it sure as hell isn't me."

"Call it even?" he asked, scrunching his face a little shamefully.

"I guess," she extended her hand, ready to shake his, when he pulled her into a hug to the huge dismay of a senior that was entering the bathroom.

"Do you think she loves him?" he asked under his breath, not daring to speak Puckerman's name.

She scoffed, giving him her 'you are a moron' look while shaking her head "please!"

He let out a reassured breath. "Can you help me get her back?" he asked tentatively, biting his bottom lip.

She raised her hand before her to stop him.

"Finn, don't ask too much, okay? I owed you one, admittedly a big one, but I don't actually like the girl so…" She was crossing her arms again when the bell rang for third period.

He grinned, "thanks anyway," and left the bathroom.

"Don't mention it.." she answered to the closing door.

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He'd missed his chance to go after Rachel, but there were still a few hours till the end of the school day and he was hoping he'd get his chance.

If his crazy mind didn't play the ironic frog on him again. One step forward, two steps back.

It had happened far too many times already.

He'd been scared of her crazy side, scared of people's opinions, scared of her bad reputation rubbing off on his. Scared of being hurt again, so much for this one…

Now he was scared of losing her for good. But still wary to give her his trust. Yet she had never failed him. Before.

Finn spent his math class tapping his pen on his notepad, not paying any attention to the teacher, not caring in the least about SATs or whatever third degree equations were. He was fomenting plans, trying to find his way around the 'not being able to go back where we left off' part. He didn't want to get back to that part anyway. The part where she had broken his heart with her confessions. It still hurt. But not as much as it used to. And certainly not as much as missing her did.

He was daydreaming of epic make-up/make-out sessions when the bell rang.

Lunch was next but somehow he wasn't hungry, that was a red letter day!

He tried to figure where she could be, tried the cafeteria, her locker, the library, the choir room.

The last place she could be (it was winter, the stands around the football field were covered in snow) was the auditorium.

He entered the room quietly and spotted her, sitting alone on the edge of the stage, legs dangling from it, hands in her lap and head bowed.

He went down the stairs two at a time and was standing in front of her before she had time to react.

She didn't try to leave instead watching him curiously. He didn't quite like the silent Rachel as much as he loved the over-talkative one. She seemed like a shadow of herself lately, the sparks of life missing from her eyes.

"Looks like you could use a friend right now." He said, sitting next to her.

She shrugged, but didn't say anything.

"Listen," he continued, "I know you said we weren't friends to begin with, but the fact is that I really believe we were, and then we really were… at the end." He could see her nodding slowly, clenching her jaw. Tears were welling up in her eyes. He'd never seen her cry that much.

He went on, "I've been talking to a lot of very wise people recently and I could share their expertability with you if you like?"

"Expertise," she rectified without thinking, "sorry," she grimaced shamefully. She just couldn't help correcting him.

"It's okay, I like it when you correct me, makes me smarter." He side glanced at her, she couldn't help but giggle a little and as her laughter escaped her mouth she wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand.

"To be perfectly honest," her voice was raspy, "I desperately need one. A friend."

He gave a half-smile and bumped her shoulder playfully with his, "so buddy, what's up with you. You seem really down lately."

She took a deep breath. She wasn't sure how they would go through with this conversation.

"Okay, pal," she started tentatively, eyeing his reaction, he nodded, encouragingly. "Well, I've been having a couple of rough weeks." She stared ahead, looking at nothing. "It started last year, when we… when I had a fight with my boyfriend", she corrected herself, expecting him to stop her. When he didn't she took courage and continued.

"I got some upsetting news from a vile person but it was as if I was the last to know and everyone else thought it was perfectly normal that I hadn't been the wisest. After that, I learned that the people who were supposed to be my family only pretended to like me. It's not as though I didn't already know that, but I really thought some of them actually did." She sighed, remembering the events that had concluded 2010 for her.

"Nevertheless, I thought that maybe things would pick up when the New Year started but everything seemed to go down pretty fast. Well, before the year ended my boyfriend finally broke up with me."

"Stupid git," he commented seriously.

She turned her gaze to him, amazed, then started talking again in a small voice, almost to herself, "he had reasons. He really had." She returned her gaze to her lap.

She saw him nod silently from the corner of her eyes; he seemed to be reliving the events himself.

"You see," she continued, "I did something bad, and the more I tried to apologize, the more it seemed like I was digging my own grave. In the end I finally realized that I had pushed him away by trying to hang on to him. But it was already too late. So I vowed to leave him be. Only when school resumed it was really harder than I thought it would be. Because there wasn't just the fact that I would see him every day and still love him so much when he wouldn't even talk to me."

She swallowed hard. "I would see him and want to talk to him and I didn't know what to do because he was also my best friend and he would have been the one I went to when I had something on my mind, except now he wasn't that anymore either. So I really was lonely when we got back to school. And I'm used to loneliness, but somehow when you've had someone in your life for a certain amount of time it's really difficult to go back."

He nodded again; he really knew how she felt, even if he had never really been lonely himself. He turned his head to her and furrowed his brow, "what I don't understand is that you've always been so good at handling things, what changed that?" he asked, remembering her happy demeanors and how things seemed to slide over her like on some duck feathers. He'd never seen her upset for more than a couple of days. A couple of hours, even.

"There was that and all the little things that accumulated over it. One can only take so much but in the end when your defenses are down it's harder to fight."

"What happened?" he asked.

"Well, I was already down from… things, and it became worse when we went to see Vocal Adrenaline perform their Sectionals; not only because they were so good and I was responsible for that but also because afterwards I saw my mo… Shelby. And she had that baby with her. It was obvious it was hers." Her voice began to crack.

His head jerked in her direction, "Yeah, I saw that. What was that about?" he asked, remembering the woman he'd seen showing her daughter to her former students.

Rachel looked at him astounded; she hadn't realized he might have seen that.

"I have no idea. I mean, last year at regionals she told me she didn't want a relationship with me, that it was too late for us. And that hurt enough. But seeing her with that baby, so happy… I felt like she was rejecting me again, that she finally had got what she wanted. And any hope I might have had of the two of us ultimately reconnecting shattered at this moment."

He grabbed her knee with his plastered hand and gave it a comforting squeeze. She put her hand over his and they stayed silent a couple of minutes.

She traced the edge of his cast, near his fingers and asked "does it hurt?"

He shrugged, "not really. Hey, you never told me what happened last year?"

She shrugged in turn, "well, like you said I'm usually good at handling things! Beside there was this boy that started to take an enormous place in my life and I was so happy that I forgot about… her, for a while. I really didn't think of her much until I saw her again that day. And it's been undermining me since."

"I'm sorry you got to go through that by yourself." He seemed sincere, but she couldn't fathom his change of heart. Would he leave her alone again after this talk? Would he keep playing the friend?

"It's alright really; it's just the addition of all those things and the attitude of some of our fellow students, and being really, really lonely…" tears were prickling her eyes again.

She breathed deeply and laid back on the stage, looking at the ceiling, her legs still hanging off the edge. She closed her eyes to the light.

He followed her, leaning backwards. He repositioned himself so that their heads were close and his legs were bent, feet flat on the floor.

They had spent hours in this position the previous summer. In the park or her backyard, by a pool or under a tree, just talking or simply enjoying the silence. He raised his hand in the air, shielding his eyes from the violent beam of the stage lighting.

"I'm sorry about Santana," he eventually said.

"I just don't understand why she hates me so much, it's not like I have done anything to her, except being annoying and short…" he chuckled to himself, he loved her ability to joke about that.

"She's just jealous." He said honestly.

She snorted sarcastically, "yeah, right!" now she was self-deprecating and he didn't like that. At all. He'd better change the subject.

"So, about your boyfriend…?" he asked, turning his head to her so he could see the side of her face.

"Ex-boyfriend," she said softly, "what about him?"

He felt a pang in his stomach at the "ex" part. He didn't have any real question he realized, "just tell me."

"Finn…" she was pleading for him not to ask her that.

"Please?" he was beseeching her, bracing himself for the hurt he knew was coming. But he needed to hear it from her.

She screwed her eyes shut, making a tear run down the side of her temple. He caught it with his finger and followed its trace gently back to the corner of her eye.

"Please..." he whispered.

She sat up and gave a bitter grimace. "What do you want me to say?" her voice was harsh now, hurt and sarcastic. "I don't know anything anymore. I messed up and he broke up with me, end of story. I understand that he lied because he didn't want to hurt me but he had to know it would hurt more if she was the one to tell me. But he let it happen! I understand that I should have lied too, but he had asked me to be honest and I was. I understand that what Quinn did was awful enough to make him cry and punch the other guy."

She took a sharp breath, finally turning to look at him. He was now crossed legged in front of her, with the same look he had harbored in the hallway, when she had told him.

"I only kissed Noah, and obviously it wasn't as bad, because he's still friend with him and he was mad but he wasn't hurt, because he didn't cry…? But it was enough for him to end something that in my eyes was worth fighting for. So maybe he just gave up on me… Again," she stressed.

"Maybe I wasn't worth fighting for? And ultimately what I did was only to make him feel bad but it's better that he ended things there and then because if it didn't mean as much to him as it meant to me then it would have been worse in the end?"

She jumped off the stage and faced him, leaning on the edge for support.

She choked on her word, "I got more than I was hoping for anyway, one way or another it was just a matter of time."

She'd already said that to him. Too many times. He felt like she had just punched him.

He cut her, "or maybe what you did was worse than what Quinn did, because he loved you while he didn't love her? And maybe he did cry, just not in front of everyone, because in the end it hurt so bad that he was completely numb? Maybe you were so sure it wasn't gonna last that you pushed him away?" he wanted to push her, to make her fight for them when it seemed like she had forfeited.

The light was back in her eyes, the crazy look that he loved so much even if it frightened him from time to time. He could see the real Rachel coming through and even though they were fighting and no closer to reconciliation than a month previously he knew in this instant that they were real and that he would do all it took to make her see that.

"Maybe," she said in a small voice, edging away from the stage.

He nodded, still holding her gaze fiercely, "yeah, maybe," he said more softly. He got up to his feet and dusted his pants.

He watched her swallow hard but neither of them said anything. She almost reluctantly let go of the stage and went up the stairs towards the exit. He made no move to stop her but when she reached the door he called after her, "Hey, Rach!"

She stopped, holding the door, and looked at him.

"For the record: I'm still in love with you," he nodded, emphasizing his sentence, "and I'm not giving up on us." He saw her opening her mouth but he went on before she could argue, "not that easy. Not this time."

"It's not funny," she simply said.

He shrugged and answered seriously "it's not supposed to be."

He headed to the back exit.

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TBC

Okay, one more to go! I know I always say that but this time it's true (unless I have an epilogue!)

But I couldn't just write the next chapter with this one because they didn't work together and you would have had to wait forever for them!

Anyhow, I promised this would be finished by the end of the break, and it will, because I always keep my promises, but also because I have this idea for another fic but I refuse to write it until I'm done with this one!

Tell me what you think! I hope I wasn't too OOC with everyone (especially Rachel)

Love :)