Finn dreamed of Rachel that night. Not that he hadn't before, he often did, or at least he often woke up feeling that he had. He remembered more of this one, fragments of kissing her, of her kissing him back and going farther, climbing into his lap, his head rolling back in the sheer pleasure and joy of knowing she was with him again, that he'd mended all of it and put them back where they should be. Slivers of vision showed he'd put them where they'd been that night, on the steps of the High Line in full sight of a significant part of Lower Manhattan, him and Rachel and New York all together.

He woke up craving her more than ever, and had to deal with it quickly before catching the early start of his Saturday shift at the diner. Seven to two, the timing was terrible but the tips were great, even shared three ways. And he'd better resign himself to having a schedule that depended on when other people wanted to go out, that was the nature of what he did and what he wanted to do.

Still, he was tired that night, and the next, too tired to remember his dreams when he woke.

Tuesday Finn met Rachel for coffee as usual. She was stressed, he could tell, the upcoming recital getting to her. It was hard for him to help, though, or even say much, when she seemed so determined to keep that part of herself away from him. And it was a big part of her, okay not everything, there was a lot more to her that he loved, and the whole "working on our lives separately" thing was his idea, but how could they really connect if she was keeping away from him on that? He couldn't even offer her comfort, she was still shying away from him holding her.

Tuesday night his dream sucked, visions of Rachel on stage, she looked like she was singing but all he could hear was silence followed by applause. He awoke feeling snarly, a mood that was not lost on Santana as they both used the kitchen at breakfast.

"Who pissed in your cornflakes?" she asked snarkily.

"Must have been you, nobody else around here," he growled flatly.

"That again," she threw back, which at least got his attention. And he shouldn't take it out on her, so he drank his coffee and brought his brain out of the depths.

"Yeah," he admitted. "Sorry."

"I thought things were going well."

"As well as I can expect, I guess, just..." he shrugged.

"Is it this recital? Of course she's stressed, but she'll be fine once she hits the stage." Santana drank more of her own coffee. "You'll have to tell me how it goes, I still have my regular shift on Friday."

Finn lowered his head. "I'm not going," he said, gritting it out. It hurt to say it.

"Hold on. You're not going to her recital?" Santana stared at him, then made a great show of checking her ears to be sure she was hearing this correctly. "I know you have the night off."

"She said she'd rather I not go, and I'm going to respect that."

"She doesn't want you to hear her sing? Is this some sort of weird alternative universe? Because she spent three years boring the rest of us in the choir room while she sang to you, at least I thought she did." Santana looked dumbfoundedly at Finn, who shrugged. "If that was all a dream then my subconscious is seriously twisted." But she turned thoughtful. "Then again, maybe it does make a crazy sort of sense, and she knows crazy," she went on. "After all, what did that get her but a one-way ticket away from you, when you focused on the 'singing' part and ignored the 'to you' part. And that's annoying, really, since all those heartfelt whines of hers certainly weren't for any of the rest of us."

Finn frowned at Santana, annoyed with her description of Rachel's singing. "Hey, aren't you friends now? What's with the insults?"

"Oh that stuff I always really thought, it wasn't just to get under her skin. I mean nothing against the musical quality of any of it, mind you, but the songs were always for you, it did get old really fast for everyone else, and it's a shame that it seems you didn't get the importance of that, like you were her muse but didn't know it and cut her off. Because then the rest of us suffered in vain."

Finn still frowned, but nodded reluctantly. "It's kind of like that, I guess. Just after I did... that, one of the things she was really upset about was feeling that I'd made it all about her voice, that I rejected her. So if she wants to be sure I care about her as her, and this is how she wants to do that, I'm just going to go along with it." He huffed in frustration. "I really miss hearing her sing, though." And it's annoying that everyone else gets to hear her and I don't, it should be the other way around. Didn't she always say she sings better for me?

"What else do you miss about her?" Santana asked slowly, looking at him speculatively. Finn stared back, confused. "Not that I want to hear all about it, but you should think about that. Because if she felt that, then she's realized that praising her voice isn't the compliment you might think it is."

"It's not? But her voice is amazing." Even without having heard it recently, he knew. He dreamed about hearing it sometimes, her singing to him.

"And she knows it, and she probably hears that a lot. Even though I bet for you it's better than it is for everyone else." Santana sighed. "Look, I hate to give away my secrets here, but complimenting someone is a lot like insulting them, you just say something nice instead of not, so I have a lot of expertise."

"That's obvious," Finn commented.

"Not so fast, Tubs." Finn rolled his eyes at Santana's insult, and she smirked and continued. "It's all in what you talk about. I'm probably going to regret telling you this, but have you ever wondered why it's your shape I go after? Or sometimes your brain?"

Finn shrugged. "It's a weakness."

"So's your coordination, and I don't usually go after that. Do you know why?"

"You mean you're actually going to tell me?"

"Don't protest or I may change my mind. But since the alternative is listening to you moan for the next year about why you and Berry are moving at a glacial pace - and these days that means backwards - I am willing to tell you the secret to an effective insult, and by extension an effective compliment. So pay attention."

Finn saw that Santana was really serious about this, so he nodded. "Okay. So why don't you pick on my coordination that much?"

"Because you know it's bad."

Finn waited, and no further explanation came. "That's it?"

"Yes. You don't think it's bad, you know it. So the effect of reminding you about it is much less than telling you that you're in crappy shape, which is something that you think about and bothers you but you still hope is better than you fear it is. Finding where that hope is and killing it is the secret to an effective put-down."

That actually made a strange sort of sense to Finn. "But what does that have to do with complimenting someone?"

Santana shook her head bemusedly. "It's hard to believe you used to spend so much time with Puckerman, he could charm the panties off of just about any girl, and he used the same tricks that I used to beat them down." She stared at him pointedly. "It's the same target, you fool. Anything that someone knows they're good at, they won't believe as an insult, and complimenting it doesn't stand out or make them feel extra good. Anything that someone knows they're bad at, the insult doesn't make them feel especially worse, and the compliment just sounds like someone's blowing smoke up their ass. It's the things in between that you go after, qualities about themselves that they hope are better than they probably are, and are definitely better than they fear. You're not really in that bad shape, especially now when you've been lugging your kit around. But you're not in good enough shape to ignore me when I say something bad about it, or bad enough to just go 'whatever'. And if I say something good about it..."

"I'd wonder what you were up to," Finn put in.

Santana smiled. "Okay. But that's because it's from me. If somebody else did, you'd feel happy, right?"

"Well, yeah." Finn thought about it. "So complimenting Rachel's singing isn't that big a deal because she knows she's good."

"Yep. Everybody compliments her singing. Sometimes even me. Even when I hated her."

"So what would be a big deal?" Finn tried to think.

"God, I don't know how the two of you ever got together before. She must really love you, because it sure isn't your sweet-talking ways that caught her." Santana gave him an exasperated look. "It's her looks. And not just whether she looks good, but whether she's sexy. It's true for a lot of people, especially a lot of girls, but trust me, I insulted her about it for most of high school. It's her weakness. And especially when it comes to you. She wants you to want her."

Cheap Trick, Finn thought momentarily, free-associating his way back to a song before he pulled his mind back to Santana's point. "But she knows I love her."

"Love her. But want her, want her so much that you can know she's yours and still have blue balls because she's not with you right then? Does she know our water usage is higher on Tuesdays because after you've seen her you need a cold shower? Does she know you lie awake at night thinking about her tight little body and fantasizing about what the two of you would have gotten up to on your honeymoon? Assuming that you do, but if you don't, you should. Because that was the choice you made, assuming that you still rejected the adult option where you actually talked to her about how you didn't really know what you were doing with your life yet."

Huh. Well he'd been holding back, not wanting to pressure her, but he already had plenty of evidence that it never really mattered to Rachel why he pulled away any time that he had, it just mattered that he did. And Finn thought back to junior year, to her brief wardrobe change, to his defensive idiocy at telling her that Santana was 'super hot', to how that plastic surgeon had played on her insecurities to convince her to get a nose job (eventually unsuccessfully, thank God), which for Finn would have meant a disfigurement of the face he loved so much. To how he'd done better the next summer, after they'd reunited, at showing her his appreciation for how she looked in her little sundresses and bikinis, and how she'd glowed at the attention. And yes, how he'd been sorry to have missed out on another summer together, aside from the cancelled honeymoon he knew that if they'd resolved things so that she'd gone away normally they could have had a fantastic summer, better even than the one before. Pressed together barely dressed in the hammock, hands sliding under each others' clothes, skinny-dipping at night out at the lake, making love under the stars... doing all the things he'd dreamed about and looked forward to the winter before, all those things they'd never gotten to do and might have kept him going through the times without her that followed.

Forget about hearing her sing, what he really missed was the breathy way she'd moan his name. Well, and her singing, it always went straight to his heart like a bolt of lightning. That wasn't her "star power", not really, that was just what Rachel did to him. Their own special something.

He grunted, and Santana raised her eyebrow. "Okay, I definitely didn't mean for you to think about those things right now," she said. "But since you do, you should figure out some way to tell her. Or show her. Get across to her somehow that the only things that stop you from taking her right in the middle of Central Park are your natural chivalry and your respect for her feelings."

"And that we'd be arrested."

"A public indecency charge might be good publicity for a struggling musician like you, it'd build your rep."

Finn rolled his eyes. "I can't afford the fine."

That comment broke into Santana's attitude, and she stared at him. "You sound like you've actually looked into this."

"Scott was picking on Daryl and Irene for PDA during set-up last week. Nothing to do with me."

She shook her head, smiling. "And those two have nothing on the two of you, last year. Anyway, my point is, let her know all of what you want from her, and I don't mean just telling her. She needs to feel sexy, it'll make her feel good and loosen her up all at once. You want to be her lover and partner or whatever, make sure you don't act like you're just another member of the audience, because she has plenty of those, or she will. Hell, you said she didn't like having you make her life decisions for her, not that I blame her, try showing her that no matter what else happens she's still in charge because she's got you by the balls and you like it that way." Santana gave a pointed look at Finn. "You are whipped, you might as well make use of it."

Finn frowned, protesting this last point, but after a moment's consideration of the rest he nodded. Rachel had even lit up at his lame little compliment on her looks the other night after they'd left the gallery - she was so beautiful it was hard to remember she didn't know it, that years of being made fun of and called ugly names had taken their toll. That was partly Santana's handiwork, from before, but of course it did mean she knew where Rachel's weak spots were. And maybe even how to heal them. "Thanks, San," Finn said, giving Santana a small smile. "You know, time was I'd've thought you'd be the last person trying to help us get back together."

"Just trying to square my debt to karma," Santana said, shrugging. "Hey, they say karma's a bitch, and if she's anything like me, I need to get on her good side. Plus I hate hearing your mopey whine, it's depressing and makes me think there's wind coming through a crack in the windows somewhere."

Finn snorted. "Sure."

Santana grimaced, and she looked at him seriously. "Okay, fine, I'll admit it. I didn't take these things seriously before, okay? I think you can get why I didn't, it's not like anything I ever did with a guy meant anything deep as far as I was concerned, it was just ego and power. And back then I really didn't think you were that serious about her."

"What?" Was he that freaking bad at showing how he felt? Because he'd always been serious about Rachel, even when he wasn't with her.

"Hey, calm down, okay? It's all done and we're actually good friends now. Just..." Santana waved her hands, gesturing emphatically. "If anyone had treated Britt the way some of us treated Berry, I'd probably have killed them. Certainly made their life hell, and definitely wouldn't have gotten along with them. Or gone out with them. Or slept with them."

Finn sighed glumly. Yeah, he thought. Still... that's all done, and that's a whole different thing we fixed before. We're here now, right? We can do this and we have to. "So I need to follow through with how I feel," he stated.

Santana nodded. "You really need to follow through with how you feel."

Late Thursday afternoon, as usual, found Finn and his bandmates setting up at The Invisible Hand, the Lower Manhattan club where they played. And also as usual, the drums took the longest; Finn had started early but still found himself lagging on setup, needing to adjust the snare a little more to get the sound the way he wanted. The others waited for him as he knelt by his kit.

Deep in concentration, he barely heard the door to the club open and close, and he didn't pay any attention to it.

"Hey Finn, your girl's here," Daryl called out.

My girl? Puzzled, Finn rose and turned to the door. "What? You know Santana's not -" He froze, seeing Rachel. "- my girl," he finished slowly. He swallowed. "Hi," he said, the ghost of a smile flickering over his face.

"Hello. I hope you don't mind that I came by, I needed to talk to you and I knew this was where you'd be," Rachel said hesitantly.

"Ah, no, it's fine," Finn said. He gave his bandmates a puzzled glance - how did they know? Was it that obvious? He hadn't mentioned Rachel to any of them.

Daryl looked smug, but Scott rolled his eyes. "We googled you as soon as Tyler gave us your name, did you really think we wouldn't?" Scott said.

Finn winced, but a number of little things about how they'd first interacted with him made sense now, like how they hadn't been surprised about his singing. They must've seen that first Nationals video on YouTube. He reddened a little, but reminded himself that they'd seen it weeks ago and there wasn't much point in being embarrassed by it now. He swallowed again and moved away from the small stage, Rachel coming towards him.

"So..." He smiled at her. "Uh, this is the band. Scott, Daryl, Irene." He gestured behind him at the others. "Guys, this is Rachel." They waved, and he closed the last few steps to her and drew her aside. "So what's up?" He was on edge, figuring it must be something big for her to come find him like that.

Rachel bit her lip, looking tense. "I'm sorry," she said, which made Finn even more concerned. Nothing that Rachel would need to apologize for would be good. "For not wanting you to come to the recital."

Just that? I guess I should be glad it's bugging her, it's certainly bugging me. "Uh, that's fine, really," he said. "You explained why."

"But I was wrong," Rachel protested. "I've realized I'm being quite foolish about this, and doing something not much different than what I had a problem with you doing to me. I've always appreciated your belief in me, I shouldn't make you think I don't or reject it. I'm so sorry I was doing that."

Oh. "Uh, okay, yeah," Finn said, very relieved. And this sounded good. He smiled a little. "Apology accepted. And you know I always believe in you, I always have and I always will. Whether you want me to or not."

"I know. And I appreciate it, really I do, I know I was acting like I didn't but I do. I like you believing in me, I need it actually."

"But don't let it take over," Finn commented.

"It's hard to be moderate when we feel the way we do, but yes." She looked up at him. "I want it all, and that means all of you, and there have been times when your belief in me has been the main thing that sustained me." She put her hand on his arm. "I shouldn't turn away from it now, and really I don't want to. I was just scared, I want it but I want so much more too." She gave a small smile. "Please just don't believe in me so much that you believe I don't need you, I suppose. Or think that how we connect when I perform is how I'm connecting with everyone else, because it isn't."

Finn smiled tightly. "I'll try. So you do want me to come tomorrow?"

"I always did, really. And I know I'll be better with you there then I would without you." Her face flickered. "That's true in general, of course. So if you can, yes please." She looked up at him with a hopeful smile. "I even managed to get you a good ticket."

"Well as it happens I am available," Finn said, grinning.

"Good." She opened her purse and took out a ticket, which she handed to him. He took it and bent down to give her a soft kiss, his hand on her cheek.

"I want it all too," he whispered in her ear, then pulled back so he could meet her eyes for a long look. This might be a good time to put Santana's advice into practice, he realized, if the band was ready. And make the whole thing more equal. He looked back at the stage. "Hey, you guys about ready for soundcheck?"

"Actually we're waiting on you," Scott commented. "Remember?"

Right. Snare adjustment. He looked down at Rachel. "Could you please wait a few minutes? I'd like to play you something." She nodded, and he conferred with the others, telling them what song he'd like to do, one of the older ones in their repertoire. Normally Daryl sang it but Finn knew the vocals as well, and they'd leave out some of the repeats to shorten it and go for one of the variations to highlight him.

The others checked over their instruments again as Finn went back to his drums, tightening up the snare as he'd meant to do. It sounded fine now, and he took his place on his drum stool, nodding at the others to get ready.

Finn was actually a bit gun-shy of using music to make his point, since it was almost too effective. When he'd proposed, he really should have listened to her concerns, but he'd gone for the musical argument instead and convinced her to go fast; also, while it wasn't an excuse at all for how badly he'd overlooked Rachel's likely reaction to the blindside he'd given her and to him pushing her away supposedly for her own good, the fact that he'd just listened to a week's worth of songs about bravely saying goodbye to loved ones had certainly encouraged him to think of what he was doing as his own sacrifice, along those lines. Mr. Schue's lesson plan had struck one last time.

So decisions made under the influence of music, not always that good. But he wasn't trying to get her to decide anything, he was just trying to express how he felt and make her feel good about how he saw her, in ways that had nothing at all to do with her star potential. Ways that told her she was most definitely appreciated for a lot more than her voice, and that he really didn't want to be just in the audience.

They'd always connected best through music, it was past time to get that going again.

Finn started drumming, his energy high, and after a couple of bars Daryl and Scott joined in, then he started singing: (*)

I want you to want me
I need you to need me
I'd love you to love me
I'm begging you to beg me
I want you to want me
I need you to need me
I'd love you to love me

No whiny plea, this was an all-out testosterone-charged statement. And he could see her moving to the beat, his beat, smiling a little at him. Good. Feel it with me, Rach.

I'll shine up the old brown shoes
Put on a brand new shirt
I'll get home early from work
If you say that you love me

The next section cut close to home for both of them. Some of it was also wicked fast to sing, but he jumped in and rattled it off as well as he could.

Didn't I, didn't I, didn't I see you crying?
Oh, didn't I, didn't I, didn't I see you crying?
Feeling all alone without a friend, you know you feel like dying
Oh, didn't I, didn't I, didn't I see you crying?

Freed from singing, Daryl let loose on the guitar solo even more than usual.

Feelin' all alone without a friend, you know you feel like dying
Oh, didn't I, didn't I, didn't I see you crying?

Daryl and Scott jammed, extending the instrumental for a while.

I want you to want me
I need you to need me
I'd love you to love me
I'm begging you to beg me

Then he slowed, the guitars silent and the sound stripped down to basic drums. Finn locked his eyes on Rachel as he chanted his message, and saw her flush, her eyes wide and dark, her lips parted. Yeah.

I want you to want me
I want you to want me
I want you to want me
I want you to want me

They played the song out, and Daryl and Scott bowed. Rachel applauded them.

Finn gazed at her, letting his heart pour through his eyes, and he slowly got up from the drums and walked back to her.

"Thank you," Rachel murmured, her eyes still dark and deep. "It does make it easier to have you watch me, having watched you. And I love seeing you like this, powerful, like you're rediscovering some of what you are. I believe in you too, you know." She reached up to him, pulling his head down to her for a kiss, and her lips parted for him, pulling at his lower lip like she used to... he fell back into their old pattern, sliding his tongue into her mouth. Thrilling at the feel and taste of her, again, with extra appreciation that she felt comfortable enough with him for this. Though as he moved an arm down to her body she shrugged it off, pausing for a split second before resuming the kiss. That was unusual, but he'd take what he could get. "And I do, of course I do," she murmured.

She does... what? He smiled, understanding it as an answer to the song. "You want me, huh?"

"Never stopped, ever since we started. Never could stop."

"Same here." He straightened, still standing close to her. "Guess I'll see you tomorrow night."

"Yes." She stepped back. "Oh, and there's an afterparty, if you can come." She took a deep breath. "I'd like you to come, as my date."

Finn grinned, happy at this step. "Sure thing." He was due at the diner at seven the next morning, but he didn't have to be all that awake.

"But I should warn you - the dance number is kind of steamy," she said, blushing. "It doesn't feel that way doing it, but it's supposed to look that way."

"Okay." He could handle that, as long as she only felt that way with him. He figured they couldn't really feel aroused on stage, anyway, too much potential to lose control. As they both well knew from experience.

"And Santana asked me over tonight, I need a little stress relief before the show and she offered," she said tentatively. "Is that okay? I won't be there late, I need to get a good night's sleep."

"Uh, yeah, of course," he replied. "It's her place as much as it is mine, more even, she pays more of the rent. And I don't have any problem with you being there, of course not."

"Good. Then I'll see you tomorrow."

Finn watched Rachel go, then turned with a "Yes!" fistpump... to find all three of his bandmates blatantly watching him.

"If we ever institute that PDA fine system I'm gonna make a mint," Scott commented. Finn reddened but couldn't have peeled the smile from his face if he'd wanted to.

Okay, things were kind of unnatural. Rachel seemed more comfortable with his tongue in her mouth than his arms around her - that was weird - and her visiting Santana before visiting him was completely upside-down from how things used to be. He hadn't invited her over yet, of course, but that was because they were taking it slow. He didn't like to think about what sort of "stress relief" Santana might have in mind for her, but he was sure that option 3 was way off the table right now, and he didn't think much booze could be involved since Rachel had to do the show tomorrow. But things were moving, definitely in the right direction especially with her asking him to go to the afterparty with her, and yeah she wanted him all right. And he did feel powerful like she said, which felt really awesome. He had to let her believe in him too, and it felt good when he did.

For now, they had a gig to play.

That night as Finn returned to the apartment, bringing the drums in as quietly as he could, he smelled a light but familiar and long-missed aroma. And there on the kitchen counter was a sign with his name, and two fresh loaves of banana bread.

Stress relief. Of course. Thanks, Rach, I love you.

Some things were back to normal after all.

* "I Want You to Want Me", as performed by Cheap Trick (live version), written by Rick Nielsen.

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