DISCLAIMER: I neither own Glee nor the characters. They are the property of Ryan Murphy and FOX. This is purely for fun. Enjoy!
A/N: We're down to the home stretch kids! Only one more chapter to go after this one!
Chapter Twelve
To see you when I wake up, is a gift I didn't think could be real
To know that you feel the same, as I do, is a three-fold Utopian dream
You do something to me
That I can't explain
So would I be out of line,
If I said I miss you.
The first thing he noticed when he woke up that morning was that he was cold; he flipped over onto his side and clutched the blanket in his fists, pulling them clear over his head to keep out the chill. He sunk back into the warmth of the sheets and let his mind drift back int a sea of unconsciousness, where he could just fall back into the blissful dreams he'd been having all night.
It didn't hurt that they had all been about Rachel.
He smiled into his pillows while the memories flashed through his mind, and he reached over across the span of the bed to pull his lover into his arms. He couldn't wait for them to finally wake up for good so they could talk about last night. His body was still flooded with pleasure as he thought about what had happened the night before, and his heart started to pound wildly when he thought about what he wanted to say to her.
I still care about you.
Last night was really special.
I don't want you to go.
He definitely needed to get some things off of his chest.
He reached out for her, hoping to come in contact with her silky skin, but his hands found only crumpled sheets that had lost their warmth. He lifted his heavy head off of the pillow and could barely believe what he saw.
There was no one there.
Maybe she had gone into the bathroom or something? That had to be it, he thought to himself as he turned back over and tried to get some more sleep. She was probably doing some last minute packing and would be back any minute. He sat up in bed to wait for her, now wide awake, and buzzing with things he needed to say to her.
Last night had pretty much changed everything.
They had gone into it thinking that things between them would stay completely neutral. Rachel wanted it to be his gift, but it was as much for her as it was for him, and he knew that deep down when he'd agreed. What he hadn't expected was for it to be so. . .emotional. When he had done it with Santana he'd felt detached from the world; there was no passion, no connection that they'd felt whatsoever. It was just plain fucking and Finn had thought things would be the same with Rachel, seeing as she'd wanted pretty much the same thing.
He'd thought wrong. Everything about last night was more intimate and more personal than he could have ever expected, and now he was here wondering how they were going to go their separate ways when all he wanted to do was hold her again. Was it as mind-blowing for her as well? Did she feel the same? It felt like he was buzzing from all the pent up energy in his system and he needed to talk to Rachel before she left.
What was taking her so long in the bathroom? The sun was rising over the horizon and Finn knew he should be getting up soon anyway; he had to open up the diner for the first time since Rachel arrived and she still had to leave for Ohio. The thought of saying goodbye to her after what they'd done last night pained him, and he was anxious to see her go. He got out of bed and pulled on his boxers to go out and see if she was still in the bathroom or the kitchen. He entered the hallway only to find it completely dark.
An uneasy feeling set into his bones as he called out her name in the silent apartment.
"Rachel?" He knocked on the bathroom door and it opened with a slow creak, revealing the emptiness inside. Panic started to bubble under the surface when he walked into the kitchen to find it in the same untouched state. "Rachel?" He couldn't deny the twinge of hysteria he could hear in his voice as he imagined the worst. He ran around the apartment trying to find some signs that she was still here and he came up empty. Her pink rolling suitcase was gone. Her toiletries were missing from the bathroom. Her boots were no longer by the door.
She was gone.
A loud pounding on the door shocked Finn out of his stupor, and he tried to stave down the anxiety that threatened to cripple him as reality sunk in. Rachel had just up-and-left him, the night after they'd had sex. Why would she do something like that? Was it just to spite him? Was it part of her evil plan all along?
As much as he wanted to bury himself back in bed and lick his wounds all day long, he answered the door while his mind was racing uncontrollably with thoughts of Rachel, and why she would just leave him after what they had shared the night before. There had to be an explanation, right? He'd been so busy looking for signs of her departure, he didn't even check to see if she had left a note or anything.
He didn't have time for that now, seeing as Rich had arrived to open up the diner downstairs. Finn opened the door to find his coworker standing on the steps with a disgruntled look on his face and Finn felt his spirits fall like bricks. How easy it was to forget about your responsibilities when your ex-girlfriend gets stranded and flips your world upside down! Finn invited Rich in while he went to go change, and Finn searched every square inch of the bedroom to see if she had left him a note. He got dressed dejectedly after the search came up empty, and he entered the kitchen to see Rich fiddling with something in his wallet. He took a minute to look on the counter-tops and appliances to see if she'd left him any message at all. He couldn't find a thing.
He didn't know what to feel first: the aching disappointment that last night meant nothing to her, or the anger towards himself that he'd opened up his heart, only to have her trample all over it again.
"You coming, boy?" Rick grunted from the living room with a devious smirk on his face and Finn nodded solemnly while he grabbed his apron and jacket. He went downstairs with Rich feeling worse than he'd ever felt before. Worse than the day he'd left Lima in the first place.
He went back into the kitchens and started running the water for the sinks, trying his hardest to not think of anything to do with Rachel or Ohio or whatever had transpired between them over the last few days. In fact, he was more than willing to pretend that it was all a dream. Maybe she had never crashed her car in the ditch! Maybe she had never left her house and he'd been hallucinating it the whole time!
Who was he trying to fool? She'd been here all right. She'd traveled across a dozen states just to track him down. She'd cooked him dinner and decorated his apartment. She'd fought with him and exchanged words like a married couple. They had slept together and touched one another in ways that no one else had.
She went through all of that trouble, just to leave the next morning without even saying goodbye.
But isn't that what he'd wanted? This entire time, he'd just been waiting for her to go home, and she did exactly that; she finally left him alone. He was free to do whatever he wanted with his life now. He had no responsibilities or expectations; just a blank slate. A fresh start, like Rachel had said.
So why wasn't he as excited about this as he should have been?
Marion returned to the diner a little bit after noon, and Finn had never been more happy to see his elderly benefactress. She looked a bit tired from her drive from Grand Rapids, but pulled Finn into a big hug when she came down to the diner to start working.
"The apartment looks amazing, Finn! I haven't pulled out those decorations in years, it's enough to make me all choked up and nostalgic!"
"I'm sorry!" He rushed to apologize. "I didn't know if it would be okay and I just wanted to have at least the tree. . ." She cut him off as she pulled him down by the collar to lay a big kiss on the side of his cheek.
"Don't worry about it, Finny boy. I want to know how you spent your Christmas!" She wrapped her apron around her waist and Finn tried to figure out what to say to her about the past few days. He didn't want to get in trouble with her for having Rachel over, and his mind was still racing from the events of that morning. Just thinking about Rachel was making his heart ache painfully, and he choked through it to give a half-assed answer.
"It was okay. I had a lot of time to think about things." He sighed. "The reasons why I left home."
"Oh really?" She looked intrigued, and he could even see Rich's head poking out of the kitchen to eavesdrop.
"Yeah. It felt like no matter what I did to run away from my problems, they wound up finding me anyway." He shook his head sadly. "And now it feels like everything I did to escape those problems meant nothing, because I'm right back to where I started." It was true. He was more torn up about Rachel now than he'd ever felt. Sure, he was still angry about what had happened with her and Puck, but it seemed almost trivial in comparison to what had happened between them over the past few days. Trapped alone in the Michigan winter, all they did was fight and scream and find more powerful ways to get under each other's skin until it didn't matter anymore. She had found some way to worm herself back into his heart and he was the one who was powerless, even though she was miles away by now.
No matter what he did, he would never be able to escape Rachel Berry. He knew that now.
But they had made a promise to one another that they were going to start fresh. This would be their second chance at being happy, and they couldn't get in one another's way. Sure, he could call her, but it would only lead to more drama and heartbreak for the both of them, and Finn was sure that he'd done enough fighting with Rachel over the past few days to last him a lifetime.
"Is there any chance that you've contemplated returning home?" Marion asked softly, snapping him out of his Rachel-induced haze. "Don't get me wrong, I enjoy your company immensely and I appreciate the work you do for me, but I can't help but think about your family. Your friends? Is there any reason at all for you to go home?" Rachel, his brain screamed at him. Rachel is home, she's there, you can go and see her and make things right between you two for good.
He shook his head while he returned back into the kitchens to wash the load of plates that had been piling up. If there had been a reason to go home, then Rachel wouldn't have left him like that. At least he had left everyone a note before he'd walked out of their lives. No, she was finally ready to move on without him, like he had been trying to do, and he had to respect that and carve out a fresh start of his own.
"No, Marion. There's nothing left for me in Lima, Ohio." He plunged his hands into the soapy, sludgy water and tried to wipe his head clean of thoughts of Rachel and the overwhelming urge he had to go home. "Nothing."
I see your picture
I smell your skin on the empty pillow next to mine
You have only been gone ten days,
but already I am wasting away
I know I'll see you again
Whether far or soon
But I need you to know, that I care
And I miss you
She was sure she looked hideous as she pulled off of the highway and entered the Lima town border, reveling in the familiarity of it all after almost two whole weeks of being away from home. She had been crying ever since she left Michigan, and she pulled over at the local Starbucks for a quick bathroom break and coffee order. She balanced her chai latte and Kurt's medium drip that she would offer him as her first round of penance as she made her way back to his car. She didn't even go home first to drop off her things and check in with her fathers, she drove straight to Kurt's house and prayed that Carole and Burt weren't home. She didn't know how she would ever be able to face them again, seeing as she stole Burt's son's car and broke Carole's son's heart.
She knocked on the door, not even realizing that it was before 10AM until Kurt answered the door, still in his bathrobe. "Rachel!" He exclaimed in surprise and she was so nervous that he was going to be mad at her still. She'd been imagining different scenarios between them during the drive home; she was afraid he would slam the door in her face or refuse to talk to her after she handed over the keys. However, Kurt took one look at Rachel and her state of duress and pulled her into the house immediately, taking her into his bedroom and immediately pressing some cucumber slices on her eyes to reduce the puffiness.
"Lay back, Rachel, so the blood can drain from your sinuses." She relaxed against the headboard of Kurt's bed while he placed the coffees to the side, instead focusing on Rachel and her obvious state of hysteria.
"Are you m-mad at me?" She sniffled lightly and could see Kurt's expression out of the corner of her cucumbers. He looked a tad annoyed, but lifted up her right hand to start filing away at her nails.
"Well, I must admit that I was a bit furious when I woke up to find you and my car gone, but I was more worried about you once I found out you had actually found Finn. I didn't want you to talk to me about it while you were still there, because I felt like it would only cause more tension and drama if I was dragged in the middle of it. He is my step-brother after all, and I was trying my hardest to be neutral so I could be there for the both of you. But now here you are, and by the look of it, you're making my nightmare a reality. Was it really that bad?"
"It was worse, Kurt. The past few days have been the worst days of my life." Finally, she had an outlet to all the frustrations that had been building up over the past few days and she unleashed it all on Kurt like a tidal wave of ennui and angst and sex. She told him how she wound up stranded by Finn's diner, and how much they'd fought for days over the intricacies of their relationship. She told him how they had tried to be civil and neutral to one another, but still wound up either fighting or kissing or trying to ignore one another. She told him about the necklace he had given her for Christmas, and how he said he would still support her when she became a star. Then, she finally explained what had happened last night, and how the sex was supposed to be a parting gift but turned out to be so much more. She ended it with her dramatic re-enactment of this morning because it was still fresh in her memory, and how she had left him a note just like he'd done in order to avoid saying goodbye.
When she was finally finished, she lifted up her cucumber slices to stare at what Kurt had done to her. He had manicured all of her fingers, painted them, and was now mixing up a concoction for her face to reduce blotchiness. Why hadn't she become friends with Kurt sooner?
"So let me get this straight. You spend the entire time fighting with one another, or trying to avoid one another, and you two still had sex?"
"Yup."
"How was it?" He asked, and Rachel turned crimson.
"I said it before, Kurt. It was so much more. . .intense than I had ever imagined. Being with Finn made it infinitely better." Just like she always knew it would be.
"And you didn't even wake him up before saying goodbye?"
"I left him a note!" She said in her defense. "I left it right on top of the kitchen counter, so he would see it on his way out of the house. It explained everything that I was feeling this morning, and I even asked him to call me if last night changed anything at all." She looked at the clock and she had already been at Kurt's house for over an hour; he definitely would have seen the note by now and she still hadn't heard from him. Maybe he didn't feel what she'd felt after all; she was probably just another notch in his bedpost and part of her was relieved that she didn't stick around just to have her heart crushed even more. She didn't want to imagine what could have happened if she'd stayed, just to hear him dismiss last night like it was nothing. It would have been too painful.
"I don't know Rachel, he is a boy. To them, sex is just sex."
"Well, then it's better that I didn't stay." She whispered under her breath.
She had to shake that idea out of her head, and tried to focus on her new future in a life without Finn. They had made a promise to one another that they were going to have a fresh start, and to Rachel it sounded like the perfect plan. She knew immediately that she wouldn't be able to stay in Lima; this town had too many memories of her and Finn and their old lives together. She needed a new beginning. She contemplated her options while Kurt gave her a facial, and when he was finished she was sure she had come up with a good enough idea.
"Kurt, do you know if Dalton has a sister school?"
He stopped applying his own daily skin care regimen to turn to Rachel with a confused look. "What?"
"Well, Dalton is an all-boys school, and most of the time schools like that would have an affiliation with an all-girls school in the area."
He contemplated this as he continued moisturizing. "I'll have to ask Blaine, but I'm pretty sure we have one." He reached over to grab his cell phone and he texted Blaine while Rachel rocked herself on Kurt's bed nervously. After a few minutes, Blaine texted him back, and Rachel waited patiently for the news.
"Ah yes, Bernadette's School for Girls, in Dayton. I knew I had heard that name before at an assembly or two."
"Do you know if they take transfers mid-year?" She asked and Kurt fixed her with a suspicious look.
"Rachel, you're not seriously considering transferring schools!" Her silence was enough of an answer. "What about the glee club?"
"The glee club will be fine without me. They've probably already found Finn's replacement, and they can replace me too." It was a hard pill to swallow, but she would have to sacrifice New Directions if she ever wanted to go out there in the world and achieve her dreams. "Does Bernadette's have a show choir?"
"No. But they do have a women's choir that travels around the state. They sang at Dalton last month. They were really quite good."
The idea solaced her a little bit, and she knew she would have to find a new niche if she was going to change her life around completely. She nodded to herself, determined. "Email me the link to their website. As soon as we get back to school, I am going right to Miss Pillsbury and getting a copy of my transcript."
"Rachel, are you sure that this is what you want to do? Trade in New Directions for a bunch of catty rich girls?"
"I'm positive, Kurt. Without the distraction of boys or the threat of bullying, I will be able to focus on one thing, and one thing only: my career. Nothing will be able to tempt me or lure me away from my goals, and getting out of Lima is my first step."
"But what about Finn?" Kurt asked and she had to ignore the numbness that crippled her every time Kurt mentioned his name. Maybe this transferring thing was exactly what she needed.
"Finn and I are over." She said thickly. "There's nothing left for me here. It's time to move on." She sighed deeply as Kurt saw right through her act. "He has my number if he wants to call me, but it's not going to happen. It's time for me to move on for good." She turned to Kurt, her best friend, and reached out for his hand for support. "You'll help me, right?"
"Of course, Rachel."
"And if Finn calls you, please don't tell him what I'm doing. It's best if we stay out of each other's business." Kurt looked hesitant, and Rachel squeezed his hand. "Promise me."
He sighed dramatically and pulled her in for a hug. "Fine, Fine. I promise I won't tell Finn what's going on with you. You know, it's crazy girls like you that make me happy I like boys." She laughed wholeheartedly at his statement and had never been more grateful to have a true friend in her life. He tugged at her playfully and pulled her off the bed. "Now c'mon, let's go bake some cookies or sing some show tunes, or do something that's so gay that we forget who Finn Hudson even is."
She smiled once more and followed her best friend into the kitchen, grateful that she even had one to help lift her out of this fog. "To empty calories and Broadway careers!"
Salut mes amis!
One more chapter to go!
Lyrics from "I Miss You" by Incubus
Until next time, sings. . . Don't Stop. . .Reviewing!
Merci Mille Fois
