A/N: Okay, this wasn't all I had planned for this part, but it works and it was a nice place to stop. I hope you all enjoy—please let me know as always. Thank you for the amazing response to this up til now. Thanks Jen (wants2beawriter) for the reading and encouraging, regardless of the fact you were on the train while doing it. This part owes anything good in it to you and your tireless support. And if anyone is looking for some major angsty heartbreak, check out our collaboration, All the Wrong Things on Fire posted under her name. It's like the total opposite of this story.

Disclaimer: I don't own Glee or anything affiliated therewith. I also do not own the song Room the End of the World by Matt Nathanson, but that's where I borrowed the chapter title from.

Day Forty Eight: Sad Can't Catch Me and Call Me Baby

So his mom is involved in this staycation planning and he's pretty sure that sucks worse than anything else in his life at the moment. Don't get him wrong, he loves that his mom loves Rachel and Rachel loves his mom. He loves they've come back together in all that so now Rachel is just totally comfortable at his house again and he doesn't hate when Carole asks for Rachel's help cooking. He's even tolerated it a couple times in the last week or so when Carole, Rachel, and Kurt all went shopping together. They invited him to come, sure, but he said no (of course- he isn't totally crazy). Plus, it gave him a chance to teach Blaine the basics on the new Halo. He knows Rachel and Kurt are planning some sort of a video gaming marathon in a couple weeks and he needs to have at least one person who knows the difference between the start button and the joystick.

That sounds dirty, but it isn't.

Anyway, so he's not stoked about his mom complaining when she found a dirty cup (not, like, a cup…but like one he'd had a drink in) that was stuck to the corner of his desk. And he's even less excited about her saying this to Rachel; Rachel has refused to set foot in his room for the last three days and she's only doing it now because she claims it's 'exploring her adventurous side'.

Whatever, she's just hoping she'll find the underwear she accidentally left here. (He's so not telling where those are.)

Fast forward through all that to now when Rachel is standing there, looking at him with her hands on her hips.

"…taking away video games might be the only option here. I mean, I'm not your mother and I definitely don't want to resort to that, but Finn…gracious… if you really want me to spend any time in here you've got to do something. It seems as though all you do while you play that thing is eat potato chips."

He looks over at the floor. Yes, there are some crumbs. So?

"Sometimes I eat other things, like popcorn…cheese and crackers…maybe a sandwich." He nods and smiles. "You know what sounds awesome right now? PB and J."

Rachel sighs and looks at him without a smile. "You're right; we've been at this for a while."

He sighs in relief. "I knew you would see this my way. Let's just go get some lunch and then we'll start again."

"I've been here for twenty whole minutes, Finn. And it's a quarter to eleven. We aren't taking a break for lunch for at least an hour."

He groans and tips back onto his bed, smacking his head on the bookshelf directly next to his bed. He'd had a pillow strategically placed there, but the first thing Rachel did was have him put his sheets in the washer. Pillowcase had to be removed. He looks down to the side of his bed. The naked pillow is right there. Maybe if he moves slowly she won't see him grab it because that shelf is kind of digging in and…

She kneels on top of him, crawling across the queen-sized bed before planting a knee on either side of his waist. She kisses his cheek and he redirects his face. He could get used to this part of cleaning his room—the part where she's here.

Y'know. Helping.

(And she even turned the music up loud so his mom would close the door. She really is a pretty good girlfriend. And he's surprised his mom fell for that. Years of a son who plays drums probably damaged her hearing or something so she normally doesn't care if his music is turned up.)

So anyway, even though she's kissing on his neck which is like an instant hard-on, he decides it probably does benefit them both if he actually stops complaining and gets this done. The sooner the better, and really it's not that bad. He's honestly tried to stay on top of the room situation for specifically this reason. They've just been busy and it sort of got away from him.

And the cup…the cup was Kurt's fault. Stinking 'lady chats'. Even if they do mean he and Kurt are planning a surprise double date for after football camp starts and so that's been their main focus lately.

"So just come help me," she says, backing away from her kiss and sliding her hand inside his shirt and over his stomach. "And then we can get to the fun part of the day. Because you know this wasn't what I had planned."

Her face is so close and he lets his eyes look over it. "Okay," he says quietly. "Where do you think I should start?"

She gives him a soft kiss and he knows he asked that question the right way. The key with Rachel is to ask for her ideas, not to make her think she's giving orders. She totally enjoys giving them, but she feels like a bitch if they're orders instead of suggestions. He's learning and remembering how it all works. And she's making it totally worth it—as if he ever doubted she would.

And that's what he thinks he loves about her today. Sure, she's not easy. There are a lot of tricks to dating Rachel, but it's not like Jedi mind tricks or whatever. There are just ways of handling her built into their everyday lives that help her feel better about herself. There are little tiny things he can do that make her so happy, and then when he realizes he's doing them, he knows he's a good boyfriend and it makes him feel good, too.

It's so much better than dating Quinn where he just got doubted and cut down and whatever all the time. Sure, there were times she said she was proud or times when she acted like she even liked him, but…but these little things are always there with Rachel and it's just so much better for him, honestly. He knows that now. It's more where he belongs and where he's really actually happy.

"I love how you make everything fun and like an adventure," he says. He gives her another kiss before he grabs her thighs to hold her steady while he sits up.

She smiles slowly. "Well…I feel like I'm in a jungle, so I guess that's an adventure. Like maybe a cat I didn't know you have is going to jump out from the foliage and try to eat my arm."

He raises an eyebrow because, well… she's dramatic. It's no secret. "It's not that bad."

"Finn, I've seen fur."

"Oh you have not," he manages through his laughter as he starts to slide off the bed.

"I love how you can laugh at me and not make me feel like an idiot," she says. He can feel her eyes looking at him as he's moving to start going through the clothes on the floor. He knows what she's doing. She's part serious and part trying to get him back on the bed. She's so obvious.

But he actually does want to clean the room so she'll be comfortable there. He wants her in his room and in his bed and…he just can't get into all that with her right now. So.

"Well, sometimes you're really funny," he says with a shrug, stooping down to grab the three days' worth of t-shirts that have accumulated. He grabs shorts in his other hand and heads toward the closet for his hamper. He thinks he sees her peeking around at the floor now that she can see carpet and no, Rach, I'm not so stupid I would leave your underwear in the middle of my bedroom floor even if they had a protective layer over them. Geez.

His mom knocks on the door about an hour later, and honestly he's almost done. At this point, they've remade the bed with clean sheets and he told Rachel to just lay there and do her summer reading for English (Crime and Punishment looks like a really long book; he's glad he just has to—in theory—read Old Man and the Sea. Then again, getting to New York might be easier if he took the harder classes, but…well…there isn't much he can do about all that now). He's pretty glad this is when his mom comes in. She tells them lunch is ready and downstairs. Kurt and Blaine are gone somewhere for the afternoon and she has to be to work in an hour so she's leaving. He thanks her for the food and then gives her a big hug because she's awesome.

And more importantly, she's leaving him alone in the house with his girlfriend and a clean bed. Not many moms would do that, and he's not sure she's doing it on purpose either, but regardless she doesn't say anything and he's pretty grateful to her for all of it (but not going to point it out.)

They eat their peanut butter and strawberry jelly sandwiches quietly and, because the room is clean, he doesn't bring the bag of chips back upstairs with him like he normally would. He's guessing the small smile Rachel gives him is her thanks for that.

So, the thing with his room in this new house is the bookshelves are built into the wall all the way up to just below the tall ceiling. And he really wanted to push his bed up against the wall and whatever, so it worked out perfectly to put his bed right by the built-in bookshelf. It doesn't start 'til about four feet off the ground anyway, so otherwise, it was a waste of wall space (Kurt's words) and this way he has a spot for his desk on the other wall because the opposite window is too big for him to put it there. If his bed was pulled out from the wall, he couldn't have a chair. His new room is good sized, but it's more long than anything and so is his bed and… yeah, so is he. At least he fits in this room and this bed.

The other benefit he didn't think of until Rachel is helping him clean his room is that she can use the bed like it's a step stool that she needs to reach the top shelf because it's about three feet over her head. She's been muttering something that suspiciously sounds like vaulted ceilings and bitch while she's trying to put the small box of old cd's up on the top shelf.

Right now, she's literally jumping on his bed trying to reach and it's not working out too well for her. He was just coming back from putting the vacuum away in the hall closet and he leans on the doorframe, folding his arms to watch her with amusement.

"You know…when I told you that I loved how you could laugh without making me feel like an idiot? Well, I take that back because I feel supremely stupid and you're laughing," she comments without even looking over her shoulder.

He rolls his eyes and pushes himself away from the door frame. He takes the box from her gently then reaches up easily and puts it on the shelf where she was intending it go. It's the last thing they have to put away before he's declaring them finished cleaning his room.

He'll keep the declaration quiet though 'cause they're home alone and his room is clean and she's on his bed. What can he say? It feels good to have priorities, and announcing they're finished has nothing on kissing her because she's on his bed.

So he grabs her and presses her against him as he drops onto the bed. He trips a little over the bean bag at the end of his bed but considering they have a soft place to land it's not the end of the world. She laughs a little but her eyes aren't dancing like they do when she's giggling and happy and silly. She's looking at him like she wants to make out.

He's pretty sure time out is in order.

So he kisses her forever and then tells her thank you for the help and tickles her until she sounds like she's out of breath from laughing. It's only when she hears the front door open that she sits up a little and (sadly) refastens her bra closed that he realizes the time out wasn't her plan for the evening. She tells him they're doing a carpet picnic with Kurt and Blaine and, as much as he wanted to fly solo all night with her, he thinks the foursome is more than okay. And he loves her because this whole summer is more than just okay, too. But he already gave her a reason for today so that one will wait for tomorrow.

He wonders what she has planned for tomorrow, and he wonders how it could beat today. Somehow, though, she always manages.