Chapter Twenty-One: No One Here To Blame
Author's Note: Thanks to everyone who reviewed so far. The story is starting to wind down as there's this chapter, the one following it, and the epilogue. As always, I don't own Glee or any of its characters. The chapter title comes from Adia by Sarah McLachlan.
Rachel slowly lifted her head off of the pavement where she landed and heard ringing in her ears. She blinked a few times, trying to remember where she was and what she was doing here. When she saw the burning airplane, she remembered exactly what happened.
"Finn." She tried to push herself off the pavement and towards the plane but someone was holding her back. She turned around and saw Beiste was holding her back. "No, I need to save Finn."
"Honey, they're gone. Before the plane exploded, we saw Cassandra and Jesse pulling him out of the plane. We don't know where the two of them were taking Finn."
"We have to find him!" Rachel said, struggling against Beiste to break free from her. "I need to know if he's going to be okay."
"Schue and Sam are on it, pumpkin. They'll find him. They always do." Beiste helped Rachel stand up and walked her over to where the rest of the team was gathered. Rachel sat down in one of the chairs and stared forward with a blank expression on her face.
"Do you want that cinnamon roll now?" Kurt asked Rachel gently. Her eyes narrowed and she pursed her lips.
"Kurt, I can't think about eating right now. The love of my life, my person, is out there somewhere with traitors. I can't focus on something as ridiculous as a cinnamon roll and you shouldn't either." She got up from the seat she was sitting in and faced the team. "I'm leaving to try and find Finn and Jesse and Cassandra and give the two of them a piece of my mind. Who's coming with me?"
"Oh hell yeah!" Santana said, getting up from where she was sitting. "I'll finally get to see Berry kick some ass. I was so mad I had to miss it when she nailed Brody in the middle of the forehead when he kidnapped the two of them in February. Hell hath no fury like Santana Lopez who doesn't get to see Rachel Berry beating someone up." Santana had run in order to catch up with Rachel. "Berry, we're all anxious about finding Finn so can you tone it down a little?"
Rachel stopped walking and turned to face Santana. "Tone it down a little? Are you fucking kidding me? Sure, you all are worried about finding Finn because he's a wonderful coworker. But for me, Finn is my partner. He's the father of my son. He's my true love, my person, my soul mate. So excuse me for wanting to find him. It's not like I'm connected to him in any way."
Santana recoiled as if she'd been slapped by Rachel. "Look, I'm sorry. That probably wasn't the best wording I could come up with. I'm really sorry about that. But do you realize that we're all hurting about this? We all love Finn, even if sometimes I don't seem like I do. This is just my defense mechanism for dealing with this all. I'm sorry I hurt your feelings. But do you realize the longer we stand the here, the longer it is that Cassandra and Jesse have Finn?" Santana gave Rachel a look and started walking to one of the government issued SUV. "Are you going to come or are you going to stay here and wallow?"
Rachel started walking towards the SUV and paused by the passenger door, something catching her eye. She bent down and picked up someone's credentials. She opened them to see if she'd be able to give it back to whoever it was and gasped. "Santana, Finn dropped his credentials. He left a breadcrumb trail for us." She threw open the door to the SUV and climbed in.
"Alright Berry. You obviously know Finn the best and you've spent time with our unsubs. You say he's leaving us a breadcrumb trail. Where do you think they're going next?"
Rachel closed her eyes to think. "Cassandra knows about Jenna and probably knows about Liam. We should drive back to Quantico and make sure Burt, Carole, and the kids are okay."
Santana started the SUV. "Quantico, here we come."
-X-
"Alright, what are we doing now?" Santana asked, pulling up to the townhouse.
"I'm going inside to make sure everything is okay. You're going to stay out here and keep guard. Ask Artie to text you a picture of Jesse so you know what he looks like. I'll hopefully be back soon." Rachel unbuckled her seat belt and threw open the SUV door. She calmly walked up to the front door of the townhouse and opened the door. She stepped into the house and saw no one was in the living room.
Rachel set her keys on the front table by the front door, pulled out her gun and started walking around the townhouse. She checked the kitchen and the den and saw both rooms were clear, making the first floor all clear. She slowly walked to the stairs, careful to make sure no one was going to jump out at her. She stopped outside of Jenna's room and noticed her bedroom door was closed, which was odd because Jenna always kept the door open when she went to school. Rachel slowly opened the door and leaned in to check it. She opened it wider and saw Jesse was sitting there holding Liam. "Let him go." Rachel snarled, holding her gun up higher.
"Chill out, Berry, you don't want to miss and hit your infant son instead, do you?" Jesse said, not looking up from Liam.
"Why are you doing this?"
"Don't jump the gun, Berry. No pun intended, of course. All of that will be revealed soon. Such a shame you and Finn worked so hard to have a baby. It may have been in vain."
"Don't touch my son." Rachel said, venom dripping through each word. "Or I swear to God, I will kill you without a second thought."
"Someone's not very nice today. Did your sweet son keep you up all night? Well, I promise you he won't be doing that anymore."
"What did you do to him?"
"Just gave him some medicine to knock him out. I just can't remember if the dose I gave him was too strong for infants."
Rachel's nostrils flared. "What did you do to him?"
"And of course, Finn was basically out of it when we got to the townhouse, but that's to be expected after sustaining the gunshot wound to the arm and losing a lot of blood." Jesse stroked Liam's cheek. "Looks like you're going to be losing a lot of your family today. We just need to find out where that daughter of yours goes to school. Luckily, we have your section chief working on that." Jesse looked up and smirked at the shocked expression on Rachel's face. "That's right, Sue Sylvester is working with us. Why else do you think you were forced into working for us those few months. She didn't do it because of what she told you. She did it because Cassie specifically said she wanted you to come out and work with us. And when you said you weren't going to come back after the summer hiatus, we planned the attack on the caravan. And now our whole plan is finally working out." Jesse started laughing. Rachel took advantage of Jesse not paying attention and shot him in the head. His eyes widened and then he was dead.
Rachel took a few deep breaths and crossed the room and grabbed Liam from his arms. She checked to make sure he was still breathing and let out a sigh of relief when she realized he had a normal pulse and his chest was moving up and down. She quickly went down the stairs and out the door and handed him to a wide-eyed Santana.
"What am I supposed to do with an infant, Berry?"
"Take him to the hospital. I don't know what may have happened to him. If I'm not back out in fifteen minutes, take him to James Madison Hospital. It's back in DC. They'll be good with him."
"And what are you going to do?"
"I have to go back inside. Just hold him. He should be fine for now." Rachel ran back to the door and threw it open, not worrying about closing it. She walked over to where the door to the basement led and slowly opened it. She turned on her flashlight and slowly started to descent down the stairs.
Once she got to the bottom, she turned one direction and heard a gun click behind her. She slowly turned around and saw Cassandra was standing behind her with a gun pointed at her head. Rachel started looking around to take in her surroundings and saw a slumped over Finn tied to a chair.
"He's okay. For now." Cassandra said, knowing that Rachel was looking at Finn. "Give it up, Berry. You can't have it all. Just walk away now and maybe you can still get the fairy tale ending with Finn. Put down the gun and flash light and go back upstairs and go with your team member to the hospital with your son. Eventually I'll make sure Finn gets there."
Rachel nodded and bent down to put the gun and the flashlight on the floor. But when she came back up, she punched Cassandra square in the face.
"What the fuck, Berry? Why the hell did you punch me?" Cassandra went to punch Rachel but Rachel leaned to the left and missed the punch. She shifted her weight to her left foot and swung her right leg around to knock Cassandra down to the ground. Rachel knelt down on her knees are started punching Cassandra in the face as tears streamed down her face. She heard someone coming down the stairs and kept punching Cassandra.
"This is for being a lousy teacher. This is for endangering my life in England. This is for causing the miscarriage. This is for shooting Finn. This is for…" Rachel said, completely breaking down into tears as she stopped punching.
She felt someone pull her off Cassandra and she saw it was Schue. She cried even harder and he wrapped his arms around her and rubbed her back as the medics that followed him down went over to where Finn was tied up. One of them worked on untying him while the other tended to Cassandra.
"He's a got a pulse. It's weak, but it's there." The first medic loaded Finn onto the stretcher.
The other medic shook her head. "This one didn't make it." The medic looked at Rachel. "Are there any other bodies in the house?"
"There's at least one upstairs. I never got to find Burt and Carole."
"Burt and Carole are fine." Schue said. "When the plane exploded, I called them and told them to get Jenna from school and go somewhere safe."
When Rachel heard Jenna's name, she broke down into more tears. "So…she's okay?"
"Jenna's fine. How's Liam?"
Rachel's eyes widened. "He's with Santana. I should…" Schue nodded and Rachel sprinted up the stairs and ran back outside.
"Berry, thank God." Santana said when she got into the car. "I was about to go to the hospital and—"
"No, we have to go. We'll meet up with Finn later."
Santana nodded and sped off towards the hospital.
-X-
Rachel sat in the waiting room at James Madison Hospital and started twisting her engagement ring around her finger again. About an hour ago, the doctors had said Liam was fine and now she was waiting to hear something about Finn. Burt and Carole were sitting next to her and Jenna had gone back to Quantico with Puck and Quinn, who showed up with baby Isaac when they'd heard what happened.
"Rachel, Finn is going to be fine. You have to keep thinking that." Carole said, rubbing her arm.
Rachel felt a tear slide down her face. "I'm trying to think positively, but I just feel like something is going to go wrong."
"Finn Hudson?" One of the doctors on Finn's case said, coming into the waiting room.
"Over here." Burt said. The doctor came over to them and stood in front of them.
"The surgery went incredibly well. Doctor Williams was able to get the bullet out of his arm and we gave him a blood transfusion. Which one of you is Rachel?"
"That's me." Rachel said, wiping away her falling tears.
"He's asking for you. And normally I'd have to let him ask, but he's refusing all medication until he's seen you. Are you willing to see him now?"
"Of course. Carole, would you be able to watch Liam?"
"Absolutely. I'd love to see my grandson." Rachel handed Liam to Carole and followed the doctor back to Finn's room.
"Mr. Hudson, there's someone here to see you." Doctor Williams said, opening the door to Finn's room.
"There's my girl." Finn said, somewhat groggy. "Come here."
Rachel smiled and went into Finn's room and kissed him. "How are you feeling?"
He shrugged with his good arm. "Could be better, could be worse. Are you okay? How about Liam?"
Rachel nodded. "We're good. Everyone is alright. Jenna went to stay with Beth, Puck, Quinn, and the baby for the night. Your mom and Burt are in the waiting room with Liam. The team is probably going to want to see you tomorrow."
"Good thing I'll feel up for it then." He started to shut his eyes.
"I'll let you sleep. We'll come back in the morning." Rachel kissed him and left.
-X-
"Daddy!" Jenna said the next morning, running into Finn's room.
"There's my favorite girl!" Finn said, looking a lot better than he did last night. "I heard you got a sleepover with Beth last night."
Jenna nodded. "It was great! We stayed up until ten thirty!"
"Yeah, I need to talk to Puck about that." Rachel muttered, moving Liam from her right hip to her left hip so Finn had better access to him.
"Hey little guy." Finn said. Rachel sunk her left hip so Finn would be able to kiss Liam's forehead. "Is he okay?"
Rachel nodded. "He's doing fine. When he was in here yesterday, the doctors even said he was progressing just fine for being a preemie. I think he's going to be just like you because the doctor's said he's the size of a normal twelve month old."
Finn chuckled. "Liam, are you going to be just like your daddy?" Liam let out a loud belch and everyone started laughing. "I'll take that as a yes." Finn said, looking up at Rachel. "Alright, what's on your mind? Spit it out."
"I want you to ask me again. Ask me to marry you."
"Rachel Berry, will you marry me?"
"Yes. And Finn, I want to get married as soon as possible. Monday morning, we should go down to the courthouse and make it official. I'm ready to be your wife."
Someone cleared their throat from the door and they all turned to see Schue standing there. "How are you doing today Finn?" Schue asked, coming into the hospital room.
"I'm tired. But I feel a lot better than yesterday. The doctors think I might even be able to go home tomorrow."
"Well, that's great news. I just wanted to see how you were feeling. The team is all out in the waiting room and I know they'd like to see you if you'd feel up for it."
"That's fine. I love getting company. Bring them on back." Schue nodded and started walking out the door.
"Babe, I think I'm gonna go with Schue. Just so he doesn't get lost. Do you think you could hold Liam?"
"Sure." Finn said, holding his arms out, ready to take Liam. "Don't be gone for too long."
"I won't." Rachel said, giving Finn a smile. "Jenna, you can stay here, okay baby girl?"
"Okay, Mommy." She climbed into the hospital bed next to Finn and curled into his good side.
Schue and Rachel walked out of Finn's room. Schue turned to Rachel once the door shut. "Yesterday was your last case, wasn't it?"
"How'd you know?"
"Rachel, we study people's behavior for a living. I could tell there was something you had on your mind when I found you in the basement. We're going to miss you."
"I'll miss all of you. This wasn't an easy decision for me to make."
"I know it wasn't, Rachel. But in the end, you have to choose what you think was right. And you must think this is right for you."
"I'm sure it is." Rachel gave him a small smile. "I wish my last case ended a little better."
"It ended with three bad people dead and one former leader in prison. Everything is going to be fine now. Now, I know how to find my way back to Finn's room from the hospital waiting room. You should go back inside and I'll bring everyone back to the room."
"Sounds good Schue." She smiled at him as he walked towards the waiting room.
When Schue got the waiting room, he had a smile on his face. "Guys, you need to cancel your plans tomorrow. You all are invited to my house for a wedding celebration."
"Who's getting married?" Kurt asked.
"Finn and Rachel are."