Pieces

by FinnHudsonGlee

His parents got divorced, he was forced to return to the U.S from his boarding school abroad, he got into a fiery racing crash and got a career-ending injury that ended his chances of becoming an F1 driver, all before he even turned 18. He's gone off the rails: getting thrown out of schools, sleeping rough. Is Finn too far gone or can a hidden talent bring him back from the depths?

24. Chapter 24

CHAPTER 24

Sam and Quinn concocted a plan that night. Given Finn's history with Quinn, Quinn knew him well enough to know exactly what strings to pull to slowly destroy Finn and Emily's relationship. Too much and people would get suspicious. Too little and they wouldn't even notice. No, they had to do everything just right. The first part of their plan began the next morning and if all went well, Finn and Emily would both be single in three weeks time…

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"Where the hell is anyone? Normally I'm the last one here." Finn said. It was Friday morning and Finn and Emily were sitting in the choir room, waiting for Glee to start. Weirdly, it was 20 minutes past the starting time and the only people in the room were Finn, Emily and Mr. Schue. Even people like Rachel and Kurt, who were NEVER late, weren't present.

"I don't know. Where could they be?" Emily asked.

"Maybe they got stuck in traffic." Mr. Schue suggested. Finn raised an eyebrow.

"All 11 of them? Somehow I doubt that." Finn replied. Mr. Schue sighed.

"Look, you two are dismissed for today. I'm going to be having some serious words with the rest of the group tomorrow because this is just ridiculous! Regionals are in 4 weeks. We can't have people just skiving rehearsals. Every second counts."

Finn and Emily stood up and left the room. They had an hour to kill until the start of school and didn't really know what to do.

"Bleachers?" Finn suggested. Emily smiled.

"Sure." She replied, taking his hand. The two of them walked outside together and when they made it to the bleachers, they realised that they were already occupied with the New Directions.

"Um… what are you guys doing here? Shouldn't you all be in the choir room?" Finn asked. Mercedes shook her head.

"No, we shouldn't because we're boycotting Glee club." Mercedes replied. Emily raised an eyebrow.

"Um… what?" Emily asked.

"You heard her. We're boycotting Glee club." Kurt said, repeating his friend's statement.

"Well, may I ask why?" Finn asked, perplexed. What the hell was going on? He was the least invested in the Glee club out of all of them and even he was invested enough not to boycott the club.

"You." Rachel replied. "You're the reason we're boycotting. You and your girlfriend. We realised something this morning: we have spent the past three years pouring our blood, sweat and tears into this club. Now, we finally have the means and opportunity to make it to Nationals and you, a NEW kid this year - show up and steal the glory. NO MORE. All of us deserve the solo more than you, and frankly, we all need it more. Unlike you, some of us actually want to go to college and study music and soloing at Regionals could be our ticket. So you're going to step down from your solo and let one of the veterans have it. Understand?"

Finn sighed.

"Yeah, fine, whatever. Take the solo." Finn murmured, trying hard to avoid conflict. Emily, on the other hand, wasn't. She raised a hand.

"Hold on a second!" She shouted, enraged. "You can't do that! You can't penalise him for being better than you all! And if you truly care about the Glee club, don't you want what's best for the team? Which means Finn soloing and you know it." She snapped. The rest of the group shook their heads.

"That's not true! Finn has no experience performing in high pressure environments! Us veterans do, so we should be the ones soloing!"

"That's bullshit and you know it!" Emily spat back. Finn put a hand on her shoulder.

"Em, It's not worth it. It's okay" Finn murmured.

"NO! It's not okay! You can't just let yourself get pushed around, Finn!" She exclaimed. Finn shrugged.

"It's fine. Taking one for the team, I guess." He said. Emily clenched her fists.

"God! You're such a pushover!" She cried. Finn sighed and looked down.

"And that's my queue to leave. I'm out of here." He said, and he started to walk away. He barely a hundred meters before Emily caught up with him.

"Oh, no! You're not walking away from the argument like you always do! You never stand up for yourself! You need to grow a fucking pair!"

Finn's face went from anger to sadness to unreadable in a matter of seconds.

"See you around, Emily." Finn said before quickly walking away. Emily put her head in her hands and started to cry. She couldn't believe what she had just said. She had just insulted the kindest person in the world, quite possibly ruining the best relationship she had ever had. She had been hurt A LOT by exes before, but Finn was different. He looked past her attractive looks and he liked her for who she was on the inside. Well, he used to like her. Who knows what was going to happen now?

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Emily didn't see Finn that whole weekend. She went by his house once on Saturday, only to find that he wasn't there. With any of her other boyfriends, she would have been worried that something bad was going on. However, Finn was not like any of her boyfriends. She knew that he would always be faithful to her. But there was still a tiny part of her that worried. What if he was cheating on her? For the first time in the three relationships that had ended that way, it wouldn't even be entirely Finn's fault. She didn't deserve someone like Finn. He deserved better.

On Monday, when Emily walked into school, she was pretty anxious. Normally, Finn picked her up on the way to school and they drove together but today, Finn didn't come so she was forced to drive to school herself. She knew that she needed to apologise to Finn and she was walking down the corridor, looking for him when she was stopped by Sam.

"Hey, Emily. Did you happen to speak to Finn this weekend?" He asked, 'innocently.' Emily shook her head and sighed.

"No. I think he ghosted me all weekend." Emily replied. "I need to apologise to him. Do you know where I can find him?"

Sam put on a face of 'sympathy.'

"Emily, there's something you should know." Sam said. "Look, you can't ask me how I know, but I think…" Sam paused for a moment before continuing. "I think Finn's cheating on you with Quinn."

Emily's heart dropped. She felt like a bucket of frigid water had been dumped over her. It took everything for her to stay calm and not completely break down.

"Thank you for telling me, Sam. I really need to find Finn now. See you around." She said before taking off down the corridor. She needed to find Finn. NOW! Eventually she found him by the water fountain, filling his water bottle. She dragged him away. Once they were out of earshot, she turned to him, staring daggers at him.

"We're done." She spat. Finn raised an eyebrow.

"Um… huh?" He asked, confused.

"Don't you dare play dumb, Finn. I know." She shouted. Finn looked just as confused.

"Um… huh?" Finn repeated, even more confused now.

"I know that you cheated on me, and don't you even try and deny it! Sam told you!"

"Sam told you?" Finn stammered, confused. Suddenly, it hit him. Sam had a crush on Emily! That's why he convinced the Glee club to boycott! Sam didn't care about solos or college; he just wanted to sleep with Emily.

"Wait… it's true?!" Emily yelled, tears starting to stream down her cheeks. She couldn't believe it. The man she loved was cheating on her!

"NO!" Finn replied. "Look, I don't know what Sam told you but it's not true." Finn replied.

"Oh yeah? Then where were you last weekend, and don't say your house because I dropped by and you weren't there?"

"I was in Columbus. My best friend, Josh, and I decided to spend the whole weekend on the circuit practising for the first race of the season that's next week. I just crashed at his place. No offense but after Friday, I kinda needed time away from you as well."

Emily shook her head. Although his story made sense, she had a nagging feeling that he was lying.

"No, you're lying. I want proof." She said. Finn raised an eyebrow and his jaw dropped.

"Excuse me?" He asked, disbelievingly. "Proof? How about trust me? I can't believe this! After all we've been through together, you believe some douche who just wants to sleep with you over your own boyfriend? You know what, screw this! Get away from me." Finn spat, barging past Emily and storming down the corridor. Emily clenched her jaw. That was NOT the language of the innocent. Hell, he didn't even deny it! Could there really be a chance that Finn was cheating on her?

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"Hey guys, how was your weekend?" Mr. Schue asked. Nobody responded. They all had pretty crappy weekends after the events of Friday. Mr. Schue raised an eyebrow. "Yeesh. Blast of cold air there! What happened guys?"

Finn stood up.

"Mr. Schue. Before we start, I've gotta say something. I'm stepping down from my solo in Regionals." He said. Mr. Schue's eyes widened.

"Um… may I ask why?" He asked. Finn shrugged.

"Well, honestly, I was kinda blackmailed into quitting by the rest of the club. They threatened to quit the club unless I stepped down. I know how much Nationals means to you so I'm just taking one for the team."

Mr. Schue's jaw dropped and anger etched across his face.

"Excuse me? Please tell me I'm not hearing this right! You guys threatened to QUIT?" Mr. Schue shouted. Nobody responded. Finn shrugged.

"Mr. Schue, it's honestly fine. I've got racing season starting this weekend anyways so I'm going to have to miss some rehearsals as it is."

Mr. Schue sighed.

"Fine. Someone else can have the solo. I'll decide that in the coming days. But I want you guys to know that I'm VERY disappointed in you all. This is not how New Directions are supposed to behave! If Regionals weren't two weeks away, I would be pulling us out of the competition."

Nobody spoke. They were all so ashamed at what they had done. They had driven out their best singer for completely selfish reasons. A guy who had been nothing but kind to all of them.

"Now, let's put this behind us. I had a fun lesson planned for today. If you want, I can give you guys today off and we can try again tomorrow."

"No, let's start now." Tina said. "Extra practise, right? Every second counts."

Mr. Schue nodded.

"Right. So our topic for today is… duets!"

Everyone smiled and cheered. Duets were always a fun topic.

"That's great, Mr. Schue. But not all of us are dating someone so…" Kurt said. Mr. Schue grinned.

"That's the beauty of this assignment. You're not going to be singing with your significant other, nor are you guys going to be preparing." He said, and then revealed two hats filled with slips of paper. "So… what's going to happen is ladies, you are going to pick a slip from hat number one, revealing your duet partner. Every guys' name is in the hat. No exceptions. Then, you are going to randomly choose a slip from hat number two. This will be the song you will be singing. Understand?"

"Yeah." They all chorussed back. Mr. Schue smiled and nodded.

"Cool. So, who would like to go first?" Mr. Schue asked. Quinn raised her hand.

"Could I?" She asked. Mr. Schue nodded and she walked to the front of the room and over to the hat. Little did Mr. Schue know, her and Sam had planned every moment of this. They had hacked onto his school computer account and added this assignment to his youtube recommendations. Then, a couple of hours before class, when she saw Mr. Schue writing the names, she had stuck Finn's slip in the freezer. She only took it out right before rehearsal so it was still freezing, much colder than the others. Sure enough, she pulled a name from the hand and read it out to the group…

"Finn." She said, smiling at him. Emily visibly paled as Finn stood up and walked to the front of the room to stand next to Quinn.

"Um… Mr. Schue? Could I please switch? You know, given mine and Quinn's history…"

Mr. Schue shook his head.

"Sorry, Finn. The hat wants what the hat wants." He replied. Finn closed his eyes and groaned. This was probably the worst thing that could possibly be happening, especially given his rocky relationship with Emily.

"Fine." He muttered. "What song are we singing?"

"Well, Quinn, why don't you pick a song?" Mr. Schue suggested.

Once again, Quinn had planned all of this. She pulled out a slip and showed it to Finn. He put his head in his hands.

"You've gotta be fucking kidding me." He muttered. To make matters worse, he would be singing I'm Not the Only One - a song about cheating - with his ex-girlfriend and to his current girlfriend, who thought he was cheating with said ex.

"All right. Let's do this, I guess." He spat. He picked up an electric guitar, quickly tuned it, and then they began singing their impromptu duet.

You and me, we made a vow

For better or for worse

I can't believe you let me down

But the proof's in the way it hurts

For months on end I've had my doubts

Denying every tear

I wish this would be over now

But I know that I still need you here

As they were about to go into the first chorus, Finn noticed Emily's face reddening with anger. He forced himself to keep singing.

You say I'm crazy

'Cause you don't think I know what you've done

But when you call me baby

I know I'm not the only one

You've been so unavailable

Now sadly I know why

Your heart is unobtainable

Even though Lord knows you kept mine

You say I'm crazy

'Cause you don't think I know what you've done

But when you call me baby

I know I'm not the only one

I have loved you for many years

Maybe I am just not enough

You've made me realize my deepest fear

By lying and tearing us up

You say I'm crazy

'Cause you don't think I know what you've done

But when you call me baby

I know I'm not the only one

You say I'm crazy

'Cause you don't think I know what you've done

But when you call me baby

I know I'm not the only one

At this point, Emily stormed out of the room. Finn bit his tongue. As much as he hated upsetting his girlfriend, it wasn't totally undeserved. After all, did he really want to be with someone who believed a jackass like Sam over him?

I know I'm not the only one

I know I'm not the only one

And I know

And I know

And I know

And I know

And I know

And I don't know

I know I'm not the only one