DISCLAIMER: If I owned GLEE don't you think I would have had John Travolta getting 'Physical' as well?

Ch4…

Another day in glee, another day trying to escape a slushie facial, another day confused about who she was and how she got here. There were many ways Rachel Berry could describe her day, she could break it down into minutes based on Season of Love from Rent, 1,443 minutes spent remembering how Finn had sung to her, 1,443 minutes of Jesse's promises being replayed in her mind. Even her dreams had been filled with the two boys; Jesse was her equal, they shared the same interests, liked the same things and he had even transferred schools leaving a champion glee club just for. If this were a movie he was definitely the sweet boy with the grand romantic gestures.

But.

There will always be a but when it came to Jesse. Maybe if she had met him before, before there was glee and Finn and that whole drama. But as it were she'd already pledged her heart to Finn and she hadn't gotten it back. That's what made it so hard, one boy was holding on to her for dear life and even though he had hurt her, almost broken her in fact he was still there. The sweet boy with the grand romantic gestures didn't stand a chance. Now she knew how Allie had felt when torn between Noah and ? in The Notebook. Maybe when the musical version is finalised she could play Allie and use that sense memory thing in her portrayal. Of course those plans for the future didn't exactly help her now, in the present as she lay in bed ignoring her alarm.

"You've got mail!"

Rachel groaned into her pillow, Kurt and Mercedes had been calling her all night about some kind of espionage mission they had undertaken, if this was just another message of the same she was going to scream. Clicking open the little envelope she breathed in sharply as the screen name REO_Finn stared back at her. She couldn't help but smile at the little happy face that was the subject.

To: ingénue_
CC:
BCC:
Subject:
Attached:

Hey Rach,

I didn't know how to do this properly and I don't have a my space so I thought I'd just e mail this to you. I know I promised Jesse I'd leave you alone but I can't, I'm not giving up on you this time, it means too much, you mean too much to me.

I don't know how you are feeling about all this, I don't know how you're feeling at all lately, I miss hanging out with you working on songs. I even miss you slapping my hands every time I mess up a note on the piano.

This whole glee thing was meant to be a punishment and then it was fun and now it's the best part of my day, because you're there. You always said that music is an outlet of emotion and Mr. Schue wants us to show our emotion using Elton John. I'm hoping this will show you exactly how I feel.

Love
Finn

She ran the cursor over the attachment chewing her lip as it slowly downloaded. She felt like this video was evil, after she watched it nothing was every going to be the same.

Finn's nervous face filled the screen, she could tell he was nervous since the tips of his ears were bright red. He was clicking at his computer fiddling around before music began to play and he adjusted the camera until he could look at it directly.

"You're not a ship to carry my life

You are nailed to my love in many lonely nights

I've strayed from the cottages and found myself here

For I need your love your love protects my fears

And I wonder sometimes and I know I'm unkind

But I need you to turn to when I act so blind

And I need you to turn to when I lose control

You're my guardian angel who keeps out the cold

Did you paint your smile on, well I said I knew

That my reason for living was for loving you

We're related in feeling but you're high above

You're pure and you're gentle with the grace of a dove"

She was right.

Kurt had been pacing the length of the choir room all morning, Brittany had closed her eyes and fallen back asleep claiming his circles made her dizzy. Santana had shrugged and kept scrolling through her iPod leaving Mercedes with the task of calming her best friend down.

"She should be here by now! If you had let me stop by her house last night like I wanted than I wouldn't be pacing and wearing out the soles of these boots!"

"Chill out! She'll be here, Artie is distracting Jesse and Tina is waiting for Rachel so she can bring her straight here. So let me repeat myself, chill out!"

Kurt breathed in deeply. "Thank you I needed that." Resuming his pacing he peered out the window. "Finally!"

"What is going on here?" Rachel asked having been pushed into the choir room and shoved in a chair.

"Well if you had answered your phone last night we wouldn't have had to do this." Kurt snapped. "As you know Vocal Adrenaline is our main competition at Regional's and given what happened at Sectionals we have been shall we say, sceptical of your boyfriends motives for coming here."

"No one believes that some guy, Jesse St. Loser or not would move schools just to get into your pants." Santana added with her usual bluntness.

"We took it upon ourselves to follow Jesse-"

"Are you kidding me?" Rachel interrupted. "You guys followed Jesse? What were you hoping to find? An illicit meeting with Vocal Adrenaline? Bribing judges? What?"

Mercedes pursed her lips. "You said Jesse lived with his uncle right?"

"Yeah, I've never met him since he's allergic to sunlight and never leaves the house."

"Well unless his uncle recently had a sex change operation and they have a very loose understanding of the term family he doesn't."

"What are you talking about?" Rachel asked exasperated, after the last few days she really didn't need to hear this.

"We saw your boyfriend making out with a woman who looks remarkably like the coach from Vocal Adrenaline." Santana answered pulling out her phone. "If you don't believe us look for yourself, your boyfriends got caught in a cougar trap. You never had a chance."

"Shelby?" Rachel scoffed. "She's almost twice his age!"

"So?" Brittany asked. "Mr. Kidney the janitor is three times my age and I made out with him."

"Look Rachel we all knew that Jesse was hiding something and now we know what."

Rachel scrolled through the photos and huffed. "And what's that exactly? That he visited his ex coach for a few hours? All this shows are two people hugging? If that means they are having an affair so are half the teachers and students in this school!"

"If you really think all Jesse did was hug and visit you are even more deluded than I thought. When he finally left her place at two he was sexed up. Trust me I know after sex hair and he had it." Santana tightened her ponytail and narrowed her eyes at Rachel. "I don't like you, I don't like Jesse but I do like Glee. He's literally sleeping with the enemy. These two" she gestured to Kurt and Mercedes. "Decided you needed to know, personally I could care less about your tragic romance."

"Then why did you bother with this?" Rachel asked tiring of this game. "What do you expect me to do?"

"You've got all the power." Brittany spoke up. "You own him."

"What tweedle dum is trying to say is that you need to use this information to see just what Jesse will do to keep it a secret, who knows how much damage he's already caused us for Regionals."

"Oh and I suppose that you think that damage is my fault?" She shook her head clucking her tongue. "You guys are unbelievable! What happens between Jesse and me is our business, not yours! We haven't even decided on a set list for Regionals, Mr. Schuester and I have personally sent in copies of our preliminary ideas to the music director of the competition to ensure nothing like the fiasco as sectionals happens again."

"We didn't know that." Mercedes mumbled feeling like a toddler being admonished by her mother.

"Do you really think that after everything I would pursue a relationship with Jesse if I hadn't made sure that everything was covered? If he is a spy then the judges will know it and Vocal Adrenaline will be disqualified. Contrary to what you might think I do want us to be great but I also want to be happy. I thought my friends would want that for me, but silly me forgot. I don't have any." Rachel didn't wait for her words to sink in she just stalked out the door exalting in the slam behind her.

"Loser!"

The slushie slammed against her skin and she mentally thanked her reflexes for closing her eyes. Using a tissue she wiped the sticky substance from her eyes and made her way to the nearest bathroom not even noticing as she passed Quinn and Puck who stared after her.

"Somebody should help her." Puck muttered.

"Help her? Why? It's not like she doesn't know how to clean herself Puck." Quinn replied shaking her head.

"So? She'd help you." Puck argued, Rachel was a scary kind of intense but she wasn't malicious and she didn't deserve the humiliation of a slushie facial. "Hey Finn!"

"Yeah?" The lanky boy answered quietly shifting awkwardly on his feet, he wasn't really at the conversing in the halls comfort zone just yet.

"Someone just threw a slushie on your girl." Puck pointed at the bathroom a few lockers down. "She's in there."

"Thanks man." Finn called over his shoulder before he disappeared into the girls bathroom.

"Why did you do that?" Quinn asked crossing her arms over her chest. She didn't know why exactly but she couldn't help but be jealous of Rachel, maybe that was why she was such a bitch to her.

"If you were humiliated and alone in the bathroom wouldn't you want someone to help you?" Puck answered simply reaching for her hand. "Lets go."

Quinn stared at the bathroom door as they walked past Puck's words echoing in her mind, who would have thought that Puck had a sensitive side. Buried deep, deep inside. Way deep, like licking the fires of hell deep.

The girls bathroom is way nicer than the guys. Probably not what he should have been thinking but then again the guys bathroom didn't have a couch in there, hell they didn't even have soap and it didn't smell like urinal cakes and ass in here.

"Rachel?"

He knew she was the only one in here, all the stalls were empty except the last one and he could see her black shoes and white knee high socks peeking out underneath. He dumped his bag in front of the door wedging a stopper underneath it so no one could enter.

"Come on Rach, it's just me."

He could hear her sniffling; he stopped in front of the locked stall dropping his head to the door. There was graffiti covering some he recognised as the handiwork of Quinn, she hadn't even tried to disguise her handwriting as she let everyone know that Rachel had apparently been born with both male and female genitalia and her parents flipped a coin and decided to raise her a girl. He wanted to shake his ex until she apologized; she wasn't even original he could remember watching that episode of Friends at her house. He never knew how cruel his ex girlfriend really was.

"Rach will you please come out, I don't want to crawl in there and get stuck halfway or break my shoulder trying to get the door down."

"Finn I'm fine, please just leave me alone."

"Can't do that." Finn told her shaking his head, pulling a bundled up shirt from his bag he held it under the door. "I know you're not going to wear a stained shirt all day."

"It's a boys shirt."

"Well I don't carry girls clothes around with me." He laughed. "Just put it on."

Rachel clutched the slushie scented and now coloured blouse in her hand, Finn's plain blue shirt dwarfing her small frame. Finn blushed slightly, there was nothing more than scraps of materiel separating her naked skin from his shirt, he was pretty sure he was never going to wash that thing.

"Thanks Finn." She mumbled softly using a hair tie to tighten the shirt around her waist, it made the material strain against her breasts but it was better than the alternative. "I'll wash it and give it back to you tomorrow."

"No!" He blurted out kicking himself mentally. "I mean you don't have to, my mum loves doing laundry it's like her favourite thing and she'd be real upset if she knew she didn't get to wash all of my clothes."

Not exactly a James Bond worthy lie but not bad given the situation. Rachel looked unsure but nodded anyway.

"Ok. I should probably get to class." She tossed the white blouse into the bin, there was no chance of ridding the bright stain now that it had set.

"You don't have to, I mean if you wanted to talk or whatever."

"That's sweet." Rachel managed a small smile. "But there's someone I need to talk to first."

Finn could almost fell his heart sink.

"Jesse."

Rachel's eyes flashed with pain and she nodded slowly.

"Yeah." Making her way to the door she paused kicking the stopper out of the way. "Thanks for the shirt."

"You're welcome." He replied but she didn't hear, she was already out the door.