Author: Depudor
Email: depudor@hotmail.com
Category: Finn/Other
Rating: R
Disclaimer: These characters belong to Steven Antin and Columbia/Tristar Television. No infringement intended.
Summary: This is a Finn/Kate fic that is a quasi-sequel to 'The Best Christmas Ever' and begins one month after the events in that story. The main storyline is interspersed with flashback/backstory scenes that start with the episode Kiss & Tell and then go backwards in time from there. So the flashbacks are in reverse order, with the earliest flashback coming last. Make sense? Hopefully it will.
Notes: The song "Breakin' Me" by Johnny Lang is somewhat key to this story, but it's from the show, so if you've got tapes you don't need to download anything off of Napster (although you should, because it's a great song). Just check out the first Kate/Finn scene in Kiss & Tell, the kissing scene that's interrupted by Ryder. The other song is "Suzanne" by Leonard Cohen -- the music is not important to the story, but it's a brilliant and beautiful song. And when I checked the lyrics on the Web, the site said "Related Artists: Nick Drake." So there you go. A YA connection and I didn't even know it.
Thanks: To Debi for her laborious hours spent helping me fine-tune this, to Sue and wonka for their input, and with a special dedication and much love to all you teachers out there!
Feedback: Always appreciated. Thank you!
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The next day, Finn's classes passed like slow torture. He looked at the clock more often than his students did. During fourth period, Will was unusually quiet, leaving the other kids in his class dumfounded when they were called upon to participate in the discussion. No one had done the reading.
Finn couldn't even wait for the clock to hit three-thirty. He let his last class go five minutes early.
"Acts three and four for tomorrow," he called as they cleared out. "And be quiet in the hallway so you don't bother the other classes."
He sat down and slumped at his desk, wondering if he should go to the art room or wait for Kate to come to him. During lunch he had looked for her in the dining hall and in the Lab, but he never found her.
He must have dwelt on this for ten minutes, because when she appeared in front of him the clock read 3:35.
"Do you want to go for a walk?" she asked.
"Yeah, a walk sounds good." He grabbed his coat and followed her out into the snow-covered quad.
"What are we doing?" he asked as they walked briskly through the crisp afternoon air.
"I thought we'd head down toward the woods, where there's more privacy," she replied.
"No, I meant, in general, big picture, what are we doing?"
"Oh. I still don't know. Up until last night I hadn't really thought about it."
"I thought you've been doing a lot of thinking."
"I've been thinking about us, yes. And I've been thinking about my marriage. But I never really thought about... leaving."
He looked sideways at her, trying to read the subtext in her face. "So, now you're thinking about it?"
She looked around at the students passing by on their way to their afternoon activities. "Let's wait until we're in a more secluded spot."
They made their way through the snow, past all the Rawley buildings and into the trees. The naked oaks and maples looked cold and dead without their leaves.
Kate pulled her coat tighter under her chin as she looked up at Finn. "What happened last night made me think about a lot of things," she said.
"Like what?"
"Like the possibility that you and I could be together, as a couple. If that's something that you would want."
"Of course that's what I want."
"You've never said so before. We just had an affair. It was sexual; it was fun. And then it was over, and you didn't protest."
"I didn't see any point. You made it pretty clear where your loyalties lay. But this was never just about sex." He stopped walking and turned to face her, resting his hands on her shoulders. "Kate, I love you. I don't know if I can go back to what we had last summer. I don't want this to be another fling. I don't think I could go through that again."
"I can't go through that either. It was painful for me, too."
"So what do we do? I know that your family means everything to you."
"Not everything," she replied, touching his face softly. "But you're right, I would lose my family, lose Hamilton. If you and I were to be together, we couldn't stay here. We couldn't keep working here. And I don't think either one of us wants to go teach at Edmund High."
"You're right about that part."
"So we'd have to leave town."
Finn nodded. "But Hamilton loves you. And even though he's getting more independent, he still needs you. I think if you left, he'd go with you."
"I don't know. I'd like to think so, but... And even if he did want to, I wouldn't let him. This is his home. He has friends now, finally. He graduates in two years --"
"You're right. You'd be giving him a choice no kid should have to face. And neither one of us wants Hamilton to get hurt."
Kate looked up at him. "You didn't let me finish. I said that Hamilton graduates in two years."
Finn looked carefully back at her. "Yes, he does."
"In two years, he'll leave Rawley and begin a life on his own." She looked down and laughed softly. "He's grown up so much already, just this year." She looked back up at Finn. "I won't leave my son. But I can't stay with my husband much longer. Our marriage isn't honest anymore. Every night that I go home to him is like another lie." She took Finn's hands in her own and gazed at him lovingly. "I know now that I want to be with you. And I will... if you can wait two years. That's the best I can offer."
Finn couldn't even find words to respond. He slipped his hands out of hers and threw his arms around her, lifting her up off the ground. He hugged her, then kissed her. When he finally was able to speak, he could barely keep his voice from shaking. "Oh, God, Kate, you have no idea how happy you just made me. I love you so much." Now that he had finally said it, he felt like he couldn't say it enough.
"I love you, too," she whispered.
Finn didn't know how long they stood in the cold and empty woods that night. He didn't ever want to go home, because from now on home could only be where she was. He ignored the wind; he ignored the encroaching darkness. He kept his arms tight around her and imagined that the spindly sinister branches that wove together overhead formed the canopy in his honeymoon suite.
Of course he would wait. He'd waited 16 years for a second chance - he could wait another two. And even if she was still married, they were together. They had a future, not just a past. He loved her, and after all these years she finally knew that.
That was all he needed to keep himself going. That was all he needed to get over the nightmare that had been that day in late May...
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Finn collapsed on his bed. He had pulled an all-nighter, cramming for the last exam of his sophomore year of college, and now he had to crash. But his thoughts just wouldn't let him sleep. This thing she had with Steven was getting serious, and simply hoping it would go away didn't seem to be working. Now she was staying in Cambridge for the summer, even though she had always gone home to see her parents and sisters for the month they spent in Connecticut before going to Europe. If staying with this guy was more important to her than the precious little time she was able to spend with her family, it had to be serious.
Finn tossed and turned but had almost dozed off when he heard the knock at the door. "Go away!" he yelled. No doubt the guys had already procured a keg and wanted to party.
"Finn, it's me," came her soft voice through the door.
"Sorry, Kate, come in." He sat up as she entered. He was so bleary-eyed he couldn't tell for sure, but there seemed to be a look of anxiety on her face.
"Was it that bad?" he asked.
"What?"
"Your final."
She shook her head. "No, it was fine. Easy. I love that I can fulfill my science requirement with one little star-gazing class." She paused as Finn rubbed his eyes. "Did I wake you up?"
"No, I was just unwinding. Have a seat."
She was lingering by the door, obviously ill at ease. She walked toward him, but instead of sitting down on the end of his bed like she usually did, she pulled the chair out from his desk and sat on that.
"What's the matter?" he asked.
"Nothing. It's just..."
"What?"
"Is this a bad time?"
It was such a strange question. They'd been best friends for two years, ever since he was a freshman and she was a sophomore and they'd met on the staff of Harvard's arts journal. And then there was the time when they were more than friends... So it seemed strangely formal that she would ask if it was a bad time. They could always talk to each other about anything, anytime, anywhere.
"Are you OK?" Finn asked.
She looked over at him quickly, as if she were afraid that he knew something he wasn't supposed to know. "I'm fine. I just want to talk to you about something."
"Really? Because I'm getting the distinct impression that you don't want to talk about it."
"It's about Steven."
"Yeah...?" Finn leaned back against his pillows and crossed his arms, trying to act casual.
"And it's hard to talk about him with you, because I know you don't like him."
"What? Of course I like him. I just don't like the fact that he's ten years older than you are."
"He's seven years older than I am."
"Whatever. You know, I've been thinking about this. And I think you're only attracted to him because you're looking for a father figure."
"Oh, God," she moaned, dropping her head into her hands. "I don't need this right now, Finn."
"No, seriously, you never had a good relationship with your father. That's what we initially bonded over, remember?"
"I thought we bonded over Balzac."
"That, too. But I just think that if you go home this summer and spend some time with your dad-"
"I'm not going home this summer. I told you that. And this has nothing to do with my father. Steven is a brilliant man, and compassionate..."
"And dull."
"Shut up!" Her face was no longer in her hands. She was no longer sitting in his chair. She was on her feet now, glaring at him. "He's exactly the kind of man I need to be with."
"Why's that?"
"Steven has ambitions, plans -- big plans. He doesn't just want to be a professor, he wants to be President of the University. So we've been talking, and since we both went to boarding school, we thought that maybe that track would-"
"What's all this 'we' stuff?"
"It's 'we' stuff because Steven is leaving to go teach at Andover... And I'm going with him."
"What?!"
"He wants to marry me. He wants to start a family."
Finn shook his head, struggling to make sense of this, but it didn't make any sense. "You can't leave now. What about your senior year?"
"Andover isn't that far away. I might be able to commute for a few of my classes, do the rest by correspondence. Besides, half my senior credits will be my thesis project, and I can do that anywhere. Steven is going to work it out with my department."
Now Finn finally realized that she was serious. "Kate, I know why you want to do this. I know how much you want to have a family. But you don't really want to settle down this soon. There are so many other things that you want to do, all those things that we talked about. What about Mount Kilimanjaro? What about backpacking through Nepal?"
"That's what you wanted to do. You can go without me."
"What I'm saying is, don't commit to something like marriage so early. You're barely 20! Why are you always in such a hurry?"
"Why are you never in a hurry?"
Finn ignored that. "You have the rest of your life to start a family. You don't have to do it now."
"Actually, I do have to do it now. I'm pregnant."
She might as well have thrown a brick at his head. He stared at her, dazed, his tongue paralyzed. For several seconds, neither of them spoke. Only then did Finn see that his roommate was standing in the doorway, shaking his drunken head slowly.
"Bummer," the roommate said, then stumbled off down the hallway.
Finally, with great effort, Finn was able to form some words. "So... you're keeping it?"
"Of course I'm keeping it!"
"How far along are you?"
"What do you care how far along I am? I'm not getting an abortion. I'm getting married."
Finn stood up. "But have you really thought about this?"
Kate put her hands on her hips and rolled her eyes. "Don't patronize me, Finn. I'm older than you are."
He approached her slowly, carefully, as if she were a wild animal that might attack. He laid his hands on her shoulders and waited until she looked up at him. "Kate, you don't drop out of Harvard to have a baby."
"What am I supposed to do? Stay here? Keep the baby in the dorms? They don't even let us have cats."
"You don't want to be a mother right now. If you feel like you don't have a family, you should work on the one you've got before trying to build a new one from scratch. You say this isn't about your father, but it is. It's about all your insecurities. Kate, you're so messed up in the head, you don't even see how messed up you are."
She pulled away from him. "I'm glad to see you've got all of my psychoses pinpointed, Finn. But maybe you should try turning that analytical mirror on yourself. Maybe you should figure out why you're so terrified of relationships, why you refuse to fall in love." She turned away and walked to the door.
"Kate, I--"
She stopped and turned back around. "What?"
He wanted to tell her. For over a year he'd been waiting for the right moment. He knew that if he didn't do it right now, he would never again get the chance.
But then, looking down at her stomach, he knew that the chance had already passed.
"Kate, I... I'm sorry I'm not being supportive. I'm shocked, that's all. I wasn't ready to lose you, lose our friendship."
"I know. I figured you'd be upset, but we can still be friends. I won't be that far away."
"Yeah, of course. So, anyway..." He swallowed hard and looked at her, mustering all the strength he had so that he could say the hardest thing he would ever say in his life: "Congratulations."
She smiled and walked back to him, took his hand in hers. "Thank you." She squeezed his hand. "We'll stay in touch, Finn."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The second weekend in February was unseasonably warm. The temperature passed 60 degrees, and suddenly it was the earliest spring in New Rawley memory. The snow melted away and flooded the streets with water. The signs went up on the frozen lake warning that it was no longer safe for ice-skating. Within two days, the ice had broken into chunks and was floating off into the river.
The sight of the quad that weekend could have been mistaken for a day in July -- girls in sundresses, boys in shorts, sitting outside on blankets to protect themselves from the damp ground that slowly absorbed the moisture of melted snow. Dueling boom boxes blared music. Frisbees flew back and forth, sometimes caught in mid-air by overzealous golden retrievers.
For Finn, the warmth wasn't just from the weather. The chill of winter had been compounded by the cold shoulder he'd been getting from Kate for the past few months. But now everything was thawing. Even if the winter came roaring back, as it inevitably did in New England in February, he would still be warm. After several long years of winter, Finn was back in the springtime of his life.
When he found Kate in the art room, her hair was pinned up and she was wearing a sleeveless blouse and a gauzy flowered skirt. She was grading some student pottery.
"I can't believe this," she said. She picked up a spottily-glazed mug with a giant nose sticking out of its side. "I found out that some of the upperclassmen have been tricking the freshmen into thinking this class is an automatic A."
"Well, I think that one deserves an A." He took the mug and held it up next to his face. The nose looked remarkably like his own.
"Hmm... You're right." She smiled and made a mark in her grade book.
"So what are you doing working on a Saturday?"
"Oh, just hanging out, waiting for my knight in shining armor to come whisk me away."
"Would you settle for a squire in Abercrombie and Fitch?"
She turned and looked at his khakis and shirt for labels. "You're kidding, right?"
Finn leaned down to kiss her. Just before his lips reached hers, she pulled back slightly and said, "You remembered to close the door this time, right?"
He nodded, and they kissed a long, deep kiss.
"Mmmm..." Kate moaned happily. She rested her finger on his lips. "I've got an idea. Since it's spring, sort of, let's do something for old time's sake."
"What?"
"Do you have your key to the boathouse?"
Finn grinned.
End of Part 5
