Chapter 53

Where was he. Rachel thought to herself as she scanned the hallway for her boyfriend. Biting her lip, she stood on the tips of her toes trying to see over the heads of the sea of students walking from their classes. She'd been stood at his locker for a few minutes, ever since her last class before lunch. In her hand, she had a piece of paper with a lost of presents that he could buy her. She loved Christmas, in particular this Christmas, because of the fact it would be the first time she got to spend it with someone special in her life.

The previous years she had been fawning over Finn and trying to get him to admit that he loved her. But not this year, this year she would be able to spend her time with James and try to enjoy the few days they had together before he went home to Oregon.

She finally spotted him standing by his locker at the end of the hallway when some jock moved out of the way, putting the wide beaming smile she knew he found irressitable on her face as she quickly walked towards him. He knew he'd be in a good mood because it was a Wednesday and on that day his mom always made him his favourite pasta salad. It was the perfect time to initiate mission perfect present.

"Hi" She says as she approaches him. James turns and grins at her, turning to face her.

"You're looking particularly beautiful today" He replied, moving his hand to her waist and gently edging her closer to him. "I thought I was meeting you at the lunch table"

"I missed you too much" She says, darting her tongue out to lick her lips; her eyes gazing at his. "Did you miss me?"

"You know I did" He replies, his hand gently rubbing her side. Rachel smiles wider as he leans down and kisses her tenderly, drawing out each connection of their lips as she places a hand on his cheek to hold him closer. She feels her heart buzz at the affection he's giving her, finally nuzzling her nose against his when he does pull away slightly. "I love you"

"love you too" She says, leaning forward to kiss him again; smiling against his lip as she feels him do the same. Pulling away, she notices the Christmas jumper his mom must have knitted for him; a Rudolph happily sitting on the front. "You look really cute in that sweater"

"Yeah" He laughs "My grandma made it for me last year, I like it"

"I think you look adorable in it" She replies "And handsome"

"Not nearly handsome enough to deserve you" He says softly, his eyes flicking with truth behind his words.

"I have something for you" She murmurs, puling the list out of her pocket and handing it to him. James frowns slightly as he takes it from her, slowly unfolding it.

"What's this?" He says his eyes flicking to hers before moving to the paper in his hand.

"My list" She smiles "You know for Christmas"

"Aha" He replies, a slight smile on the corner of his mouth "Why are you giving me this?"

"Well, I thought that you could maybe use a little inspiration on what to get me" She replies, beaming up at him.

James chews his lip, his eyes observing her as his lips slowly curve into a grin. "You're such a cutie"

"What do you mean?" She asks, frowning slightly.

"You overheard me and Sam talking" He replies, his grin widening.

"No" She says, shaking her head.

Okay, maybe she had. They were hanging out at his house the previous night, and on her way back from getting a drink she had heard James telling Sam that he hadn't bought her present yet and naturally she'd been concerned.

She had bought James his things weeks ago, a beautiful tartan shirt that she knew would make him look devilishly handsome as well as a box of his favorite chocolates and a scrap book that she'd made full of pictures of them together.

"Yes he did" James insisted and started laughing.

"Why are you laughing at me?" She pouts, confused at his reaction.

"Rach" He murmurs, his hands moving to her waist as he moves closer to her. Rachel instinctively raises her hands and rests them on his chest as he kisses her forehead before brushing their noses together. "You really think I waited until the last minute to buy your present?"

She giggles, stroking his chest through his sweater, shaking her head lightly as his hands move and slowly rest at the top of her bum. "You've already bought it?"

He nods against her forehead, that stupidly handsome smile on his face "It came the other day and I told Sam that it was just a new case for my phone when he asked what I bought"

"I'm sorry for thinking that-" She starts to explain, moaning softly when he kisses her.

"Don't apologize" He murmurs against her lips, kissing her chastely before pulling away. "I think you're adorable for giving me a list of things you want"

"Shut up" She giggles resting her head against his chest. "Am I going to like your present?"

"You're going to love it" James says confidently, squeezing her bum in his hand before he steps away to close his locker, his hand taking hers afterwards as they start to walk towards the lunch room. "Though, I'm not sure you'll be satisfied now, considering that you put down; fake tan or a hair styling. Oooh this is a good one, tickets to watch Barbra live"

Rachel laughed, resting her head against his shoulder and wrapping her arm across his chest hugging him tightly as he placed his protectively around her shoulder, pulling him closely into his body as they walked down the corridor.

"Wow, you're much higher maintenance than I thought" He teased, kissing her forehead. Rachel giggled, cuddling closer to him. "It's alright though, I love you anyway"

"Love you too"

…

The rest of the day is spent in classes where the teachers have quite obviously given up on teaching their students anything of any real substance. As she sits in English with James watching the Muppets a Christmas carol, with watching being the least accurate way of describing what they're doing as they sit at the back of class whispering away to each other and exchanging quick kisses while their teacher sits at the front of class sleeping in the darkened room.

They get to glee club, expecting to work on some of the carols they'd be singing at the homeless shelter on Friday, only for Mr Schuster to bring them the exciting new about the local PBS station wanting them to record a Christmas special to be aired. The whole club is excited and Rachel can't help but think about how amazing it would be to sing live on TV in front of Western ohio.

"I just hope that we can get to sing together" Rachel say smiling "I know Artie's supposed to be in partial when hes decided who gets to do what, but I'm sure he'll let us"

"I hope so" James replies, gazing at her with a smile before his eyes flick back to the road.

"I'm glad that Mr Schu remembered not to take any sort of payment" Rachel says as she looks out the window "We don't need to go through that fiasco again"

"You know, I heard about that my sophomore year" her eyes flick back to his, an amused smile on his face. "We were rehearsing and we heard about this new glee club that had done an advert on TV and got themselves banned from competition"

"Really?" She asks, laughing lightly.

"Yeah" He replies, smirking at her. "In case you didn't realise, the show choir world is very small; news travels fast"

"Mhmmm" She agrees, biting her lip; "Did you ever do anything like this with the Scale Blazers?"

"Perform on local TV? No" He replies, shaking his head slightly. "We performed at BBQs, galas, all sorts of events in the area to try and get some practice before competitions. Although we did perform for the mayor"

"Wow" Rachel's eyes widen "You never told me about that"

"Didn't I?" He asks, his eyes flicking to meet hers. Rachel shakes her head at him and he pulls a face. "Huh, sorry….I thought I did…"

"Its okay" She gives him a smile "How did that happen?"

"Our coach….Mr Atherton, well he knew a lot of important people in Oregon, especially Portland, and always seemed to be able to find us events to perform at"

"Did you enjoy it? That must have been amazing" Rachel asks

"It was fun and he talked to us all individually asking us about our dreams and stuff" James replies and then shrugs his shoulders. "Nothing can compare to singing for you that first time in my Dads apartment in New York"

Rachel face splits into a wide smile and she reaches her hand over to take his, linking their fingers and raising it to her mouth; placing a soft kiss to the skin on the back of his hand. "I love you"

"Love you too" He replies, giving her hand a squeeze before she releases him.

They sit in silence for a few minutes, during which it becomes apparent that they're not heading to his house as she recognizes a building on the edge of town. Turning to him, Rachel frowns as she speaks; "James…where are you taking us?"

"I've got a date planned for us" He replies, giving her a smirk.

"You do?" Rachel asks, her lips curving into a smile as he nods his head. "You're surprising me? That's so sweet baby"

He grins at her smugly, reaching with his hand to squeeze her thigh affectionately. "I figured that because I'm going back to Oregon in a few days…we could go ice skating"

Instantly, her smile split into a gigantic beaming grin. There was a small skate ring set up on the outskirts of town that she went to with her dads once a year around this time. She'd told James that she wanted to go with him this year however over their winter break. Rachel couldn't believe that he was going to surprise her like this

"I didn't know you could ice skate" She says smiling happily

"I'm okay" He shrugs "But you can hold onto me and keep me upright. I really wanted to do this with you before I went home"

"I was looking forward to this as well" She replies, clapping her hands together "Best surprise ever"

It turns out that James is in fact a horrible ice skater after he falls down about three times in the first ten minutes, causing her to erupt into a fit of giggles as he crawls his way over her and she helps him up. Luckily, he takes the jesting well and laughs along with her as she grips him tightly and from then on they spend the next twenty minutes going around in a gigantic circle with the rest of the people, happily laughing and talking away as if they were the only two people there.

It's such a simple thing, but it means the world to her that he planned this for them to do together; a warmness in her heart as she grips his hand tightly while they skate around together. She knows its going to be difficult to not see him for those ten days he's in Oregon, but days like this and all the others she's had with him since James moved to Ohio make it all worth the slight pain of their separation.

…

After he first attempt at singing a song for Artie to try and get him to allow her to perform on the PBS Christmas special, Rachel gets James to sing with her; mostly by kissing him on the spot on his neck that she knows makes him unable to say no to her but also just by his own desire to get the chance to perform with her.

Artie is holding rehearsals couple of days later in the choir room and the two of them perform then, throwing everything into the song to try and salvage her chances of getting a part in Artie's plan for the Christmas special they're filming.

They sing a flirty duet in the choir room and the urge to kiss him is huge as he dances around her, running his hands over her waist and arms knowing the result they'll have. She comes very close to losing all her control and just kissing him when they stand face to face singing, his beautiful voice and those eyes of his drawing her in and luckily her years of training just about pull through and save the performance.

Rachel stands next to James, catching her breath as they watch Artie regarding them carefully, analyzing the performance before he gives his opinion on whether or not it's going to be on the Christmas special. She had performed the previous day and he's criticized it saying it wasn't the mood he was going for; An extraordinarily merry Christmas was upbeat, happy and surely was exactly what he had been talking about?

She glanced next to her at James who gave her a wink, smiling at him as she turned her eyes back to Artie.

"Gold!"

"Thank god" Rachel says, sighing in relief as she lets her smile grow across her face. turning to James, he gives her a huge hug that makes her feel so much better; it feels fantastic to share this with him. He kisses her forehead as they separate.

"Gold! That's what I'm talking about; perfect! I see cheerios behind you, maybe a dancing Santa"

"Okay, as long as they don't upstage us" Rachel says, smile fading slightly.

"Yeah, as long as they don't upstage us" James repeats, the two of them moving back to their seats.

"You were great" James says softly as she sits back down next to him, taking her hand and cradling it in his lap.

"Thank you, I love you" She replies, leaning over to kiss his cheek.

"Look at you do-gooders. Hard at work" Rachel looks up to see Coach Sylvester walking into the room.

"Coach Sylvester, we're in the middle of a rehearsal" Artie replies, smiling

"I think it's great that you're working so hard on your performance and I tell you what; everyone at the homeless shelter is really looking forward to the show. I just wanted to confirm with you, Artie about Friday night"

"Oooh, Friday" Artie says worriedly. Rachel glances at James who is biting his lip, Their taping for the PBS show is on Friday night, so it would seem the night they had agreed to sing at the homeless shelter. "It's no can do on Friday. We're taping our Christmas special for the Lima, PBS"

"You told me you were in" Sue replies, the smile gone from her face.

"This is a huge opportunity for us" Artie explains, "Can we just do it another night?"

"They'll still be homeless for a while" Santana says "That's sort of the problem"

"I promised them" Sue says, glaring at them "You don't want to disappoint these kids"

"Like you've disappointed us?" Artie asks. Rachel smiles sadly as she glances James. She knew that he'd really wanted to do the homeless shelter, it reminded him of something similar that he did with the Scale Blazers the previous few years. "Last Christmas you cut down our tree, you stole our presents and you made Becky dress up like a reindeer"

"So you're just going to walk away from people that have nothing?" Sue asked, a dejected look on her face. "So you're all agreed on this?"

Rachel smiled sadly, glancing around the room seeing all the faces of the glee club. None of them liked the fact that they were doing their show over the homeless shelter but none of them moved to agree with Sue. Moving her eyes back to James she saw him biting his lip, his gaze meeting hers for a few seconds before he closed his eyes.

"No, I'll help you Coach" Sam voice cut across the silence, her gaze snapping to him as he stood up and went to stand by Sue. "I know what it's like to be homeless and they need our help"

"I'm glad that at least one of you has the decency to-"

"I'll do it as well" She nods her head as she hears James speak up, gazing at him to see him smiling. She squeezes his hand as a silent message telling him its okay as he looked at her with an apology at choosing this over doing the show with her. "We did something like this every year back home, it'll be nice to keep the tradition alive"

Rachel watches as he lets go of her hand before hopping down from the raised seating area to make his way over to Sam and Coach Sylvester. She feels torn, part of her wanting to do the right thing and help those homeless children, part of her wanting to do the show; knowing what a good opportunity it is. Biting her lip, she knows deep down that James and Sam have done the right thing; taking a breath to push those selfish thoughts telling her to stay sat down as she stands up in her seat and announces "Count me in as well"

The way James looks at her with a huge smile on his face is worth way more than the chance to sing on local TV.

…

James shows her just how amazing he thinks she is when they get back to his house. Sam is hanging out with Mike and Andrea isn't back from Akron yet dealing with the restaurant. Rachel giggles as he pulls her upstairs to his room and starts kissing her before they even reach his bedroom. A very enjoyable thirty minutes full of making out and James hands cupping her breasts and Rachel is wearing the biggest smile as she stands near to his bed zipping up her dress again.

"You're amazing and I love you so much" James says and she turns to see him grinning at her as he lays on his bed, his shirt unbutton halfway down. Rachel beams back at him, climbing on top of his bed with him and lying by him, cuddling into his side. She sighs as he leans over and kisses her forehead. "You didn't have to do that for me…I knew how much singing on that show meant to you"

"It doesn't mean as much as being able to spend more time with you" Rachel says, cuddling him closer. "Besides….we did agree to do that homeless shelter before Mr Schu came to us with the show. It might suck, but it's the right thing to do"

"I love you" He says simply, kissing her forehead again. "At least we get to do a duet"

Rachel giggles, kissing his chest before looking up at him; "At least we get that"

The two of them lay there for a solid quarter hour before they decide to move to do their homework downstairs so as to not alert his mom to what they've been doing. As supportive as their parents are, they don't want to give them any cause to worry about the nature of their moments alone. They might not be doing anything sexual, but they have been increasingly intimate moments over the past few weeks and Rachel at least, though she knew James agreed, would like to keep them private.

When Andrea did eventually walk through the door, Rachel was helping James with some of his scientific homework; explaining a particularly difficult solution to him the best she could. She took a lot of proud of the influence she was having in her boyfriends GPA improvement, not that it had been low but there was definite places to improve and he had done that over the past couple of months; it had been like he'd told her, he did better when he was relaxed and nothing relaxed him more than simply being around her soothing presence.

After asking about their days, James told his mom to sit down and relax when she said she'd make a start on dinner. It was sweet how much he helped Andrea out, he was well and truly a mommys boy and did everything he could to try and make things easier for his mom. Andrea reluctantly agreed and sat with Rachel as they laughed while watching James make them dinner.

"No Sam this evening?" Andrea asked as they ate

"Out with a few of the guys from glee" James replied before taking a bite of his food

"You're not going with them?" Andrea says, reaching for her glass of wine.

"Blaine and Kurt aren't going" James shrugged "Besides, I'd rather spend time with Rachel before we go home for Christmas"

"I bet you're excited to see your friends" Rachel said smiling at him.

"Too excited I think" He replied, "It's kind of crazy to think I haven't Matt and Lucy in like 2 months"

"Heather will be happy to see you as well" Andrea replied "Oh and that reminds me; Claire invited us over for dinner"

"We'll see whats happening with the guys first mom" James said, glancing at her at the mention of Heather. He knew that she was okay with them being friends, they'd passed that issue a long time ago, but he was still evidently worried she'd be upset.

"Okay sweetheart" Andrea replies, smiling "Have you started packing yet?"

"No" James says shaking his head. "I was thinking I'd do it this weekend"

"Well, we're leaving Tuesday sweetheart" Andrea reminds him "And remember Hiram and Leroy are inviting us over for dinner Sunday"

"I know mom" James says rolling his eyes "I've got stuff to do this weekend, I want to go shopping with Rachel and spend as much time as possible with her before we leave"

"I can help you pack Saturday night when I stay over" Rachel replies and he smiles at her. "I know you're useless at organizing your things anyway"

"Just because I don't put crazy stickers on everything doesn't meant that I'm useless" He says teasing her and she sticks her tongue out at him causing the both of them to laugh. "You don't have to do that though Rach"

"I want to" Rachel replies, giving him a warm smile

I would feel better knowing it was done correctly for once" Andrea said laughing.

"See? There we have it" Rachel announces proudly, giggling as James pulls a face.

"Fine" James sighs "But leave your sticker maker at home"

…

The next morning, Rachel is woken by James kissing her neck; a giggle escaping her throat as she rolls over and uses her hand to seer his head up so that she can join their lips; moaning as she lets him worm his tongue inside her mouth and the two of spend a little while making out as their hands roam over each other's bodies. Its been a few weeks since hes woken her up like this, but it by far her favourite way to start the morning; it warms her and she feels completely adored as he kisses her and runs his hands gently over her body.

"James" She moans as he starts nibbling at her neck, kissing the spot as he seems intent on giving her a hickey. "James, your morning run"

"This is far better" He murmurs, kissing just before her ear before moving and covering her lips with his own again. "We can skip our workouts this morning"

Rachel finds herself nodding as she wraps her arms around his neck and pulls him closer. She's got plenty of time to go on her elliptical but not nearly enough time to spend kissing her boyfriend.

When her alarm goes off a quarter hour later, they reluctantly separate and after leaving her with a chaste kiss, James disappears into the bathroom to get ready. Rachel smiles to herself as she sits in front of his desk, a makeup mirror in front of her that she'd convinced him, rather easily through kisses, to keep for her in his room. Her eyes lingered on the red mark at her neck as she brushed her hair. Yep the best way to wake up in the morning by far.

School for the most part is just a series of classes that are designed simply to keep them occupied rather than teach them anything over the last few days before winter break; all of the teachers seemingly content to just allow their students to get on with whatever they want.

After school, she meets up with James, Sam and Quinn; the three other people from glee that are doing the homeless shelter and they discuss some songs that they can perform for the children there with Coach Sylvester before they drive over there.

They hang around for a little bit, talking to some of the other volunteers before they start work. Rachel was skeptical at first, helping people like this has never really been very far up on her list of priorities; but seeing the smiling faces of the people they are serving makes her feel like this was a good thing to do. the four of them from glee all take turns singing individually as well as a group and Rachel has a great time laughing as she watches Sam and James sing and dance together with two little girls to jingle bell rock.

"I'm surprised you came" Quinn says as they stand next to each other serving people. Rachel turns to her and smiles, shrugging her shoulders slightly.

"it was the right thing to do" She says simply

"That doesn't always mean people do the right thing" Quinn said and Rachel nodded

"That's true" She smiled sadly "But being with James as made me realise that other things can be just as important. Doing that show would have made me feel good for a little while…but I can look back at this and know that I really made a difference"

"You've really matured this year" Quinn replies with a warm smile, she says gesturing to James who picks up the little girl and spins her around "And I don't think that's to do with him"

"It is partly" Rachel says, smiling as the little girl kisses James' cheek "But mostly I think I'm just realising who I am and what I want to be important to me"

"Plans for the holidays?" Quinn asks her a few minutes later as they take a break from serving, the two boys taking over.

"Just me and my Dads like normal" Rachel says smiling slightly "James is going home so we aren't going to spend much time together. How about you?"

"Travelling to see some family" Quinn replies, "I'll be back for Puck's new years party. Are you going?"

"I think Blaine and Kurt are dragging me to it" She giggles ""But yeah I am, I think it'll be fun for us all to just let out hair down"

"Absolutely" Quinn grinned.

The two of them stood talking for ten minutes before they went back to join the boys and help them dishing out the food. Standing next to James, she smiled at him as he turned and gazed at her.

"Hey beautiful" He said, winking at her before turning back to his serving "Have fun?"

"Yeah" She nodded, "Should I be worried about that little girl stealing my boyfriend?"

"She is a better dancer than you" He teased, laughing at her open mouthed expression; though she quickly laughed "I love you Rach"

"Love you too" She giggles "Thank you for convincing me to do this with you, It's been amazing"

"No worries" He said, pausing to lean over and kiss her softly. "Thank you for doing this"

Rachel grins back at him, opening her mouth to speak when;

"Keep that disgusting PDA to a minimum, we don't want to put these nice people of their food" Coach Sylvest appears in between them, a teasing tone to her words

James laughs at her, raising a hand to salute her; "Yes Ms Sylvester"

"And Ken-doll, portion control" She says, moving over to talk to Sam and Quinn.

The night gets even better when Mr Schuster and the glee club arrive, bringing more food with them. Rachel grins widely as Kurt and Blaine wave at them, before she takes James' hand and leads him over to their friends as they sing a song for the homeless people. This might just be the best Christmas experience that she's ever had.

….