When Rachel wakes late Sunday she finds herself alone in Jesse's bed. She hears the water shut off in the bathroom, followed by a string of curses. Getting up from the bed Rachel makes her way to the door, lightly knocking on it. Jesse calls for her to come in and once again Rachel is met with the shocking sight of a shirtless Jesse, whose torso is mottled with bruises and cuts.

Rachel doesn't say anything just walks over to Jesse and takes the polysporin and bandages from his hands. In silence she smoothes over the cuts on his arms, changes the large bandage on his inner bicep, she brushes her fingers over the purple bruise on his ribs, and then she then gets Jesse to sit on the closed toilet. Using a damp cloth she cleans the cut on his forehead and cheek and gently inspects the bruise around his eye, the swelling having gone down considerably.

At the feeling of Rachel's warm palm on his face Jesse instinctively turns his head into the soft palm. He opens his eyes and Rachel gives him a soft smile.

"I'm going to make some coffee." Jesse says because he can't think of anything else to say that hasn't already been said or shown. "There's a towel and stuff for you on the bed."

Jesse brushes past Rachel and heads downstairs. Rachel returns back to the bedroom and sees a folded towel, toothbrush and set of fresh clothes. She smiles at the thought that Jesse put into making sure that she was comfortable, when he hasn't even been able to take care of himself. She picks up the pile and returns to the washroom.

Jesse pulls out two mugs and sets them by the coffee maker. He's pulling out the sugar when he hears Idina Menzel's voice blasting out of Rachel's phone. He ignores the ringing phone and goes about putting some sugar into his mug. Once again the phone plays 'Defying Gravity' and this time Jesse opens the phone after checking the caller id.

"Hello."

"Hi. Jesse? Its Finn, how are you?"

"Rachel's in the shower." Jesse answers ignoring the question, he wants to get off the phone with Finn, he doesn't want to talk with the guy who currently holds Rachel's affection.

"Oh, ok." Finn says. "Just have her call me when she's done."

"I will." Jesse responds and just before he hangs up he realizes that he should thank Finn.

Jesse knows that Finn probably would have loved to beat him even more, but instead he helped Jesse and for that Jesse knows he should thank the younger boy.

"Hey Finn, thanks. For Friday, for helping."

"No problem. But to be honest with you if Rachel hadn't stopped me and I didn't know that you were already messed up I would have kicked the shit out of you." Finn replies, tell Jesse honestly what he had almost done.

"Thanks for not doing that."

"Sure. Listen Jesse," and then without thinking Finn blurts out, "she's not my girlfriend."

"What?" Jesse asks, making sure he heard correctly.

"Rachel, we aren't together." Finn says. He hadn't been planning on saying that, but he thinks that maybe if Jesse knows this fact it will help him. "Yeah we both realized that we work better as friends and I don't think Rach was over her first love."

"Oh," Jesse doesn't know what to say.

"Yeah, just thought that you should know." Finn says.

Jesse doesn't respond to this, but he turns when he hears Rachel clear her throat behind him. He looks like a dear caught in the headlights, getting caught talking on her phone. He opens his mouth and quickly closes it.

"Uh, Finn… Rachel's here I'll put her on." Jesse says. "Thanks again man."

"Yeah."

Jesse pulls the phone away from his ear and walks over to Rachel. He hands her the bedazzled phone and gives her an apologetic smile before walking out of the kitchen to give Rachel some privacy. Rachel watches Jesse walk out with his coffee before greeting Finn.

"Hello Finn."

"Hi Rachel. How is everything?" Finn asks, hoping that Rachel being with Jesse hasn't been too rough for her.

"Better than they were on Friday night. It's been hard but last night something changed and I think that things are going to be ok." Rachel tells Finn.

She's not going to tell Finn about what Jesse told her and what she saw, but she needs him to know that things are ok.

"That's good and from the short conversation I had with him Jesse seems ok."

"He will be." Rachel replies, "That's why I am going to stay here today and maybe tomorrow, make sure that he's fine and that the beating hasn't left any permanent damage."

"Ok. What should I tell the club in case they ask where you are? I mean I know that there isn't an official practice since we aren't going to Nationals, but I have a feeling everyone is going to show up and they will notice that you aren't around giving a speech on prepping for next year's sectionals."

"Please don't tell them about Jesse. Let them know that I had some personal things to attend to and that my duties as co-captain of glee will not suffer because I miss one practice and that everyone should remain diligent and on task even when I am not around to motivate them."

"Uh… I'm just going to tell them that you had some appointments and that we should still practice."

"Fine. Thanks for calling and checking up on me Finn and thanks for not saying anything rude to Jesse."

"No problem Rachel. Let Jesse know I say bye."

"I will, bye Finn."

Rachel hangs up the phone and proceeds to pour herself a cup of coffee before going off to find Jesse. She finds him sitting on the floor of his bedroom with a couple of stacks of photos and a few photo albums in front of him. She doesn't say anything as she sits next to him, but leans over to look at the photo in his hand.

It's an image of two smiling boys sitting a top to ATVs. Rachel can tell that it's Jesse and his brother. The boys are almost mirror images of each other, although Jack has dark hair, deep brown eyes and his face holds less of the childlike qualities that Jesse's does.

"The two of us almost gave my mother a heart attack this day." Jesse says breaking the silence. "Jack and I saw her lounging out in the sun and we pushed our ATVs next to her before revving the engines. We had never seen my mother jump that high." He finishes with a bitter chuckle.

"Whose idea was that?"

"Jack's. He was always coming up with ways to freak out my parents or at least mess with them and because he was older I always went along with them." Jesse says. "The thing is even when he got us into these situations and we knew that we were going to be in major trouble he would be able to talk our way out."

"It seems that you picked up his skill of speech, I mean you were able to talk yourself out of Coach Sylvester's bad side when she caught you coming out of her personal washroom."

The two of them laugh at the shared memory from Jesse's time at McKinley. Soon the laughter subsides and Jesse flips through a few more photos while Rachel glances over his shoulder. For some he offers a commentary on the day the photo was taken or why the photo was taken, others need no explanation.

Jesse is pulling out a new stack of photos when he knocks over another pile. Some of the top images scatter across the floor and Jesse moves to reorganize them, but Rachel stills his hand. The pictures are those of Jesse and Shelby. Most are from moments during Vocal Adrenalin practice – Rachel can see the group in the background of some shots – although there are a few that are just candid pictures of Jesse looking happy with the only woman he would consider his mother now.

Rachel picks up one and looks at the proud smiling face of her mother looking up at Jesse. The photographer caught the pair of them mid-action and Rachel concedes that the shot really tells a lot about both people in it. Jesse's happiness at being the centre of attention, the star and for all her faults the fact that Shelby does care about her kids and that she isn't cold-hearted and stern. She looks over at Jesse who smiles as he looks at pictures of him and Shelby and Rachel realizes that Shelby has been a great mother. Jesse looks out of the corner of his eye at Rachel taking in the pictures of him and Shelby. Shelby has been his mother and at some points the only good thing in his life, he knows that she has her faults but that she is basically a good person and looking over at the girl that he loved and lost he hopes that Rachel will forgive Shelby and one day get to know her as more than just a rival coach.

Rachel hands Jesse back the few photos in her hand and picks herself up off the floor and goes to sit on Jesse's bed. Jesse watches as she settles herself down on the unmade sheets, her brown eyes are curious and he's scarred of what she might ask in the light of day. In the darkness of the previous night he hadn't been afraid to share his pain, his anger, his fears, but now in daylight he's not sure of anything anymore.

"Tell me about my mom."

Is what comes out of Rachel's mouth and Jesse relaxes. He pulls himself onto the bed and holding a picture of Shelby that he had taken during a rehearsal he sat out when he lost his voice. He hands Rachel the picture of her mother standing on the stage with a look of concentration and Rachel sees the similarities in their features.

"She's the only other person in the world that I have cried in front of." Jesse says.

To anyone else this sentence would make no sense, but with this simple statement Jesse says almost all that he needs to about his relationship with Shelby.

"She may seem cold but underneath her drive is a woman who failed at her dreams, so she worked to make other's dreams come true." Jesse continues. "She gave me hope, power and has shaped my talent and without her I don't know where I would be right now."

Jesse reaches over and squeezes Rachel's hand, he knows that this conversation is going to be hard for her to hear, but he knows that she is strong enough to listen. After a smile from the girl on his bed Jesse goes into what he knows of Shelby Corcoran.

Slowly the hours pass and fade into night. When Rachel pulls herself from the bed to go sleep on the couch she is stopped by Jesse's hand on her wrist.

"Stay. I don't want to be alone if the nightmares come." Jesse knows that he shouldn't ask this, but he can help but feel safer when she is around.

Rachel looks at Jesse before sliding back under the covers. Jesse grasps her hand in his and holds it to his chest. Both are filled with confusing emotions, anger, guilt, love, fear, but in the stillness of the room they find that it is slowly fading away. They don't know where they stand with each other, but they will find a way to figure that out.

Thanks to everyone who has reviewed and alerted you're awesome! So there is only two more chapters left of this story... but I have like four other St. Berry stories that I will be working on. I hope that you will all enjoy those too when i post them.