Well, here's Chapter 5. Some of you may remember another story I wrote about Finchel's college life called "The Future." This story takes place at the same time, but the main focus of "The Future" is when Rachel is attacked at college. After much consideration, I have decided not to have this story focus on that, rather to focus on other things that happen during Finchel's college years. The attack will be mentioned, but the story of it, how it happened and how Finn and Rachel deal with it is "The Future," on my home page. At this point, the attack has not happened yet. I wanted to let you guys know about the decision I made, and I'll let you know when it HAS happened.

Enjoy Chapter 5 and review if I should continue.

Chapter 5: History Repeats Itself

Rachel yawned as she got out of bed. It was a Saturday, but who cared? It may as well be a school day. College was definitely not what she'd hoped it would be. Rather, there wasn't anything she enjoyed about it. Most of her extra time was spent in her room. Her bedroom, because the common room was usually taken over by Amanda and her friends watching some comedy, or Lila and her friends listening to hard rock music, or Rebecca and her friends giving each other in-room spa treatments. She hoped the stress and homesickness of the first few days would pass, but two weeks of classes were already over and nothing had changed.

She was majoring in music and was part of a choir on campus, but that was no New Directions. This one was much bigger, for one thing, and didn't have the family-like dynamic. It didn't really bother her that she didn't really get solos, but at the same time, she almost felt useless to just be singing and dancing in the background. Her classes were overwhelming. She was only taking one music class, and the rest of her classes were core academic classes that only had two factors for giving her a grade: a midterm and a final. No papers, no quizzes, no projects. So if she bombed the midterm or the final, she was screwed.

Rachel missed Finn terribly and thought about him all the time. Every day they talked on the phone or had a skype date. It didn't seem like Finn's college experience was going well either. He was lonely and not enjoying football or his classes. He didn't get along with his roommate, but talking to him felt so good. It made Rachel feel like home was a little bit closer.

Not only did she miss Finn, but she missed her other friends from Glee, too. Her against-all-odds best friend, Quinn, was at Miami University of Ohio with Sam. Rachel and Quinn skyped at least three times a week. Quinn was having fun at Miami, but told Rachel she'd probably be just as lost as Rachel was if she didn't have Sam with her. She was encouraging Rachel to look into going to a school she and Finn could go to together and said Sam was telling Finn the same thing. Rachel liked that idea and had looked into the Ohio State website, but wanted to wait for Finn to bring it up.

Kurt was at DePaul, majoring in fashion, and simply loved it in Chicago. He and Blaine had managed to keep up pretty well. (Blaine was at NYU.) Rachel and Kurt texted a lot. She'd also done some texting and had a skype date with Mercedes and Tina, who were roommates at Ohio University. At OU, Mercedes had met up with Matt Rutherford, who was in the Glee club with them senior year and then moved to Toledo. Matt and Mercedes were now dating. Brittany was still in Lima at community college and was waiting on tables at Breadsticks. Rachel had texted her a few times. She'd never really gotten along with Santana, but Santana texted her, so maybe that was a good sign.

She thought about her other friends too, who were back in high school. There had been twelve underclass members in New Directions last year, so there were enough for it to keep going after the Class of 2012 graduated. She'd gotten particularly close to Kylie, who was a freshman when Rachel was a senior, and reminded her so much of her younger self. Well, a quieter version of her younger self. Talented (in music, but Kylie was also a talented writer), but not part of the group. Rachel knew from the day Kylie auditioned for Glee that she was in love with Jake. Jake wasn't exactly like Finn, but his status was pretty similar. He was the school board president's son, and because of that, you'd expect him to be popular, but he wasn't. (Like you expect Finn to be popular because he's the quarterback, but he really didn't have many friends.) Kylie was a social nobody, shy girl without many friends, but still felt like she couldn't get the board president's son. Rachel and Finn saw themselves in Kylie and Jake right away.

This year, Kylie and Jake were together, having had some help from Finn and Rachel. They'd taken Finn and Rachel's reins as the leads and captains of New Directions and Rachel had complete faith in them. Rachel just was thinking to text Kylie and see what was happening in Glee when she saw her phone ringing and noticed Kylie's name on the caller ID. She smiled and picked up the phone. "Hey Kylie! I was just about to call you!"

Rachel heard sobbing on the other end. "What happened?"

"Jake and I - broke up," Kylie sputtered.

"What?" Rachel gasped. She didn't see this coming at all. "What happened?"

"Well... from the beginning I've been insecure because he comes from prestige and I don't. I always worried that he'd dump me for another board member's daughter, or a city council member's daughter or something like that. Well, over the weekend he took me to the board dinner. I always go to those with him. He told me he'd never gotten beyond second base in a relationship. We just got to second base last week. Well, his ex-girlfriend, Amanda, who's another board member's daughter, cornered me and asked me how far we'd gotten. I told her second base because that's true. Then she told me when she was with Jake they got to THIRD base. I got mad because Jake was always saying he never went past second base. So I went and confronted him. He asked me how I found out and I said she told me. He said he didn't tell me because once he lied he knew it would upset me. I told him it would upset me less if he'd told me. He told me to stop being such a drama queen about it. Then Amanda said that no one tells me anything because a. I overreact to everything and b. everyone on the board just pretends to like me. Jake then said that I was just upset because it was with another girl from prestige and I got mad and stormed out," Kylie rambled.

"Oh no," Rachel said, thinking she knew where this was going. Already there were so many parallels...

"Then I made a HUGE mistake," Kylie said.

Yup, this was an exact replica. "What happened?" Rachel asked.

"I was walking home and I was so pissed. I passed Graham's house and Graham was in his front yard. He asked me if I was okay, he could tell something was wrong. I told him what happened with Jake and asked him to help me," Kylie confessed. "So, I kind of made out with Graham. But we'd only been making out for about five minutes before he stopped and said he's hurt Jake enough already, he can't do it anymore."

"Oh, Kylie," Rachel sighed. This girl really was a mini-Rachel, and history really did repeat itself. This was basically the same situation she'd been in. And like Rachel had, Kylie had probably picked the worst possible person to get revenge with. Graham Goldman, Jake's ex-best friend who now went to some private, expensive all-boys school and had turned his back on Jake after switching schools. Graham's friends at his private school didn't like Jake at all and had begun bullying. Perhaps the worst part was at the soccer game, McKinley against Graham's school, when Graham and his friends threw paint-filled balloons at Jake after McKinley won. Rachel knew Kylie knew about that, as she'd washed Jake's paint-covered clothes.

"I was such an idiot, Rachel," Kylie sobbed. "So then I called Jake and said that I was sorry for how I acted and he said he was sorry for yelling at me and lying to me. But I felt like I had to tell him about what happened with Graham. And he got mad and broke up with me over the phone. I tried apologizing at school several times this week and then on Friday, yesterday, he decided to 'officially' dump me IN FRONT OF THE WHOLE GLEE CLUB. Rachel, you've got to help me!"

"You know Finn and I were in this same situation our junior year basically, right?" Rachel said.

"Yeah," Kylie said.

"Well, I think we might be able to help. I'm going to call Finn and figure something out and then get back to you, okay?" Rachel said. "Don't call Jake or anything again until I call you back."

"Thanks," Kylie said. "I miss you so much, Rachel."

"I miss you too," Rachel said. "But I'm coming back for Sectionals. By then, you and Jake will be together, and I can't wait to see you rock your duet. Tell everyone in Glee I said hi."

Rachel sighed and picked up the phone and called Finn. She sort of missed the drama that came with being in Glee. Or maybe she just missed Glee.

x

Finn had managed to get a good night's sleep, something that rarely happened on Friday nights. Probably because Derek and his friends were spending the weekend at the motel. The football team was at a game in Illinois this weekend, so he wouldn't be forced to spend this weekend sitting in his football gear watching everyone else play. Of course, there would probably be nothing to do this weekend except study. He still had no friends on campus and missed home in ways he didn't think he would. He missed his mother, who he'd always had such a special bond with, his stepfather, who'd become the father he so needed, his stepbrother, who was off in Chicago and loving the big city and his little sister, who never failed to make him smile. He missed his friends too. He'd kept close tabs with Puck, Sam, Mike, Artie and Blaine, especially Sam. They all loved college. He felt like a party pooper, so he kept his complaints to a minimum when talking to them.

More than anything else, Finn missed Rachel. What he wouldn't give to have her next to him and just lean over and give her a kiss. To hold her in his arms and smell the lovely vanilla shampoo and strawberry lotion she always wore. To talk for hours about nothing, about things no one got but the two of them. To laugh together. To sing together.

Finn sighed and popped a DVD into the DVD player. It's not like he had anything better to do. Then his phone went off. He looked at the Caller ID and saw that it was Jake. He picked up the phone. "Hey Jake. How are you? How's Kylie? I miss you guys."

"That's actually what I was calling about, Finn," Jake said. "You're the only person in the world who will understand this... so I got to third base with my previous girlfriend, but it was too much, so I lied and told Kylie I'd never even gotten to second. Kylie and I just got to second. But then my ex had to tell Kylie last weekend that we got to third base. Kylie got mad, and I overreacted and said some stupid things. Kylie stormed out. When she called the next day to apologize for storming out, she admitted that to get revenge, she made out with Graham. GRAHAM! Of the six billion people in the world, the one who could hurt me the most!"

Finn sighed. This was happening again, just with different people. "Did you break up with her?"

"I had to!" Jake said. "She cheated on me! She's been trying to apologize all week and it's clear that she's heartbroken, but I don't know what to do. Part of me wants to hug her because she seems so sad, and another part wants to yell at her again for what she did."

"Well, the way I see it, you have three options. You can totally kick her out of your life and move on, you can accept mistakes on both ends and forgive each other or you can sit around the house moping."

"I wish it was that simple, Finn."

"Life isn't simple. But I know one thing. The five months during which Rachel and I were broken up for that same situation were the worst six months of my life. I eventually realized what I hope you and Kylie realize a lot sooner: we both made mistakes, but we need each other."

"I don't know, Finn. This came out of nowhere."

"At least take a few days to think. You can call me if you need to talk about it again."

"Okay. I really miss you, Finn."

"I miss you, too. Call me in a few days, just so we can figure out where to go from there."

"Okay, thanks Finn."

Finn couldn't believe this was happening again. If only he was home. And Rachel was home. They could figure out a real way to help Jake and Kylie. As soon as Jake hung up the phone, it went off again - and this time, it was Rachel. "RACHEL!" Finn practically screamed.

"FINN!" Rachel screamed. "I MISS YOU!"

"I miss you too!" Finn said. "How are the crazy roommates?"

"Crazy," Rachel said. "What about you, how's the party-boy roommate?"

"A party boy," Finn said. "God, Rachel, I miss you so much."

"I miss you more than I can say," Rachel said. "Kylie just called me - "

"Really? Jake just called me," Finn said. "I can't believe this is happening again."

"Neither can I," Rachel said. "I guess they're JUST like us."

"Well, if they're JUST like us, they NEED to be together," Finn said. As he and Rachel began talking about advice to give their friends, he just began to miss her more. They may be together in a relationship status, but he wanted them to be PHYSICALLY together as well.