A/N: Here's the end. Sorry for the unintentional few days' delay. Real life just sort of ran me over and this still needed some finishing touches. Thanks for the kind words and replies. I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Thanks to Jen (wants2beawriter) for the beta.

Disclaimer: I don't own Glee, Sliding Doors, or Something More by Secondhand Serenade.

Chapter Five: Now What Will I Become

Rachel bounced into their apartment. That was really the only way to describe it. She generally 'walked with purpose' (even his head put air quotes around it and he smiled a little because she was so…ridiculously Rachel) but this was something else entirely. He looked up from his textbook and squinted a little bit, trying to hone in on her words. Generally he did fine, but there was, like, a certain pitch her voice would hit and he couldn't do it. Not anymore.

She could tell by the look on his face and she lowered her voice and just, y'know, volume, to normal as he sat back. She settled into his lap.

"… and I'm guessing it's finally here."

He grinned and gave her a small kiss because he had an order he liked to do things in and that was first. "You think?"

"Yes, I think." She slipped her hand back over his shoulder and produced the laminated envelope.

"Is it stupid to be excited since I already know what it says?" He asked, still looking up at her and pulling the envelope out of her hand.

She shook her head. "No. None of this is stupid," she said. She brushed her fingertips over his ear, smiling. "I may think it's ridiculous you had to request a correction to your own military documents because they confused your name and your father's name, but I don't think it's stupid for you to be excited. I never think you're stupid."

He snorted at her. "Except when, y'know, I put you on a train so you could come to school and I could join the Army without you telling me I was insane?"

She looked at him with a barely-hidden grin. "Which I did anyway, thank you very much. And I never said that was stupid; it was… Just… open your good news."

And there it was, his DD-214 form. Only this time, it was right. It looked similar to his Dad's. Well, except for one thing. He covered his first name with his thumb as he looked it over. He let his eyes scan the page, his head almost reflexively changing the dates he saw, setting them back a couple decades give or take. One thing didn't change, though; the little row of two thin, wide boxes on the bottom. "23. Type of Separation: RELEASE FROM ACTIVE DUTY 24. Character of Service (include upgrades): HONORABLE." He scanned down to the box under the word he'd agonized so much over, where the code had been wrong the first time and had labeled his discharge the same as his Dad's – a general court martial.

This time it was fixed, though. And even though the '271' was a different three-digit code than his dad would've ever had…well. The name matched and everything was right. He breathed out a huge breath before she was grabbing his hand and pulling the paper away.

"Stop that," she said, her voice low and gentle. "I know what started this but…that's your accomplishment. You shouldn't give it away—even to your father."

"But it's better," he said. "It's…" He swallowed hard. "That's his name, too."

"Yeah," she said, leaning forward to kiss him softly. He wrapped his arms around her and held on tight, enjoying the feel of her warm hands on his stubbled cheeks as she worked her mouth expertly over his.

"All right, all right—break it up you two," Adam said as he made his way down the short hallway into the dining room of the apartment the two couples shared (because a guy in grad school for social work, a guy in pharmacy school, and their still-starting-out girls in New York City really couldn't afford a two-bedroom any other way, even if two of them were retired military with old-man things like pensions.) "Emily's already texted me twice to see if you're done with that reading yet, Hudson. I had way better things to be texting her about than how you've got your wife in your lap instead of some recipe for how to cook meth."

Rachel pulled her mouth off his so he could answer, but redirected her lips to his neck while his thumbs stroked her back through the gauzy material of her shirt. She only took a long enough break to protest "I'm not his wife yet," before going back to what she was doing.

He ignored his (their) roommate for a minute longer to tip his head and give her easier access. Adam still walked with really just deliberate steps (and had joked that "next time I get bottom" on more than one occasion following their injuries in Iran) and Finn could see him moving out of the corner of his eye. "Y'know…we can change that whenever you want," he said to Rachel, the words coming out more like a sigh. "I have been asking you again for like six months."

"Yes, and I believe my exact answer was that we've already been engaged and I have no interest in doing it again," she said, playing with the collar of his t-shirt and smiling as she leaned into kiss him. She wasn't trying to cause a fight and he knew it.

"So walk down to City Hall," Emily said as she came through the door. She set the six-pack on the table, the bottles clanging together. "It's a million degrees out there, give or take, and raining but… walk to City Hall."

"This city is worse than a sauna, Blaine," they heard from the doorway and yes, it was true they already had plans for six for the evening. "Just between here and there, your hair is starting to curl and we're not even going to get into what my skin is doin-wow. You two should definitely get a room." Kurt slammed to a stop in the doorway. "Do we need to come back later?"

There was so much noise as Emily and Adam said their hellos to Kurt and Blaine that his ears couldn't really keep up; it was really only, like, "crowd" noises or if the pitch was just off, but… well he actually was used to it and even if it meant he couldn't hear her singing voice quite right, he actually sort of liked it. It made it easier to focus on her answer, still sitting on her spot in his lap, when he said "City Hall." Not that he needed to hear to understand her slow and super sexy smile, and yes, he wished they were alone.

He laid in their bed with her three nights later, tangling and untangling their fingers slowly. Neither of them was asleep; they quite likely wouldn't be anytime soon. It wasn't quite so rainy, but they were both all sticky for other reasons and laying on top of the blankets with a really cold bottle of water making its rounds between them and earning the occasional gasp with a cold drip landed on their overheated, bare skin.

"Are you happy?" He asked, his voice a low hum that sliced through the quiet room. He rolled his head toward her, even though he could barely make out the familiar shape of her in the dim light.

"I think…" she finally said slowly, letting out a long breath. "The more important question is if you're happy, Finn. None of this was really about my happiness, was it? I've known since I was sixteen years old what made me happy."

He was probably quiet longer than he should've been. "Yeah," he breathed out. "I sort of take the long way around, huh? I guess now it's our happiness though, isn't it?"

"It always has been, Finn."

He nodded and didn't take his hand away from hers this time the way he had been doing. "Yeah…I…I dunno. I don't think it could've really gone another way, though. I mean, I don't think it would've worked out the same. Do you?"

"The only way to know would be to start over," she said. "I'm not willing to do that. Not when we're both finally here… like this."

"Well…" he said, rolling himself carefully on top of her, grinning when her face came into view in the darkened room. "There's one way I don't mind starting over, Mrs. Hudsonberry."

"I've completely earned the right to just be Mrs. Hudson at this point," she protested, laughing into his mouth when he cut her off with a kiss. For that moment, for his life, there was basically nothing more he wanted. Even if he'd taken his sweet time realizing what he had, it seemed pretty clear. They had it all.