A/N: The title of this story is from The Honey Trees – Love & Loss. It just seemed extremely fitting, and seeing that I was listening to it at the time I first sat down to write this, it's probably what prompted my brain to pick up the story at that point in their tale. But anyway, without further ado – chapter two! (And, you know - reviews = love)

II.

No one really pays attention when he joins the rest of his group at the breakfast buffet. He's pretty sure he looks and smells like crap, after a night of hiding out in a dusty stairwell, but he doesn't want to go back to his room yet. His stomach has been rumbling insistently for a while, and he's about to give coffee a try in the bid to calm his nerves down.

He's not sure if he's more nervous about facing Rachel or facing their competition. Now that their performance is just hours away, it's starting to get to him.

Maybe they should have at least gone through the song together once.

But when it comes down to it, he's pretty sure he dreads talking to her and hearing her explanation for everything much more than having to go out there and singing a song. For as much as he wants – no, needs! – that explanation, it's not like it's going to change anything, right?

"What the fuck happened to you, dude?"

It's Puck who shoves him to the side when he's trying to shovel another spoonful of scrambled eggs onto his plate, resulting in his egg flying off the spoon and into someone's bowl of fruit, where it's covered up a second later by a ladle full of cereal before he can even call out a warning. The owner of the bowl hasn't noticed the egg, so after a few more seconds of watching bowl and owner, Finn just shrugs and gets another spoonful of egg – with a careful eye on Puck's arm this time.

"Practisingallnight," he mumbles as he picks up some bacon slices, hurrying on so he can get through breakfast quickly and then be the first in the shower.

"Who the fuck you practice with? Last I heard you weren't singing any solos, dude."

Not bothering to try coming up with an answer that Puck would only make fun of anyway, Finn grabs a bread roll and an apple, trying to balance both and his dangerously-close-to-overflowing plate in one hand so he can pick up a mug for coffee with the other, and ends up almost dumping it over the head of some little old lady's grey-haired head as she walks backwards into him, holding her bowl of cereal in front of her like the holy grail as she stomps all over his toes. Wincing in pain, he's about to grab her shoulder and tell her to get off his feet, when she turns around and takes a step back in surprise at finding him there. He grimaces. Looking down into her bowl between them as he's trying to see past it in order to check the floor and make sure his feet are well away from hers, his eyes widen as he can just about spy a bit of yellow that was the egg he lost earlier now floating in milk in between bits of fruit and oats in her bowl. "Oh, pardon me, young man," she mutters and looks up at him, surprise entering her eyes when she notices how much taller he really looms above her. "Uhh sure," he says, at a loss for what else to say, wondering if he shouldn't warn her about the egg after all. But she shuffles past him and is lost in the crowd of breakfasters – breakfastees? people having breakfast? Is there even a damn word for it? – before he can so much as open his mouth; so instead he just stands there for a moment, kind of amazed that she was able to move so fast. So he simply stuffs the bread roll into his mouth, the apple into his pocket and pushes his way through the crowd to the coffee dispenser, not noticing that Puck's following him.

"Come on, what happened?" he hears him ask as he's pushing the button on the espresso option, hoping this stuff is strong enough to keep him going for a while.

"Lllmallllnnnnng!" is all he manages to say around the bread roll between his lips. They've had enough late night pizza & videogame sessions to be able to take an educated guess at what they're saying even with a whole bread roll in the way. It's not a surprise then when Puck just shoots him an annoyed glare and stays put instead of doing as told. "Not gonna happen, dude. Not leaving until you tell me what happened. I'm guessing you and Berry didn't spend the night getting down and dirty somewhere, right, cos you wouldn't look like you some bitch nailed your favorite fucking puppy to a wall. So – spill!"

Finn groans, and punches the espresso button a third time. He knows Puck's not going to just leave it alone now, not if he's that persistent. So he gulps down the mouthful of breadroll, turns to his friend and looks him straight into the face. "Nothing. Happened. I was practicing the damn song," he growls at him.

"Fine then, don't talk to me," Puck replies with a sideways swipe of his head as he throws his hands in the air with more theatricality than Kurt and Rachel combined.

Finn just rolls his eyes at him and turns back to the coffee machine to grab his cup when he notices a head of grey hair close to the wall behind his friend. Looking closer, he realises it's the little old lady from earlier, and grimaces. Picking up his mug, he stares at it for a second, trying to make up his mind what to do, but looking back at the old woman who is just raising her spoon to her mouth, he can't just let it be. So he puts the cup and his plate down – much to Puck's amusement – and leaves his friend standing there.

"Ummsorrytobotheryou, butdonteatthat!" he bursts out once he's reached her table. His instinct tells him to stop her more physically than this, but it's an old woman and he doesn't really know her and he's not sure she wouldn't think he was trying to assault her or something if he did. The look she gives him kind of already says she thinks he's crazy enough.

She gives him this questioning stare before finally responding to him. "Aren't you the young man from earlier? The one whose feet I trod on?" He nods, and gives her a half-hearted smile, hoping she'll see that he doesn't mind about that. "So why is it you think I shouldn't eat my breakfast now?"

That's the part he wasn't looking forward to, but he's there now, and it's already awkward, and he's kind of dying to get it over and done with already so he can grab his breakfast stuff – Puck'd better still be watching that – and have that coffee before he's going to drop dead from exhaustion. "Uhh… see… I had this scrambled egg and my friend pushed me and it kinda fell into that bowl."

She's still looking at him, and then down into her bowl, and when she's not saying anything, he points at the little blob of yellow floating on one side of a piece of apple or something. "See? And I totally wanted to tell you when you bumped into me cos I recognized that bowl but you totally surprised me and then you were gone and I… uhhh," he finishes, not knowing the right words for saying that he'd not wanted to care.

With her spoon she fishes out the bit of egg and drops it onto the saucer of her coffee cup. He's watching, and there's this nagging worry growing in him that she's totally angry with him and going to make a big fuss, but when she looks up and meets his eyes, there's a smile on her wrinkled little face. "That's very kind of you, young man. Very kind… " she says, and dips her spoon back into her cereal bowl. He watches her with an odd fascination as she takes a big spoonful and starts chewing on it with what he'd call exaggerated care; all the while wondering if this conversation is over and he should just excuse himself or if she's going to say anything else. So he continues to watch as she chews and chews, his presence as he's looming above her growing ever more awkward, until she finally swallows her mouthful – and he totally has to suppress the urge to gulp down a mouthful of air in imitation – and looks up at him again. "And just to think - if I hadn't stepped on your feet by accident, you'd have never known whom to warn. A lucky coincidence we could call it."

She's got that smile back on her face and he can't help but smile back at her. She's kind of infectious in her cheerfulness. Maybe he should congratulate himself on making up his mind to fess up to her because she's really making him feel good about that. At least something is going right. He nods at her, enthusiastically, with the biggest smile he can give her.

"Or maybe we should just call it karma. Do you know what that is, my dear boy?" she asks, and leans back in her seat with the smile on her face turning into something that makes him want to squirm.

"Yeah sure," he replies, remembering when he'd asked Rachel to explain it to him. He's not quite sure how the old lady thinks any of this fits, since he was the one saving her from- oh. His face flushes as he figures out she meant it the other way around; yeah, she's pretty much seen through him well enough. He was going to ignore it and it'd taken her stepping on his feet to make him feel bad enough to tell her. It was cosmic justice alright.

"Ummm… sorry about that again," he says again, and really wants nothing more than to get back to Puck by now. His face feels on fire.

"It's alright, dear. It isn't like a little bit of egg would have killed me. And it was nice of you to warn me," she says, the kind smile back on her face.

"Uhh okay, well, I'm gonna go now … uhh… enjoy your breakfast," he mumbles, and turns to go. "Nice meeting you," she calls after him, and he seriously wishes he could just hole himself up in the room until they're ready to fly back home – at least that way he can't mess up.

Stupid karma anyway. They should rename it to "Finnitis" or something. He's pretty sure it sums up his life perfectly. Even Rachel would have to agree on that.