Rachel wakes up Monday morning and loses her breakfast before she's even out the door. Between hugging the toilet and thinking about how she's going to make it through the day her body shuts down. And then there is banging at the door and her dad's shout that it's for her and all she does is pray again and again that it isn't Finn. And it's not. She isn't sure what she thought would happen between her and Santana but this is more she hoped for. Standing in her front hallway, holding her backpack is Satan. And somehow she welcomes the image, knowing that right now the devil is the only one you can understand, the only one who can support her. So she got her ass in the car like she was told and silently thanked the powers that be for Santana Lopez.

Noah skips Monday. It's a copout but he's always been a coward so no one should really be surprised. He does go to football practice though. Does everything he can to not look at the stands. She isn't there, don't ask him how he knows that because he couldn't tell you. For maybe three seconds he wonders why she isn't there to watch Finn like always but he almost chokes on the thought, and then he's emptying his stomach of three days worth of binge drinking and all the hang-over food. Coach sends him home and Mike follows. He calls the day a minor success and promises himself that the next day he'd try harder.

Shelby doesn't need Will in her office to know something is up. Rachel is so much like her. The jeans are a red flag on fire stuck in the crown of the statue of liberty. They have to be new. And the hair. Michel and Daniel had given her pictures of Rachel through the years and she can't remember the last time Rachel allowed it to be cut so short. Shelby cannot properly count the amount of times she tried to lose herself, to change herself. She wants to help, but she knows that she was right to tell Will to back off, she was right to not do anything. Rachel was stubborn, more than all of her parents combined, and she would come to them… eventually. She does however tell Noah that she needs him to babysit all week because he is Rachel's opposite. He would never ask for help, always try and stand strong through the storm. Shelby doesn't need to know what happened. She can take a pretty accurate guess based on the smug smile on Finn's face.

Wednesday is a turning point for Rachel. She managed to keep her lunch down. It's small and probably pathetic but given that she hasn't seen Noah since that day and she's still pretending to be in love with her boyfriend she would revel in the small victories. She thinks about him constantly. A part of her thinks that's probably the source of half of her pain, the other knows it's a part of the relief. She thinks of his smile, of the way he runs his hand through his daughter's curls while she sleeps, of the way he says her last name. She tries to remember what it was like to hate him, to try and get back to that place but it won't work. Even then she remembers admiring his love for his mother, the way he looked at his sister like she was the reason the sun rose, and he always he made sure no one slushied her again once she'd changed clothes . Noah was never all bad. Which is probably why it was so hard.

Kurt tells Mercedes under no uncertain terms that she was to rejoin new directions. It wasn't so much that they needed her and mostly because she was being ridiculous. She asks about Rachel, everyone having noticed that the girl was walking around like a zombie. He blows up on her, probably because he can't flip out on Rachel but regardless. If Mercedes cared about what was going on with Rachel than she probably missed Tina a hundred times more and Schuster and Blaine. And if she misses them, cares about them than she needed to check her ego at the door and just come back. He tells her she's probably the only person who had the balls to find out why Puck looked even worse than Rachel. He doesn't know if it's the guilt or curiosity but he knows he's got her.

Santana drives Rachel to school every day for a week. She doesn't question it because it's too weird to really think about. Weirder still is that she has lunch with Puck every day the next week. They chill together sure, Puck is her boy, she would lay serious damage down for the kid but they don't socialize like normal people. He asks her about it, more than once and she blows him off every time. A part of it is because he's her boy and a part of it is because he's Rachel's. She's not stupid; if it were up to the midget they would be making hot dirty kosher love. This was his fault, or doing or whatever politically neutral term you wanted to use. So because he's her boy she wants to know why, he's doing this to himself, choosing to be so miserable. His snark has gotten seriously lame, his football and basketball practices crazy aggressive and if the rumors are to be believed he's sleeping with the volleyball team, again. And because he's Rachel's she sits with him to make sure he's okay that way she can keep Rachel okay. Still, she doesn't spend a second questioning it because she has a reputation to uphold, thanks.

Finn gets the feeling he's missing something… more than usual. He tells Rachel he liked her in jeans and she looks as if he just ripped her heart out. He says he likes this more laid back version of her and Kurt looks like he wants to murder him. He mentions that Noah seems to be back to his old ways and he could have sworn he saw Mike holding Tina back. But to really investigate things didn't seem to be worth his time. Because as much as he feels like he's missing something, he's also gained a lot. Rachel seems to be more his than ever. She doesn't talk about Puck at all, there are no texts or phone calls as far as he knows and he doesn't see Puck out of the corner of his eye whenever they're together. She's quieter too. She doesn't talk so much, isn't so animated and excitable. She's just like everyone else. So yeah he may be missing something but it's working to his benefit so why worry about it.

She wants more than anything to skip glee. More than being on Broadway, or meeting Streisand or winning a Tony, she just doesn't want to see him. But she can't do that, even if she wanted to. She drove with Santana and she has practise with Shelby, Kurt won't skip practice and unless she wants to walk she's stuck there. So she goes to the bathroom and cries and cries and cries. Then she washes her face, re-applies her eyeliner and pulls her hair into a ponytail. She looks back at her reflection and feels stronger. She runs her hands down the denim of her skinny jeans and puts her game face on. She was more than capable of doing this. For the next five months it was lights on and curtains up. Applause please, let the play begin.

He sees through her the second she walks through the door. Her head is up but it isn't high. She's walking about purpose but there is no bounce in her step. She makes it a point to keep her eyes on her chair, or maybe on Finn either way she never even glances in his direction. She sits down and he can feel the weight on her shoulders. Maybe he should leave, maybe he should just skip like he had last time. But he can't, he needed all of his extra-curriculars to apply for scholarships. He racks his mind for a solution when it happens and the world stops. Fifteen minutes into glee, three minutes into Schuster's speech Mercedes walks in, then Britney, than Santana, all the other members of Shelby's choir and finally Shelby. He thinks he imagines it but he knows he hasn't, Santana just brushed her hand across Rachel's arm before joining him in the back row. He looked at her, burning holes into the back of her head and he can practically feel the fire return to her eyes. He sees her square her shoulders and she's ready to fight again. Noah's eyes connect with Shelby and he knows she saw it too, whatever it was.

Her mom makes some speech about the expansion of new directions and fresh starts. There are enough side glances and the slight touch of San's hand on her shoulder to let her know one of those reasons was to support her. Mercedes starts talking her ear off, and she can't help but get into it. She's missed her fellow Diva. Even to her own ears she sounds flat, a little lifeless maybe even a little soulless but this is the most alive she's felt in a month. Finn is holding her hand, squeezing it whenever she starts to gesture with her hands in the smallest ways, when she becomes minimally animated it's like he tries to pull her back. She tries to ignore but can't help but hearing Tina's grumbling behind her and Britney's chorus of preach sister. When she focuses on him for the first time since that day her breath is caught. She thought he had left but there he stood. Talking to Shelby with his hands in his pockets and his jaw tensed. Before she knows what she's doing her feet start to carry her towards him. Kurt had asked her how she managed to stay away from him when she so clearly wanted him, she hadn't had an answer. Now she did, she'd stayed away because he hadn't been around because she didn't really have a choice but with him in her eye sight nothing could keep her away.

He can feel her approaching him, it's the way his stomach tightens and the hair on his neck rises. He'd never had such a physical reaction to someone before her. Probably never would again. He tries to rush this conversation with Shelby, there was nothing to say or do about them. Rachel and Noah were not an entity; there was him and her, no them. He thinks she hears this by the way her breath hitches. And since he's obviously a masochist he has to add no matter how much I may wish otherwise and tells himself it's because he didn't want to hurt her, when really he can't stand the thought of her thinking for a nanosecond that he doesn't want her. However he is not so much of a sadist to stick around now that he can see Finn approaching her in his peripheral, probably to head her off. So he leaves, ignores that Mercedes tags along and ignores the look of understanding he can see festering in Blaine's eyes. Thank god it was Friday.

She'd never been one to condone violence but when Finn impedes her path to Noah she has to stop herself from fisting him in the jugular. The thought alone sends a shock through her system and her hand twitches to action just as Kurt laces their fingers together. Then she is struck by the thought of just how much Kurt does for her, just how often he waits behind the scenes only to spring into action right when she needs him most. Amidst all of these thoughts the loss of Noah in her sightline is still the most evident and so she finds it hard to hear what Finn is saying to her. He doesn't seem to notice in the slightest though, which he never really seems to. He never seems to notices anything about her. "What is my favourite colour"?

"What?"

"My favourite colour Finn, what is it?"

"pur-bl-y-yellow?"

She guesses it's a good attempt considering the colour of her bedroom walls but wrong.

"My favourite Frapp from starbucks?"

"I… I don't know. What does it matter? Rachel I'm trying to talk to you about tomorrow's game can you focus?"

And there it is; the end of their relationship. She waits for the telltale signs of heartbreak. The things she's been experiencing for the last five weeks for the wrong boy. They never come, and worse yet is that Finn takes her introspective silence as permission to continue. Kurt squeezes her hand to bring her back to the land of the aware. Rachel looks into his eyes, really looks, and tries to feel her heart swell and her knees give out a little. Yet again it doesn't come but then she tries to recall the exact mahogany-gold-green of Noah's irises and the effort alone leaves her a little light-headed with desire to see them again. She unlaces her hands from Kurt and bushes him towards the door. Before he can protest Santana ushers him towards Blaine which is distraction enough. She is strengthened again trust me unicornboy she's got this. And she did. Rachel thinks of that first night with Shelby when she had faced a future with two options, spending the next months with Finn or getting over him. Well it's time to choose option C.