DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN GLEE OR ITS CHARACTERS
5.
The first thing that rushed through his mind was panic. A disgruntled cry emitted from his throat and he dropped down to his knees to help his mother.
He really uses the word 'help' lightly.
"Mom!" Finn screamed, tears clouding his vision. Is this really happening? Is she seriously passed out? What if she's dead?
He feels guilt seep deep into his bones and he kneels back looking at the pale face while his head spun tightly in circles. What the fuck is he doing right now? He's backing out when he's needed and that's exactly why he was a coward. His decision to join the Army was deeming to be quite inappropriate.
But he didn't want to level himself down. He needed to finally man up.
So his survival mode checks in. He pulls his cell phone out and dials 911 while checking his mother's vitals. Pulse is still there, and he has never been so thankful for that dull beating of the heart. He drops his face to hers, turning to look posterior and feel if her breath hits his cheek.
It does, but it's extremely shallow, maybe it's even nonexistent. Maybe he's just making up the idea that his mother is still alive. She's not that old, though, so is it even possible for her to have a heart attack or whatever this may be? Sure Burt is the same age and he had his heart attack last year, but he wasn't as healthy as his mother. His mom was into eating healthy and sure she didn't exercise like a freak and was a little soft, but she was still in pretty decent shape he'd say.
Everything that happened from the time he left his house and the time he arrived at the hospital was all one blur. They let him ride in the ambulance. That was probably the most frightening experience in the world for him. He had to sit back and watch the emergency team run around in the small vehicle trying to get his mother to be alive again. But the petite woman he's loved for the entire 18 years of his life just lie limp on the gurney, not moving nor doing anything.
Of all the times he's been scared his mother was there to comfort him. But she can't right now. And that makes him feel even more hopeless, anxious, numb. What if she was… what if she was gone… forever? What would that make him? What would he do?
When they get to the hospital, he hates it. He hates that everything is fucking white in this place. He hates how his shoes, no matter how smooth they are on the bottom, squeak on the white floors. He hates how the doctors are jerks and how the nurses are useless. He hates the smell. It's like death and he hates that that word, that action keeps showing up when he's under these circumstances.
He feels so shitty because he did this to his mother. She dropped because he was joining the military. Something she'd gone through already. It wasn't supposed to be like this. And his head is spinning and his stomach is churning and he's supposed to be sitting and reading an outdated paper like all the other patrons in the waiting room, but he can't. He stands up and hurls the contents of his stomach right on the white plastic chair in front of him. He feels no sympathy for the nurse that has to clean it up.
The phone call she had received had left her in nothing but a panicked state. The frantic crying, breathy gasping, pure agony she heard over the phone from her best friend Kurt was so painful to experience. And the information. The information that was so limited, so scarce, yet just enough for her to know that something was seriously wrong.
She doesn't know what time it is when she crawls out of bed. She had checked in early that night because tomorrow at eight in the morning she had her big NYADA audition with Carmen Tibideaux. The audition that would determine her stardom or not. So she needed to be on her A-game. She needed to have her proper amount of sleep.
Rachel was on the verge of slipping into a deep sleep. She could still sense her surroundings; the light sound of the television on her dads' room, the 'tick-tock' of her clock, the soft wind rustling outside. It was all real, but she was almost there. That moment when exhaust inhales your entire being, holding it in for most of the night and allowing your brain to rest, to refresh.
But something interrupted her sleeping. Not only did she hear it, but she felt it. Sitting upright and pushing her sleeping mask to her forehead, she blindly felt around in her bed for her phone. The buzzing of the vibrate setting was erupting in her head and she was becoming pretty cranky that someone had the nerve to call her when she's trying to sleep. This sleeping was crucial right now and of all nights for someone to need her…
"What?" She snapped, rubbing her temple as a headache sprang upon her immediately.
"R-Rachel," Kurt's voice chokes out violently. "Something b-bad happened. Something bad happened."
He was hysterical! Her heart hammered in her chest and she pulled the blankets away from her, now sitting on the edge of the bed.
"Kurt, what's going on?" She frantically asked him.
"It's… Carole… fainted… h-hospital… don't know how… not awake…" She barely caught these few phrases as he sobbed into the speaker, desperately trying to relay the message.
"I'm on my way."
She slammed her phone shut and jumped from bed, going to her closet and pulling out her grey and pink striped sweater, pulling the warm fabric over her head. She grabs a hair tie and tosses her hair up into a high ponytail, not caring that it's messy and not centered and just a crappy job on her appearance that she always worked so hard on. She decides she's wasting too much time and skips on putting a pair of actual pants on. Her floral pajama shorts will have to do. She doesn't have time to think about what this means, what might be happening. She just jumps in her car and speeds off to the hospital.
Maybe she's not in the right state to be driving at the moment, but how else is she going to get there? Her dads' must be scared out of their mind, but her phone is left on her bed where she haphazardly tossed it after her devastating conversation with Kurt. It wasn't a priority and honestly, neither was her dads'. Right now she was worried about one person and one person only; Carole Hudson.
Carole had been her mother for God's sake. When Rachel was growing up and needed to turn to a woman, Carole was the one she went to, the one she still goes to. There isn't a better woman, a stronger woman. Carole had gone through so much in her life, with having a child at eighteen. Not to mention while carrying the child and raising him, her first love off in war in the middle east. And then said lover dies in war, saving people's lives, and she's left to be a single mother for the next twelve years, give or take a few years, until she meets Burt.
She did everything justice. Finn turned out to be a real man when he didn't even have a father around. Carole was a perfect parent and a perfect mentor who will forever be cherished in Rachel's life.
So, don't sue Rachel for thinking negatively at the moment. With the little bits Kurt had told her had left her mind to wander to all the possibilities of how this started, how the outcome will turn out. And for some reason she has this dark feeling that washes through her entire system, seeping deep in her veins, that she's almost about to lose something, unfortunately someone, in her life. Someone that she cares deeply about. And that makes her sick to her stomach.
Blurred vision causes her to stumble down the hallways and she's sure about ten nurses or doctors or whatever stop her and ask her if she's okay. But she just keeps trekking through. And she gets to the waiting room where she sees the people she loves all piled in. Her glee friends, Burt, Kurt, and… and of course Finn.
A whimper escapes her mouth as Finn jumps and pulls her small body tightly against his. Her face is buried in the fabric of his shirt and she tries, really tries, to calm down. Inhaling shakily, the scent of Finn overwhelms her and she exhales just as uneven when a sad sob sounds out.
"Rachel," He breathes out against her strawberry scented hair. It's so calming but not enough right now. And to think once she finds out why… how… God, he's sick again.
He pulls away from her and runs to the waste basket they had given him since he had been puking pretty consistently in the past hour and a half. He clutches the plastic bin with his hands, feeling it bend, but he doesn't care if he ruins it. He feels a strong hand on his back and realizes Puck was patting him, trying to comfort him. Finn jerks his body up and walks out of the waiting room and goes to find a bathroom so he can rinse his mouth out again. When he comes back, the group has sucked Rachel in.
But she looks so… confused and vacant. He doesn't want to tell her what's going on. She doesn't need to know, does she? Apparently the rest think so too, or maybe they just aren't in the right state to tell her, because she still has useless information. He pulls her aside and sits with her on the opposite side of the waiting room.
"What's going on?" She asks fairly calmly. Although she still has a few tears, she's not crying like she was when she first came in. Her eyes are rimmed with a bright red and he's sure that his eyes are an exact match. Maybe his are worse.
"Rachel, Kurt shouldn't have called-."
"Shouldn't have called!" She explodes, standing up and looking down at him. Everyone's staring at them, and although he doesn't care about the people watching, he does care that she's angered and hurt. "I want to know what's going on!"
And then she breaks again.
"Just tell me," She cries, her hands covering her face and he squeezes his eyes shut and pulls her into his embrace again, this time having her curl up on his lap.
"My mom fainted. We don't really know much else except that she's in critical condition and hasn't woken up yet."
"W-What does that mean?" Her voice wavers with tears. Before she finishes what her question is, she presses her face into his neck and he feels the wetness and can taste the saltiness as he presses a kiss against her face. "What, is she comatose?"
He sucks in his breath quickly, sharply. Comatose. His mother could possibly be in a coma. The guilt that he wore was so, so damn strong and with Rachel here he feels even shittier. What the hell is happening? He didn't ask for this, for this to happen.
"They don't-."
"Um, the Hummel family?"
A doctor stepped out into the waiting room with a fucking white coat, of course, and a white clipboard, interrupting Finn's sentence. Finn stands up with Rachel clinging on to him. She lets her legs go to the floor but keeps her arms wrapped around his midsection as she walks with him. From the other side of the room Burt and Kurt walk together, holding each other's hands desperately.
Although Rachel isn't a Hummel, she's damn close enough and if the doctor had a problem with it he'd be pulling his white clipboard out of his damn ass. Fortunately for the doctor, Dr. Smith (real original name, doc.), he didn't question who was and who wasn't a part of the intermediate family.
"Hi guys. We have a few updates on Carole. She's alive. You already knew that, I'm assuming, but I just really want you guys to understand that. And she's awake. But that doesn't mean she's responsive right now. We'll allow you guys to go in the room and see her. But do not ask any serious questions or anything. We're not sure if she can handle it right now. You may go ahead to the room."
Finn turns around with Rachel still attached to his body. He wraps an arm around her frame, drawing her closer to his body if that was even possible. He tries to steal some of her warmth, gain some of her strength, but to be honest… she has neither of those things right now. She's just as weak as he.
They cross the threshold into the hospital room and he crumbles when he sees his mother. She's as fragile as a bird with a broken wing.
"Finn," She breathes out and tears well up in her eyes. "Don't do this to me."
Her face is as pale as the damn white pigment that this hospital is.
The doctor told them to avoid heavy discussions because he wasn't sure if she could handle it. Apparently she can handle it. Burt makes sure to keep asking her if she's feeling alright, if she's willing to keep up this conversation, to get into it. Kurt doesn't know about his plans, and of course Rachel doesn't.
But here it comes.
"For you to even think that this is an okay thing to do Finn is absolutely… outrageous," Her voice, weak, comes out in an even tone. It doesn't sound harsh or disapproving. Almost monotone. And that's even scarier than her usual changes in pitch.
Finn looks down to the floor, quickly stealing a glance to Rachel. She was sitting in the corner of the room by herself. Burt was sitting on the edge of the bed by Carole and Kurt stood on the opposite side holding his step mother's hand. Finn himself stands at the foot of the bed, shuffling back and forth from his right foot to his left foot.
But when he looked back at Rachel for a fraction of a second, he felt shameful. She was about to find out. She was figuring it out. Sure she looked as confused as hell, but she also looked hurt. Like she knew something bad was going to happen. Rachel was like that, always sort of aware of what might happen in the future. It's weird. And makes him extremely nervous.
"The risk that you're taking… Finn, you can't do this to me," Carole looks at him with eyes darkened, a thick shield of tears over her lens.
That's almost enough to make him want to back down from it all. His mother… she says that he can't do this to her. It'd be a total jerk move, wouldn't it? To have her worry every day he's gone, and possibly leaving her with yet another man she loved deeply dead. Could he do that to her?
But then he feels something he's never felt before surge through his body. He feels empowered. In charge of the situation. Because he knows that this is what he wants for his life, for himself. Even if it means his mother being unhappy, upset. He needs to start doing things for himself now.
"I need to do this mom. And I'm really sorry, but there's nothing you could do that can make me back down. Do you understand?"
His voice is strong and stern and it has thick finality in it, which caused Rachel to gasp really loudly. Maybe she's figured it out? Maybe she's just frightened by this 'new' Finn. These new actions he's performing.
"No!" His mother practically screams. "You are not enlisting in the Army!"
Finn's hand runs through his thick hair in frustration, quickly turning around to see Rachel, to judge her reaction and to comfort her. He expected her to break down and cry, to beg him to not leave like his mother. Maybe even faint like his mother did (hopefully not, though).
However, neither of those things happened. She didn't have tears in her eyes. She didn't look shocked. She looked… unsettled. Out of her body or something strange like that, which was probably scarier than watching his mother close to what he thought was death. She stands up at her full five feet, two inches and walks out of the hospital room. Doesn't run. Doesn't charge forward. Just casually strolls out of the room.
Carole weeps into Burt's arms and Kurt curls up on a chair to hide himself from reality, from what he's had to face so far tonight. Finn glances at the clock on the wall. It's one in the morning.
He waits ten minutes before going after her.
"Rachel!" Finn yells after her, easily catching up with her. One of his strides is at least five of her own when he runs. She's still walking at the same pace she was when she left the hospital room. Her eyes sting wildly and her throat is dry and refuses to stretch for her to speak. She wants so badly to turn around and look at Finn, tell him to go to hell or something very terrible in the same manner. But she can't. Her body won't allow her to, apparently. Instead, it just sends her on and on… walking walking walking.
He forces her body to stop moving. When his strong hand cups her forearm and holds her sternly in place, she squirms around trying to break free. She doesn't look at his face, instead focuses on the hard, stiff fingers pressing into her soft flesh. It hurts. What if he leaves bruises? She starts to struggle more and a scream rips from her throat, causing him to quickly let go and step away.
"You're hurting me," She growls angrily. Should she be angry right now? Upset, confused, yes. But angry? She's not sure. But she is. Her eyes finally reach his face and her lips turn down viciously in this grimace.
Damn his calm face. He looks so casual as if this were perfectly normal. As if she had someone she loved leave her before. Not just leave her; go to war and die on her.
The ferocity bubbles behind her eyes and she tries to wane the dark red she sees but she can't.
"You're being selfish."
She spins around again and walks to her car. He follows her again.
"Rachel, come on," Finn leans against her car door, blocking her out of the vehicle. "Don't run away from this. Talk to me."
"I have nothing to say to you, Finnegan," Rachel's voice is stiff and straight. The coldness practically exudes off her body and he shivers instinctively.
"Yes you do. I know you do. You just found out that when you leave for New York I'll be going to boot camp, then probably sent off to the middle east. You just found out that I'll be a soldier," He pours out, trying to stir up her emotions, trying to get her to just vent it all out. "That I have a pretty much guarantee of death. You have something to say, and I know you do!"
His voice is loud in her ears and it's very dark outside which makes her feel very timid and small. She knows he wouldn't hurt her, physically at least, but that doesn't stop her from feeling threatened.
Rachel swallows thickly, wishing she had a cup of water or something right now, staring deeply into his eyes, or where his eyes should be as it's too dark to see his amber irises.
"You're being selfish," The words tumble out. "You're being so God damn selfish and I'm ashamed of you. Most of all disappointed. What the hell are you thinking?"
Her voice is now officially a shriek and she feels sick all over. Her head throbs and her stomach churns. She feels an unfamiliar burn in her limbs, ache in her bones.
"I need to do this for my dad, Rachel. I'm running out of options here, anyways. I refuse to become a mechanic at Burt's Tire Shop," Finn barks at her.
"If you're afraid of being stuck here then… then come with me to New York!" Rachel shoots back hysterically, tears now welling up in her beautiful chocolate colored eyes. Her eyes hurt and she doesn't want to cry again, but do you blame her right now? It's been such an emotional night and she's so, so tired.
"I can't do that," His voice is soft.
"Why not? We can live in a shoe-box apartment together. It could be… It could be perfect for us," She leans forward, clutching onto his grey cotton shirt with all her might. Her face drops to the fabric and she remembers not too long ago she was doing the same thing, when she was crying over Carole about what was happening. But this time it was different. It was worse on so many levels and she was so desperate for him to not leave her.
She feels like a hypocrite, though too, because isn't this what she was doing with him? Going to New York without him and moving on with her own future without him? So what's the big deal with him doing the same?
No, Rachel thinksas she clutches his shirt, twisting it in her small hands, this is different. Finn is going to be shot at by foreigners, he'll be on their hate list! This is totally different.
"Don't leave me, oh my God, don't leave me," Her cries stab a rusty knife in his heart and twist tightly. This is by far worse than anything he's ever experienced. Anything that was remotely close to him being sad or him comforting a sad person. She's truly devastated, messed up, and it was all his fault.
He'll take the blame but he's not going to back down from this. However, for the time being, he'd have to walk on eggshells. He'd have to lay off on the Army stuff, leave her out of as much as possible. For her own safety, of course. Because by the looks of it, how she's taking just finding out that he's enlisting… he knows that it won't end well. Especially when she finds out he's being sent overseas.
"Live with me in New York," Rachel pleads, begs, over and over and over and over.
He can't go to New York with her. He can't drag her down and take her away from what she can, what she will, surmount to be. He won't come in and be a nuisance while she tries to make it big. When she tries to fulfill that dream she had since she could walk, that dream of Broadway.
"No," Finn tells her over and over and over and over, begging her and pleading her to stop making this harder than it has to be.
She slaps him sharply in the face when he says that.
"Harder than it has to be? Fuck you!"
Yes, she even used some very vulgar, very colorful expletives.
It's an hour later, two in the morning, when they move into her car. Another hour of her crying and explaining to him how dumb this is, how he's making a huge mistake and he'll regret it and he could easily get out of it by just going to New York with her, before he gets a black eye and a boot out of her car because she can't deal with this right now. At three in the morning she peels out of the parking lot.
"You'll still be a hero! You don't have to join the Army to do that," Rachel choked out.
"Rachel, would you try to fucking understand!" He exploded. "I don't have anything going for me right now! This is my chance to make up for my shitty slacking years in high school. How the fuck do you not understand that?"
"Because you do have things going for you right now! You've got me! You say so yourself, all the time, that I'm what is special in your life. If you would just give it a chance, you could come to the city with me-."
"And do what?" He looks at her, livid. "Wait on you while you're out being successful? Be a fucking bum ass collecting welfare and food stamps and shit? Is that what you want!
"Get out of my car," She quietly says, dropping her head down to her steering wheel.
He looks at her with burning eyes, trying to find a way to calm himself down, to not be such a jack ass about this because, really, he is being such a douche right now. She has every right to be trying to talk him out of this decision he made for his future. But he can't stand it anymore.
"I said get out of my car," Her voice is dangerous.
"Rach, please-."
"GET OUT OF MY FUCKING CAR, FINN!" She screams, reaching for something to throw at him. A hairbrush is what she finds and she chucks it at him, hitting him right under the eye.
"Ah," He groans as the pain seeps deep in. He's afraid to open his eye, afraid that he'll find out that he's now blind or something because holy shit that hurt like a son of a…
"GO!" She weeps, interrupting his pain process.
He's scared that she'll get in an accident, but reluctantly gets out of her car. He's barely shutting the door when she backs out of the parking spot and drives off to who knows where. Hopefully home.
He stumbles blindly back into the hospital and that stupid constant countdown in his head flashes obnoxiously in his mind. He has three months and two weeks before he and Rachel are torn apart. His mother is asleep when he gets back and Burt is sleeping on a cot that the hospital set up for him. A nurse rushes to him when she sees him clutching his face where his eye is and ends up getting him an icepack and a pain med, which makes him feel dizzy. She wants him to lie down in his mother's room since she can't let him stay in his own room but he doesn't want to and goes to the waiting room where he plans on sleeping.
Kurt is there with Mercedes. Mercedes Jones was Kurt's best friend, aside from Rachel. But Rachel and Kurt were too much like twins, which got on both of their nerves, so they needed someone else to be a mashing opposite. Kurt had Mercedes and Rachel had Finn.
The rest of the glee club had gone home, apparently. He wonders if they heard he and Rachel arguing. Had to of… they were as loud as heck.
Kurt eyes him skeptically as Finn throws himself in a chair next to the two.
"If you're going to give me shit about being in the Army, can it. I don't want to deal with it right now," He snaps.
"No, I wasn't going to. I was just going to say… I'm proud of you, Finn."
Finn's head turns so quickly he gets a minor case of whiplash and winces as the soft burn in his neck muscles.
"What?" He questions.
"You're doing what you want to do. You have good reasons and I think you'll be a great soldier. And although it kills me to think that you could… you could die, I still am going to support your decision no matter what."
"Wow, man, thanks."
And that's why Kurt will forever be his brother from another mother. Because even though Kurt used to have a total crush on Finn, and even though Finn used to bully the shit out of him, they were able to throw it all away and come together to be a family.
Honestly, what Kurt did right there, what he said… it was enough to give Finn the strength to go through with this. There are no more doubts. He was sending in his 'application' and would be ready for basic training when the end of the summer comes. Whether his mother and best friend liked it or not.
A/N: I had a really hard time writing this chapter because it's so devastating when you find out that the person you love is going to be a part of the military. The season finale just was such a tear jerker… this was my incorporation. Next chapter will be just Rachel's POV, then after that… wowza. Drama is on its way!