From day one, Rachel had insisted on sleeping on the couch.

Now, about a week since her arrival in Los Angeles, Rachel sincerely regretted her decision.

Jesse had refused her pleas for him to stay in bed all day, and after the fifth fall as he struggled to get to the kitchen, the living room, the bathroom— anywhere, really— Rachel had relented and agreed to let him stay on the couch during the day. I made him feel more alive, he'd said, and she wasn't about to argue with that sentiment.

The only downside to this new development, however, was that the couch was relentless in its persistence to hold onto the musky scent of Jesse with every day that he spent on it. He still smelled just as he had years ago, so distinctly like him that it became difficult for her to sleep at all. It wasn't enough that she wasn't already in his apartment every second of every day when she wasn't running errands for him, surrounded by Jesse no matter where she went.

It was that stupid hint of eucalyptus she occasionally would get the trail of whenever she turned her head too quickly only to realize he wasn't there, even back home in New York. He smelled like something clean, fresh out of the dryer, warm, comforting. It was everything that people would never assume him to smell like, and she hated it.

Jolted from her insomnia-driven thoughts at the sound of a loud bang, she shot up and off the couch, rushing into the bedroom to make sure Jesse was okay.

"Jesse, what—"

"Oh for fuck's sake," he snapped, propping himself up onto his elbows, "I can't even fall on my own without having you at my every beck and call? Just leave me the fuck alone!"

Groaning, he attempted to lift himself up, promptly slipping again.

"Jesse, please," she muttered, sliding her arm under his as he struggled to stand up. "You could have just told me what you needed."

"No," he ground out through clenched teeth, "I couldn't have."

"Did you— did you need to go to the bathroom, Jesse?"

"I need to piss, I don't think I could have just called for you to bring me a fucking bedpan."

"Come on," she sighed, supporting his body as he stumbled into the bathroom and onto the toilet, Rachel turning away despite the darkness and his inability to visually recognize the privacy she was attempted to offer him.

The hollow laughter seemed to echo around the walls of the bathroom, harsh and bitter. "This is pathetic. I'm never getting laid again, you know."

That was not a question she'd been expecting, her eyes wide as she fought to keep her gaze fixed on the wall. "Don't— don't say that."

"It's true. Who the hell fucks a blind guy? Willingly?"

"Jesse!"

"I'm allowed to ridicule blind people now, Rachel. If you haven't forgotten, I am one."

Rachel was quiet for a long moment, holding her breath as she watched the lights from the cars outside the window flicker on the wall. "What if I said I wanted to?" she whispered quietly, biting her lip. "Sleep with you, I mean."

"I wouldn't believe you," he muttered darkly as Rachel heard the flush behind her, her heart sinking in her chest for reasons she couldn't quite place, turning back to face Jesse, helping him back up and back to the bed.

"Goodnight, Jesse," she whispered from where she'd found herself lingering in the doorway. She could keep telling herself that she was watching to make sure he got to sleep fine, but that would be a lie, one that even Jesse could see through.

"I'm sleeping in bed with you from now on," she informed him first thing in the morning, standing by his bed from the sound of it. He could picture her perfectly, arms crossed in front of her chest, jaw set, resolute. He wasn't sure if his memory of her wasn't worse than the real thing to imagine. She was far too beautiful in his head from all that he remembered. It was downright unrealistic.

"No, you're not," he ground out, letting his head fall back against the headboard upon pushing himself into a seated position and letting his legs drape off the side of the bed. He could get up on his own. He wasn't too weak for this. Refused to be.

"Jesse, don't be ridiculous. Had I not been riddled by insomnia myself, I would have never heard you fall. I'm sleeping with you from now on, and that's final."

"I think your boyfriend might have some objections to us fucking behind his back, Rachel," he drawled slowly, not daring to waver from the comforting lull inherent in his sarcasm, even if he wished that was what she'd meant. Hudson had always been a spectacular cockblock.

"That's— that's not what I meant!" Jesse couldn't help but wonder if the distinct sense of loss at not being able to see the blush creep across her cheeks would ever dissipate. He missed seeing her, even despite the familiar ache in his chest that always bloomed up from seeing her and knowing that he couldn't have her. "We're sharing a bed. That's it. This isn't... spring break again, Jesse."

"Rachel, you've made that abundantly clear. I'm well aware that you're apparently so repulsed by me and your new, self-imposed, burning martyr-style need to save me that you have trouble even so much as considering to talk about what happened between us that night," he spat, resentment getting the better of him as he managed to move himself off the bed and leaning on the wall. He could make it. He didn't need Rachel, of all people. Not before, and especially not now.

"Would you like some, um, breakfast?" she muttered, seeming to stumble over her words. She sounded downright ashamed of herself, and all his gut could internally respond with was good, as though she deserved it. It was a sickening feeling.

"No, I don't want breakfast, I want you to stop pretending that this is all on me! That you're too much of a coward to admit that you actually liked fucking me despite the fact that you refused to answer any of my texts, voicemails, and phone calls after it happened? Disappearing the next morning like nothing happened? No note, no message, nothing? Like I just imagined all of it? I called you for weeks and nothing!" He couldn't help the fist that slammed against the wall, aching horribly upon impact.

"I know," she whispered brokenly. "I'm sorry, Jesse."

"And just so that I can set the record straight here, I didn't even remember putting you down as my ICE, so you can stop holding that over my head like I'm the only person responsible for making you drop everything and rush to my side, because for fuck's sakes, Rachel, if you didn't want to be here, you wouldn't be. And if you, by some miracle, still don't, then leave. I don't need you, and I certainly don't need any of this fucking bullshit. This wasn't some goddamn ploy to get you here to talk to me, as though I planned on getting in that fucking wreck and ending up blind, because my life was going just fine and you were the last thing that I could have possibly needed right now, because every time Rachel Fucking Berry enters my life, everything I so carefully pulled together falls apart like a goddamn house of cards."

"Like what, all the girls you were sleeping with?"

Her voice was small, but no less accusatory. This wasn't just his fight, that much was obvious at this point. He wished he could see her face, her expression, anything.

"Rachel, don't talk about anything you know nothing about."

"How many have there been since me, Jesse?"

Momentarily silenced, Jesse drew in a deep breath, biting his lip as he seriously debated lying to her. "A... lot."

"So," she snapped, "call one of them and have them put you back together if it's so much easier without me here!"

"I... Rachel, they're not like that. I was just sleeping with them. There wasn't ever anything more."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"I don't think you realize that I'm not dating you!" he ground out, suddenly hard-pressed to rein in his temper. "You're dating Finn, so don't give me any of this bullshit like I need a fucking lecture on how to live my life. You're not my fucking mother!"

"Jesse, please!"

It was all he could do to keep from slamming the door in her face when he finally got into the bathroom, barely holding himself up by the counter as he locked the door behind him.

Just shutting the door on her, however, proved relatively pointless far too quickly. It wasn't as if he could block out seeing her in his treacherous mind, all small and frail and fragile, wishing he would just come out of the bathroom.

It took a good half hour until she even bothered trying the door again, a plate full of her blueberry vegan waffles with powdered sugar on top in her hand, Jesse's favorite, and her specialty.

"Jesse? I made you breakfast. I'm— I'm sorry. I shouldn't have... said what I did. You're right, you know? I do want to be here. And I have no right to dictate how you live your life. I... should have called, or left a note, or something after what happened. But I was... scared. And I ran. And I'm sorry. Frankly, I don't even know why you still bother to talk to me, but if you want to, maybe we could... eat this together? It's your favorite from back when we were dating."

It was horrible listening to him struggle as he tried to find the lock and open the door, but finally it swung open, and he offered a small smile.

"You remembered."

"Of course I did," she whispered, nodding, despite knowing he wouldn't be able to see it. Maybe he'd be able to at least hear it in her voice. It was already heartbreaking enough watching him watch her. He was doing that thing again— meaning to look at her, and doing poorly, always catching her temple, or just past her face. And what was even worse was that she was beginning to get used to it.

They ate her peace offering in silence right there between the two rooms. It was easier, not bothering to help Jesse up and into the other room, and discomfort aside, it was almost as if they were having a picnic. Still, Rachel wasn't sure what was worse, her justification, or the fact that there had to be one in the first place.

"You know," she finally thought aloud upon finishing her end of the waffle, "you haven't showered since your stay at the hospital."

"So? I'll take one later, or something."

"Jesse, no. You can't. When my daddy broke his arm a couple years back, papa had to go in every time he had to shower to help him not get his cast wet for... weeks. He was terribly irritated by the hold-up, but it was very clearly necessary."

"I can just take a bath and dangle my leg out."

"That's ridiculous. We're doing it my way."

Jesse stopped, all cocky raised brows as he smirked. "That eager to get me naked again already? And here I was hoping to romance you a bit first, wine, dinner, so on. You're just making this too damn easy."

"Jesse, please," she huffed, as though talking to a small child, "you're going to be wearing swimming trunks, and that's final. Where are they?"

"Top dresser drawer," he sighed, finishing off his last piece of waffle and propping up his good leg as he leaned against the doorframe.

Getting up, she pulled it open, nosy hands rummaging through his boxers and socks and promptly coming up empty. "I can't find them," she informed him curtly, frowning in his general direction.

"Then I guess we'll have to do without," he shrugged, pulled himself to his feet by the door frame, the corners of his mouth twitching up. "We don't even know that they would fit over the cast, Rachel."

"Ah! Here they are." Pulling out the almost-black garment, she held it up for him to see, before remembering that he couldn't. Suddenly feeling sheepish as she flushed, Rachel shook her head, bringing it over to him. "Here, lean onto me and see if you can put these on."

Just as he'd predicted, they refused to go past the widest part of his cast, and Rachel gave a soft sigh before finally admitting defeat, Jesse grinning shamelessly the whole time, reveling in the fact that he was, once again, right.

"You're already helping me bathe, Rachel. It's nothing you haven't seen before."

And yet— knowing that he couldn't see her, she couldn't help but stare when he pulled his boxers down, leaving him bare.

She hadn't been drunk at first— admission at 18 had still left her with an angry black X on the back of her hand— but Jesse's steady supply of drinks had quickly left her decently tipsy enough to know that she hadn't remembered as much about their night together over spring break as she might have wanted to.

So she stared.

"I assume you meant now? Would you mind running the water?"

"Oh. Right. Sorry," she muttered, flushing horribly as she brushed past him to turn the faucet on. He was far too well-toned; not that that surprised her, all things considered, his performance background speaking for itself. Shutting off the water, she cleared her throat, standing. "Here, I can— help you in."

"Can't we just do what the doctors said and shower? Wrap my cast in saran wrap?"

"That doesn't work, Jesse. My dads tried it. They were left wrapping a trash bag around his arm, and... even that didn't work all that well."

Jesse hissed sharply at the hot water, and Rachel berated herself for not checking the temperature first. Still, it wasn't as much of an ordeal as she'd expected it to be, motor memory seemingly still very much intact when it came to taking baths, and Rachel couldn't help but wonder how many girls he'd taken these with before taking them to his bedroom and sleeping with them.

The thought made her sick with jealousy, sending a fresh new wave of guilt to her throat. She had a boyfriend. She loved Finn.

Not that their recent fighting— loud enough to wake Jesse, at times— was indicative of anything good. It wasn't hard to figure out why Rachel was spending too much time staring at Jesse, and he reminded her of those reasons at every plausible opportunity, telling her that she was really only keeping him around to give her an excuse to feel like her conscience was still intact.

And he was right.

It had hit her like a brick, realizing how much Finn was becoming an excuse to swallow down her wants and desires. Self-defense.

"Okay, now just... leave this here, and—"

"Honestly, Rach, this is a terrible idea. Not to mention that it's going to be kind of difficult for one person."

"I know," she whispered, grabbing the small washcloth off the edge of the tub to soak it, pulling it up and over his back.

"Mm," he muttered, leaning into her touch as his eyes closed, Rachel biting back a shiver.

"Does that feel good, Jesse?"

"Yes," he breathed with a slow nod, as Rachel intensified the pressure from her hands, the washcloth temporarily abandoned as her hands ran over his back and shoulders, biting her lip.

"Do you ever..." Rachel swallowed hard, trying to decide whether it was a good idea to ask in the first place, and yet seemingly unable to stop herself as she watched her hands glide over his skin, "... miss my hands all over you?"

"Every day, Rachel, you don't even know." Watching him swallow, Rachel fought against the urge to close her eyes at the feelings coursing through her body, trying hard to ignore them.

"You could have that back," she whispered almost silently, and he stiffened under her touch.

"You're with Finn," he insisted carefully, lips drawn tightly.

"Not right now, I'm not."

"Rachel, don't," he warned her sharply through gritted teeth, Rachel's pulling back to pour some body wash into her trembling hands, determined not to look at him as she soaped up the cloth and returned it to his back, taking a deep breath.

"What if I wanted you just as badly as you wanted me?"

"This isn't funny," he breathed, and just for a second, Rachel was tempted to lean in and kiss him.

Speeding up her hand, she took a deep, shaky breath. "I'm not trying to be funny, Jesse. Hold out your arm, so I can—"

"You know what your problem is?" he suddenly snapped, "you want the rollercoaster with all the safety trimmings. It doesn't work that way. You either get what you apparently so desperately need, the safe option that is never going to do anything to scare the living piss out of you and certainly won't ever make you feel alive, or you get what you really want, someone that makes you feel like wanting something is worth it. I'm so sick of being your replacement option whenever you want one."

The rest of the bath passed in silence, Rachel knowing full well that if he'd been capable, he would have walked out on her after the discussion. Baths were, quite possibly, one of the worst places to have fights, and Jesse's inability to get around without her help was clearly not helping matters right now, either.

She'd heard her phone ringing before, but hadn't dared to leave Jesse's side until he was dressed and back on the couch again where she knew he was safe, only then slipping out into the hallway with her phone.

Finn.

Pressing the redial button, she felt the knot in her stomach draw together more tightly, anxiously waiting for him to pick up.

"Oh, now you call me back. What were you doing for the past half hour, Rach? Sleeping with Jesse, again?"

This again. Rachel's heart sank into her feet, and she fought against the urge to pace. "Finn... it's not like that. If... you can't even trust me if I don't call you back for one second—"

"... then maybe we shouldn't be together anymore," he finished resolutely, knocking the wind out from under her feet.

"Wh-what?"

"This isn't working anymore. Come on, Rach. If you really cared about how I felt, you wouldn't be there right now. You'd be here. And you would have been here on our anniversary. This isn't right, dammit, and I think you know that as well as I do." Hearing him sigh on the other end, he dropped his voice, his tone almost resigned about their relationship. "Or you wouldn't sound so guilty every time we talked on the phone. So... I guess you can stop feeling guilty now, or something."

Rachel stared at the phone in disbelief, the lump in her throat building until she couldn't hold it in anymore, falling back against the wall as she slid down to the floor with a thud.

Most of the things in the apartment were hers. She'd have to make time to get to New York and pick those things up, and... what? Leave Finn without furniture? Drop them off at her dads' place? Bring them here of all places? Get a new place in New York? She had no way to know when she would be back there in the first place, what with helping out Jesse, and she certainly couldn't drag him there with her. Most importantly, she didn't live here, had no rights to this place at all.

Feeling numb as she reentered the apartment, she cleared her throat to get Jesse's attention, an uncomfortable awkwardness settling over her.

"Do you want to... watch some TV? Or play a game, maybe?"

"Rachel," he said slowly through gritted teeth, and she wanted to choke herself.

"Right. Um... something else then, maybe. That... doesn't require your eyesight."

Content to keep her hands preoccupied with anything, she set a teakettle on the stove and began to peel and cut some ginger, silence settling over the room again.

"Could you sing?" Jesse interrupted the silence that had once again settled over them, making Rachel nearly slip and cut her finger as her gaze shot up over her counter.

"What?"

"I'd like you to sing something for me."

"Oh."

As the silence returned, Rachel rifled through her mental list of go-to songs as quickly as she could manage, finally settling on the song that had been in her head for far too long over the past several days, Maria Mena's I'm On Your Side.

"Each confession I make translates to you as an insult..."

She wished she could have seen his eyes properly as she sang. It was the only place she could ever truly see how he felt, his facial expressions always pulled into a taut showface, shutting out all those around him.

She was the only person around whom she'd ever seen him lose his cool, and that meant more than she cared to admit.

The remainder of the day had passed in relative normalcy. Rachel had made them lunch, she'd read aloud to him, they'd gone out to run errands, he'd talked with her as she made dinner, and they settled down to a movie that she knew for sure he knew all the images and words to by heart, Cabaret.

"Are you about ready for bed?" she asked, yawning as she lifted her legs off his lap with some reluctance, stretching in her seat before helping him get up and move to the bathroom.

"Mm."

"Are you sure we'll both fit?"

"Last I checked, this was your genius idea, Rachel."

"I'm just saying that I really would prefer to avoid encroaching too far into your personal space," she muttered, squeezing toothpaste onto both his and her toothbrushes before handing it off to him.

"Trust me," he scoffed, toothbrush still in hand as he leant against the counter, "I really doubt you can violate my personal space boundaries, Rachel."

"Oh."

They brushed their teeth in silence, Jesse stumbling to the bed on his own, Rachel still intent on going the full two minutes until her cell phone timer alerted her to being finished.

Slipping into bed next to him, she realized just how close their proximity felt in a full-sized bed, biting her lip as she regarded the huddled form beside her, already turned away from her.

"I'm not sure that this is enough room, Jesse."

The sigh was audible as he turned to face her. "I've never had a problem fitting anyone else in before, Rachel. I think you'll survive."

That stopped her cold, her eyes going wide. "You've... what do you mean?"

"I haven't shared a bed with someone since I was fifteen, on a family vacation to Tuscany."

"But you just said—"

"They were just fucks, Rachel! They left after. I wasn't about to let them spend any longer in my bed than was strictly necessary. But I never had a problem fitting them in here for their strict purpose. I think you'll survive. If you decide that I'm so horrible to fall asleep next to, of course, by all means, go back to the couch."

"N-no," she muttered softly, slipping wordlessly under the covers with a frown. The thought of Jesse sleeping with countless girls here was disarming, and yet she couldn't help the feeling of pride at the thought that she was the only one he'd let in here overnight. Special.

They fell asleep on opposite sides of the bed, turned away from each other, but almost as if driven by a gravitational pull, Rachel shifted inward to face him, Jesse turning onto his back until his arm looped around Rachel's waist. Overnight she seemed to turn around in his hands until they were spooning, her leg between his, his good leg wrapped securely, possessively around Rachel as though to keep her there, and the arm not wrapped around her midsection had come to intertwine their fingers together.

As Rachel stirred in her sleep, her eyes slowly blinking awake with the sunlight streaming through the blinds of his window, the realization of her position was slow coming.

This reminded her of something.

Finn never held her like this, sometimes waking Rachel up at least twice when he rolled onto his back and began to snore. Her only other long-term relationship— stable, logical, but ultimately boring— had insisted piling pillows between them as a partition, to keep her from kicking him during the night. It had made sense, but it had also hurt.

The night after her first time, on the other hand, had resulted in waking up just like this. Jesse was a cuddler. No matter what, he always managed to wrap his arms around her and keep her close. It made it incredibly difficult to extricate oneself— both now, when this would just be awkward for both of them, and then, when all she'd wanted was to get away as quickly as possible, guilt threatening to drown her.

This morning, fighting her way out of his grasp wasn't worth it.

"Jesse," she muttered softly, squeezing her eyes shut, trying to ignore how good he smelled, how right this felt, how much she loved being in his arms again. This wasn't the right time. Not now, not like this.

"Mm," he breathed, promptly pulling her in closer against him.

"Jesse," she insisted again, louder this time, swallowing hard as she realized what was pressing up against her backside. Now that he'd tugged her flush against him, it wasn't difficult to tell just how hard he was.

"Rachel," he breathed softly, his face nuzzling against her neck, sending shivers down her spine.

"Jesse, wake up," she tried again, attempting to loosen his good leg's grip around hers as she squirmed in his grasp.

"What?" It was hardly an awake-sounding question, muttered softly against the skin of the back of her neck as his mind appeared to attempt to register the irritant trying to wake him up from the comforts of their position.

"Jesse, wake up. You're— you're spooning me."

There was something about the way that he murmured "so?" into her hair that made her wonder whether he wasn't actually awake. Slowly slipping her legs out of his grip, she managed to extricate herself from his cuddling enough to stand and disappear into the bathroom to brush her teeth. Her shirt had ridden up enough to be considered questionable, but not enough to be sincerely incriminating for Jesse's possessive, wandering paws.

By the time she was done in the bathroom— cell phone timer and all— Jesse was sitting up in bed, looking far more irate than he had mere moments before.

"Jesse, what's wrong? I thought you were still asleep."

"Well, I wasn't."

"What do you—"

"You know what? Do me a favor. Call Finn. Tell him how happy he makes you and how much rather you'd be with him. Tell him that any guy would be lucky to have what he has."

It would have been flattering if it hadn't left his lips with such venom. Jesse looked nothing short of murderous, getting his body up as he stalked into the kitchen to find something edible that didn't require his eyes to prepare, finally settling on an apple.

"Jesse, that's not—"

"No, that's exactly what it is. Get out of my si— field of hearing. I'm fine without you."

"That's ridiculous, you need—"

"I don't need anybody!"

"Just like you didn't need anyone to make you hydroplane and have that truck run into your piece of shit of a car?"

Jesse looked about ready to kill her, glaring in her general direction over the counter. "That's a beautiful and extremely expensive piece of shit, Rachel, and I would keep my mouth shut if I were you, since you have no idea what you're talking about." The thud of his fist slamming down onto the counter shook Rachel enough to throw her off guard, stammering slightly.

"W-well, if you had been driving a Prius—"

"What, like you? Rachel, I would rather be caught dead than driving a Prius!"

"Sports cars are a waste of money, and not to mention, absolutely horrible for the environment!"

"I had two things that mattered to me before you waltzed back into my life, Rachel, and that was my car, my baby, and my career. And now I've lost both of them. I can't see, I can't dance; it's by a goddamn miracle that I can still even sing."

"That had nothing to do with me!"

"Every time you enter my life you turn it upside down, Rachel! I can handle myself just fine without you! I don't need you breaking my heart again!"

There was a long, heavy silence as Jesse seemed to recoil from his slip-up, turning away from her instinctively, Rachel staring at him numbly.

"You're going to a therapist. I'm getting you an appointment as soon as I can," she whispered, swallowing hard, her gaze fixated firmly on the floor. "And I'm not taking no for an answer."