I don't own Glee, I just really love it.
Rachel thought she would be happier. Finn had saved enough money for the summer's rent, so she didn't have to get a job until fall. She spends all day auditioning and all night with him. There are a lot of good things, but it's been hard to realize that the star of Lima, Ohio is just another girl in New York City. She's been to every audition she comes across and she gets callbacks sometimes, but she has yet to get a role. By fall, she is discouraged and she has to work in a bookstore by the apartment to help pay the bills. She is envious of the new job Tina has, blogging for a make up website, and it's hard to watch how much joy Finn gets from his teaching job, when she feels like such a failure.
She loves spending time with Finn, in the evenings they lie on the couch and he tells her about the funny things his kids said and he listens to her audition horror stories. Sometimes they watch a movie or he helps her practice for an audition. He teases her that he can recite her monologue and sometimes he finds himself humming "On My Own" on his walk home from school.
They don't have a lot of money, so they don't get to go back to Lima until Christmas. They stay with Burt and Carole, because Rachel doesnt want to talk to her dads about why she doesn't have a role yet. On Christmas morning, Finn wakes her up, because he says he's too excited to wait another minute to give her her gift. She laughs, because he already gave her eight little gifts for Hanukkah and says he spoils her too much. But she loses her breath when he hands her a familiar blue box.
"I love you, Rachel. I can't promise you a New York penthouse or fancy cars, but I can promise to love you forever. Will you marry me?" And she can't speak, she just nods her head and smiles, kissing him in reply. They go downstairs so Carole can ooh and ahh at the ring, and her dads are so excited for wedding planning, they don't even mention Broadway. But things are suddenly going her way, and when they get back to New York, she books a musical, it's off off Broadway, but at least it pays. She throws herself into the role, hoping she'll lose her funk and really start to love performing again.
They let Carole handle all the wedding plans, since it will be in Lima and neither of them really cares about the details as long as they will be Mr. and Mrs. Hudson at the end. And when he kisses her at the end of the late summer ceremony, she's never felt more beautiful in her life. All of their friends and even some of their teachers are at the ceremony, but the day passes by in such a blur, she barely remembers talking to them. Before she knows it, the honeymoon is over and they are back in New York, getting ready for Finn's second year of teaching.
Finn's students love him, he tries to play it cool, but he is so proud of his "2016 Favorite Teacher" plaque. He loves teaching, especially History, it's like telling stories all day. Now that Rachel is his wife, he can't really think of anyway he could be happier. Except for his mom to stop asking him to give her some grandbabies and come home. He tells her someday, on the kids, anyway. He can't see Rachel ever moving back there, except sometimes, when he's picturing the future, he thinks it'd be sad if his mom couldn't babysit and it might be cool to see his son in a WMH football jersey. But he's pretty happy in New York, he loves coming home to Rachel every night.
His second year of teaching goes as well as his first. Rachel does a couple more plays and musicals, nothing long running and nothing on Broadway. She really loves doing the plays, especially when Finn or her dads are in the audience, but the auditioning is really burning her out. Rachel Hudson does not take rejection well. When she sees an ad for a community theater director in the classifieds, she circles it and calls the number before she can back down. They tell her they need someone to direct two fundraisers and their annual musical while their usual director takes 6 months for maternity leave. Rachel has a milllion ideas before she even hangs up the phone and later that week she nails the interview and walks away with the job. Finn comes home to find her pouring over scripts and he watches while she talks excitedly about all of her ideas and thinks he hasn't seen her this happy about anything since their glee club days.
Rachel watches her actors from the wings. It's their very first production under her direction and it's going well. She's got a list of things she'll change for next time, but she can't believe she's done this all by herself. And she feels like she's shown incredible restraint by not casting herself as the lead. At the end of the night, the cast takes their bows and they pull her out on the stage and hand her a bunch of roses and let her take a bow too. Her smile is huge, her eyes are sparkling, and she knows this applause is all for her. She feels like the star she's always wanted to be. When they ask her to stay on, because the old director doesn't want to come back from leave, she doesn't even have to think before she says yes. Her dads are a little disappointed she won't be on Broadway, but they've never been able to say no to her.
Now she has play rehearsals and finance meetings and networking events and Finn and her life is busy, but it's never been more perfect.