A/N: Work is so totally kicking my ass right now. This took me a whole week to finish. Reviews = Love!

"Finn," she says in a sing-song voice as she sits on the edge of the bed, gently running her hand up and down his arm. "Baby, wake up." She grins at the aggravated look on his face as he swats her hand away and turns on his side. Determined, she pulls him back by the arm, gently shaking him.

"Finn, Finn wake up!" she says, a little louder as he groans and resists her.

"s'too early," he mumbles.

"It's time to seize the day!"

"Five minutes," he pleads as his eyes remain stubbornly closed. Undeterred, she keeps shaking him until he finally heaves a huge sigh of resignation and forces his eyes open. Rachel is smiling at him, her beam blinding as she looms over him. He doesn't know what she's so happy about anyway. How can anyone be happy this early in the morning?

"Work sucks ass," he mumbles sourly, frowning at the thought of leaving his tiny bed. Yeah it's tiny and barely fits him and Rachel together. So what if they couldn't have bought a bigger one if they could have afforded it because it's already taking up a quarter of their tiny room to begin with? It's his bed and he wants to stay in it and sleep.

"It's Friday," she says soothingly, pulling his arm to force him upright. "We have all weekend to be lazy. C'mon Finn, today's a big day!"

"What are you so happy about?" he mutters, allowing her tiny body to pull him out of bed and to the bathroom. Rachel gasps dramatically, stopping in her tracks to look at him with wide eyes. His memory returns before she could start her tirade, although he could already see the pink spots on her cheeks.

"Ah, right. The audition," he says quickly, wide awake.

"Not just the audition Finn. It's Evita. Evita! Granted, yes it is an off Broadway production, and it's not the most well-recognized company at that, but regardless-"

"Evita is your dream role and the chance to play her in any way, shape or form has been one of your many, many lifelong dreams," he finishes, grinning as she rolls her eyes at him, knowing he's off the hook for remembering that. Of course he does. She's only said those words like, a million times in the past two weeks, ever since she came home one day, jumping up and down like she was on crack as she practically shoved the casting call ad in his face. He looks down at her and sees that she's already dressed, her feet tapping impatiently against the floor. He realizes that she hasn't stopped moving the whole time he's been awake.

"How long have you been up?"

"Since five. I couldn't sleep," she admits, at the surprised look on his face. "So I made pancakes!"

"You what?" he asks blankly.

"Pancakes. You know, those round fluffy things we eat with honey? Or in your case, drown in it."

"Haha, very funny. You can't stop moving can you?" he asks in amusement, as she throws a towel in his face. He lets it dangle off his shoulder, biting back a laugh.

"I can too."

"Yeah? Stop moving."

"I'm not moving."

"Stop tapping your feet."

"Oh please, like that means anything,"

"Now your fingers."

"You're being ridiculous Finn," she tells him witheringly, keeping her fingers stationary. He could practically see her vibrating in place.

"Rachel you need to relax. You know you're gonna be awesome."

"You're just saying that because you love me," she answers, her feet going back to tap incessantly against the floor.

"Yeah, well I love you 'cause you're awesome," he retorts, grinning as he leans down to kiss her cheek.

"You're cute Hudson, I'll give you that," she says with a grin.

"Thanks, I try real hard."

"Thanks Finn," she says genuinely, looking up at him with a grateful smile. He grins as he hooks both his index fingers through the belt loops of her skirt and pulls her against him.

"Go kick ass Berry," he says in a serious tone as he leans down to kiss her.

"I will. Now hurry up before Al gets to all the pancake."

He gasps dramatically, straightening up and hurrying towards the bathroom.

"You left all the pancake with him? Rach, you know the dude's a pancake hogger. You should have hoarded some for me. I'm your boyfriend."

Xxx

She leaves him a message asking him if he'll be home soon. He looks up at the mountain of payroll he has yet to go through and sighs, sending a quick reply of the negative.

Ten minutes later and he realizes that she hasn't replied to his text and frowns. Rachel always has the last word, no matter what. Even if it was just to send an 'I love you more' to his 'love you too'. He grabs his phone and calls her, frowning as it goes straight to voicemail.

She replies fifteen seconds after that, telling him that she's going out with Al for the night and he relaxes visibly as he continues with his work.

Xxx

His phone rings just as he's shrugging on his jacket, and he stretches his free hand out to grab it from his table. He smiles when he sees her name flashing on the screen.

"Hey baby," he answers easily, grabbing his sling-bag and stepping out of his cubicle.

"You need to come down here right now."

"Al?"

"Yeah yeah it's me. Listen, where are you?"

"I'm at the office," he answers with a frown, briskly walking towards the elevator.

"Are you leaving soon?"

"Yeah, I was just about to actually."

"Awesome, you need to get down here quickly."

"Where's 'here'? What happened? Is Rachel okay?"

"Well you know that karaoke bar we went to last week?"

"You took her to Chinatown?" he asks incredulously.

"Excuse me," Al sniffs. "I did not take her anywhere. She was the one who cut my day of luxury short to drag me to this singing marathon. Of which, you need to get down here. She's been hogging the mike for like, an hour now. There's a drag queen who looks like Lady Gaga, if she were a hundred pounds overweight, that's been waiting on the side for the last forty five minutes, and the man does not look happy."

"I'm coming. Just make sure nothing happens to her, okay?"

"Yeah well, I'll try."

xxx

the first thing he sees when he pushes the pub door open is a three hundred pound man in drag, singing Born This Way and jiggling his hips like there's no tomorrow. A loud, familiar whoop catches his attention and the next thing he sees is Rachel, a few feet away, hanging precariously off her chair as she takes it upon herself to be said man's personal cheerleader. The only thing preventing her from falling headfirst to the floor is Al's vice grip on her arm. Al's looking partly bored and partly desperate and when he catches sight of Finn standing bewilderedly at the entrance, his expression changes immediately into one of relief.

"Finn!" He doesn't think he's ever heard his name being called out quite so gratefully. He makes his way to his obviously drunk girlfriend and her exasperated bestfriend. She's still screaming her head off for the dude on stage and Finn thinks she must be spurring him on or something, 'cause right after his song was done Madonna's Express Yourself comes up and the guy's back on stage, dancing in full force.

"What happened?" he yells over the sound of the music. Al shrugs helplessly, pulling him down and pushing Rachel against him as he stands.

"I'm not particularly sure. Somewhere between let's have fun and about ten jello shots, we didn't get around to talking much."

"Ten?" Finn asks incredulously. "You couldn't have held her off?"

"Excuse me," Al answers sourly, rolling his eyes as he shrugs on his coat. "Aren't you her boyfriend? When has anyone ever been able to stop Rachel Berry from doing whatever the hell she wanted?"

Good point.

It seems like Rachel's finally noticed who she's been leaning against as she looks up and shoots him an unfocused beam.

"Baaaby!" she exclaims, throwing her arms clumsily around his neck. Or at least she tried to. She smacked him in the head instead. Finn winced at the contact, keeping a firm grip around her waist as he pulls her closer.

"Well, now that you're here, I'm going to relay my babysitting duties to you. John and I were supposed to have dinner half an hour ago," Al says as he zips up his coat and slaps some dollar bills on the table.

"Sorry man," Finn apologizes. "Take your money, it's on me."

"You sure? McDrunk over there rang up quite a tab."

Finn sighs, trying to ignore her fingers which are currently making a trail just above the waistband of his pants. He nods at Al and waves as the smaller man makes his way to the door.

"Where's Allan going?" Rachel slurs.

"He has a date babe. What happened Rachel?" he asks, pulling away to look her in the eye. Her gaze is unfocused as he pulls her jaw up to face him. She stares up at him for the longest time, puzzled.

"Where?" she finally says.

"What?" he asks, confused.

"Who? What are we talkin' 'bout? Why're you looking at me like that Finny?"

"Like what?" he asks gently as the final melodies of Madonna plays out and momentary silence fills the air.

"Like I'm in trouble," she answers, pouting. She reaches her hands up towards his face, her soft fingers prodding his frown into a forced smile. She grins playfully up at him. "There. Thass better."

He laughs despite himself, gripping her a little tighter as she teeters slightly on the spot. If there's one thing he knows about a wasted Rachel, it's that she's never boring.

"Let's go home, 'kay?" he whispers in her ear. She giggles as his breath hits her skin, her fingers curling around his loosened tie.

"One more drink?" she asks innocently. He grins and shakes his head.

Xxx

"Baby you need to keep your arms around me," he tells her for the tenth time as she throws her arms up in the air. He keeps his hands hooked firmly around her thighs, leaning to the front to make sure that she doesn't fall off his back. Giving Rachel Berry a piggyback ride when she's drunk off her ass and won't stop moving is proving to be more difficult than he thought. He's starting to regret not hailing a cab and caving in to Rachel's plea for them to walk. Especially since she's not the one doing all the walking. He feels her leaning forwards, pressing herself against his back as she loops her arms tightly around him.

"There aren't any stars here," she says sadly in his ear.

"It's New York City, Rach," he answers, attempting to adjust into a more comfortable position. She keeps quiet for a few seconds, breathing softly against the back of his neck.

"I know," she whispers. He frowns at the tone of her voice, wishing that he could turn his head to look at her, but the way she's leaning her head against his shoulder is making it impossible.

"What's wrong?" he asks gently.

"I miss home," she mumbles.

"Lima?"

"You could always see the stars there."

"Yeah," he agrees carefully. Something's wrong. He just knows it. "But I've got my brightest star right here."

"Where?" she asks, and her arms leave their position again as she pulls away to look up at the sky.

"Arms Rachel," he says quickly. She grumbles but obliges, curling her arms back around him. "On my back, silly."

"What? Oh. Really?" she asks quietly, uncertain.

"Duh," he answers lightly, jostling her in a joking manner. He feels her tighten her arms around him, her legs curling themselves around his waist in a tight embrace. He doesn't know what happened, but he thinks he helped. He hopes he did.

"Finn?"

"Hmm?"

"I think I lost my shoes."

Xxx

She's giggling as he helps her wriggle out of her top, her right hand grabbing his tie to pull him on top of her once it's off.

"Let's do it," she whispers gleefully as he falls on top of her, quickly placing his palms on the mattress so he doesn't crush her. She winds his tie around her fingers as she grins up at him. He laughs as their foreheads touch and shakes his head.

"Not tonight baby."

"Why not?" she asks, pouting. He grabs her sweatshirt off the bed and pulls it over her head while she stubbornly refuses to let it go through.

"Rachel," he says, laughing as she pushes her body down on the bed, making it hard for him to slide the material down her body.

"C'mon Finny," she mumbles, her hands gently pulling his shirt out of his pants. "I wanna do it."

"No you don't," he answers, amused. "You're too plastered."

"Why don't you wanna do it with meee?" she whines, frowning.

"Because you're too drunk, and I'm too not drunk. S'not gonna be fun babe."

"S'always fun," she mumbles. That is true. But still, his mom taught him better than that. "Is it 'cause I'm not pretty?"

"What? Now you're just being stupid," he tells her reasonably, looking down at her forlorn expression.

"It's 'cause of my nose, isn't it. You think I'm ugly."

"Rachel, I think you're beautiful," he tells her seriously.

"You're lying," she mumbles. "Don't lie to me!"

What the hell is going on?

"I'm not lying! I think you're the prettiest girl I know."

"Prettier than Quinn?" she asks, looking up at him and scrunching her nose doubtfully. She's blinking up at him, wide eyed and unfocused at the same time.

"Way prettier."

"Prettier than Santana?"

"Duh."

"Prettier than Mary Beth Stevenson?"

Even when she's drunk, she remembers that name he thinks, shaking his head.

"You're the prettiest," he promises as she slowly relents and allows him to pull her shirt down.

"Prettier than that girl who's gonna play Evita?"

Oh.

"You didn't get the part?" he asks quietly, looking down at her. She shakes her head, her big brown eyes filling up with tears.

"They said I didn't have the right look."

Those fuckers.

"They're idiots. You have the right look for everything," he tells her confidently.

"Really?"

"Totally. And that girl's gonna look like a sack of peanuts if she ever stands next to you."

That doesn't make any sense, but she's drunk enough that she beams up at him anyway, so who cares?

"You're my Finny," she tells him seriously, tugging at his arms until he lies back on top of her. "You're mine," she repeats firmly.

"All yours," he promises, grinning.

"Good," she answers, before giving way to a loud yawn.

"Go to sleep baby," he tells her, kissing her forehead.

" 'Kay. Hey Finn?"

"Yeah?"

"I like your face," she tells him sleepily as she closes her eyes.

Xxx

It's ten in the morning and she's drooling on her pillow. He grins. If she still had her Polaroid, this would have made an epic picture. He hears Al and John bustling in the kitchen outside, taking turns singing Sinatra to one another. He watches as she blinks rapidly before her eyes slowly open. Rachel groans, one hand immediately clutching the side of her head.

"Good morning," he greets in a sing-song voice. She turns to look at him and frowns.

"My head hurts," she mumbles pathetically.

"I know," he answers, amused, as he gets up off the bed to reach for the glass of water on the bedside table. "Here you go."

"What happened?" she asks after downing the whole glass.

"Ten jello shots happened," he answered nonchalantly.

"Oh no," she moans.

"Yep. You're suffering through a classic case of hangover."

"Ugh," she groans. "I'm never drinking again."

"That's what you said the last time. And the time before that."

"I mean it this time."

"Of course you do," he says obligingly. She stares glumly back at him and he wonders if she remembers anything from last night. Even if she doesn't, she'll probably remember everything about that stupid audition. He smiles at her as he leans over to kiss her cheek.

"I think there's Gatorade in the fridge. I'll go look okay?"

"Thanks Finn," she answers gratefully, smiling at him. He feels her eyes following him as he takes those seven steps that lead towards the exit.

"Hey Rach?" he says as he reaches the door, his hand on the knob. He turns to find her staring expectantly at him.

"Yeah?"

"I like your face," he tells her, grinning at her perplexed expression as he slips quietly out the door.