Reviews are as always, GREATLY appreciated. Beginning to wind down on this story and it can go two very different ways based on the feedback I get =) P.S. anyone else feel the overwhelming absence of Finn on Glee last night? So sad already. =(
"Hey, Rach?" Finn asked from the couch as Rachel sat on the floor, reading over lines for her drama class.
"Yeah, Babe?" She answered, notably distracted.
"What do you think about going to Lima for the summer?" He grinned mischievously in a cute offense to her supposed negative response.
She looked up from her papers and shrugged her shoulders, "Sure. It'll be good to see our families, especially with the baby coming."
"Wait you really want to go?" Surprised there wasn't a catch.
"Well, yeah, as long as you don't expect to sleep with me at my dad's house."
He grimaced,"Rach, we're pregnant. I think we've kind of passed that point of contention with our parents."
She threw down the papers in her hands and stood up in record time, with her judgmental hand on her judgmental hip, "If you think for one second, Hudson, that I'm going to be some Harlot in her dads' house fornicating under their roof out of wedlock you've got another thing coming."
"What makes this different than when we had sex in your dad's house before?" He asked with a puzzled look on his face.
She frowned the frown he grew to dread. It was the frown that turned into tears, "I just want to maintain some sense of normalcy, Finn! I'm 19 and I'm pregnant and I'm living with my baby daddy, it's all a lot to take in, especially for my dad's. I'm their only daughter and I already failed them."
He offered her a sympathetic half smile and wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her close, "You did not fail, Rachel. Life threw us a curve ball, but we're dealing with it. We're both in school, I have a job lined up, I am completely committed to you. I don't see where we've gone wrong, to be honest."
She put his hand over her little bump and raised her eyebrow, "I think we went wrong right about here."
He looked at her, visibly upset, "Don't say that, Rachel."
Rachel looked and felt completely guilty, "I—I didn't mean it like that." She quickly walked away into the kitchen and Finn followed.
"Rach, I know you didn't mean it. He can't hear you, don't worry. Don't be upset, please." She was cutting a cucumber furiously and it was honestly beginning to scare him. So much so that he reached over and grabbed the knife from her hand. "Bad Rachel."
She covered her face with her hands and sobbed into them. Finn instinctively pulled her into his chest and rubbed her back, "It's ok, Rach."
She just shook her head furiously into his shirt. In a muffled sob she muttered, "I'M A HORRIBLE MOM! You have more of a natural connection with the baby than I do!" She pulled her face out of his shirt, "I'm his mother, Finn! He's growing inside of me!"
"Babe, you're completely overreacting." He soothed her as he ran his fingers through her hair.
"No, I'm not because I meant it. I-I don't think of things the way you do, Finn. I love him, Chance, more than anything and the fact that I'm of having your baby is the most wonderful feeling I've ever experienced but I still can't help but feel that we made a mistake, Finn. The timing is just so wrong." She asserted.
He pulled back a bit, "What are you saying? You don't want him anymore?" Finn felt as if he were staring back at a stranger.
"No, that's not what I'm saying, I just—" Finn stopped her, "No, you don't have to say anything at all, Rachel. I know exactly what you meant, that the baby is just a hurdle for you being on Broadway. I'm sorry we're such an inconvenience to you, Shelby." He spat at her, hoping it hurt. It did. She backed away slowly with her hands covering her mouth and then promptly ran into their bedroom and slammed the door.
He sunk onto the couch and rubbed his temples, not feeling bad. She deserved what he said for her selfishness. He needed to get out of the apartment; it felt like it was suffocating him. Before he left, he knocked on her door and breathed in, "Just so you know, you can have an out at any point you want. I'll raise him by myself. He's my kid, and I'm going to do right by him no matter what your plans are."
Finn sat at the bar down the block, not even needing to show his fake ID because everyone had always assumed he was so much older than he was. He figured it was due to his abnormal height, whatever, it worked.
As he sipped on his Sam Adam's summer ale, he couldn't help but mull over the argument with Rachel. Maybe he was too hard on her. After all, it wasn't his body changing, he didn't have to bear the visible marks of a late teen pregnancy, and maybe he'd be resentful too if the roles were reversed. Lost in his thoughts, he didn't notice the tall, blonde, voluptuous bartender staring at him.
"Hey, you look like you could use something a little stronger than that." She winked as she poured him a double shot of whiskey.
"I don't know, I probably shouldn't," He protested.
She rolled her eyes as she slid the shot glass over to him, "It's on the house, Kid."
He looked around, as if he was waiting for someone to reprimand him and downed the shot like a pro.
She smiled wide, "That's what I'm talking about. Next shot's on you. Between you and me I'm more of a tequila gal."
He blushed, was she flirting with him? She had to be at least twenty three, and it would be totally awesome and Puck-worthy if he wasn't kind of having a baby with the love of his life. He shuffled around in his pocket for his wallet and placed a $10 on the bar, "You better have lime."
No shame in making friends, right?
"Just come to the bar with me, it'll make you feel better." Santana assured her while putting a supportive hand on her knee.
Rachel looked up at her, "You do know I can't drink anything, right?"
Santana waved a nonchalant hand, "Oh, that's just what they say one drink won't do anything. My mom told me she went on a bar crawl the day before she found out she was pregnant with me. Look how I turned out!"
Rachel put her hand to her stomach, "That doesn't help your argument, Santana."
"Oh come on Rach, just come to get out of the apartment. We'll dance, sing karaoke…" She taunted.
Rachel was never one to resist karaoke, "Alright, let me put something a little more appropriate on."
Rachel returned in a black empire waisted cocktail dress with pumps, perfectly concealing her small bump.
"Berry, you look hot. Like not pregnant hot, good for you!" Santana clapped.
Rachel laughed as she linked her arm with her friend, "Let's go dancing!"
Finn's sight, along with his judgment, was getting a bit hazy at this point into the night. He was pretty sure he did about ten shots of straight liquor, two beers, and a few keg stands. He ROCKED. He also didn't push the older blond off of his arm. She hadn't tried anything, so he let her stay there in a last dig to his fight with Rachel. He didn't need her. He wasn't really staring at anything in particular when she caught his eye. This girl with long brown hair that curled gently at the blond tips that flowed down onto her short dress that showed off her tan legs that went on forever in those high heels had certainly caught his attention. He stared at her way too drunkenly long and she came over to him.
She leaned down slowly to his face, her lips almost touching his and seethed, "Don't come home tonight."
That's when his eyes went back into focus and realized that the hot brunette was the woman carrying his unborn child, who had walked into a scene that looked pretty compromising with a blond chick covered in tattoos hanging off of him. He went to grab her, to stop her and try and explain but his reflexes were just too damn slow because of all the alcohol. Then he noticed something funny—she didn't leave in one of her usual diva storm outs. She went into the middle of the dance floor, Santana in toe. She was laughing and grinding on Santana just to elicit cheers from all of the men in the room, and boy were they cheering. Soon enough the hounds closed in around them, grabbing at them, wanting a chance to dance with the two. Furious, he shook the sleeping blond off of his arm and marched to the dance floor. He parted his way through the stupid dirt bags surrounding his beautiful girl and grabbed her into his arms. She looked up at him, surprised by his assertiveness.
"What are you doing?" She hissed.
He looked down at her, his hands clutching either side of her waist, "Claiming what's mine."
Knowing she wasn't strong enough to pull away from his drunken grip, she decided to use words as her weapons instead, "She's right over there drooling on the bar. I wonder if she knows that you've already knocked someone else up."
He was shook by her insult; he hadn't realized just how bad it looked when the bartender was on his arm, "Rachel, absolutely nothing happened with her. We just did some shots together and talked—mostly about you!"
When he finally released his hands from her, she slipped away to Santana who went up to Finn and smacked him across the face.
"There are just some things you don't do, Finn. Tell Blondie that that Chinese character she has tattooed on her shoulder means 'butt face' in Mandarin." With that Santana pivoted and grabbed Rachel's hand as they hurried out of the bar.
Rachel began running, and Santana was struggling to keep up. "BERRY! How the hell do you run so fast in these things, come on wait up!"
Rachel stopped to catch her breath as tears streamed down her face, "This is all so wrong, Santana. This, this is exactly why I said what I said! We're not ready for this! He isn't ready to be committed to me if this is what happens when we get into a fight! This baby deserves more than two immature, jealous kids trying to one up each other! He needs stability, he needs consistency, he needs a family. I just don't think we can give him that." Santana took the smaller girl into her arms.
"Shhh, shhh. It's gunna be okay, Rachel. We'll all figure it out. You're just upset and he's upset. You guys love each other unlike any other love I've seen. If you two freaks can't make it I don't know who can. But I do know one thing, Rach. He loves that baby and I know he's going to be a fantastic frankenteen of a father. Don't doubt that." Santana ran her hand up and down Rachel's back to sooth her sobbing body.
Santana had put Rachel to bed, calming her down the best way she knew how with a big bowl of ice cream and marathon showing of Funny Girl. She was about to take a shower when Finn walked into the apartment, completely downtrodden and a lot more sober than he was before.
"How is she?" He asked with one hand to his forehead in concern.
Santana shrugged, "Why do you care?"
"Come on, Santana. You know I would never cheat on her. It was a stupid flirtation I swear it." He held his hand to his heart.
She rolled her eyes, damn it if he wasn't trustworthy, "Don't do something stupid like that ever again. She's pregnant with your baby, Finn. There's not a more vulnerable place to be than that." With that, Santana shut the bathroom door behind her and left Finn in the uncomfortably quiet living room by himself. He eyed their door down the hallway and his heart raced as he thought about opening it. He didn't want to face her because he felt like a complete jackass, but also because he still wasn't sure about her stance on the baby, and he had every right to be upset about that.
He walked down the hall and opened their bedroom door just a smidge when he stopped to see Rachel talking to her belly.
"I know Daddy doesn't think so, but I love you so much baby. There's not a second that goes by that I don't worry if you're okay, or if I'm doing the right thing for you. Daddy thinks it's because I'm selfish and maybe, maybe in the beginning, before I really knew you I was. But now, I just—I just want you to have the best life possible, even if that means having to do something that will literally kill me. If I give you up I just want you to understand that in doing that I lost a part of myself. Daddy and I just can't seem to get our act together, and that's not fair to a little baby who needs unconditional love, support, and certainty. I so wish we could, especially for you Chance. You're the best part of both of us."
Finn pushed the door open to see Rachel with her hands rubbing her belly and her face flushed from realizing she had been snooped on.
"Rachel…" He went to the side of the bed and kneeled down in front of her.
"Don't you understand how much you mean to me? How much he means to me? I would give up EVERYTHING I ever had just to make you both happy. I can give consistency, I can give support, and you know I love you both more than anything in this world. Just give me a chance, Rach. Let go of your fear, because I'm not going to leave you. Not ever. Tonight was a stupid fight but you know what? It made me realize exactly what you said to Chance. We're not stupid kids anymore, we're about to be someone's parents and we have to start acting like it. From now on, no more storm outs, no more drowning our sorrows at the bar, no more blow outs. We handle things like adults. We trust each other." He took her hand in his as he fidgeted around in his pocket with the other.
"Marry me, Rachel. It's all I've wanted to do since you petrified me on stage singing Grease. I wanted to marry you a year ago, I want to marry you now. I never stopped wanting you." He presented the ring she had word their senior year in hopes she would resume wearing it.
She grabbed his face and pushed her lips against his. She'd never get tired of the spark they shared whenever they kissed. His vulnerable face on his big body made him all the more endearing when he poured her heart out to her and she couldn't help but believe in every word he said. He was the best man she had ever known, and she was sure that when he vowed something he'd keep it.
"Yes, Finn. I'll marry you."