A/N: Wow, over 100 reviews! Much thanks and love to you all, your feedback really keeps me going.
We're getting to the halfway point, since I anticipate about 10-12 chapters total.

The lyrics from Les Miserables were written by Herbert Kretzmer.

A couple of days later Finn was having breakfast when Rachel came up to him, clearly brimming with energy.

"I got the call last night!" she enthused.

"You got the part?" Finn was thrilled, this was great news.

"A callback. They've narrowed it down to two of us, the director said. But it's so exciting! And I have an excellent chance, I just need to make sure that I'm thoroughly prepared."

"What do you have to do? Can I help?"

"Well, they've already heard me sing the solo, so they want the other key moment – the death scene. I'd need to do it with the actor they've already cast as Marius." She gave him a hopeful smile. "You could help me practice that, if you like. Running lines."

"The death scene?" Finn was a little stunned. Sure he'd heard of the musical, thanks to Kurt he was familiar with the major ones, but he hadn't realized Rachel was going to die in it.

"Sure, it makes sense they'd want to see if I can handle it, it's so touching when done properly." She looked back at him, apparently concerned about his pause. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to push for you to –"

"I'd love to help. Really."

"Great!" She beamed at him again, the uncomfortable moment evaporating.

"When's the callback?"

"Not for a couple of weeks. The director has to go away on business apparently." She shrugged. "So they let us know, me and whoever the other girl is, and at least that means I have time to prepare the scene. Thank you so much for helping, it's going to be such an asset for me to be able to rehearse."

"Hey, no problem." Privately Finn wondered if it was a "dying in the man's arms" death scene. He hoped it was.

And you will keep me safe
And you will keep me close
And rain will make the flowers grow

Sitting on his bed, with his arm around Rachel as she sang her character's dying words, Finn was finding rehearsing both amazing and very difficult.

Amazing, because he loved having her with him like that, held close, her hand on his face, the words of caring and faith coming from her lips, sung in her beautiful voice. Difficult, because he had to exercise immense self-control not to pull her even closer, kiss her, throw aside the "if I could close your wounds with words of love" bull that the man had as lines and simply say how he was feeling. The way she was looking at him, such love in her eyes... Acting, he reminded himself. It's what she's supposed to do for the part.

Deep down he hoped she wasn't all that good an actress, that there was something real behind it.

"Finn?" The scene over, Rachel sat up and looked at him. He blinked hard, bringing himself out of his fantasy. "That was great," she chirped. "Don't you think so? Was I convincing?"

"Uh, yeah," he answered. Too convincing.

"I've never seen anyone die, and I know it's for the stage but I don't want to be too overdramatic."

Oh, that. "No, you were good," Finn said. Not that he'd been thinking about whether she looked like she was dying, quite the opposite really.

"Thank you." She stretched, then pushed to the back of the bed, her legs crossed. Finn did his best to not stare at her bare thighs, exposed by how her skirt was riding up. She idly pulled a pillow into her lap, then leaned on it and yawned.

"Are you getting enough sleep?" Finn asked. He knew she'd been kicked out again a couple of nights before, and maybe last night as well.

"Mostly." She stifled another yawn, and pouted. "But that's now, who knows what will happen between now and then. At least I'm supposed to be a dying resistance fighter, if I look tired I can claim it's 'method' or something like that. But I have to be able to sing."

"How's your throat?" This was a big concern, it would suck if after all this preparation her big chance was screwed up thanks to Santana.

"A tickle sometimes. I suppose it could just be my imagination, I'm worried, but – " Rachel clutched the pillow in her lap, getting increasingly agitated. "I can't let Santana know, she'll get worse. She's just doing it to be mean. Last night it was even someone who lives on our floor!"

"He didn't go back to his room?"

"No!" She threw the pillow over at him in disgust, though he caught it easily. "Not until morning. Then I opened my eyes to find him leering down at me, telling me he had more left if I wanted it. Of course I keep my rape whistle close, even if he did leave right away."

Finn didn't like the sound of this at all. He caught her hand, suddenly very serious. "Who was it?" he asked, looking at her intently. "You know if anyone hurts you I'll –"

"Big guy, dark hair, round face. I think she called him Dave. And he was just trying to scare me," Rachel protested. "I was fine."

"Karofsky," Finn gritted out. "He's on the O-line. I'll talk to him."

"I don't want to cause any problems for you with your teammates," Rachel pleaded, looking pained. She gripped his hand in return, stroking the back of it with her thumb, clearly trying to pacify him."It was nothing, really. I wasn't in any danger."

"It's okay. He's an asshole anyway. And the whole team needs to know that they shouldn't mess with you – " he swallowed. "Uh, if anything bad happened it would be really bad for the team, even the idiots should get that." And if anyone did anything to Rachel, he would make it very bad for whoever did it, to hell with the team if they wouldn't support him on that. He'd lost sight of how vulnerable she was, especially out there in the lounge; he needed to protect her, keep her sheltered and comforted like she asked in the song only better. They'd back off if she was his girlfriend, of course, and he wanted that anyway, but he wanted her to want that too, not just for protection but because she wanted to be with him. "Mostly they're not that bad, sometimes it's just that the jackasses drown out the rest, and there's more of them on this floor. I'll talk to them." He squeezed her hand. "It's not any trouble, honestly. Coach always says it's better to head off problems before they happen anyway."

"It won't cause trouble for you?" She looked so concerned, though he couldn't see why.

"No, no way," he reassured her. "The team wants to have a good image, not the dumb swaggering jock crap. Some just haven't gotten over themselves yet and still think every girl is a football groupie. They'll settle down." Or else, he vowed to himself. He was supposed to be the team leader-in-training anyway, it was time he made use of that.

She snorted. "There's a few around who think they're God's gift but they certainly aren't what I've been holding out for." Her lip curled in disdain. "That one definitely isn't."

'Holding out for'? Does that mean what I think it does? Finn wondered, looking away so she wouldn't see his surprise at this information. Wow. The girls he'd been with before had all been experienced, even back in high school. Not Santana-level of experienced, of course, but not their first time either. And now Rachel was telling him... she must want me to know to take it slow, he decided. I can do that. And being with that amazing girl, taking care of her and making her his in a way nobody else ever had – that was worth taking time to get right.

It was tricky though. He was definitely okay with the friends-first thing, especially with her and the way he felt their connection developing, but it was a fine line between being friends first and getting stuck in the friend zone permanently. And she was so vulnerable, not having anyone she could count on other than himself, he really didn't want her to feel like she had to worry about him doing anything that she didn't like. Or that she should pull away or anything like that.

He really didn't want her to pull away.

"At least she wouldn't have been comfortable either," Rachel went on. "He's huge. Or she made him sleep on the floor." She shuddered. "Or in my bed, I'm definitely changing the sheets tonight."

Finn smiled, starting to relax again. "Good idea." Still, he'd better make sure the team knew she was off-limits. And make some progress on letting her know she could count on him, for any way she wanted to be taken care of. He squeezed her hand again, more gently this time. "I'm here," he said, echoing one of the lines he'd said earlier.

She smiled, a little wistfully it seemed. "I know. Thank you." She pulled her hands back and clapped them together, her attitude brightening. She stood. "And this was a wonderful rehearsal. I'll need to run it a couple more times closer to the audition day, but even by itself this was a big help. Thank you so very much."

"Uh... my pleasure," he said, getting up as well. He stretched, then jerked suddenly with a wince as his back spasmed. "Fuck. Uh, sorry..."

"Your back?" Rachel asked solicitously. She had gone towards the door, making to leave, but at this she returned.

"Yeah, the muscle just... I don't know. Been having trouble, it's getting worse."

"May I...?" She came up to him and lightly touched his lower back. "My daddy has back spasms too, I know what to do."

"Uh... yeah, sure." And he felt her hands on him, small and sure, rubbing his spasming muscles. "Oh that's good," he moaned lightly, turning away to let her work – and to cover just how good it felt to have her take care of him like that.

"Sit down," she ordered, gesturing him back to his bed. Once he was sitting, she climbed behind him and resumed her attentions, one hand splayed across his chest for traction, the other kneading into the back muscle. And she was strong, it felt so good... He moaned again, not entirely for the same reason. His back was relaxing all right. Part of his front was not. Not that he could be blamed for that, especially after having her in his arms for the rehearsal. Now she was basically draped around him, and it was all he could do to stop himself from turning around and grabbing her. Which would be extremely bad for his back in addition to probably scaring her off.

She's just trying to help and ohhh... it does. But she smells so good and she feels so good... and I want her so bad... fuck. He tried very hard not to think about how her skirt had completely ridden up and how her groin was starting to press into his ass. God, Rachel. What do you want from me? These signals are seriously mixed.

Still, he reassured himself as he wrested himself back under control, between her legs, even like this, this can't be the friend zone. She's not a tease. I just have to not come on too strong. Somehow.

Finn felt her disengage, and he did his best to smile at her as she clambered back onto the floor. He could barely talk, but he thanked her – his back really was much better – though he stayed sitting and watched her go, his hands clasped in his lap to disguise the hard-on that grew even more as his eyes lingered on her pert ass. This is really fucking hard to take slow. But if that's what she needs... He sighed.

But even 'slow' means progress, right? Hudson, get your shit together and ask her out.

Rachel lay awake in her bed that night. Santana was already asleep, so at least she didn't have to worry there. Instead of sleeping, she kept replaying her evening with Finn and how good it had felt to get so close to him, to feel his body pressed against to hers. To hear him moan at her touch, even though it was only from having his muscles eased.

It had started out with only a little inappropriate advantage-taking, playing the scene and "dying" in his arms. She had rationalized that it would help, sure he was quite a bit bigger than the man cast as Marius but the situation with Finn made it easy for her to get into the role, play that girl deeply in love with an unattainable man. After all, she was doing the same thing as Eponine was, expressing her feelings in the guise of devoted friendship. And yes she'd gotten carried away, letting herself flow with the scene, caressing his face and looking deeply into his eyes. It had felt so good to follow her heart, even while acting. And maybe if she had stopped there, but – being close to Finn was addictive, she'd wanted more and grabbed the chance when she could.

She knew she'd taken such a liberty giving him a backrub, crawling all over him even. Yes it was the same sort of thing she had sometimes done for her daddy when he'd had back spasms, but how she had done it for Finn was entirely different, she couldn't fool herself on that. But he'd let her, and he'd felt so good, she'd even managed to forget for a few moments that it wasn't real, it couldn't be real, he couldn't be hers. He's gay. He has a boyfriend. She had so wanted to keep going, press her head into his shoulder, lean up to kiss his neck and that oh-so-enticing pulse point under his jaw, splay her hand on his stomach a little lower, lower still. She almost had, but she'd been able to stop at the last moment, pull back to reality, knowing that trying anything would damage things between them irreparably, embarrassing herself and pressuring and humiliating Finn. I can't. I mustn't, no matter how much I want to, how much I want him. It would be completely wrong to treat him that way. As it was, she had come very close to taking advantage of his closeted state. A little make-believe was okay, she allowed, and she had eased his back spasm, but actual physical advances were way over the line.

It wasn't like Finn had been leading her on, not really. Everything was kept friendly, despite the close personal contact. Sure there were a few times when she'd wondered if he was wanting to kiss her but – obviously that had just been her imagination. And she got why he stayed closeted, being on the football team and all. The locker room might not quite be the last bastion of aggressive heterosexual masculinity, but it was close, and team cohesiveness was clearly a concern.

She would have thought he could trust her, they were so comfortable together, and he knew about her dads, but oh well. Until then she could dream a little, enjoy the fantasy that he could be hers, that this tall strong sensitive young man would one day be her lover, someone she could share her heart and body and soul with. The man she'd waited for. Such a wonderful fantasy, as long as she remembered that it could only ever be a fantasy.

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