It was a dark, drizzly night in New York City. Thunder rolled in the cloud-mottled sky overhead as a sleek black town car pulled up to the kerb outside Dante's Italian bistro on the Upper West Side. A petite figure slid from the backseat holding an umbrella above her head as a fork of lightning streaked across the night sky.
"Have a good night, miss," the driver called jovially as he prepared to pull away. "I'll collect you and Mr Hudson whenever you're ready."
"Thank you Arthur," Rachel replied with airy poise. She raised her hand in farewell before hurrying into the warmth of the bistro. There was a chorus of wondering murmurs as she shook out her umbrella and removed the calf-length caramel trench coat she had been wearing. A knowing smile crossed her face and she waved patiently to the group of forty-something women sipping wine at a table near the bar. She was used to this by now; the trials of being a Broadway leading lady.
Eventually, a tall olive-skinned waiter appeared at her elbow and ordered a younger waitress, perky and blonde in a way that reminded Rachel irresistibly of Quinn Fabray, to take her things to the cloakroom. Then he directed Rachel to a booth behind a burgundy rope partition where a familiar figure was waiting. The smile which now crossed her face was warmer.
"Good show?" Finn asked, standing up to envelop her in a close embrace. Rachel fell into his touch gratefully. His smell, a curious combination of coffee, chocolate and freshly-mown grass, was a comfort to her on nights like these, when she was drained from performing on stage and just wanted to feel as though somebody loved her instead of the character she portrayed.
"Wonderful," she beamed. "We had a fantastic audience, and you know how I feel that always adds an extra element to the performance, don't you? They were perfect, five curtain calls they demanded- five! Oh Finn, you should have been there, it was-"
"Rach," Finn said with an amused grin. "You're rambling again."
"Sorry," she replied immediately, and she meant it. The prima-donna Rachel from high school had matured in the years since they had left Ohio together, mainly due to the fact that she could see how bored Finn became with her over-the-top reactions and how he could quickly see through her showface to the person beneath. It had taken them a while to mend the bridges they had broken at sixteen, but eventually a tentative relationship had blossomed again and by the time they graduated from McKinley they had been stronger than ever. The pair had decided to come to New York together; Rachel had been accepted to the prestigious Tisch School of the Arts at NYU, while Finn after some deliberation had decided to train as a teacher. Now, Rachel was starring as Maria in West Side Story and Finn was happy teaching sophomore English and coaching his school's glee club. They were no New Directions (How could they be? Rachel mused. They don't have me!) but they were good, and Finn loved coaching them. Rachel figured it was probably Will Schuester's influence; Finn had always had nothing short of admiration for their high school teacher.
"So, how was your day?" Rachel asked brightly, just as the olive-skinned waiter returned to take their order. Rachel chose the mushroom ravioli, while Finn opted for a steaming plate of spaghetti Bolognese. He also ordered a bottle of the house red, shooting Rachel a lopsided smile as he did so. He knew she had a penchant for red wine. Rachel returned his smile and studied him carefully as he made small-talk with the waiter. In many ways, Finn still looked the same as he had in high school. Same broad shoulders, same slightly awkward, loping gait, same shock of brown hair. But instead of the jeans-and-sweater combos he used to wear in high school, he was dressed in a smart shirt and tie. There were more furrows in his brow, and stubble dotted his strong jaw line. He looked much older, but then so did she. She had cut her hair a little shorter, giving her face a more mature look. The demanding nature of her position had given her strong leg and arm muscles and she had finally learned how to apply makeup without looking like a 'sad clown hooker'. Thankfully, her dress sense had also improved marginally since her time at McKinley High School. Gone were the animal-embroidered sweaters and plaid skirts, replaced by a chocolate-brown pencil dress and caramel-coloured stilettos. They had both grown up a lot since McKinley, where Finn was the popular quarterback and Rachel the annoyingly preppy glee freak. She smiled as she thought about how much they had changed. The waiter moved away and she waved a hand in front of Finn. "How was your day?" she repeated with a slight laugh.
"Oh, it was great," Finn said with tired enthusiasm. "The kids are doing Journey for Sectionals, can you believe that? They found some video of New Directions on Youtube- Kurt's doing, you mark my words- and I guess it sparked something in them."
He shook his head with a bark of laughter which Rachel echoed. No doubt, Finn was right; Kurt was bound to be the one who had uploaded their videos onto the internet. Finn's stepbrother had always had a penchant for technology.
"We should look them up when we get home," she said quietly. "It would be nice to see the whole group together, it's been far too long."
"Sure has," Finn agreed. A serious expression washed over his face and he leaned over to take Rachel's hand in his, running a finger over the gold engagement band on her ring finger with satisfaction. "Rach, we need to go home. To Ohio, I mean. To tell people. I-I'd really like to tell my mom face-to-face, you know?"
"Of course," Rachel smiled broadly. "I've been thinking the same thing myself. Of course, I'll have to wait a while before I can take some time off from the show, and it will kill me to hand over the iconic role of Maria to that understudy, Tessa something-or-other and-"
Her ramblings were interrupted, however, by the loud ringing of Finn's cell phone. With an apologetic glance at his new fiancée, Finn fished it from his pocket. He didn't appear to recognise the number, and answered with a tentative "Hello?"
The person on the other end of the line spoke quickly and loudly, though Rachel couldn't quite make out what they were saying. Finn gave a worried little sigh and massaged his temples as he listened to the caller carefully. Eventually, whoever it was stopped talking and Finn glanced around agitatedly.
"What is it?" Rachel asked, anxious.
Finn lowered the phone for a moment and mouthed "Mike."
"Again?" Rachel sighed, saddened. Finn nodded. "Where is he? We'll collect him."
"You sure?"
"Of course. I'm worried about him."
Finn smiled gratefully and spoke quietly to the caller for another couple of moments before hanging up. He shot Rachel an apologetic glance.
"Are you sure? We've been waiting for a night out like this for a while now, I could always call one of his other friends."
"Finn, you and I both know that Mike has no other friends. Not within state boundaries anyway. Where is he?"
" Hush."
"I know it," Rachel nodded, dialling speed dial number two on her own wafer-thin silver cell phone. "Arthur can bring us."
/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/
Thirty minutes later, Rachel and Finn found themselves wading through a deluge of bodies in the overcrowded Hush Bar. The place was upmarket, unlike Mike's usual hangouts, with plenty of chrome and strobe lighting providing a backdrop to the pulsing music blaring from the speakers. Finn held Rachel's hand tightly as he pushed a path through the crowds of revellers until finally they found themselves pushed up against the bar. After a couple of minutes of trying, Finn managed to get the bartender's attention. He had coffee-coloured skin and slanting, almond-shaped eyes that flashed like jewels under the strobe lighting.
"Dude, I got a call from someone here- a Zeke? About a friend of mine..."
"I'm Zeke," the other man replied. "Your friend tall, Asian?"
Finn and Rachel nodded in tandem. Zeke rolled his eyes.
"He's in the back room. Caused a fight, I wanted to toss him out but the guy can barely stand up straight. He's a mess."
"Yeah, we know," Rachel said in a dark undertone that only Finn heard. A pained expression crossed his face. "We can take him off your hands now."
"About time," Zeke grumbled. "Come on through."
The back room, it turned out, was the staff break room. It was a small square room with one tiny postage stamp of a window and sparse furniture consisting of a scrubbed wooden table, two chairs, a row of metal lockers and a squishy black leather sofa. And lying on that sofa, moaning pitifully, was Mike Chang. He was holding a pack of frozen peas to his face and scrunched up in a ball.
"Mike, you OK dude?" Finn called tentatively. At the sound of his name being mentioned, Mike struggled upright. A gasp escaped through Rachel's clenched teeth and she rushed to him instinctively.
"Mike, what happened?" she exclaimed, frantically examining the damage to his face, which resembled a plate of raw meat. One eye was swollen shut and a deep gash ran along the side of his nose. When he spoke, his words were impeded by a mouthful of blood.
"'S OK," he slurred. "Th'other guy looks worse."
Rachel shot Finn a despairing glance and adjusted the frozen peas. Mike groaned pitifully again.
"Mike, nobody's going to book you in this state!" Rachel sighed crossly. Mike had come to New York to make his fortune as a dancer, something the rest of his high school classmates had thought would be a sure thing. But unlike Lima, dancers were ten a penny in New York City and booking jobs had proven to be more difficult than Mike had originally thought. He had only gotten a handful in the few years he had been in the city, and when coupled with Tina breaking up with him, things had only gone from bad to worse. Rachel exchanged sorrowful glances with Finn, standing awkwardly in the doorway; they were used to Mike making a mess of himself, something which had become an increasingly regular occurrence of late, but that didn't make it any easier.
"Doesn' matter," Mike said tiredly. "Nobody wants me anyway."
"Oh, stop feeling sorry for yourself!" Rachel snapped, grabbing him to steady him as he slipped sideways. His sharp breath made her recoil slightly. "Mike, I know you've been having a hard time lately but that is no excuse for doing this to yourself. You are a talented dancer, and a very sweet young man, and I'm sorry Tina couldn't see that, I am, but you will meet someone else, I promise. However, if you keep this up, you'll just alienate everyone."
Mike nodded dumbly, his head lolling onto Rachel's shoulder. "You're right Rachel," he moaned. "'M ruining everything."
"No, no you're not," Rachel soothed. "We can fix this. For now, I want you to come stay with Finn and I. Enough is enough."
"No! No, 'm fine Rach, 'm fine."
"Yeah dude, you're the picture of health," Finn said sarcastically. He came to crouch next to the pair sitting on the sofa and put a comforting hand on Mike's shoulder. "Rachel's right, enough is enough. You're coming home with us."
And before Mike could argue any further, Rachel and Finn heaved him to his feet. One took each of his arms and led him from the room, grunting a little as he tripped sideways into Rachel. Between the two, they managed to get him into the backseat of the town car where he promptly fell asleep, snoring softly into Finn's shirt.
"I'm really worried about him Finn," Rachel said quietly, stroking a stray strand of hair from Mike's clammy brow. Finn glanced down at their friend with a sad expression on his normally cheerful face.
"Me too," he replied. "He's really screwed up, isn't he?"
Rachel nodded sadly and fell silent. Eventually, the car came to a stop outside the brownstone she and Finn shared and between them they managed to haul Mike's dead weight inside. Their friend woke up only once in the night, and that was to spend twenty minutes dry heaving into the toilet with Rachel massaging his back and Finn hovering in the background with a glass of water and soothing words.
/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/
"My head!" Mike Chang groaned, struggling upright on Rachel and Finn's slate grey sofa. Finn, perched at the breakfast bar in the next room, sniggered.
"That's what you get when you spend every other night pickling your liver," he informed Mike with a grin. Mike rolled his eyes and immediately regretted the action. He winced and flopped back against the fuchsia scatter cushions Rachel had spent four hours picking out in a Manhattan drapery shop.
"Dude, I'm sorry," he whispered, his throat dry and papery. "I'm always doing this, you and Rachel must be sick of me by now."
"Not sick, worried," Rachel corrected airily, emerging from the bedroom in a white bathrobe embroidered with gold stars. She bustled about the kitchen for a moment before coming to sit next to Mike on the sofa with a pint glass of water and a couple of painkillers which Mike accepted gratefully.
"What the hell happened last night?" Mike asked her after polishing off most of the water. Rachel smiled at his panicked tone. "I feel like I got hit by a bus."
"Pretty much," Finn called over the sound of the morning news bulletin on the TV. "You got in a barfight. Again. Rachel was in hysterics when we came to collect you."
"Hardly hysterics Finn," Rachel shot back playfully. She wrapped a comforting arm around Mike, who looked like death warmed up and was trembling. "But I was worried. I am. You need to get yourself sorted out Mike, I mean it."
"You're right," the dancer replied with a yawn. "I won't bother you guys anymore, I'm going to get this sorted, I-"
His plans were interrupted by the sound of breaking glass coming from the kitchen. Mike winced at the loud noise and Rachel rolled her eyes.
"Not again," she muttered. "Finn, was that another one from the set my dads got us?"
No reply.
"Finn?"
Silence.
Perplexed, Rachel made her way across the living room with Mike ambling languidly in her wake. She stopped in her tracks in the kitchen doorway. Finn was sitting at the breakfast bar, the remains of his glass shattered at his feet, but he didn't seem to be aware of that. He was staring open-mouthed at the TV screen wearing an expression that chilled Rachel to the core. He looked as though he had just seen a ghost.
"Finn, what's wrong?" she whispered anxiously. Her voice seemed to shake him from his trance and he pointed dumbly at the perky blonde reporter on the screen.
"Will Schuester was best known for leading the McKinley High New Directions to three consecutive Showchoir National Championships from 2010 to 2012, but in recent months had suffered from a decline in mental health. He was discovered at his home by his wife Emma. Foul play is not suspected."
The words floored Rachel, and behind her she could hear Mike swear with such vehemence that Quinn Fabray would probably have thumped him over the head. Will Schuester, dead? It defied the realms of possibility. Rachel felt tears rise in her eyes and rushed to Finn's side. He took her hand and touched her engagement ring again.
"Looks like we'll be heading back to Lima sooner than we thought."
/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/
A/N: Thanks to everyone who has read so far, I promise the pace will pick up once people get back to Lima. Special thanks to FireApe, Written-in-hearts, Bonesluver and MacieXOXO145 for the reviews of the last chapter. Keep up the good work, people!