Mr Schue had gathered the rest of the club, and now he and Rachel stood in front of them in the choir room. Everyone except Puck - who seemed both nervous and slightly amused - were looking puzzled.
"Mr Schue, is this about the note I left you? Because I swear my Spanish homework is now up on Ebay. They just snatched it out of my hand!" Brittany sounded so upset that they all had to laugh.
"No, Brittany, it's not about your homework. If it was, d'you think I would've asked the rest of Glee to come here?", mr Schue said. "It's about... Me and Rachel."
The room fell silent. Rachel blushed, but tried to look the others in the eye.
"We know that you know we've had a relationship", she said.
"God, it's true!", Artie broke out.
She smiled. "Uh, yes, it is."
"And we want to ask you a favour. If this gets out, I'll get fired. And, quite frankly, I don't wanna get fired...", mr Schue said.
"Maybe you should've thought about that a bit earlier." Finn's monotone voice made Rachel's heart break. Jesus, what a mess.
"What we did was wrong", she said. "But done is done. All we're asking for is that you won't tell anyone about it. We don't want to lose mr Schue, do we?"
"I don't", Puck said loudly. "I think he's important for the club. We should keep quiet for our own sake."
"Yeah?" Mercedes said. "But why should we listen to you? You're her boyfriend, you'd agree with anything she said!"
"Yeah, I would", Puck simply answered, and made Rachel's heart mend itself.
"No offense, mr Schue, but I for one couldn't care less if you get fired or not. What do we get out of this?" Kurt had a brilliant idea, and he wasn't going to let it go in the first place. "I think we have the right to ask you something in return, don't we?"
Mr Schue, ignoring Rachel's frantic head-shakes, nodded. "Of course. It's not more than right, Rach."
"Excellent." Kurt smiled, and stood up. "It has suddenly become clear why Rachel's always getting all the solos. You're favouring her! Why didn't you pick Mercedes, or Tina, or Santana?"
Both mr Schue and Santana shuffled their feet at the mention of her name, but said nothing.
"I'm not saying that you should sleep with all of them, just for the justice of it. But Rachel can no longer have every solo in this group."
Rachel looked furious, but kept silent. The rest of the club nodded vigorously.
"I'm sorry, Rachel. You're not winning this time." Kurt sat down again.

And so it was settled. The club had to swear that they weren't going to tell anyone about Rachel and mr Schue, and mr Schue had to swear that everyone who wanted a solo could have one.
"I'd swear, too, if it wasn't so not-Rachel!" she said later, in Puck's room. They were sitting on his bed, and yes, she had cried for a while.
"Baby, relax", Puck said and placed his arm around her shoulders.
"It's just that... Everyone knows that I'm the best singer! If Brittany's going to sing all the solos, then how will we ever win anything? They're ruining our chances!"
"Relax", Puck repeated. "Listen to me. It's not all about winning. Sometimes you have to give something in return. And Brittany's not singing all the solos. You can sing, too. You just have to share it. Fuck, now even I can have a solo! Yeah! I hadn't thought about that!"
Rachel hit his legs as hard as she could (Really? It kinda hurt, but he'd never admit it), but then she kissed him.
"I know", she whispered. "I'm just not very good at sharing."
"You'll get used to it", he said. "It's not so bad. Besides, as long as you keep your part of the deal, they'll keep theirs. They won't tell. Schue's safe."
"Yeah, you were really good back there", she remembered. "You did exactly what I'd told you to do. Although with some improvising... Did you really mean that you'd agree with me on anything?"
"'Course not", he smirked. "I just made it up." He kissed her. And then he kissed her again.
"Yes, I meant it. Rachel, I... I love you." He did, too, it wasn't just something he said. How strange, that it was this crazy, completely fucked-up girl, who'd be his first. The first person he'd ever said those words to.
She took it just as he'd expected her to, of course. She bawled like a baby. "Oh, Noah", she said through the tears. "I love you too."

There were just some things she needed to do before completely surrendering to her happiness.
She pressed the Hudsons' doorbell one, two, three times before she heard footsteps on the other side of the door. Finn opened, just as she'd hoped.
"Hi, Rach", he said uncertainly.
"Hello Finn", she smiled. "Can I come in?"
She walked past him through the doorway, up the stairs and into his room.
He frowned, but followed her. When he got up, she was sitting on his bed, and he stopped in the doorway.
"So... What do you want?" He wasn't really polite, but she forgave him. After all, he had reason to be sad. To miss out on me! Oh, the grief!
"I just wanted to say I'm sorry. Things got really weird between us since I started dating Puck, and even weirder since you figured out I had sex with mr Schue, and I just... wanted to say I'm sorry."
Finn nodded. "Okay. That's okay. I get it, Puck's sexier and more muscular and Jewish and all that... Of course you'd choose him."
"No!" She got up from the bed and walked up to him. "No, Finn, that's not it at all. I think you're sexy, too."
He didn't know if he was supposed to feel happy or just confused. Two months ago, Rachel would rather have died than used that word.
"Well... Thanks, I guess?" he said.
She smiled. "You're welcome. I hope that you find someone who loves you for what you are. I heard Quinn's kind of upset, maybe she needs somebody to comfort her. And I also hope that we get to do another song together soon, although that'll be hard with this whole democracy thing going on..."
Finn laughed. "Yeah, Kurt was really harsh, wasn't he? Okay, I'm gonna hug you now, and then you have to leave." He laid his arms around her, and they just stood there for a while. Then Rachel broke free, kissed him on the cheek, and walked out of the room.

Her other thing was perhaps more complicated. She had to go through with it, though, once and for all.
She went home to his place, too. His office wasn't protected enough, not anymore, when just an innocent chat could blow up the entire deal.
Mr Schue opened the door before she'd even pressed the bell.
"Saw you through the kitchen window", he said. "Come in."
She sat down in the sofa, and he sat down next to her, although not as close as he used to.
"We really need to do this, don't we?", he said.
"It's not such a big thing, Will. We just have to quit it properly. To make sure it won't happen again."
"Yeah, I know."
"That's all, really. Promise me you won't try to get me back, send me notes or mouth explanations to me in class. I can't handle anymore of that."
"I promise. I'm sorry. It's getting in the way of your life."
"Yes. It is. Okay, good. I promise not to fall into your arms again, or tell you I'm head over heels in love with you."
"Thanks."
She stood up, and so did he. "I really loved you, you know", he said.
She nodded. "I know you did. But it's over now."
"Can I kiss you? One last time?"
She smiled, but shook her head. "No. Bye, Will."
She was almost out the door when she turned around. "See you in school, mr Schue. I've been working on a new number. For me."
As soon as she'd gotten out of his house, she took her phone out of her handbag and called Puck. "Can you meet me at my place in 10 minutes? I feel like I'm... defying gravity. And I'd like to share that with you."

Aw, last chapter! Kind of sad, I feel even more like these people are my friends now... As this was my first Glee fanfiction, please tell me what you liked and what you'd wanted more of. Perhaps I shouldn't have rated it M, there's not one real sex scene... Anyway, thanks for reading, I love you all!