Chapter 12

I know a lot of you have been waiting for this, and I mean...who knows, maybe it'll all turn out well, or maybe not. Maybe there's still a lot of factors involving our favorite couple. I love being evil. ;) Happy Reading!

She looked like Rachel Berry. Not like Roxy Starr. She even felt like Rachel Berry. She felt like herself. That was definitely something new. She liked it, though. She felt like a new person. Someone she didn't have to pretend to be.

She had her hair piled up on top of her head in a bun, and wore simple makeup. There was only one bangle on her wrist. Her dress was sleeveless, not cut low, but flowed all the way down to her white heels. Its color was ivory. Not white. It was perfect for her. Because ivory was what she deserved. Not white.

"You are a strong and confident woman. You're going to get up there and sing your new song, and everyone's going to love it. You're going to sound better than all those other singers." Her pep talk in the mirror helped a little bit with her nerves, and she would consider giving herself another one if she needed it.

She grabbed her black clutch purse and headed out the door. There was a limo waiting for her outside, ready to take her to the red carpet. She couldn't wrap her head around the thought that she would be walking down the red carpet. Her. Rachel Berry. She was going to be walking down that same carpet as Katy Perry and Britney Spears. She would be at their level for this one night out.

"Babe, are you coming?"

The voice stopped her train of thoughts. She looked at the open limousine door and saw Carl Manning, her publicist, holding his hand out to her. Most of these singers came with their boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, and wives. But Rachel had no one. She was flying solo that evening.

It was what she wanted. She didn't need a man on her arm. Not unless that man was Finn Hudson. Then she definitely needed him there. But he wasn't. She hadn't spoken to him in three weeks, since their wedding night rendezvous. And it was the one thing that would forever be etched in her memory.

She missed him. Everything about him. His goofy grin whenever he'd look at her. The way he touched her as if she was the last woman on earth. How he held her in his arms, as if keeping her safe from the rest of the world. His soft words being whispered in her ear. She wanted all of that back. She needed it.

Cameras were flashing even before she stepped out, and the best she could do was smile and pose for them. There was no news that the paparazzi would have to report the next day, other than the fact that she had attended the Grammy's. Good. She didn't want her name in the headlines the next day. She wasn't anyone special. Not special enough to be bigger than Bon Jovi or Barbra Streisand.

It hurt to smile. Literally. Her face was hurting so much by the end of that hour that she was almost afraid she wouldn't be able to sing. She hated pretending to be someone she wasn't. She didn't like to smile if her heart wasn't in it. But it was the only way she could keep those pictures from circulating the internet, with people questioning her if she wasn't smiling.

Inside, she was actually dying. It was killing her slowly, not being able to see his face when she woke up, or fall asleep in his arms at night.

Her mind was definitely not on the nominees or the performances. All she could see was the image of her ex-boyfriend. Her Finn. She thought about him so much that even the cameraman began to look like him with his broad shoulders, and tall figure. Even the haircut looked the same.

'Oh, crap.'

It was Finn. Of course he would be filming the Grammy's. No wonder Carl was here with her. He was here for the both of them. They were a package deal after all.

She couldn't think about it. No, Finn couldn't be here. That's not how she planned this night would go. Her hands were beginning to get cold and clammy and the rest of her body went numb. Her heart was beating so loudly, she was sure that the blonde next to her could hear it.

Finn was here. He was her kryptonite. She couldn't stay away from him, no matter how hard she tried. She needed to be close to him. How had she not seen him during the red carpet event? She was sure he had been there to film it. He was there to film the whole thing. She'd looked for his face, hoping his would be behind one of the cameras, but she hadn't seen him. And now here he was.

'No, Rachel. He's filming. You can't distract him from filming the Grammy's. This is his first big break.'

It would be selfish of her to distract him from this. She wanted to so badly, but she didn't want to ruin his chances at getting made. Still, she couldn't stop moving in her seat. She glanced at him every few seconds, and even stood up multiple times, but after an hour, she finally managed to calm herself down. She wasn't going to talk to him. The song was going to speak for itself.

When she looked at the time, she nearly screamed. She was on in ten minutes! Quickly, Rachel got up and ran up the aisle to get backstage. She had to have been there a while ago. Jeez, she was a bad performer. They were never going to ask her to perform again.

"...for the final number, the last performance of the night, the beautiful Miss Rachel Berry!"

Finn nearly dropped his camera. Seriously, it began to slip from his hands. He had absolutely no idea that Rachel would be attending. She hadn't expected her to. It wasn't something he'd seen her doing just yet.

She was so beautiful in that dress that reached her shoes, and she walked with grace and with poise, all the way to the piano. Everyone was applauding, waiting to see who she was and what she was going to perform. Frankly, Finn was curious too.

He missed her so much, he would lay awake at night, thinking about her. He knew he couldn't talk to her or text her. It was against the new rules he had. He needed to wait for her. To be patient.

But he loved her. So much that he would gladly go up on that stage and ask her to marry him.

Wait, what?

She was so nervous that her hands were shaking, and her mind was blank. She couldn't even remember what song she was supposed to be performing. 'My new song. Battlefield. Right. How does it start?'

She was screwed. Finn would know what to say to her to calm her down. He always knew exactly what to say. Rachel glanced to her right, directly at Finn, and suddenly, her nerves melted away. She had to do this for him. He needed to see that she loved herself. And she did. But she was never going to love herself more than she loved him. That wasn't going to change, nor was it negotiable.

Her hands moved to the keys on the piano, and she began to play the introduction of the song. "It's easy to fall in love, but it's so hard to break somebody's heart. What seemed like a good idea's turned into a battlefield." She shut her eyes, feeling the music. "Once lust has turned to dust and all that's left held breath, forgotten who we first met. What seemed like a good idea's turned into a battlefield."

Tears were falling down her cheeks as she continued to sing, and she knew that if she looked at Finn, she wasn't going to be able to finish the song. She would start sobbing right then and there.

"We seemed like a good idea...We seemed like a good idea..." Her voice trailed, but the song ended with a soft sob.

She looked out into the audience, at Finn. His jaw was dropped, but there was this...look on his face. A look that she'd never seen before, so she had no idea what it was. He hated it. He must have. He hated that she chose to write a song based on their hurt and then perform it at the Grammy's. He hated it.

Once she bowed, she did everything she could not to run off, but as soon as she was off the stage, she took off toward the nearest one-person bathroom, and locked herself in there. Her back hit the wall, and she began to sob in her knees. She didn't care that her makeup was smudging, and that her dress was getting dirty.

The song was the deciding factor. She knew it the moment she saw Finn. And he had decided that he didn't want her. She was done with her. He hated her song, and he hated her. How could she live now? She didn't want to. Not without him in her life.

The moment she left the stage was the moment Finn abandoned his camera on that tripod, and ran after her. He went up the aisle, hoping to meet her out there before she came back in. But she was nowhere to be seen. Something was wrong. There were tears on her cheek when she finished, so she wanted to be alone. He knew her too well.

Bathrooms. That's where she would be. And she wouldn't go to one with multiple stalls, because someone is bound to come in. And he didn't have to look far. He could hear muffled sobs coming from the one person bathroom.

He knocked. "Rachel?"

The sobbing mostly stopped. It was definitely her.

Disclaimer: Again, I do not own Battlefield. It belongs to Lea Michele.

R&R!