Chapter Eight: Both Hands Tied Behind My Back

Author's Note: So, I just read the fate of Finn Hudson and it depressed me. And when I get intense feelings, I tend to write more so hopefully I'll be cranking out chapter a little more frequently now. This chapter has a slight time jump in it, and it picks up around Christmastime, hence the Rockettes reference. As always, I don't own the characters. The chapter title comes from Battlefield by Jordin Sparks.

"Hey, Finn." Rachel heard someone say at work a few months after his encounter with Julia. She turned around and saw Kitty, the bitchy head nurse, walking straight towards Finn with a determined look in her eyes.

"Um, hi, Kitty. Is everything okay?" Finn said, taking his eyes off of a patient's chart.

"Well, I just had a question for you. I got tickets to the Rockettes show tonight at Radio City. And I was wondering if you wanted to join me."

Rachel looked over at Finn and raised her eyebrow.

Finn would be going to the show that night.

He just wouldn't be going with Kitty. He was going with Rachel.

"You know, Kitty. I would love to go, but I have a rule about dating coworkers. I just don't do it. It makes things awkward and could lead to a hostile work environment. So thanks for the reason, but I just can't break my own rule."

Rachel watched with satisfaction as Kitty's confident look on her face fell.

"Oh. Well. Fine then." Kitty walked towards Rachel and glared at her. "What are you looking at, man hands?"

Rachel rolled her hands. She'd heard that nickname for her many times and truth be told, it didn't even faze her anymore.

"Nothing. It was just entertaining watching you make a fool of yourself. Now I have to go, I have patients that I need to see." Rachel flipped her hair over her shoulder and walked towards one of her patient's rooms.

"Good morning, Mrs. Walker. How are you feeling this morning?" Rachel asked.

"I'm a little worried about the surgery. I'm sure that Dr. Sylvester is qualified to do the appendix removal but…"

"Mrs. Walker, let me assure you that everything will be fine. In fact, a few months ago, Dr. Sylvester did the same procedure for me, and I'm doing fine. So there's a second opinion from a very satisfied patient." Rachel said, smiling at her patient. She heard the door open and saw the anesthesiologist come into the room. "Now, this guy is going to give you some of the best medicine you will ever get. And I will see you when you come out of surgery."

"Thank you, Dr. Berry. Will you be helping with the surgery?"

"Oh, I'll just be watching. Dr. Sylvester will have complete control over the entire surgery." She smiled at her patient and left the room. When she got back into the corridor, she saw Finn talking with another one of the interns. She smiled and walked over to talk to him.

"Excuse me, Dr. Hudson, do you mind if I get a second opinion about a patient?" Rachel asked.

"Of course. Come on, we'll go somewhere quieter where we can talk things over." The two of them walked into a supply closet.

"This is your idea of some place quiet?" Rachel asked, raising an eyebrow.

"What, you got a better idea?" Finn said.

"Not really." Rachel smiled at Finn and wrapped her arms around his neck. He leaned down and kissed her. "I love you, Finn Hudson."

"Not nearly as much as I love you, Rachel Berry." Finn said.

Finn and Rachel heard the door to the closet open and heard two sets of footsteps come into the closet and join the pair.

Finn's eyes widened as Rachel craned her neck to see who had come in to join them.

"Are you sure no one knows about us?"

"Shh, Quinn, it's okay. No one suspects a thing."

Finn and Rachel stared at each other in shock. Puck and Quinn were secretly dating.

Just like Finn and Rachel were.

"What should we do?" Finn mouthed to Rachel. She shrugged in return.

"I'm serious, Puck, no one can find out about this. I'm still technically with Sam."

"It's fine, Quinn."

Rachel started to back up and instead ran into a tray of syringes, which all promptly fell to the ground.

Finn watched as Puck and Quinn broke apart.

"Who the hell is in here?" Puck growled.

Finn and Rachel stepped out from the shadows. "Finn, there's the medical towels that Sylvester was looking for." Rachel said, grabbing a pack. "I knew they had to be in here somewhere. I just can't believe I missed them when I looked for them myself."

"Well, you know what they say, two heads are better than one, although in this case I suppose it's four eyes are better than two." Finn let out a nervous chuckle and rubbed the back of his head.

"Finn, Rachel, you can't tell anyone about what you saw." Quinn said, tears starting to well up in her eyes. "If Sam found out about this…it would kill him."

"I won't say anything." Rachel said, holding her pinkie out for Quinn. "Pinkie swear."

Quinn looped her pinkie around Rachel's then looked at Finn. "You have to tell me that you won't tell anyone either, Finn."

"I won't, Quinn. You have my word." Finn said.

"I guess this supply closet holds a lot of secret hook ups in it." Puck said, eyeing Finn and Rachel.

"What? No, Puck, we were trying to find the towels." Rachel said, once again thankfully that she had those acting classes under her belt.

"Mhmm. Sure." He eyed the two of them one more time, then left the closet.

"Ready to see the Rockettes?" Rachel asked, coming downstairs to see Finn waiting for her in the living room.

"Rach, you look amazing." He stood up from his spot on the couch.

"Thank you, Finn. You look rather dapper yourself." She smiled at him. "So, you ready to go see the show?"

"Absolutely. You know, I've never seen them live before."

"Well, that's part of the reason we're going tonight." Rachel gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. "Now we should leave now before our roommates start pestering us."

"Right. Just let me grab my coat and—ouch! Stupid ass cat." Finn said, watching Penelope run away from him. "That's the third time today she's been at my feet and I've almost stepped on her."

"You need to be more careful. She's only eight months old, Finn." Rachel said, grabbing their coats from the hall closet.

"I'll try harder next time." Finn grumbled.

"That taxi ride took way longer than it needed to." Rachel said when they found their seats at Radio City Music Hall. "I think the taxi driver was drunk. Or high. Or a combination of the two."

Finn chuckled and ran his hand through his hair. "Or it could be that you babbled the entire ride down here. I'm used to your babbling, but other people aren't and sometimes you give them a headache."

"Did I give you a headache when we first met?" Rachel asked, laying her head on Finn's shoulder.

"A little. But I was more taken away by your effortless beauty and your caring personality." Finn said, giving her a kiss on the check.

"Aww, thank you, Finn. I'll be back, I need to use the restroom and check on something." She gave him her megawatt smile and left the auditorium.

"Finn, I thought you said you don't date coworkers." A familiar voice rang out behind Finn. He turned around and saw Kitty standing a few rows back. "And you can't tell me that the two of you are just friends. Not after the conversation I just heard between the two of you." Kitty came over and stood right next to Finn. "So if you can hang out with that drab girl outside of work, you and I can have a little fun tonight at the show." She stretched up on her toes and pressed her lips against Finn's.

Of course that was the moment Rachel chose to come back into the auditorium.

"I knew it was too good to be true." She looked down at her ticket and ripped it. "There's no need for this tonight." She turned around and left the hall, hailing the first taxi she could find.

She completely missed the part where Finn pushed Kitty off and told her that he was completely in love with Rachel.

She had the taxi drop her off at the first house she could think of that didn't give her any memory of Finn. So when she stood on the doorstep of Jesse S. James's apartment, she knew he would never find her.

Rachel took a few deep breaths, then knocked once, twice, three times on his apartment door.

"Well, well, well. Rachel Barbra Berry is standing on my doorstep. I wasn't expecting to see you here." He leaned against the doorframe. "What can I do for you on this fine New York winter night?"

"I needed to talk to someone. And for some reason, you were the first person to pop into my mind." She took another deep breath. "I need your help with something."

It was nearly three in the morning when Rachel opened the door to her house. Expecting everyone to already be asleep, she quietly crept through the house.

"Rach, there are you. What happened during the show? You went to the bathroom and never came back." Finn said, sitting up from his spot on the couch where he was sleeping.

Rachel looked at Finn and felt tears forming in the corner of her eyes. She couldn't believe what she had just done.

"I'm sorry, Finn. I'm so, so sorry for everything."

"It's okay, I figured you were sick or something. I'm glad you made it home okay. Do you need me to help you get to bed?"

"I saw you kissing Kitty at the show. And I got jealous and I tore up my ticket and left." Rachel said, verbalizing the beginning of her worst nightmare. "And I got in a cab and told the cab driver to take me to this apartment out in Tribeca. I don't even know why I gave him that address but I did."

"Wait, who lives out in Tribeca?"

"Jesse St. James does. And I went to his apartment and we started talking, and we were drinking, and then…" Rachel took a sharp breath in as more tears started falling down her face. "And then we had sex."

Rachel couldn't bear to look at Finn. Because she knew that anger would be all over his face and she couldn't stand to see that on her Finn's face.

"You and Jesse…what the hell, Rachel?" Finn said, feeling his lip quiver. He couldn't believe this was happening to him.

"I'm so sorry." Rachel said, trying to blink through the tears. "We should get some sleep and talk about everything in the morning."

"There's nothing to talk about." Finn said, anger slashing through every word he spoke. "We're done."

"Wh-wh-what?" Rachel stuttered out. "We're done?"

"You cheated on me, Rach. I can't forgive that easily."

"You cheated on me first! I saw that kiss with Kitty. It wasn't fun to see that, Finn."

"If you had just waited like two seconds after you saw the kiss, you would have seen that I pushed her off. Instead you jump to conclusions and go off and sleep with your ex-boyfriend. How could you do that to me, Rach? I've never felt like this before. Not even when Julia told me she cheated on me and even that didn't hurt as much as this does." He took a deep breath. "And we aren't going to talk in the morning because I won't be here in the morning. I'm moving out. And when we're at work, you and I aren't going to talk to each other unless we really have to. I never thought you could make me feel this way." He grabbed his coat from the arm of the couch, gave Rachel one final glare, and left the house.

Rachel managed to hold it together until she heard the screen door slam shut before she collapsed to the ground in utter hysterics.

She had just messed up the best thing in her life.

Author's Note: Please don't kill me. They'll be back together in a few chapters, I promise!