16. Finn, Quinn & Rachel
"Don't tell me not to live, just sit and…" Rachel Berry hit the clock alarm before her voice finished the second verse of Don't rain on my parade.
She sat up on the bed, rubbed her eyes and took a deep breath. Once out of the bed, she went to the bathroom and took a quick shower. She dried off her body, applied her lotion and stood in front of her closet. She took out two dresses. A beautiful light blue one, with a discreet cleavage and just one shoulder and… her own wedding dress.
Rachel ran her hand up and down the white silky fabric. "I can barely recall, but it's all coming back to me now," she hummed as a tear fell down on the dress.
The doorbell rang. She put the dress on quickly and hurried down to open the door. "Hey," Rachel saluted while Blaine came into the house.
"You look stunning," the boy said with a gentle smile.
"I haven't even done my hair yet," Rachel answered while blushing.
Blaine sat on the couch. "That means that I should make myself comfortable, right?" he chuckled. Rachel, in answer, took his hand and led him upstairs, to her fathers' room. "Really? Is it going to take that long?" Blaine said while pointing at the bed.
"Just sit down."
He complied. How couldn't he obey the girl with the wet hair and the beautiful broken smile? Blaine let her take his red bowtie and replace it with a light blue tie matching her dress.
"If we are going to a prom-themed wedding, we are going to go together," Rachel continued.
"We don't have to go. I don't want to either. We could just stay here watching…"
Rachel interrupted him, "No watching for me, no watching for you." She turned her back on Blaine. "Zip me up."
Blaine stood up and pulled the zip of Rachel's dress up. He couldn't help breathing on her hair. "Lavender," he thought. He took a slow glance at Rachel's curves, enhanced by the tight dress. But he pulled back. It wasn't right. That couldn't happen. No further discussion.
"Handsome," Rachel said while stroking Blaine's face. She came back to her bathroom and closed the door. "Fifteen minutes at the most, okay?"
Finn was sitting on one of the fifty chairs set in front of the altar. Quinn didn't want a classic wedding, and Finn agreed. If he had to do that, at least he wanted to make it fun and original, so the event took place in an estate of the Fabrays'. A vast field with no brown spot. Everything perfectly green.
They had put up two tents, one for the ceremony, just where Finn was sitting; and another one bigger that would be used as a place to eat, dance and sing, stage included. The only construction there was a little black-brick chalet where Quinn was getting ready.
Kurt walked out of the chalet and sat next to Finn. He put his right hand on his brother's shoulder and pulled him closer. "Ready?" he asked.
"Yeah."
"It's easier to take back a marry-me than an I-do."
"Are they coming?" Finn changed the subject.
"I don't think so," Kurt answered with his eyes fixed on the flower arch of the altar.
"I've cheated on Quinn." Another topic.
Kurt turned to look at Finn. "What?!" Though his brother wasn't looking back, Kurt grabbed his face and made him watch every single word coming slowly out of his mouth. "You did what?!" But he didn't let Finn answer; he stood up and came back to the house. "Don't tell me, I really need to know no more."
Quinn came out of the dresser. She gave a twirl to her mother and her bridesmaids. Her dress, of the whitest shade ever seen, shone under the midday sun that was breaking through the windows.
"Oh, baby!" Judy hugged her daughter in tears. "You couldn't be more beautiful." That was the face of the proudest mom ever. "I'm gonna go check on the catering, okay?" She smiled and walked out of the room.
Santana, Brittany, Tina and Sugar, each one in the same dress but in a different color, helped Quinn with her hair and make-up. "Where's Mercedes?" the bride asked. She really wanted to have her by her side on such a special day, after all they'd been through together a couple of years ago.
"She just texted me that she was on her way," Tina answered.
"NO!" Superstition came along with those three words.
"Oh, don't worry, silly, she's not driving from LA, they have planes over there too. You can't get paralyzed in a plane crash. Unless you fly Business." Sugar said. "Poor girl, now that she was getting thin…"
The guests started arriving, all of them dressed as teenagers who wanted to look like adults. And since most of the guests were adults… the picture was kind of hard to define. Anyway, Finn greeted every one of them as they took a seat, until they appeared.
"We weren't expecting you, guys," Finn said to Blaine and Rachel.
"I wouldn't miss this for anything in the world," Rachel answered, not even stopping, just sitting with her date in the third row, right next to the aisle, but not before taking three glasses of Champaign from one of the caterers wandering around the field.
Blaine took a sip of one of them. "Are we waiting for someone else?" he asked referring to the third glass.
"My dignity told me that she would come by later, but I don't know, I haven't seen her since a door got shut in my face." Rachel drank her glass in one gulp. "Actually, she can take a glass by herself. And if this gets warm it will be worth nothing." She emptied the second one. "Are you gonna finish yours?"
"Yes, I am," Blaine nodded and put his glass on the ground, out of Rachel's reach.
While Rachel threw herself into the sweet arms of inebriation, Finn kept welcoming guests. Mr. Shue and Mrs. Pillsbury wearing the costumes they wore in their respective senior proms, and proud to look like a delusional walking time warp of twenty years ago. Mrs. Sylvester in her usual tracksuit, just prenatal edition.
"Coach, didn't you read the invitation? It said that it was a themed wedd…"
"I didn't disguise myself for my own wedding; I obviously wasn't going to dress like a clown for yours. And much less knowing that the odds are against this ritual of unlimited intercourse of yours leading to the right harbor."
"Excuse me?" Finn replied.
"Come on, Frankenteen, 6 to 1 that you stumble down and fall on your way to the altar or 500 bucks that Q performs a Runaway Bride in the next thirty minutes."
"Have you any gambling problem, Mrs. Sylvester?"
"Pregnancy cravings, but thanks for asking, Hudson," Sue answered while resuming her walk to the seats.
Coach Beiste was the next one to arrive. In a dress. Actually, in a dress made of tissues. 100% Kleenex. "Congratulations, Hudson." She smaked on Finn on his back relatively gently.
Finn frowned while trying not to burst into laughter. "You look… very…" He didn't know what to say, so he just mumbled something meaningless, "…Coach."
"Thanks. I'm a wedding-crier, so… two birds with one stone. And besides, you Glee boys are not the only ones who get to go all Lady Gaga."
"Where are the bridesmaids?!" Mercedes asked Finn in a hurry, all sweaty and with a broken heel. She limped her way into the chalet. "Sorry, sorry, sorry!" she apologized while hugging Quinn hello. "Oh, you're so beautiful."
The bride smiled, "you too, despite of the ketchup stain. Thank God the dress is red."
"Oh, no, it's not ketchup, it's blood. You don't know how rough things get when you're trying to catch a taxi at the airport. Nowadays people don't respect celebrities anymore. By the way," Mercedes turned to Tina, "your man is already here, he told me to tell you to break a leg. And Finn told me that everyone's already here, so you can start whenever you want." She shot one last smile at the blonde and went out to sit next to Mike Chang.
Quinn looked at her bridesmaids and the choir boys. "Joe isn't coming, right?" she asked Kurt, who was with the girls.
He frowned, imagining more things than he should imagine. "Oh my God, you too?" Kurt walked away to talk to his brother by the window. "This marriage already smells like putrefaction," he mumbled to himself.
The bride walked into the bathroom and locked the door. "Get going, I just need one last touch," she shouted to her friends in order that they could start the ceremony.
"We're ready, go to your place," Kurt told Finn with his head out of the window, so Finn took his position in the altar. "Okay, boys, it's the time. Let's make this worth," he said to the crew.
The New Directions, without Blaine, Joe, Rachel and Sebastian, led by Kurt, came out of the chalet and started their performance along the aisle when the music began to play.
[Unchained melody – The righteous brothers]
Artie:
Oh my love, my darling,
I've hungered for your touch (Kurt, Rory and Sam: Your touch)
a long, lonely time.
Quinn looked at herself in the mirror for the umpteenth time, only distracted when someone knocked on the crystal of the window. "What are you doing here?!" she asked while opening it.
Santana:
And time goes by so slowly.
And time can do so much. (Brittany, Sugar and Tina: So much)
Are you…
Artie and Santana:
…still mine?
"I wanted to say hello to you before you become Mrs. Quinn Hudson," Puck said as he climbed inside the bathroom.
Kurt:
I need your love.
He closed the window behind him. "Noah…" Quinn tried to stop him, "you can't…"
Tina:
I need your love.
"No, neither of us can," Puck interrupted her.
Kurt and Tina:
God speed your love to me.
Puck pushed her gently against the cold tiles of the wall, kissing her passionately, doing what he should have done the first time he saw her back in the summer.
Rory:
Lonely rivers flow to the sea, to the sea,
Artie and Rory:
to the open arms of the sea, yeah!
Quinn kissed him back, running her fingers through the mohawk.
Artie:
Lonely rivers sigh 'wait for me, wait for me'.
Artie and Rory:
I'll be coming home, wait for me.
"I love you," he whispered into the kiss.
Santana with Artie, Brittany, Kurt, Rory, Sam, Sugar and Tina harmonizing:
Oh my love, my darling,
I've hungered,
hungered for your touch
a long lonely time.
The sound of the music, the heat of the kiss, the emotion of the wedding crushed inside of Quinn's mind and heart, making a momentary silence in her head, enough to allow her to think what they were doing twice. So she pulled back and turned her updo on Puck.
Rory with Artie, Brittany, Kurt, Sam, Santana, Sugar and Tina harmonizing:
And time goes by so slowly.
And time can do so much.
Are you still mine?
She dried a tear that hadn't fallen out of her eye yet and stormed out of the bathroom. "Sorry."
Kurt with Artie, Brittany, Rory, Sam, Santana, Sugar and Tina harmonizing:
I need your love.
"Don't marry him."
Brittany with Artie, Brittany, Kurt, Rory, Sam, Sugar and Tina harmonizing:
I… I need your love.
"I'm sorry, Noah."
Santana with Artie, Brittany, Kurt, Rory, Sam, Sugar and Tina harmonizing:
God speed your love to me.
And the bride walked down the aisle, with a big smile on her face under the watchful eye of the guests, who, most of them, were already touched by the song.
The singers sat on the first two lines of the left row of chairs, except for Kurt, who sat in the right row next to his parents and Quinn's mom.
The justice of the peace started talking once Quinn joined him and Finn under the arch of white and red roses. "Ladies, gentleman, goat shitting ten feet away from us," the man said with a grave expression on his face. It wasn't a joke, he really hated outdoor weddings. "Today we've gathered in this "lovely" field to celebrate the love of Finn Hudson and Lucy Fabray."
Rachel, a little bit tipsy, let a giggle out. "Lucy, I'd already forgotten that. Caboosey."
"Since it's about to start raining, there's a swarm of bees threatening my life and there's a lady getting naked between us…" Everybody turned to Shannon, whose dress had shrunk to the point of miniskirt with transparencies. "…I'm going to make this quickly. Finn, will you take Lucy to be your lawful wedded wife? Will you love her, comfort her, honor her and protect her; forsaking all others to be faithful to her until death do you apart?"
Finn took five seconds to think the answer, but he felt them like the longest five seconds ever. "Lawful? Oh, God, that means that I can go to jail if I lie? Damn… No, that can't be true; otherwise nobody would even get married. Or maybe this is the reason why people marry in church? Because God's always forgiving and the state of Ohio is a resentful son of a bitch. Fuck! Why don't I answer? Everybody is looking at me. Why are they all looking at me? Oh, Rachel, what? Don't think about her! But… what's she…?"
Rachel stood up and walked away. She almost fell down due to her blood alcohol concentration, but she just looked like the wedding-drunk instead of the despaired-ex-girlfriend-wedding-drunk. She didn't feel so lonely with her pain on her way out thanks to a child who started crying along with her.
The groom took a deep breath and answered, "I do." It was like peeing on his morals and on his non-lying rule but… it was the right thing.
Blaine leaned forward and whispered in Santana's ear. "Was this your great plan?" he asked with sarcasm.
Santana turned around. "This motherfucker is up to go all the way down. But relax, little pygmy, this is not over until Auntie Tana says so."
"And you," the justice of peace continued, "Lucy, will you take Finn to be your lawful wedded husband? Will you love him, comfort him, honor him and protect him; forsaking all others to be faithful to him until death do you apart?"
Quinn smiled, putting what had happened five minutes ago in the bathroom behind, ignoring Puck's look. He was standing with his arms crossed at the back of the carp. Though the baby's crying was distracting her from enjoying her perfect moment, she looked into Finn's eyes and got ready to answer.
"Mommy?"
A blond girl toddler crawled down the aisle while crying. Her mother quickly took her in her arms, rocking her trying to calm the baby down. "Sorry," Shelby Corcoran apologized that Beth was interrupting the ceremony.
Most of the guests laughed and didn't thought of the child's tantrum as anything of grave importance, except for those who knew about Quinn's pregnancy. The bride's eyes filled with tears, moved by how big Beth was. By how big the child she had with the boy at the back was.
"Do never underestimate Snixx' plans," Santana told Blaine.
Quinn looked at Puck one last time before she answered.
To be continued.
