"I think you're crazy," Kurt tells her that night. Normally, Rachel would use this time to roll her eyes or laugh at him, but she knows that isn't just telling her that she's crazy for the fun of it. It's starting to get to the point where she wonders herself if she's actually certifiable.

Maybe she's lost all lucidness in this event of letting Finn stay with her.

"I'm not crazy," she says, still sounding nervous. She's sounded shaken up all day. Ever since she woke up and knew that one of the things she had to do was pick Finn up from the airport, she's felt like complete shit. Berkley doesn't even make her feel better. "I'm just being hospitable, that's all."

"Rachel, 'hospitable' is like the time you took in Berkley. 'Hospitable' is inviting a homeless person to your house on Thanksgiving so you can give them a warm meal. Letting Finn Hudson stay at your house until some undefined date isn't exactly what I would call 'hospitable.'" Kurt looks at her and sighs, stirring his salad with his fork. "What even made you want to say yes?"

She shrugs; the question rolling around in her head for a while. She knows that deep down, Kurt's right. She should have given Finn what he had coming to him ever since their sophomore year in high school. Her dads had always told her that people would 'get what they give,' and her denying Finn the right to stay at her apartment would be like her serving up a piping hot plate of karma right in Finn's face.

Of course, in the moment, she didn't have the heart to tell him anything like that. She doesn't really know where else he would have stayed. As far as she's concerned, he's unable to stay with his mother and Quinn and Puck are gone. Maybe he doesn't have a friend in the world right now and he's using Rachel as some kind of support system because hey, he knows her.

That and he probably thinks that she knows all about not having any friends to depend on. He's probably under the impression that she doesn't have any friends. It was the way he acted while they were in high school.

"I felt bad, okay?" She spears a tomato with her fork and looks up at Kurt, her fingers twisting into a fist around the fork. (Part of her tells herself that she should imagine that the tomato is Finn's head and she's actually driving a fork into his scalp instead of a tomato, but it reminds her of some kind of voodoo practice and she pushes the thought out of her mind.) "The way he was talking about everything made it sound like he didn't have anywhere else to stay, and I wasn't going to be a jerk and put him out on the street or anything."

"Surely he has enough money for a hotel, or something."

She makes a face and pops the tomato in her mouth. "I don't think so," she tells Kurt, holding her napkin up to her face. "I don't think he has much money, Kurt. He just got out of the army."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"I don't know," she tells him, dumbfounded. Maybe being in the army doesn't do anything to your financial status, but Rachel's always thought that it would. "He's probably got hospital bills that are through the roof or something, though. He got shot in the leg, Kurt."

Kurt leans back in his chair in the dimly lit restaurant, the candle at their table casting a haunting shadow against his face that makes him look like the villain from the Scream movies for a moment, frightening Rachel for a second. "You sound like you're going to let some idiot who made your life a living hell mooch off of you and your shoestring salary just because he called you one afternoon on a whim." He looks at her, a small pout stuck to his face. "I just want you to be careful, Rachel." Kurt pushes his salad around on his plate for a moment, trying to buy time while he speaks to her. "He hurt you once already. I don't think you want him to hurt you again."

She looks down into her lap, feeling her heart beating in her throat. Kurt's right and she knows that he is, she just doesn't want to acknowledge the fact that she's wrong.

"I know," she says, her voice soft and almost inaudible. "I just… nothing's going to happen, Kurt. He's going to stay for a few weeks and then once he finds a job or something, I'm going to tell him to go find a hotel room." She speaks as if she's confident and secure with her decisions, even though she's just now made them up in her mind. "I can make decisions for myself, you know. I am an adult."

She giggles slightly and Kurt follows after her, smiling as she looks up at him.

"Oh, believe me, I know." She laughs and flips her hair over her shoulder, slowly starting to regain her confidence. Maybe having Finn stay at her apartment won't turn her life into her own personal hell on earth. There seems to be something redeeming about him, even if Kurt refuses to believe her.

She doesn't really feel anything for him emotionally, however. He just doesn't seem like the asshole he once was.

"So what's he doing now?" Kurt asks, looking at Rachel again. "I'm sure you didn't trust him alone in your apartment. Please tell me you hired a babysitter, Rachel. For Berkley's sake."

Rachel erupts in a fit of giggles and takes another bite of her salad. "He's unpacking," she says. "Well, either that or trying to figure out how the TV works, but I'm pretty sure he's unpacking." She smiles to herself, thinking back to how Finn had been when she had left him. She wonders if he's able to get around her apartment with his crutches alright, but she chooses not to let her mind stay on the topic for too long. Too much time and she'll become worried over him and want to leave, which is exactly what she doesn't want.

"I would hide all of the embarrassing things you own if I were you," Kurt warns her. "What if he finds all of those expired condoms in your underwear drawer?"

Kurt begins to snicker at his own joke and Rachel kicks at his leg from underneath the table, furrowing her brow. "Shut up," she says, rolling her eyes. "That was one time, Kurt, and you know it."

"Oh, you're right, I'm sorry. Forgive me for bringing up the time you thought it wouldn't be awkward to stash extra-small condoms in your underwear drawer."

"I didn't read the label on the box," she protests, wanting to avoid the subject all together. "Besides, at least I was buying condoms. Most girls don't."

"I thought you were an adult now?"

She rolls her eyes and smiles, shaking her head from side to side.

"Shut up."

Kurt leans down on the table, resting his head in his hands. "Well, I think you'll be okay," he tells her with a smile. "I would just consider investing in a nanny cam just to make sure he isn't looking through your things or taking anything when you go out."

Rachel laughs and wipes her hands on her napkin. "Alright, mom."

She thinks that she can handle this. Just because it's Finn and she and him have never, ever been on good terms doesn't mean that the next few weeks are going to become her worst nightmare. She's just going to have to figure out how to swallow her pride and get along with him.

If that's even possible, anyway.

:.:.:

She walks over to the doors to her building the way she had learned in college; her keys in a fist with the car key sticking out so she can make sure to be at the ready to stab anyone if they try to attack her one the short walk from the parking garage to her apartment building.

It's happened before, and Rachel knows that she is very vulnerable and very cute, so she chooses not to take any chances.

A kind of fear consumes her as she steps into the elevator and rides it all the way up to the floor her apartment is on, wondering how Finn's fared while she's been gone. Surely he hasn't destroyed her apartment, and he hasn't hurt Berkley in any way or anything.

She really doesn't think that he's the monster Kurt thinks he is. Of course, she can see why he thinks that way, and parts of her still agree with him, but for the most part, Finn has turned back into a normal person.

It's like he was the Hulk while they were in high school and his only goal in life was to make her life miserable. Maybe now that he's been shot in the leg, his skin is less green and he's slowly turning back into a normal person.

Rachel slowly turns the key to the door and opens it up, sticking her head in sheepishly. She has no real reason to be afraid, really. It's not like she's let a hardened criminal into her house.

She pulls the door shit behind her and drops her keys in the fishbowl on the side table nearby. Her eyes catch on a blue suitcase lying on her couch, a pile of clothes springing up from it. Berkley's already sitting down in it and is glaring up at her when she walks in, his tail waving back and forth behind his back.

Rachel walks up to the couch and pushes him off of Finn's clothes, her shove quickly followed by a snarl. She's sure that Finn doesn't want her cat lying on top of his clothes before he even gets the chance to wear them.

Of course, if it were Kurt calling the shots, he would probably tell her to line Berkley's litter box with Finn's clothes.

She doesn't want to be mean to him. It's not in her nature to lash out at someone for no reason. Granted, she's always been somewhat immature and childish, but Rachel likes to think that she's outgrown that fault for the most part. She should be able to oversee what Finn's done to her in high school.

Besides, it's not like he had continued to treat her that way after graduating. On graduation day, Rachel knew that she would be going to the University of Ohio thinking that she would never have to see Finn Hudson ever again.

Going to the University of Ohio was never something she had planned, so she wasn't really surprised when seeing Finn again ended up being a promise she couldn't keep for herself.

She's never really had much luck when it comes to actually getting what she wants.

Rachel doesn't hear anything for a long time, which makes her wonder if Finn's doing alright. He is on crutches, after all. For all she knows, he might have fallen down while she's been out to dinner with Kurt and now he's just lying on the floor somewhere in her apartment, knocked unconscious due to all of the pain he's experiencing.

Alright, so she's being dramatic. Sue her.

Still, she figures that she should check in on him. It would only be the proper thing for a good hostess to do.

"Finn?" She calls, her loud and clarion voice carrying through the small apartment. Saying his name without some kind of spite attached to it still doesn't feel natural to her. "I'm home."

She is not Lucille Ball and he is not Ricky Ricardo. She shouldn't have to do this in the first place.

The familiar sound of his crutches fills the small hallway from the living room to her bedroom, his body casting a large shadow against the pale cream walls. By the time Finn is standing in front of her, he's got a dumbfounded smile stuck to his face. He's changed his clothes, too; no longer wearing his military uniform and instead dressed in a pair of track pants with a black t shirt and a purple hoodie.

(Part of her thanks every god that he's managed to change his clothes by himself. She's not about to become his live-in nurse – nor is she going to run the risk of seeing Finn in his underwear.)

"Hey," he says, looking down at her as she pulls her jacket off. She tips her head up to look at him warily, sighing slightly. "Sorry, I was just looking for the bed sheets."

"They're in the bathroom," she tells him, not bothering to really pay much attention to him or his smile or his leg. Rachel pushes past him slightly as she makes her way down the short hallway to her bathroom, flipping the light on and opening up the cabinet next to the bathtub, pulling out a handful of neatly folded pink bed sheets.

"Wow," Finn says, suppressing a slight smile. She notices him eyeing up the sheets as she brings them back out to the living room and tosses them down on the couch. "Everything you own is pink, isn't it?"

She makes a face and scowls, trying to hide it from him as best as possible.

"How would you know that?"

"Oh, I don't know. I was just kind of looking around, I guess." He pauses, laughing to himself and adjusting his posture on his crutches. "Well, that, and you've kind of loved pink for as long as I can remember."

Rachel can't help but smile slightly at the fact that he remembers that, but she knows that it might also be because while she was gone, he had snuck around her apartment and seen all of the pink things she owned.

(Her mind races to the expired condoms Kurt had brought up over dinner, the very thought of Finn finding them causing her face to redden. She makes a mental note to herself to throw all of those again just in case Finn decides to take a glance in her underwear drawer while she's at work or something.)

"Yeah," she says, finding that it's the only word she knows how to use now. She's not really in the mood to talk to him, or anyone, for that matter. All Rachel really wants to do right now is go to sleep so she can have a dream about something that has nothing to do with the day she's had so far.

She bends over and undoes the latch on the side of the couch, causing it to flip backwards and turn into more of a mattress than a couch. Quickly, she begins unfolding the pink plaid sheets and lays them down on the couch, preparing to make it for him since she figures he can't really do much with his leg and crutches and all.

Finn sits down in the chair nearby in the corner of her eye and she sighs, blowing her bangs out of her eyes as she stretches the fitted sheet over the couch.

"So, um… how long have you had your cat?" She hears Finn ask, clearly trying to make conversation. Rachel's eyes fall down to her feet, where Berkley is currently walking around. She smiles.

"Who, Berkley?" She smiles for a moment before finally making it over the edge of the couch with the sheet she's been struggling with. She lands on the couch on her stomach, scrambling off of it and sitting down before grabbing Berkley in her hands and pulling him up into her lap. "Um, about two years now. I found him in the alley behind the building."

Finn looks at her and smiles, causing her to look back up at him with a smile of her own.

She doesn't want to seem like she's having a good time spending all of this time with Finn and actually talking to him, but she is.

"And you named him Berkley?"

"No," she says with a laugh. "He was wearing a tag that said Berkley on it, but when I had tried to call the number on it, it had been disconnected." She looks down at Berkley and smiles, petting him as she speaks.

Finn laughs and she giggles along with him, knowing that the inevitable silence is to follow. She doesn't know what to talk about with him. Should she bring up how she doesn't understand why he wants to stay with her, of all people, or should she ask him why he thought it would be the best idea to make her life some kind of hell on earth while they had known each other?

Her hands work their way through Berkley's fur, the cocktail ring she's worn for the night catching in his collar.

"Well, I'm going to go to bed," she says abruptly, standing to her feet as Berkley jumps down from her lap and scampers off to her room. "Um, I brought a few blankets out for you, but I have extras in the hall closet if you need any." Her eyes dart around the room quickly, doing everything in her power to ignore him and his gaze.

She picks up the remote and hands it to him, not bothering to smile in the slightest. "You can turn the TV on, if you want, and there's a list on the coffee table of all of the channels and their numbers. The ones that are highlighted are the ones that I actually get." Rachel looks over at the small, yellowed piece of paper, knowing that Finn won't be impressed by the Lifetime network or E! or the Style network. She doesn't have any of the sports channels that she knows he probably wants to be watching right now.

Some hostess she's turning out to be.

"Oh, and Berkley likes to get up and walk around at night, so don't be surprised if he tries to sleep with you or something. He's a very tactile cat."

Finn looks up at her from his chair with a furrowed brow.

"It means he likes to be touched. You know, held and pet and all of that."

"Oh," Finn says. "That's no problem, Rachel."

She doesn't like how nice he's being to her right now. It makes her think that he's just getting ready to release some kind of cruelty on her tomorrow – over breakfast or something.

Rachel begins to make the walk to her bedroom, silently praying that Finn won't bother to say anything before she makes it into her room. If she's in her room, she can close the door and be alone with her TV and her cat.

"Oh, and Rachel?"

Shit.

She turns around and smiles at Finn, seeing him pulling a blanket over the couch. "Good night."

She was expecting the Spanish Inquisition.

"Good night, Finn."

She tells herself that maybe staying with Finn won't be the worst thing in the world. It can be like a re-do of their relationship. She can cook him dinner and he can give her recommendations on what to watch on Netflix or whatever. They can have a completely platonic and tolerable relationship with one another if she actually tries.

Rachel just doesn't know if she's willing to try that hard right away, however. After all, it is Finn.

Maybe she should wait and see if he's actually serious about everything before she tries to befriend him.