Time passes faster than she thought it would have. Before she realizes it, hours turn into days and days turn into weeks. The concept of Finn living with her has turned out to be not that bad after all.
His living arrangement is much simpler, now. Rachel's pulled out the futon in her living room and they've turned the miniscule apartment into something that's somehow able to be occupied by two people who still want nothing to do with each other. The living room is Finn's quarter of the apartment, and the bathroom and her bedroom are hers. The kitchen is the one space they share.
She doesn't mind, if she's allowed to be completely honest with herself. There's something wonderful about waking up to breakfast some mornings (rather, an attempt at breakfast, seeing as Rachel doesn't consider cold Fruit Loops to be the breakfast of champions), and when she does the laundry after Finn changes the sheets on the futon and can smell his cologne in the pillow case (she doesn't erupt like Mount Vesuvius anymore when he 'accidentally' forgets parts of his sheets on the living room floor).
He goes to work with her more frequently. She's still able to write off the excuse that he's there as a teacher's assistant, hoping to become a music teacher himself. He seems like the type, anyway. Tall, wears glasses some days, listens to Journey on his iPod. Most of the teacher's assistants that she's met all look the way Finn does.
His crutches have turned into a thing of the past. She asks him if he wants them some mornings and he just tells her no, and it makes sense, anyway. His limp isn't even that bad anymore.
What he's made up for with his lack of a limp, however, he's lost in energy.
Rachel's never known Finn very personally, but she knows that he's not always like this. When he had first moved in with her, he smiled all the time and was always willing to grab the door for her when she came back with bags full of groceries or help her lift a large box when she looked like she was having trouble with one. He seems almost distant now, even though she knows that he doesn't want to be.
And although the Rachel Berry who was with him when he first moved in would have wanted him this way, the Rachel Berry now doesn't. She wants him to be happy for a change.
His visits to the hospital have become more frequent, and she lets him take her car out when he absolutely needs to be at the hospital. She asks him why he needs to be there so often for something as simple as a gunshot wound in his leg, but he tells her that there are all kinds of therapy that needs to happen after being shot or something like that.
Judging by the bills he brings home from the hospital that she snoops at when he leaves them on the coffee table (and she knows that she shouldn't), therapy's costing him a lot of money.
It's part of the reason why she hasn't asked him to chip in on the rent yet.
That, and she doesn't want their living arrangement to feel like something it isn't.
:.:.:
She wakes up one Saturday morning, Berkley sitting at her feet. He doesn't do that very often anymore. Most of the time Rachel wakes up to find Berkley asleep on Finn's chest – which she truly finds funny, no matter how many times she tells Finn that it's not. It's kind of refreshing to find her cat asleep with her instead of her house guest.
She and Finn have developed a dynamic that works – most of the time, anyway. She wakes up early on weekdays and gets ready for work, usually out the door before Finn even wakes up, and by the time she comes home he's sitting on the couch, hallway through a can of cheesy Pringles (with orange fingertips to prove it) and engrossed in the middle of a Family Guy marathon.
It works for the both of them. He stays out of her hair and she stays out of his.
Weekends, however, are slightly different. A weekend is two whole days of the two of them together. She's actually required to make conversation with him and everything.
Oh, if only your high school self was his host, she thinks sometimes. You wouldn't be able to stop talking to him.
It really isn't that bad, anyway. Living with Finn and maintaining a level of civility around him. The longer they spend together, the easier they get along with one another. They established rules that they promised to follow that Rachel's written on the whiteboard stuck to her refrigerator.
They're making it work to the best of their ability.
Rachel looks at her alarm clock before getting out of bed, mumbling something to herself about the time as she pulls the sheets off of her body. Berkley springs off of the mattress and scampers into the hallway, Rachel assuming that he's gone to lie on Finn's chest again. It is where she's been finding him most mornings, anyway.
She walks across the hall, sticking her head out of the doorframe, looking for Finn on the couch.
Sure enough, he's there, half-snoring with his mouth hanging open.
He almost looks cute when he's asleep. She refuses to admit it to herself, because that would just contradict everything she's tried to keep hidden away from herself for the past ten years. Regurgitating all of those feelings she's tried to suppress for so long seems like a waste of time to her.
Rachel tries to ignore it and walks into the bathroom, leaving the door slightly ajar behind her as she steps inside. She's not expecting Finn to be awake for another three hours. She has more than enough time to take a shower and get ready for her day of grocery shopping and not much else.
Finn can spend his afternoon watching Family Guy and Berkley for all she cares.
Rachel catches her reflection in the mirror of her medicine cabinet, sighing slightly. She looks tired; like she's back in college and had just pulled an all-nighter studying for some giant exam. She doesn't normally look like this. She's lost her luster, she thinks.
The sad thing is, she's twenty five. She should still look as bright and chipper as she once did in high school – only hotter, because, you know; you're supposed to get hotter after high school.
It's Finn, and she knows it is. It's not like he's aging her or anything, but he's a brand new stressor that's decided to waltz into her life once again. All of a sudden she's been worrying about a new handful of things that she doesn't want to think of at all, from making sure Berkley doesn't "accidentally" forget to use the litter box to keeping up with stocking the refrigerator every week.
She lies to herself and doesn't think of how she's been trying to dress nicer in front of him now that he's been staying with her. She wears makeup on the weekends and actually feels guilty when she doesn't work out once a week now.
She refuses to believe that it's because of Finn, however. Her feelings for him are on a ship that's sailed long ago. She shouldn't be feeling this way.
Rachel peers into the mirror and brings her hands up to her forehead, pulling her hair back and frowning.
"Finn Hudson's going to make you go gray before you turn thirty," she says to herself, dropping her hands down to her sides. She turns around to face the tub and turns the water on, stepping out of her pajamas as she waits for the water to warm up. She pulls her hair out from the large, messy bun it had been piled into the night before and lets her hair fall down over her shoulders, hands moving up to fluff it out as she looks in the mirror once more.
Unfortunately, she doesn't notice the door swinging open quickly, nearly hitting her in the side.
It's Finn. Standing in her bathroom. Staring at her. Stark naked.
"Shit," he says, Rachel shrieking and trying to grab on to the door to close it shut once more. She scrambles around and finally slams the door shit, Finn turning over his shoulder so that he isn't able to see her.
Rachel leans against the door, panting heavily, the water running noisily in the background.
Well, if Finn wasn't going to give her gray hair before, he certainly is now.
:.:.:
She takes a thirty minute shower, which is practically unheard of in the world of Rachel Berry. She's always the one that never shuts up about water conversation and how much better of a place the world would be if everyone just cut back ten minutes from their shower, but Rachel's singing a different tune today.
There's an exception that needs to be granted to people who have just been seen naked by their worst enemy in high school who's currently living with them.
Rachel wonders if Finn even knew she was in the bathroom. Maybe it was a completely innocent act and he was actually mortified that he had seen her naked.
Of course, she didn't want him to be so stunned that he was unable to realize that she was a young woman standing in front of him, completely naked.
The Rachel in high school would have suspected him to be peeping on her through the crack in the door, just because that was the type of person Finn was in high school who would get a free glimpse at a naked girl any chance he could. The fact that it was Rachel would only cause him to make fun of her afterwards.
The Rachel now, however, felt sympathy for him. Maybe what he had done was an accident after all. He did seem rather shocked, the more she thought about it. His face had turned a bright, blushing like he had just walked in on his mother stepping into the shower instead of her.
She let the thought mill over in her head for a moment. Maybe she was actually disgusting to him. Maybe he was mortified because to him, it was like seeing his mother.
Why would he, anyway. He's the same one who stood silent when Quinn Fabray asked her if she chaired the itty bitty titty committee up through her senior year.
Rachel figures that the more she thinks about, the more depressed she'll become. She doesn't want to go back to high school and think about how Finn stood by and said nothing the entire time. It'll just make her want to act the way she did in high school when she got upset – locking herself in her room and listening to her Barbra Streisand albums on repeat until she was told to leave.
She's just a bit more mature than that, she thinks.
She walks into her room stealthily and tries everything in her power to avoid Finn completely, knowing that if she sees him, she'll come close to collapsing. At least she's wearing more than she was the last time he saw her; a towel wrapped around her petite frame. She shuffles across the floor and scurries into her bedroom, rushing over to her closet before dropping her towel.
All you need to do is find something to wear, she thinks to herself. Find something that doesn't scream 'you just saw me naked and know everything about what I look like.' She pushes a sizeable amount of clothing to one side of her closet, exhaling sharply.
A habit would be nice right about now.
She decides on some black dress with little white polka dots scattered across it that buttons up in the front and ties in the back, cinching at her waist. The more she thinks about it, the more Rachel realizes that there's no real point in trying to accent all of the features she thinks are her best ones - Finn's seen them all, the good and the bad. For all she knows, he had taken in more than she thinks he would be able to in the amount of time that the door was open.
Or maybe she's just over-processing all of this and needs to get a grip.
Rachel makes her way into the bathroom and starts to blow dry her hair, looking at herself nervously in the mirror. Maybe Finn won't care and nothing will be awkward between them when she walks out into the living room. Maybe everything will be fine and he'll understand how nervous she is about everything and he won't even bring it up.
But Rachel knows that she's not living in a perfect world, and neither is Finn.
Rachel slowly makes her way down the hallway and towards the living room, able to hear the television blaring now that her hair dryer's off. It doesn't sound like Finn's regular programming – no babies talking with British accents, no cursing children, and no people with yellow skin acting drunk. It instead sounds like the news, or at least something of substance.
"Hey," he says, breaking the silence as she walks in. She feels like she's walking on eggshells around him. Finn just turns over his shoulder and looks at her with a smile.
Rachel thinks that he's not just wearing that shit-eating grin for no reason, and suddenly wants to light herself of fire and jump out of her window. It wouldn't be that far of a fall, anyway.
Just enough to kill her but not enough to make her regret it when she got up to Jew heaven, or whatever.
"H-hey," she stammers nervously, pretending to do something with the envelopes that have been piling up on the table by her kitchen counter. She doesn't say anything else and drops a coupon mailer to the floor by her feet. Nervous and clumsy, how lovely.
Finn flips the channel on the television. Now it's some Saturday morning cartoon that she vaguely remembers watching growing up.
"Look, Finn, I-"
"No," he says, turning around on the couch, laughing slightly. The more he laughs, the more Rachel realizes that he sounds just as nervous as she does. "Whatever happened was completely my fault, Rachel, and I'm… I'm super sorry about it."
She narrows her eyes as she sets the mailer back on the table with the other envelopes. There's no way he can give up this easy. Sure, she knows that things have gotten (dare she say it) better since Finn's moved in with her, but this isn't him accidentally eating her leftovers in the refrigerator or forgetting to turn the lights off on her car when he comes back from the hospital.
This is him seeing her naked. This is an entirely different ballpark.
"I'm changing the rules, by the way," she says, looking at him and trying her best not to smile. He actually looks like he's being genuinely nice to her, and she's not used to it. "Always knocking on doors is going to be rule number one now."
Finn laughs and she feels his eyes trained on her back as she walks back into the kitchen. "What, so your number one rule is just knocking on doors now? What happened to the first rule you made?"
Rachel looks at the whiteboard on the refrigerator before erasing the first two rules she had made when she and Finn had established them during his first week of residency. He's right, after all. The first rule she had made is the best rule she thinks she had made.
She doesn't say anything and watches him from the couch. He grabs the remote and starts to turn the volume down on the TV.
Oh, great.
"Look, we don't have to make a big deal out of this or anything, but I'm sorry," he says, shrugging slightly. "I mean, I know you probably think it's pretty awkward, or whatever, but I really don't think the you need to make such a big deal out of anything."
Rachel looks at him, keeping herself from starting to erase the whiteboard on the refrigerator. She glares and sighs, crossing her arms over her chest.
"You saw me naked, Finn-"
"Yeah, and it's not going to change anything," he tells her, standing up from the couch and walking up towards her. She feels her heart quiver in her chest the closer he gets to her. He towers over her and she feels like she's being looked down upon like an ant, or something else that's small.
She's always been small and he's always been tall, but she's never actually felt the difference between them as dramatically before.
"Rachel, I don't know what you think I think about you, but I'm not planning on dating you any time soon."
Great. So at least it's out in the open, then.
She feels her heart sink slightly, her throat going dry. "Oh," she says, unfolding her arms from her chest. "Well, I never really thought that, but I… I just didn't want things to be weird between us, that's all."
He laughs at her and smiles; a genuine smile. "I get it," he tells her, sticking his hands in his pockets. There's a beat of silence between them and she turns around, opening a cabinet to grab a coffee mug. If he doesn't want to talk about it, she totally understands. She should be mature enough to understand things like this by now.
"And look, maybe we can go get something for dinner tonight to make up for it."
Rachel turns around and sees Finn still standing there in front of her, a dumbfounded smile stuck to his face.
"My treat."
She can't help the smile that ends up showing up on her face moments later. It's kind of hard not to smile at when he's like this.
"Sure," she tells him, drumming her fingers against the coffee mug. "I'd… I'd like that."
She turns back around and turns on her coffee machine, waiting for it to boot up. She's still afraid to turn around and look back at Finn, but she doesn't mind all too much. Her heart's beating too loudly in her ears for her to fully understand what's going on around her.
"Great," he says, his voice barely audible in her screaming ears. "You can pick where we go and everything, I don't really mind." She turns over her shoulder and smiles softly, feeling her face begin to pink.
Finn's already started to make his way out of the kitchen and back into the living room before turning around.
"Oh, and Rachel?"
"Yes?"
"I never would have pinned you as the type to have a tattoo."
Her face feels like it's on fire and before she can turn around an offer a rebuttal, Finn's already gone. She can hear the bathroom door latch shut behind her in the hall.
Maybe some things are just better left unsaid.
:.:.:
The rest of Saturday goes by slowly, Rachel occupying herself by finishing a book Kurt's leant to her about Judy Garland and taking Berkley out onto the roof and brushing him for the first time in God knows when, all while trying to keep her mind off of whatever might happen during the dinner and she and Finn are scheduled to have for the night.
She doesn't want to admit to herself that he's taking her out just because he's accidentally seen her naked, but she's reduced it to that.
It's better than she's done in a long time. The last guy who saw her naked left without even bothering to ask for her phone number.
By the time Finn starts getting ready for the night, Rachel decides that she should start getting ready as well; trying not to seem like she's trying too hard to impress him.
After all, they're just going to go to Breadstix, or whatever. She doesn't need to pretend like he's taking her to the Academy Awards.
She settles on a little black dress that's been sitting in the back of her closet since the last date she's been on (which ended horribly).
Alright, so maybe it's not smart to wear a dress reserved for dates on something that's clearly not a date, but Rachel doesn't mind all too much. After all, it's just a dress. She looks good in it.
The drive there is mostly quiet, Finn insisting on driving instead of the other way around. Finn says something to her about how she looks nice at one point, and Rachel swears that her entire face turns red.
She keeps on promising herself that she won't let Finn have this effect on her.
Then again, Rachel's always been known for making promises she can't keep.
"So, um, what's the story behind your tattoo?" Finn asks her once they've sat down at the restaurant. They've both exchanged pleasantries with the waiter once or twice and have made their drink orders, but they don't say anything until Finn decides to break the silence with his question.
Rachel looks down into her lap and suppresses a smile, laughing slightly to herself.
"I can't believe you saw that…"
"Come on," he says, whining slightly. "I mean, everybody that gets a tattoo gets one for a reason, right?" She laughs and stirs the straw in her water nervously. She doesn't really want to talk to him about this. She doesn't mind Finn so much anymore, but she doesn't want to talk about this.
"Sure," she says, smiling at him. "I mean, the whole 'everybody gets a tattoo for a reason' thing. I'm not going to tell you."
"Come on."
"No."
Finn looks at her with a smile, tipping his head to the side. "Rachel Berry. You out of all people would not just get a tattoo because you thought it would be cute."
She smiles as she looks at him, crossing her legs underneath the table. He's kind of cute when he wants to be.
"Kurt took me to get it the summer of junior year," she says, picking at her nails nervously. "He told me that he was going to get one too, but he lied. I was too drunk to really remember any of it, anyway."
She watches at Finn looks at her, eyebrows raised as he laughs at what she says. "Rachel Berry getting a drunk tattoo, and before you turned eighteen?" He laughs, wiping a hand across his face. "I thought I'd heard it all, but that takes the cake."
She nudges his leg underneath the table. "Shut up," she tells him, smiling slightly. "I wasn't that drunk." For being drunk and going to a place that was willing to give minors tattoos, her tattoo hasn't turned out that bad. She would never, ever get another one in a thousand years, but the one she has doesn't look like a complete piece of shit.
"My junior year wasn't exactly my best year of high school, and Kurt and I were celebrating the end of the year one night and I got drunk, and he suggested that I get a tattoo to – you know, wrap up the year."
She looks at Finn, hoping to see some trace of understanding in his face. He looks like he's trying to remember something, but he doesn't say anything.
"Getting a star just kind of seemed… I don't know. Appropriate. The whole idea of putting it on my hip was just so my parents wouldn't see it and find out."
Finn laughs, taking a sip from his water.
"What, do they not know or something?"
"No," she tells him. Rachel looks at him and the weird feeling of having a conversation with Finn washes over her again, unsure as to what to do about it.
Maybe she should just stop talking.
"Well, maybe if you have another rough patch or whatever, you can get another tattoo," he said.
"I don't think so," she says, her voice soft. She tips her head down into her lap. "I wouldn't know where else to put one."
The two of them look at each other and Rachel feels her stomach clench, feeling like she has to throw up all of a sudden.
It's not in the bad, regular way she felt like she had to throw up when she was around Finn Hudson in high school, however. This is a new, butterflies-in-her-stomach feeling that she doesn't mind as much.
Maybe she can get used to Finn Hudson.