Hey everyone!

I just wanted to thank everyone for all of the interest and love for this story. It's been extremely cathartic to write, and I feel as though it's the best writing I've done in a long time. This is one of the last three chapters – and although I can't promise the happiest of endings, I will say that I don't think it will make too many people upset! (If it still does, well, I hope you can recover.) An enormous thank you from the bottom of my heart – every notification, review, and favorite only pushes me forward in writing!

(A/N: Even though I've been writing the 'then' chapters from Finn's POV, I felt the need to write this one from both his and Rachel's POV instead. That, and this chapter is MUCH shorter than the other ones – their past wrapped up much quicker than I anticipated. :) Hopefully it's not too confusing!)

She and Sam broke up a few weeks into July. Rachel didn't really want to blame it on anything in particular, so she just told him that things weren't working out between the two of them and called it quits.

"It's not you," she told him the afternoon she broke up with him, frowning sympathetically. "It's me." The two had gone to a frozen yogurt shop and were sharing a bowl of the only vegan option the shop had – which, much to Rachel's surprise, Sam always opted to share with her every time they went. "I mean, I just need to go to college with a clear head and focus on my schoolwork, and having a boyfriend would just get in the way of all of that, you know?"

Sam nodded and looked at her, surprised. "Yeah, I mean, I get it," he said, looking down into the bowl of frozen yogurt sitting between them on the table. "You're gonna go off and do huge things. You probably don't want a boyfriend."

Rachel didn't want to dwell on the thought of 'doing huge things' like he had brought up, because she knew that it wasn't going to be true. She was going to go to school and get a degree and live in Ohio for the rest of her life – and the faster she came to terms with that, she thought, the better off she would be in the long run.

"Just promise not to forget everyone when you're some big choral director, okay?" She couldn't help but crack a smile at his comment and sets her spoon down in the cup, nudging it towards Sam to finish. She didn't feel very hungry to begin with.

"I promise," she told him, standing up from the table and letting her hand rest on his own. Sam stood up next to her and she smiled, standing up on her toes to press a kiss to his cheek. "Do you want to help me finish packing?"

He nodded and the two of them left, Rachel climbing into the passenger side of the car as Sam started the car up and pulled out of the parking lot.

Somewhere in the depths of her gut she felt like she was going to be sick, but she suppressed the feeling and looked back at Sam with a smile stuck to her face.

She was going to be fine if she just remembered to breathe.

:.:.:

Finn's deployment date was sometime in midsummer. He chose to fit in everything he would have into his time left in Ohio during a normal summer, which proved not to be too difficult of a feat. He seemed to fit in going to Six Flags and having day-long marathons of TV shows and spending days sitting on the couch doing absolutely nothing while his mother was away at work. He knew once school had let out that his summer wouldn't be highlighted by much to begin with.

Quinn had left for school the second week of June. Finn didn't seem to notice when she left; the two of them not keeping much contact with one another after school. He didn't care, anyway. Quinn had turned into someone he didn't want to associate himself with anymore.

There was still a part of him that wanted to apologize to Rachel. That was one of the only things that made him want to stay in Ohio, especially after learning that she was staying. He knew that he hadn't redeemed himself for her yet – at least not in his eyes.

Maybe, he thought, he could go off and become a war hero or something. That way, when he got back home, he could find Rachel and tell her all about how he took a bullet for some fellow soldier because he felt that it was the right thing to do, and Rachel would swoon and think he was the most important person in the entire world – or at least in all of Ohio.

He knew that even if he did become a war hero, or win a Purple Heart, or save all of mankind from some crazy alien race, Rachel wouldn't see him any differently. He had let her down when she needed him the most, and he never apologized to her.

And judging by the way things were panning out, Finn would never have the chance to give Rachel the apology she deserved.

:.:.:

"I'm telling you, if you just lose the shoes, you'll be able to close this suitcase." Kurt sat down on top of the bright pink suitcase that was on Rachel's bed and sighed, Rachel not paying much attention to him. He stood up and dug inside the suitcase for a moment, fishing out a pair of red Mary Janes with a heel that was much higher than he was used to seeing her wear.

Kurt dangled them in front of Rachel as she stared at them, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. "You're never going to have an excuse to wear these, Rachel." He set them down on her bed carelessly and she picked them back up immediately, standing in front of Kurt with a scowl on her face.

"Then I'll just grab another suitcase then," she said, irritated. Kurt rolled his eyes and looked at her, watching as she walked into her closet and managed to extract another pink suitcase that looked nearly identical to the one on her bed.

She wasn't in the happiest of moods, and Kurt could tell. She wore a perpetual frown on her face and didn't seem like she was excited to go off to college as Kurt was.

"Hey, the U's not going to be that bad," Kurt told her, sitting up on Rachel's bed and looking at her with a smile, crossing his legs over one another. "I mean, I know a lot of people from high school are going, but it's college. You're never going to see them, and they're not going to be in any of your classes." He watched as Rachel opened the suitcase she had taken out and threw the shoes he had picked out into the pit of it.

Rachel looked up at Kurt and sighed, eyes beginning to water with tears.

"I'm not making the wrong choice, am I?" She pulled her hair into a ponytail and nervously threw it down her shoulder. "I mean, going to school and staying here to become a teacher-"

"You're going to do great, Rachel," he said, looking at her as she stood in front of him. "You're going to get this degree, and you can teach voice or something to make money, and we can move out to New York just like we planned last year."

She worried her hands together, bringing one hand up to bite off a thumbnail.

"Fine," she said, trying to think ahead to her future in college. Kurt was going to Cincinnati, but he got into the music conservatory. They had one of the best programs for musical theatre in the entire nation, and was practically known for cranking out Broadway stars every year. Even though he was staying in Ohio, Kurt still had good things going for him.

She, on the other hand, did not.

"Just think," Kurt said, offering her a broad smile. "In four years, we'll be in New York, living the dream."

She nodded along with Kurt, even though her head and her heart were in completely different places. Rachel had never had to worry about something like that before, and when she did, it was a completely different shift in her life.

And the worst part is, she doesn't think that there's going to be anything she can do about it.