Hey all! Hope you enjoy the chapter :)

Disclaimer: Glee is not mine.

The first weekend with Ryder living with her in New York had seemed almost too perfect, so it was only natural that reality showed up on the Monday. The reality being, Ryder needing to find a job to pay his third of the rent and bills, no matter how mundane it was, until he truly 'found himself', so he was going to devote every day until success to traipsing round New York, trying to find somewhere that would hire a guy who hadn't worked a day in his life until an internship which he had quit after less than two months. He had to admit that, on paper, that didn't look great from a prospective employer's point of view, which was probably why, after four days, he hadn't got so much as an interview at even the seediest of bars. However, he did have a whole lot of determination in return for his lack of experience, and he wasn't going to stop until he'd found something.

Meanwhile, Marley was back to her usual classes, not that she didn't enjoy most of them, particularly those connected to her music major, which she adored. She had, at this moment in time, just gotten out of her absolute favourite class at NYADA, song-writing, where her eccentric but kindly teacher would have his students lose themselves in the headphones connected to their keyboards, uttering words of encouragement as they composed lyrics and melodies. To her disgruntlement, Marley had to leave class twenty minutes early today to attend a meeting with the new NYADA accommodation officer who had emailed her, after a meeting with her RAs, wanting to know why one of them had reported that she had gone AWOL from her dorm room without alerting the school, despite still being enrolled as a student.

"I'm sorry," Marley mumbled, when she was sat in the messy office, the new employee clearly still in the process of unpacking. "I just…a better living arrangement came up, and since I don't have to pay for the room, I didn't think it was a problem," She explained, electing to leave out her reasons for leaving, since Bree was still hassling her in class, and she didn't want to exacerbate things any more than she (and Santana, of course,) already had.

"Regardless of whether or not fees are involved, you have to tell NYADA what you're doing. Imagine if the building burnt down and you weren't marked present when it was evacuated," the accommodation officer, a stout, frowning middle-aged woman, chastised.

"Sorry," Marley repeated. "I didn't think of that."

"No, you didn't," the woman said sternly, before reaching for her computer keyboard.

"Am I in some sort of trouble?" Marley asked, biting her lip anxiously, hating the idea of having to tell Ryder, who had disapproved of the initial move, if she was.

"No," came the relenting reply, and Marley sighed with relief. "It's done, we know now. We do, however, need your new address. It's policy for NYADA to have up to date contact details on all students."

Once Marley had given the lady the details she required, she was allowed to go, rolling her eyes at her unnecessary severity once she was out of eyeshot, before leaving campus to go home.

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When she arrived back at the apartment, Ryder was still out job-hunting, and Santana was presumably still in class, since, as a senior, she had to work hard in the last year before graduation, especially with having to counteract the perhaps detrimental effects of her partying lifestyle. Marley took the opportunity of a quiet, empty apartment to snuggle up in bed and take a necessary afternoon nap, and was just beginning to doze off when she heard the door open, her sleepy eyes flickering open just in time to see her frustrated-looking boyfriend enter, and flop down on the bed beside her with a tired sigh.

"No luck?" she asked sympathetically, already knowing the answer, and reaching out to brush his unruly windswept hair out of his face and caress his cheek. Ryder merely sighed in reply. "You wanna talk about it?" she continued.

"There's not much to say. I need a job but I can't get one," he said bluntly, hoisting himself up to sit back and lean against the headboard, before adding, "how was your day?"

"Good, until I got told off by the new accommodation lady about leaving my dorm without telling them," she replied with an eye-roll, before realising that Ryder probably wouldn't be very impressed…which is why she was surprised when he was suddenly hovering above her with a wicked grin plastered across his face, his warm hands dropping down to touched her stomach…to tickle her mercilessly until she had to screech her pleas for him to stop at the top of her lungs.

"What as that for?!" She laughed once she had recovered.

"That's for being naughty and not telling your school where you live," he chastised her playfully.

"Well maybe I…don't want them to stalk me?" She tried to justify, earning nothing but a raised eyebrow from her boyfriend.

"I totally told you so," he said smugly.

"Actually, you told me I shouldn't move here at all," she reminded him, sitting up to face him properly. "And guess who's now moved here too," she quipped, poking her tongue out and receiving a soft poke in the stomach in return.

"Dammit," Ryder joked, knowing he had lost that one, before his tone turned more serious. "Well…I had to. I couldn't stand…how things were, any longer."

"You mean how things were between us?" She asked quietly, reaching for both his hands. Ryder nodded.

"I mean how, if you'd told me about the accommodation person a few days ago over the phone, it would have probably turned into an argument," he clarified.

"Yeah. Or we wouldn't have spoken long enough to even get onto the subject," she agreed. "But you know Ry, it's all gonna turn out okay. We just need to reconnect, is all. And let's face it, I think we're already doing that, if we're back to the tickling stage of comfort with each other already," she chuckled, biting her lip before hesitantly adding, "and, you know…sharing a bed," her cheeks turning pink, prompting a shy smile from Ryder. Things had been kept strictly PG so far, but in the back of their minds, they both wondered just how much longer Marley would want to wait, especially given the growing confidence her big city move had prompted.

"I love you," he told her simply, leaning in to peck her on the lips and pushing those thoughts to the back of his mind.

"I love you too," she told him without hesitation, as soon as they had parted. "Which is why I'm gonna spend every free second I have helping you find a job, in fact, I'm gonna start right now," she informed him, reaching over for her old laptop, which Ryder had had the forethought to bring her from Lima to replace her new, Bree-ruined one, before announcing, "I'm helping you make a proper resume."

Ryder smiled gratefully, pulling her gently back into his lap and leaning forward to rest his chin on shoulder and keeping his arms wrapped around her, as they began to work.

Hope you enjoyed! Let me know what you thought. Any ideas of what's coming? Big stuff is happening/being set in motion in the next couple of chapters, I'm excited for you to read it :)

Dear reviewers:

TeaAndGlee: Aww, this makes me so happy. Hope you liked this chapter too :)

Ember411: There will definitely be more Finn in future :) Hope you enjoyed this instalment!

RocioMelinatic-Ryley15: Lol, sorry :p Oh good, hopefully you liked this one too.

Lauren xxx