A/N: Thank you for reading my story and sending reviews! As one of the reviewers indicated, I'm aware that I need someone to beta my story. I'm still a fanfic beginner and feeling my way around. So it'll take time to find one, but I'm willingly going to do so. Until then, I hope you guys bear with my writing skill.

Disclaimer: I do not own Glee and its characters.

Chapter 3 – February 2012

"Meeting at Louis XVI in thirty minutes." Rachel announced as soon as her team arrived at Hotel Mazarin and got out of the passenger van which they had picked up from Avis at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport.

If Rachel was allowed, she had rather avoided seeing Finn (again) at the office as much as possible on last Friday. She, however, was in charge of the special issue which she desperately wanted to be perfect, that was to say, every single plan her team and Matt had discussed and worked out was needed to be drummed into his head, especially since he wasn't on their location hunt.

So she gave in to joining the meeting last week, telling herself repeatedly as if she cast a spell on herself; she was a professional. It was not big of a deal. He was just a guy who once had swept her off her feet with a sweet talk just for one night stand (kind of, but whatever). That was why not only had he ever showed up at her apartment that day, but had not bothered to call her, and just disappeared, which meant he was that kind of guy after all, even though she couldn't believe he would be in the tiny part of the back of her mind. Besides, she was now a 28 year old, strong, independent woman. It was a little over a year ago. All she had to do was just pretending nothing had happened. It would be okay then. Come on, you could do that, Rachel!

"Rachel!"

"Huh?" She snapped out of her thoughts as her editorial assistant, who had already finished putting up the enlarged flatplan on the white board in the hotel facility, called her name.

"Everybody's here." The blonde girl in ponytail informed as she took a seat next to Mercedes.

Rachel looked over the meeting room which were the Musicraker reserved for a fortnight before clearing her throat. "Thanks, Kitty." She slowly stood up from her chair. "Okay, um," she started, looking down at her blight pink binder on the table, "fortunately, Mr. White generously allowed us to take a second look at his house before shooting of the day after tomorrow." Her gaze shifted from the binder to the art director, avoiding looking at the tallest guy beside the guy with the glasses. "So, Artie, take him and Ryder around every location we're going to have a photo shoot."

"Do I have to bring all the items to shoot with me?" The young photo assistant asked, holding his hand up in the air.

"No, but just in case, our Nikon D3 and–" Rachel was about to tell the assistant which items exactly he should bring as her cell phone went off. She excused herself to answer the phone, noticing that the name on the screen was the producer of New Directions. "Hello, Mr. White, how are you?" She greeted.

A few minutes later, she put her phone down on the table before informing the staff of what she had gotten from the producer. "Mr. White offered to take us to Lower Ninth Ward tomorrow if we like to."

New Directions used to do home recording at their uncle, Lee White's house where had been in Lower Ninth Ward. The house, however, was completely ruined by Hurricane Katrina, which forced them to evacuate from there—notwithstanding that it was about six years and a half ago, there still were a lot of traces of the damage caused by Katrina, and their home studio remained destroyed which caused Mr. White to set up a new home studio at the boundary of the French Quarter and Eastern New Orleans. The article Blaine was going to write would include this story, but no photos of their original home studio.

"How many rolls of reversal do you need me to carry?" Ryder asked in a low voice, leaning closer to his photographer, sensing that Rachel was going to squeeze an extra photo shoot into their schedule.

"Not color, black and–"

"I think black and white–"

Widening their eyes, all the staff in the meeting room looked at the tiniest woman and the tallest guy respectively as they spoke of the same thing in unison.

Rachel cleared her throat, ignoring Mercedes' smirk and Blaine's amused look, before turning around to the white board and letting out a deep breath. "I think this," she pointed to the page 30, "could be replaced by a black and white picture of their original studio and its surroundings, or" she popped the cap off a red Sharpie and drew a square on the pages 30 and 31, "it should be a double page spread on top half." She took a pause, closing eyes, before facing the rest of the staff. "Blaine, I know you already have some article structure in your mind, but please prepare yourself that it would be required a small revision."

About thirty minutes later, Rachel announced they should be in the hotel lobby at 8am next morning before dismissing the staff.

"Well, that was interesting." Her African American of a friend threw a meaningful look at the brunette, folding her arms across her chest.

Rachel pulled a face. "There was nothing interesting, Mer." She began gathering her stuff from the table as she changed the subject. "Where do you think it is good to feed us tonight? Travel Team recommended The Half Shell, which we can walk to from here." She suggested. "Why don't we check up on there and make a reservation for eight."

Mercedes narrowed her eyes, thinking that Kitty was the one to arrange for them to have dinner, but soon shrugged off and just agreed. "Okay."

Thanks to the jam packed schedule in the first week in New Orleans, Rachel didn't have time to have a talk (or be alone) with Finn other than when she needed to. And when she needed to talk with him, she narrowly managed to not get emotional since she forced Mercedes to tag along with her when it was necessary.

The team currently was at the corner in McKinley's Jazz Club, which was one of famous Jazz clubs situated in a historic building in the French Quarter and where New Directions performed live once a week regularly. The club was not so big, but not so small. There were so many posters or photographs of musicians on all the walls covered with grayish yellow plaster, which she could imagine used to be more bright color. The floor was almost packed with a bunch of the local residents and tourists, who were anxious to wait for the band to hit the first note.

Rachel looked down at a sample copy where the digital stills they and Matt had taken on their location hunt were patched up. She slowly shifted her gaze over the stage wing, where Finn was chatting with Allan, the piano man of New Directions, and Ryder was carrying out the final check on the amount of light with his exposure meter.

When she was about to look down at the copy in her hands again, the corner of her eye captured Finn's gaze towards her. With a hint of a smile on his lips, he held up a film box of ILFORD DELTA 3200 in one hand, the page 52 and 53 in his copy of the flatplan in the other hand, asking for her approval. Then he flipped to the previous pages and picked up another film box which was Fujichrome Provia 400X. She just nodded to approve, not bothering to smile back at him.

She had been annoyed a little bit with him, since he seemed to not be going to even make an excuse for what he had done to her (okay, that might have been a bit of her fault because he seemed intimidated by her demeanor, which she had been so determined to allow him no chance to do so). What, however, annoyed her more was the fact that she thought of the same thing as he did—black and white would be fitting for the page 52 and 53.

Rachel snapped out of her thoughts when the audience broke out cheering as 'I Never Knew What A Girl Could Do' started. Despite herself, she followed every move the photographer was making.

The more you worked as an editor, the better you assessed whether a photographer was good or not, how well the photographs would be turned out, and sometimes even who he (or she) was like, just by seeing the way he moved; how close he could get to subjects of a picture, how to communicate with them, or how and when to click the shutter.

From her experiences, Finn Hudson definitely was a natural, and one of a few (or you could say that there was none other than him) as to what exactly she knew he wanted to tell through the lens. And from his works, she had thought he must have been so sincere and generous.

For those reasons, she still couldn't understand why he just disappeared without saying anything to her. Who was she kidding? Who would tell the reason of hump and dump? And who would want to hear that kind of reasons?

Rachel sighed as she noticed that Aaron began to sing 'All of Me' along with a lilting tune.

Yes, all of me, why not take all of me, baby

Yes, can't you see? I'm no good without you

Take my arms, I'll never use them

Take my lips, I want to lose them

Your goodbye left me with eyes that cry

How can I go on dear without you?

You took the part that once was my heart

Why not take all of me (*)

Even though the sound was upbeat, the lyrics got her down and she relapsed into self-doubt which had been a distress to her as an editor and a woman for a while after his disappearing. She thought that the man or woman who got dumped in this song hadn't been able to see worse than herself since he or she at least got a goodbye.

"Ms. Berry," Mr. White held his hand to her. "May I have this dance with you?"

"I'm not a good dancer, Lee." Rachel hesitated. "Besides, I don't know how with this song."

"Don't be shy. Nobody cares you don't know how. Look at them," Mr. White nodded at the floor where some of the people got out of their chairs and started swaying, "everybody's dancing on their own way." He took her binder from her and handed it out to the blonde girl beside her before twirling her. "You know, my wife's always complaining my dance move and singing a parody of this song—Can't you see? I'm so good without you–" He began to sing along with the performance of New Directions, "Don't step on my feet, You'll be never in using'em discreet," he laughed a little, "then I step on her feet because she is so distracting me!" He twirled her once more. "Oops, I did it to you too. Sorry." He apologized, stepping out of her feet.

"It's alright." Rachel giggled. "Does she have a repertoire of parodies?"

"Oh, yeah," Mr. White nodded, swaying themselves. "She makes every song with lyrics a parody." He looked down at her. "You finally smiled."

"Huh?" Rachel perked her head up.

"You seemed dismal before." Mr. White stated as the next song 'Bright Mississippi' started and he began to lead her to take a step properly. "You start with your right foot forward. Right, left, triple step, one, two–" He put his right hand on her back and guided her left hand on his right shoulder. "And turn at three and four." He kept teaching her the basic Lindy Hop before asking casually. "Did you fight with your boyfriend?"

Rachel almost failed to hear what Mr. White was asking since she was totally absorbed in mirroring his move. "W-what? My boyfriend?" She stammered.

"That photographer." He nodded towards the man looking into a viewfinder at the corner of the floor.

"Oh, no, no, he's not my boyfriend." Rachel cast down her eyes, biting her bottom lip, as her face slightly blushed.

Mr. White raised his eyebrow before shrugging. "Well, he likes you then." He decided.

"I don't think so." Rachel dismissed his idea in a low voice.

"But he was stealing wistful glances at you when not taking pictures, you know." Mr. White grinned at her. "He did it in Lower Ninth Ward, and at our studio, too."

"He just asked for my approval." Rachel interrupted before he could finish, nodding as if she convinced herself.

"Don't you like him?" Mr. White pressed as they continued swinging. He, however, dropped the subject since she opened her mouth to protest, but closed it before letting out a sigh. "Alright, I'm not gonna poke my nose into your business. But smile in rain or sunshine, young lady, or it'll spoil your pretty face."

All she could do was to give him a pensive smile.

"Well done, guys." Mercedes appreciated the team's efforts when they arrived at the hotel, while Rachel was taking the phone call from their editor in chief. "You all must be worn out. Tomorrow is the day off, so have a good rest in the lead up to covering Mardi Gras from the day after tomorrow!"

Rachel sighed after hanging up the phone before calling the staff to stop from going back to their rooms. "Sorry, guys. I have a word with you all, so meet me at Louis XVI after putting down all luggage in your room."

"Isn't there anything we need to bring to the meeting?" Ryder asked as he held up his hand in the air.

"No, you don't need anything." Rachel assured.

"What's going on?" Mercedes, who decided not to return to her room, whispered in Rachel's ear, tangling an arm with hers. "What did Will say?"

"It's been a long time coming." Rachel let out a sigh, dropping her shoulders, leaning her head on her best friend's shoulder.

"Oh." Mercedes perceived as they made their way towards Louis XVI.

The staff walked into the meeting room one by one about ten minutes later. Everyone wore an uneasy expression on their faces.

Rachel looked around the staff and took a deep breath before announcing. "Will is going to officially make an announcement when we are back to the City, but I'll let you know beforehand."

She knew that this was coming soon or later since the regular contents other than cover stories had already been shifted to using digital stills. Film photography demanded on time and money. In addition to that, a lot of imaging and photography company had already discontinued the production of photographic films. She admitted most of readers hardly could distinguish digital photography from film one if photo retouching was properly done.

"The decision has come down from on high." Rachel started explaining. "It's inevitable, especially from a cost-cutting perspective. But," she continued, "we don't need to change anything for this issue, since we've already gotten Sue's approval to the budget, also we don't have Digial Team here, we need to modify the workflow for the Olympics issue as soon as we get back to New York though."

"Finn's going to work with us for the Olympics issue, right?" Artie asked. "Or, it's not official yet?" He turned his head towards the photographer sitting next to him.

"I signed the contract which expires the end of this year." Finn answered.

"Aren't you a film photographer?" Blaine asked, out of the corner of his eye glancing at Rachel, who was casting down at the table, looking like absorbed in her thoughts for some reason.

"Um, kinda." Finn rubbed the back of his neck. "But I've got Pentax 645D, Leica M9, and Canon 5D Mark II, too, although I'm not good at photo retouching."

"Oh, don't worry about that, Finn." Jake, the editorial designer, patted on his shoulder. "We've got great photo editors. You just ask them to manipulate as to whatever you want, just like you your developers when you access to the lab."

"Yeah, I'm going to take you to meet them when we're back to the office." Artie added.

"Alright, anything else, Rachel?" Mercedes called out to the brunette. She saw her mouthing 'no' before declaring. "Then let's call it a night."

Rachel stayed sitting down on the chair as the rest of the staff other than Mercedes walked away from the room. She glanced at her watch on her wrist, which indicated it was past 11pm.

"Don't you go to your room?" Mercedes raised her eyebrow.

"I think it's gonna be a long night for me since I have a lot to think about." Rachel shook her head as she answered. "Maybe one or two glasses of wine will calm my nerve. You wanna come?"

"I'm beat, so I'll pass." Mercedes said apologetically. "But you should go to bed as soon as possible because–"

"I know, I know," Rachel cut it. "Shopping tomorrow, right?"

"At the lobby, 10am." Mercedes reminded her.

"Sharp." Rachel nodded. "I remember."

"Okay, I'll go. Good night, Rachel."

"Night, Mer."

As Rachel stepped out into the courtyard, luckily there were a few vacant tables. She sat at the table at the corner before ordering her Cabernet. Although New Orleans in February was much warmer than in New York, it was chilly at night. She tightened her coat while she waited for her drink.

"May I?"

Rachel froze as she heard a male voice from behind, which she was sure was Finn's. She turned her head towards the direction where the voice came from and looked at the tall guy before just shrugging.

He seated himself quietly across her and ordered La Chimay Bleue for him as a waiter delivered her glass of wine. Both of them stayed in silence awkwardly until the waiter returned to bring his beer to their table.

"Is that good?" Rachel was the first to break the ice. "I don't know much about beer."

Finn sipped his beer before nodding. "Belgian beer is aging like wine. If you like wine, you should try one. I think you'll like Lindemans Pêche Belgium Lambic." He suggested.

"I'll try it when finishing this." Rachel held up her glass. "I don't remember Figgins has Belgian beer."

"Is that the bar your cousin tends?" Finn remembered they had been there a few times. "I think they have La Chimay Rouge, which I also think you'll like. It has a black currant flavor."

"You've got a college degree of Belgian beer or something?" Rachel raised her eyebrow.

Finn chuckled as he beckoned the waiter to get his order. "Something like that." He ordered every kind of Belgian beer, which the bar had as he handed her empty glass out to the waiter. "Let's have a Belgian beer tasting."

"I don't think I can drink that much." Rachel protested.

"I'll take care of it if you don't like." Finn insisted.

After the waiter put down five kinds of beer and one beer glass filled with Chimay Triple, Rachel asked again. "You really have a college degree of beer?"

"No," Finn motioned for her to taste La Chimay Rouge, putting the bottle in front of her. "Maybe I got to have a good palate for Belgian beer while in Belgium for a while."

"Oh." Rachel looked down and stared at the bottle, tracing the label with her thumb.

Finn cleared his throat to break the awkward silence. "Rachel, I–"

"Finn," Rachel interrupted, "you don't have to explain anything. I get it. It was nothing and I don't want to talk about it." She sipped her beer before changing the subject. "It tastes really good. I like it."

Finn just smiled at her sheepishly.

"You don't mind working with us even though you can't take photographs with your view cameras?" Rachel asked before swigging her beer.

Finn nodded in deflated. "I have softened my stance on digital photography considerably, you know, when it comes to 'business.'" He gestured the quotation. "Whether I use view cameras or digital ones, paper publication companies don't care how it's made as long as it's great work, I still take pictures with my view cameras though."

"My dads always are saying technology keeps people away from staying in the richness of the mind and heart, and the invention of the fax machine is the real villain." Rachel laughed a little before looking into his eyes. "I hope you'll take photographs with view cameras as long as you are allowed, you know, many photographic films have been discontinued yet." She smiled at him despite herself. "I know our photo editors are great, but there are limits and always subtle differences between film and digital, like you can never reproduce the sound of the stylus scratching record grooves."

"I know. That's why you have a vast vinyl collection, right?" Finn grinned, remembering when he went to her apartment.

"Although you were forced to listen to only the B side of 'Synchronicity' since I left it putting on the player." Rachel giggled, but soon she made a face, realizing what they were talking about. To keep their conversation from the past, she grabbed another bottle of Belgian beer, which he had recommended before tasting it. "Wow, this is good, too." She wore a surprised look on her face. "It's, it's like–"

"Cocktail?" Finn completed her sentence.

Rachel nodded. "If I tell Noah about this, he's definitely going to have this in to gain more sales and female customers." She decided to keep having a beer tasting for a while, sending their past into the void.

"Okay, I'm getting tipsy." Rachel rubbed her forehead with a hand, closing her eyes. "Do you have the time?"

"Um," Finn grabbed her hand to look at her watch on her wrist since he didn't have his, "it's ten to one."

"Already?" Rachel massaged her temple with her forefinger. "I have to go to bed."

"I'll walk you to your room." Finn offered, still her hand in his.

Rachel pulled her hand away from his as she noticed it. "I'm fine." She shifted her gaze towards the waiter before pulling her wallet out of her bag for the check.

Finn put his hand on hers to stop her from paying, the other hand into his back pocket. "I'll get this."

"No, I'll get this." Rachel protested.

"No, I'll get this." Finn said stubbornly.

"No, I'll get this."

"No, Rach, I'll get this."

"No, I–" Rachel burst out laughing.

Finn frowned. "What's so funny?"

Rachel shook her head, still giggling. "I don't know. Because I got intoxicated, maybe?" She really didn't know why. She just felt funny things in her stomach because they had talked for almost two hours as if they were old friends despite the fact that they had seen each other only for a week.

Finn fished his credit card out of his wallet before sliding it in the tab. "Alright, I'll really walk you to your room." He offered in a demanding manner.

Finally, she composed herself and took his offer. "Okay."

"Okay?"

Rachel nodded, thinking, maybe someday, they could be friends once again.

"Okay, then."

Finn took her hand in his after the waiter returned his card, and led the a little bit wasted brunette to the elevator.

*: 'All of Me' is written by Gerald Marks and Seymour Simons and sung and performed with tons of musicians and singers. I think I like Billie Holiday's version the most.

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