Thanks so much for the reviews, everyone! It means a lot!

And… okay, I hate to be "that kid" that has be a huge pain in the ass but, just a word of advice: if you're going to add something to your favorite list/alert list, it's really nice to accompany that with a review. Reviews are motivation, it keeps us all writing for everyone. While we appreciate that you like our work enough to keep track of it, we would just like reviews as well.

So yes. This is basically just me exploring their characters and seeing what I like. I am dealing with Finn's nice side and his, well… Finn side, as well as Rachel's lovesick side and her take-no-prisoners side. (I mean, come on… any girl that is willing to get a teacher fired over a solo can't be one-hundred percent good, right?)

Enjoy chapter two!

The thing with Finn was that he had this severely guilty conscience that had the potential to make him feel bad about pretty much anything. He wasn't supposed to have this guilty conscience, obviously, since he'd made an impressively intimidating name for himself by harassing his classmates and all that, but he had it and sometimes it drove him absolutely mad.

Finn wasn't sure if he would have agreed to go to Rachel's house or not if he hadn't had plans with Quinn. He knew that doing so was a sure-fire way to get his homework done and probably bring his English grade up to at least a C, but there was just something so entirely awkward about the whole thing.

And wouldn't that technically be using her? She would have written the whole assignment out for him, if he'd asked her to. But he didn't, because that's wrong.

And there was that damned guilty conscience again.

Rachel had this awful look on her face for the rest of rehearsal. Though Finn sort of thought she was blowing the situation out of proportion (he could have said something incredibly snarky to her or something; under the current circumstances, one would agree that Finn's denial was for a legitimate reason) he could basically feel Rachel's distress radiating out of every move she made. Every note she sang was lazy and light; her eyes were focused on some unknown object in some unknown realm of her own hypersensitive mind.

Finn wanted to tell her that it honestly wasn't that big of a deal, that if she wanted to get together the next day, or the next, or even a week from now, that would be fine. Any day would be fine, but he knew that it would probably just make things worse and he would be up all night worrying about it.

So he didn't say anything at all.

Rehearsal ended and Finn dawdled to see if Mr. Schuester was going to comment on Rachel's uncharacteristic behavior. Sure enough, the comforting hand of their sympathetic instructor was placed on Rachel's shoulder and he asked that simple-but-hard-to-answer question:

"Are you okay?"

Rachel gave a slightly frantic nod but didn't accompany it with an actual response. She didn't do anything at all, actually. She just sort of stood there and Finn officially felt like complete shit.

"You're always the one that's at the top of the game," Mr. Schuester told her. "I can tell that something's bothering you. You don't have to tell me anything. Just know that you can. … Okay?"

Rachel nodded again. She muttered something, but Finn couldn't quite tell what.

Mr. Schuester gave Finn a look. It wasn't a normal look, it was a genuine look.

And Finn continued to feel like absolute shit.

"I'll see you kids later, alright?"

Finn gave an awkward wave and Rachel's lips twitched into what was almost a successful fake smile. The rest of the crew left and Rachel started gathering her belongings. Much to Finn's surprise, she was the one that started conversation.

"If I was coming on too strong---"

"It wasn't that," Finn groaned, wondering why she was thinking into this so much. "I promise you, it wasn't that. I have plans with Quinn."

But Rachel wasn't listening. "Or if you're nervous about meeting my two dad, I promise you---"

"Rachel, I promise it has nothing to do with your dads, that was seriously the last thing in my mind. I don't want you to think that it was because of that. Quinn and I have plans. We've had these plans for a while. If you want to get together tomorrow, then I'll go for it."

Rachel shrugged, pulling her bag over her shoulder and walking towards the door.

Sneaky, sneaky. She'd completely turned the tables.

"I don't know if I'll be able to do anything tomorrow, actually."

And Finn played right into her hands.

"Are you sure? Because I'm free, definitely. We don't even have to go to your house. We can go to mine. Or anywhere."

Rachel gave a complacent smile. "Well, if you're that eager, than I'm sure we can plan something. You have my number, right? You should call me. I'll talk to you later, Finn."

With a flourish, she was gone.

"… What…?" Finn asked himself.

And then he realized that Rachel was quite possibly one of the sneakiest, most manipulative people he had ever met.

Quinn wasn't good for much.

Finn never wanted to admit that, but really. There wasn't much to talk about with her. It seemed like she never really knew anything about new movies and she didn't have a favorite band. She was distanced from current events and the only thing she knew was her strict Conservative upbringing. There were no meaningful conversations, but there was a lot of touching and general prettiness on her part.

Because she was very, very pretty.

And Finn, like any normal teenage boy, thought that was just great.

"So did you see what Rachel Berry was wearing today? It was totally, like, hipster-prep chic gone completely wrong, am I right?" Quinn asked, running her perfect little hands through Finn's hair. "I mean, I can't even understand why you would want to be seen around someone like her."

"Hipster-prep chic… makes no sense," Finn said absent-mindedly, tracing circles on Quinn's back with his finger. "No sense at all."

Quinn was more than a bit taken aback. "Are you standing up for her?" she asked, immediately stopping all physical contact.

"N-no!" Finn stammered. "I was just saying… that makes no sense. Can't I make an observation around you?"

But Quinn wasn't fooled. "Okay, look, Finn: you can have fun in your little club but eventually you're going to have to face the fact that these people… aren't like you and me. You know? Do you understand?"

Finn wasn't ready to turn this into his aggrandizing movie moment, where he stands for what's right and changes Quinn's narrow-minded ways forever, so he simply said, "I understand, babe. Really."

But he really didn't understand.

Finn didn't understand a lot of things, to be incredibly honest. He didn't understand his math homework, why Mr. Schuester was letting him get away with not turning in that paper, but most of all he didn't understand why he had allowed Rachel to turn the tables and save face at the risk of him looking like a desperate fool.

He didn't understand that at all.

The situation was easy enough to comprehend: Finn was busy and Rachel's feeling were hurt. The outcome was simply strange, but was it intentional? Had Rachel been feigning minor heartbreak the entire time, just to win Finn's sympathy? Whatever the case, she was either completely evil or completely brilliant… or both.

And Finn found that to be absolutely fascinating.

Every night, Rachel debated with herself over whether or not she should send Finn a friend request on Myspace. There was no harm in it, really, but did she want to seem that needy? She had never sent a friend request in her entire Myspace career. That was bowing down to the other person, you were requesting their approval and Rachel Berry just did not do that.

So she always reached the same conclusion: one day he will care enough to send me a request.

And she left it at that.

Well, not really. What she did was decide to make another video that she knew would be posted and mocked so much that Finn was bound to see it. She didn't want to admit that such tactics were worse than requesting for Finn's approval. She was setting herself up for humiliation for his approval.

But she's wasn't sending that friend request. That was what mattered the most.

The song in question was Unusual Way, from a show that she wasn't particularly fond of. It was a lovely, slightly haunting tune that Rachel had always enjoyed. When the song came on her iTunes the day she found out about Finn's relationship status, she unashamedly bawled her eyes and promptly listened to it a good sixteen times before falling asleep right at her computer desk.

She set up her camera and made sure that her appearance was up to par. If she was going to be humiliated, she was going to at least look a bit pretty while doing so.

Just as she began to sing the opening line of the song, that line that reflected a level of closeness that she would probably never experience with Finn, her cell phone rang. Rachel didn't usually receive calls this late at night (or at all, actually) so this took her a bit by surprise.

Her heart promptly dropped straight to her feet when she saw Finn's name flashing across the screen.

"H-hello…?"

"Rachel? Rachel! Hey!"

He was trying so very hard.

"Hello, Finn."

She was also trying so very hard.

"Uhm, yeah, I'm just gonna get straight to the point… I'm pretty sorry about what happened today, honestly---"

"It's nothing, really."

"No, I mean… I feel like I came off as being rude… or you thought I was lying, which I… wasn't."

"So you're not with Quinn anymore?" Rachel's tone was both smooth and cold. She was glad couldn't see the way her brow was furrowed, or else he would think she was very unattractive.

"Yeah, she just left…"

"… Well."

Awkward.

"So… I could really use your help on all this literature stuff… I mean, I'm not trying to t---"

"Please stop frantically explaining yourself. You're treating me as if I'm a delicate flower."

The scoff Rachel received in response to that wasn't exactly well-received, but before she had time to question it, Finn said:

"Maybe I'm treating you as if you're a delicate flower because you were acting like one this afternoon. Did you think of that? Or have you conveniently forgotten about you moped all around the stage for the entire rehearsal?"

"Perhaps I have conveniently forgotten. But besides that, I am still willing to help you on your homework despite the fact that you have just verbally abused me."

Finn scoffed again, but didn't sound quite so annoyed. "Well, a life in the theatre has taught you how to take criticism, I guess."

"How right you are. So what's the plan? Your place? Mine? Or maybe a nice neutral place. Maybe the library."

"Library sounds good."

Rachel quite missed Finn's stammering desperation to be nice. "Right after practice?" she asked, inwardly scolding herself for not being able to get rid of her sharp, rigid tone.

"That also sounds good. I'll see you tomorrow, then?"

"Indeed."

Click.

Rachel could have very well kicked her own ass out of the rage she was currently feeling towards herself. Really, Rachel? Really? Was it necessary to be such a massive bitch? was all she could think. When she checked her Myspace one last time before going to bed (having completely given up on the idea of making a new video) she saw that she had a friend request from Finn, sent just a couple of minutes after their phone conversation had ended.

The message that accompanied it was a little smiley face.

Rachel smiled, too. Finn really was a nice guy.

Quinn was still a little miffed about the discussion earlier, so Finn received no text messages or late night phone calls from her. This left him to dwell on things in silence.

He decided that maybe Rachel wasn't hypersensitive. Maybe she was just tricky.

Or maybe she was just smart--- covering up her own hypersensitivity with an undeniable ability to make any situation turn out in her favor.

Or maybe she was simply the most complex individual Finn had ever met.

That was his best guess.