Fandom: Glee

Pairing: Finn/Rachel

Status: One-shot; complete

Rating: G

Spoiler(s): A tiny bit from the "Journey" episode

AN: Inspired by a poem by Mookie Lacuesta, which I found written on the wall of a little art cafe.

Title: the world is where you're not

Summary: Life happens. It's crazy and it's unfair and sometimes we have to let go, but it happens. Don't ever let anybody tell you otherwise.

The garbage truck collects

at five-o-clock.

"So you told her," Kurt says over instant mac and cheese, the house unusually quiet with their parents out for dinner.

Finn nods. He can't quite help the sheepish, relieved grin that spreads across his face when he remembers how easy it had been, how simple and uncomplicated and right.

Kurt raises an eyebrow. "Did she say it back?"

"Um." The grin fades as quickly as it came, replaced by confusion and the slightest hint of panic. Should she have said it back? Oh, God, maybe she'd just been humouring him when she'd smiled, when she'd rested her head on his shoulder. Maybe she thinks he's a total dork. Maybe she hates-

"I expected as much," Kurt muses. "Vintage Berry." He looks entirely too satisfied.

Finn's startled by a familiar burst of irritation for the other boy that he hasn't felt in a long time. "Hey-"

Kurt puts up a hand, cutting him off. "That's not a bad thing. Not really. It's just that she's an emotional basket-case." The tines of his fork dance under the kitchen lights, and Finn's never been good at nuances but there's no mistaking the resignation in those clear blue eyes, the wistfulness. "You'll be good for her, I think."

Next door's

a wail of arpeggios, scale

of mistakes the mother

corrects with Again,

and the child begins.

Quinn talks about moving back home and rejoining the Cheerios, but she doesn't mention it once. She saunters down the halls, slim-waisted again and pretty, flanked by Brittany and Santana, and soon it's like there never was a Baby Drizzle in the first place. Because it had been his kid for a while, after all, Finn's prickled by a vague sense of loss, even though there's no trace of it in Quinn's patented I'm-in-charge bitchface.

When sophomore year officially comes to an end, Mike throws a Glee Club party at his house to welcome summer break. They spend the night eating pizza and chips and drinking beer and singing off-key just because they can, and, finally, they're all in high enough spirits to request one last diva number from Rachel. She looks solemn and uncharacteristically a little nervous as she stands up, and she's halfway through the first verse before Finn realizes the meaning behind the song she's chosen.

"I pray you'll be my eyes, and watch her where she goes, and help her to be wise. Help me to let go..."

Quinn starts to cry. Discreetly at first, but by the end of the song it's as if a dam has broken, and it is release, it is salvation, it is painful and necessary.

Sunlight. The children

take turns on their bikes,

their arcane surrogates

sit by the curb,

"You're amazing," Finn tells Rachel on the drive to her house. He manages not to inwardly grimace at the quiet reverence in his voice.

Rachel shakes her head with a wan smile. "Not as amazing as you think."

"Are you kidding? Quinn needed that. It was so cool of you to-"

"I'm glad I could help," she interrupts, "but I didn't do it for her." She looks tired and lonely, leaning against the car's window-glass. "I did it for me."

slippers pursed tightly between

their toes.

Come junior year the Glee Club's earned enough recognition to be worth pouring money into, and so they go to New York for the revival of South Pacific on Broadway. Finn's ill at ease amidst the big city's dazzling neon lights and sharp bright sounds, but Rachel and Kurt strut like they're finally home. Rachel's been here dozens of times before, with her two dads, and Kurt's sufficiently up to date on all the fashion and lifestyle news that he knows how to act. They walk briskly down the pavement with Mr. Schuester, discussing- arguing- in exuberant voices where to eat and shop, while the rest of the club lags behind like lost puppies.

Finn breathes a thankful sigh once they're out of the streets, but his relief is short-lived because the theatre is gilded and curved and sprawling and enormous, grander than anything he's ever known. He sits beside Rachel and catches a brief glimpse of the curve of her smile as the lights dim.

The show is- well, it's pretty spectacular, although Finn finds himself wondering how much money was spent to get it like that, and he feels guilty and uncomfortable because that doesn't seem to be the kind of stuff you worry about when you're watching Broadway. Still, there's Santana explaining the plot to Brittany and Puck cracking snide comments while Quinn scolds him, holding back her own giggles, and the faintest trace of Rachel's moonflower perfume. Finn decides he quite likes the experience- it's all the familiar stuff, wrapped in something new and magical.

As Nellie and Emile sing "Twin Soliloquies," Rachel shifts in her seat, her shoulder pressing slightly into his, and he glances down at her. Veiled in the theatre's shadows and soft flickering lights, her face is scrunched up in determination so intense that it is almost hunger. He's willing to bet she's imagining herself in Nellie's place, front and centre, where she's always belonged. The hard glint in her eyes leaves him overwhelmed and a little bit terrified.

After the show, he gets pick-pocketed. They're swept up in the crowd emerging from the theatre, and once they're on the sidewalk someone bumps into him and, minutes later, he discovers his wallet is gone.

"Oh, Finn." Rachel shakes her head. "You have to be careful. You can't trust anyone in this city."

"Shouldn't we tell the cops?" Tina asks, biting her lip.

"We could, but the police will only file a report, and that'll be the end of it." Rachel sounds breezy, almost bored. "Pick-pockets abound on every corner here. There are worse crimes."

"Rachel's right," Mr. Schuester concedes. "There's nothing we can do. Anyway, all your airplane tickets are with me and we're going home tomorrow. It's not a big deal. You still have your phone, Finn?" He smiles cheerfully at Finn's nod. "Okay, then. Let's grab something to eat before we head back to the hotel. My treat."

Finn trudges despondently down the street, barely registering Mercedes' sympathetic pat on his arm. It's not like there was a lot in that wallet, but it was all his savings, with a bit extra from his mom. He dreads the prospect of going home to her and admitting he'd been irresponsible.

Rachel and Kurt launch into their own rendition of "Some Enchanted Evening" with enough skill and flair that they earn admiring glances from random pedestrians.

"You should be on Broadway," a man whose arms are covered in vivid tattoos remarks as he walks past them.

"I will be!" Rachel calls back, before belting out the second verse. She catches Finn's eye and grins, her voice soaring into the air, her skin glowing under the streetlamps, and as a cold evening breeze pushes her long brown hair into her eyes, Finn marvels, not for the first time, at how very small his world actually is.

In an hour or so,

it's dinnertime, each child

called in by nightly rote:

no warning scares.

Of course, the school doesn't take kindly to the fact that its star quarterback is dating its biggest loser. Rachel gets Slushied almost five times a day. Finn thinks she's bearing up under the strain remarkably well, but then one afternoon the hallways buzz with the news that she had decked Azimio after he'd flung Blue Raspberry in her face. Finn runs until he hears recognizable voices in the girls' bathroom and barges inside.

Rachel's dabbing at her sticky hair and blouse with paper towels. Kurt, Tina and Mercedes hover protectively around her, and they all turn to Finn in unison.

"You should have seen it," Mercedes remarks.

"It was great," gushes Tina.

"Azimio never knew what hit him," Kurt says proudly, gazing at Rachel with new respect and something suspiciously close to fondness. "He's in the infirmary with an icepack over his eye."

Finn shuffles closer to his girlfriend, feeling a bit awkward because she seems smaller than usual with her shoulders hunched like that as she squeezes Slushie out of her blouse. Sometimes it strikes him like a wallop, how she's this tiny little thing, how delicate she looks. How on earth had she managed to land a punch on Azimio?

"I can't wait to get out of this town," Rachel declares, tossing crumpled-up paper towels into the garbage can, voice tight with anger. Wordlessly, Finn takes her hand and presses a gentle kiss to her bruised knuckles.

Here I am, father,

looking out at the low

suburban gables on Norman St.

Prom night, and the gymnasium's filled with silver streamers and turquoise balloons and soft lighting, and the girls are beautiful in their floaty dresses and the guys manage not to look like absolute doofuses in their suits.

"I think someone spiked the punch," Finn tells Rachel.

"That's appalling," she gasps, in sequins and shimmery makeup, her hair tumbling down in loose waves. "Who would do that? It's tasty, though." She giggles, gorgeous and a bit flushed.

Finn gives her a suspicious look. "How many glasses have you had?"

"Five," she admits. "No, actually, six-"

Kurt appears at her elbow. "Get in here!" he yells over the music, pulling her and Finn onto the dance floor.

And it's pandemonium, with Valeria's "Rhythm of the Night" blaring from the speakers, and the Glee Club busting out their best moves under the glittering disco ball. Finn steps on Rachel's toes only once and he whirls her around and she moves like a rustle of wild silk, head thrown back, laughing. Kurt and Mercedes sing along, blasting through the high notes with ease, and Mike pops and locks and Brittany and Santana swish their skirts like cancan girls. Quinn's roped Puck into at least moving to the beat, and on the sidelines Tina's doing some sort of chair dance around a beaming Artie. Everything's suffused in a haze of alcohol and sweat and neon tints and youth, and Finn captures each moment, each face in his memory, so that it would all last forever.

Outside it's never dark:

clear sky lit not by stars

but news of stars, a shining

lapse as wide and far

as years.

They place second at Nationals and it's epic. Everyone's hugging and cheering and crying, and it's only Finn who notices that Rachel's tears aren't those of joy.

"What's wrong?" he asks her when they get a moment alone backstage.

Her head is bowed, her fists are clenched. Makeup runs down her wet cheeks. "I was almost there," she says in a small voice.

I, not we.

As if she can read his mind, she goes on to explain. "You guys have other interests, other things going for you. This is all I have. All I ever wanted. And this was a huge opportunity, and I blew it. I should have pushed for better songs-"

"Rachel." Finn puts his hands on her shoulders, draws her near. "It's already unbelievable that we got this far. Second place has to be good enough."

"No," she mumbles into his chest. "Not for me."

In Portuguese,

saudade means "longing for

a person who has been lost."

One cold autumn afternoon, he runs into Quinn at the park. She's sitting on a bench, watching the kids play. Finn clears his throat and she glances up and smiles at him, but her gaze returns irrevocably to three little girls skipping rope in bright frothy dresses and knee socks.

"Do you regret it?" Finn asks, because it's something he's always wondered.

It takes a while for her to respond. "No," she says at last. "A single mom, a deadbeat dad- it wouldn't have been a good life. I didn't want to hold her back just because I loved her, and have her hate me years from now. The world's crappy enough as it is. Signing the adoption papers was the best thing I could have done. It was my way of giving her a chance."

Meaning, "to know the beloved will never return."

Rachel gets accepted into Juilliard. Finn's honestly happy when she tells him the news, even though a hollow pang builds up somewhere in the corner of his heart. The day before she leaves, they eat ice cream in his car, parked in the lot at their old high school.

"You never actually said it back, you know," Finn blurts out.

"Yeah." Rachel leans over and kisses away a smear of ice cream on his upper lip. "Yeah, I know."

Meaning, when you wince

as you look at the stars, it isn't

the light of the fire that burns.