A/N: No, I have not forgotten about my works in progress and yes, I hope this is a sign I will eventually have enough time and inspiration to sit down and keep going on those and with more. I feel like I've been away forever and it sucks. So I hope you all enjoy my new freshman attempt? Let me know. Thanks to Jen, Janine, Wendi, Laura and Lizzie for the input, encouragement, editing, and so forth. Spoilers through 3X05 I guess? This is what happens when I try to write an unoriginal 'morning after' sort of story. Oops?

Inspired by the song Platform Fire by Jack's Mannequinand including some lyrics from Rope by Foo Fighters.

Disclaimer: I don't own Glee or these songs, I'm not affiliated with Fox, and yada yada yada, no one is reading this anyway.

This Haze Is Only Temporary

Finn's frustration doesn't go away overnight like he wants it to. Things are so different for him this year. It's like all of a sudden, everyone is an adult (or most everyone. Rachel is super smart and she skipped like second grade or something, so she won't even be able to legally sign her own lease at school until the second semester; it's a fact that pisses her off to no end) and they expect all these grown-up decisions and they have to have one foot out the door but also be able to function like they have the last two years. He feels kind of like he's being torn in half and in a lot of ways, it seems like he's the only one.

And honestly, even if it makes him sound like a douchebag, sex kind of helps. He really loves his girlfriend and she was right when she said it made him feel like a million bucks getting something from her that no one else would ever have. The problem comes in the after. Because they fool around a lot, truthfully, but that just means there's a lot of afterward. And during the afterward, it's just another reminder that she's the only thing he's holding onto and she's leaving. That's pretty obvious. All the applications are either in or due shortly and the auditions and whatever else are doing and done and yeah. Basically, he's just waiting for that shoe to drop. He's thinking it's going to be less of a shoe and more of a brick. Or more of a concrete wall that leaves him flat and unable to move.

Glee club is kind of falling apart. The football thing is just kinda done for him. Well, after the recruiter ceilinged him or whatever, he honestly kind of stopped giving a shit there. He's thinking basketball will be pointless because it's not like he's ever really focused much on that anyway. It was just something to do between football seasons and now it looks like there's going to be kind of an endless gap between those so it doesn't seem like basketball will be enough to take care of that. His big hope right now is to pay attention to his grades and hope they win some sort of a competition or something and just. Can he even get a scholarship for that? He doesn't know. He knows he'll never get into NYADA and he honestly isn't even sure he wants that. He's going to have to find another foot in the New York door or whatever you want to call it. He's never thought he could be the guy that follows another person anywhere. People have always told him he's a leader and born to lead and captain material but he doesn't know why; he's still never really thought about being a follower. It might be kinda nice. But even followers need a place. That's where he's running into a problem, and he's kind of talking himself into circles with it. Rachel says she will help and they'll figure it out and he really loves what she's getting at, but she's a straight line and he's not and he kind of needs to find his own path. Well. He knows at least that much, but it's too bad that starts a whole other set of problems. And it only took him months to figure that out. He's so screwed and it feels so hopeless.

The day of basketball tryouts, it's like the hopelessness and the frustration and all the other stuff kind of reaches fever pitch. And it's not like he can just jump Rachel anytime because she's a person and she has all this other stuff to do and they have parents and…so he has to find another way. He can't go to the weights room because the basketball guys are all in there and Puck and everyone else has been up in his shit about the team this year and he just really hasn't been able to make himself care. Rachel told him that "apathy just means you're overwhelmed" and she's been trying to help him focus on this mash-up duet thing for Glee and yeah…it kinda helps. Singing with her is always good, but then it's a reminder that it's only good and not great and they aren't really going to get to do much of that in the near future. That's the thought that kinda drives him toward something she's not especially involved in while he works out this frustrated fever junk. Okay, there was the one time they tried to get her involved and it was just a disaster. Incidentally, you can't really have sex on a drum kit and keep it down either because every move kind of echoes through the bass drum, especially when knees or feet or whatever else bump up against it and it will never fail to irritate your brother who is studying without music on in the background. Well, he sort of does use music now and he also keeps his door closed, which is nice.

But anyway, drumming it out is something Rachel has never been really involved in. The kid from the jazz band likes to use a similar setup to what Finn uses mostly, so it works out that he can go into the auditorium where they've been rehearsing for a jazz band competition that's right after winter break. The class itself for jazz band is eighth period, so they're all gone. The auditorium is empty, unlike the choir room and the weight room and yeah. He's going to just ignore basketball tryouts and workout another way tonight.

The only thing he has on him is his iPod and the school isn't current enough he can plug it into the sound system at all. It's not like he cares; when you're trying to block the world out, your iPod is a pretty practical way to do that. Plus he is used to working out with it on so he can move around with it in his pocket and not totally get tangled in the wires (and honestly, there was once. Once when he did that and he thought Rachel was going to puke because she laughed so hard when she helped untangle him. It actually made him laugh, too, instead of feeling like a total idiot and that was just one more way he knew she's good for him.)

It's really easy for him to lose track of time when he's doing this. All he's thinking about is the next phrase, the cymbal crash at the end of that word, and the way the beat changes. Oh, then he loves that roll and this section on toms and he really wants to play it again, but add a fill to it that's not on the recording and... He kind of likes instant gratification—Rachel actually called that a "common interest" one time when he got her off at a weird angle and in, like, ten minutes. So he plays it again. There are a couple of songs he plays four or five times before he finally lets it random to something else.

He's a drummer, obviously, so he's actually really good at counting. Even he loses count of how many songs he plays, somewhere around 18. That's just new tracks, not saying how many times he repeated any of them. But it's quite a while after that when lights at the back flip on and he knows it's Rachel more than he sees any concrete proof it's her. He isn't looking constantly, just in little glances here and there, and it takes another couple of songs before he sees her take a seat in the back row of the front middle section. She's by herself. He can feel her eyes on him but she pulls out the book he knows she's suffering through for English and she doesn't say anything.

Finally, he thinks he might be back to himself a little bit. The frustration is gone for now, even if it'll probably be back. He stands up and shoves the drumsticks in his back pocket and walks over to her. She doesn't pull her nose out of the book (even though he knows she was watching him at least here and there) til he's right in front of her. He bends down to give her a kiss and he thinks it kind of says something about how far they've come together that she doesn't mention the fact he's sticky and sweaty and has been for a while. She puts her hand on the back of his neck when they kiss and he thinks that might be the sweatiest part of him. She just sweetly reminds him that his mom had invited her over for dinner tonight and asks if he's ready to go. She doesn't say anything else about it, so he doesn't really either.

He works out a deal with the jazz band kid. He goes into the band room or auditorium, depending on where the band has been practicing, like twice a week through the rest of the month and it's really nice. It's always different days from Glee so it doesn't interfere while they're getting ready for regionals (kinda blows his mind they took sectionals, honestly) and that means the school is basically vacant by the time he leaves. Also, he goes on Fridays during basketball games and if anyone has noticed he's not at the games, they haven't said anything. It's the third practice before it's a night he would normally hang out with Rachel after school and it seems like she finds him easily enough. It just so happens to be Valentine's Day when she approaches him. He is on the auditorium stage this time and she comes up on stage instead of sitting in the chairs and doing homework or just watching like normal. He's right in the middle of a song and all she does is rest her hand on his shoulder then pulls the iPod out of his pocket. To be fair, the cord on his headphones is long enough she gives him room to keep playing and waits until the song is over before she turns on Rope by the Foo Fighters and smiles. He looks at her questioningly as the guitar solo starts up in his ears. She shrugs and he thinks her mouth says this one makes you happy.

He started the summer out with this song trying to get the hang of the more difficult drum passages because Taylor Hawkins is a genius. He just didn't realize how much truth the words hold for him and for them. This indecision got me climbing up the walls, been cheating gravity and waiting for the fall…Give me some rope I'm coming loose, I'm hanging on you. Give me some rope I'm coming loose. I'm pulling for you now. Give me some rope, I'm coming out of my head, into the clear when you… go…I come…loose. It's just kinda the way things are for him now, even if he hasn't known it all along. She's keeping him grounded and focused and he needs her to do it. Maybe he can return the favor for her later.

He's still thinking about it, one part of his head on the drum passages that take some concentration, and one part on just…everything. If he read her lips right, she was right. There are really two things in the world that make him happy: her and this.

They win Regionals, and even though he's been doing better at Booty Camp, Schue wants to use their Can't Stop the Beat song, so he gets to play drums instead of dance mostly, and it's the first Glee performance in a long time he really, really enjoys. He did get to do a duet with Rachel and that was really nice, too. It was more than really nice; and thank God they didn't end up kissing again so maybe they can put that behind them now. Not that he wants to forget it, he just kind of wants other people to forget it, okay? Is that really asking so much?

After they win, he gets a wild hair up his ass and submits an application to NYADA on the day before the application deadline but he doesn't tell Rachel. He's pretty sure she knows anyway because when she's moving over him after they ditch out on the Glee after-party, she whispers in his ear how much more certain he seems these days, more confident. She tells him it's so sexy and then kind of shows him what she means and they end up having sex two more times before he takes her home almost an hour late for her curfew. (It's worth the stern talking-to.)

He knew he'd get rejected before he even applied, honestly. He shouldn't be so disappointed when he doesn't get in, but he is. He doesn't think he's any closer to figuring out what he wants to do with himself and time is running out. Which means basically – Rachel is running out, too. And if there are only two things that make him happy, he's going to be screwed once one of them runs out.

Rachel doesn't get into NYADA either, but she does get into Tisch at NYU and so he really starts thinking toward New York because he knows her moving there and him not isn't really an option for him. Sure, there are all sorts of ways around distance. Plus, his mom keeps talking about 'other options', like there's anything out there he could want more than he wants to be with Rachel. And he gets it, really. It seems stupid for him to limit himself so many ways, but being with her and being around her feels good. It feels right. So he's pretty resolved he's going to follow her, even if most of the application timelines have passed. It's just getting pretty clear he'll have to find another way to do that.

He's tried looking into things in New York a few times, just on the internet. It's kind of overwhelming how many choices there are in the city, and it's the first time he's felt overwhelmed instead of, like under whelmed. He doesn't know if that's a word, but it should be. Anyway, he's got a pretty decent savings account going. He's working full-time at Burt's shop over Spring Break and he'll probably do that again this summer but…but he has enough money that he can afford to live in New York for a little bit while he figures things out. And by a little bit, he means maybe like two weeks but it's at least a start. He has a direction, even if it's more like a freeway than a direct path. But it's a start and that's really all he ever needed to feel better about things.

Nationals are in Miami this year and it's kind of interesting to get the pale Ohio kids out onto the beach. He keeps his t-shirt on, despite Rachel's best efforts. Rachel is the only one who shows skin—okay. She's the only one he sees showing skin. Even though Santana and Brittany and Mercedes joined back up when the other group kinda fell through, it's not like they really talk to him and Rachel. They've all kind of separated off. Puck is the odd sort of middleman, the only person who actually deals with everyone. Anyway, Rachel's skin is the only skin he sees and she just sort of, like, glows and is the only one who isn't totally pale and who doesn't look like she's from Ohio.

Besides the beach and the touristy stuff they actually get to do this year, they actually do all right at Nationals. The only do one original song, but they had it ready before they even hit the airport in Columbus. Not to mention, he doesn't make out with Rachel on-stage so that helps. (They maybe do a little bit of that back stage, but no one else really knew or needed to know the details.) They place third overall, which is really, really good and even Rachel can't find anything to complain about with it. Of course, since she got into Tisch and Finn told her he's at least moving to New York even if he doesn't know what he'll actually do there, she hasn't complained about much.

But all their good time means is that leaving sucks. He gets how Rachel felt last year. It's about ten seconds of looking into Miami (kind of half-heartedly because he really is already set on New York) before he knows he was happy there because he was with Rachel and they only had, like, a single objective. He thinks together they can do just about anything and he doesn't know why it took writing a song for the group to singing at Nationals—then rocking it—to convince him. He kinda already knew and just…whatever. They'll be fine and figure out life stuff together because together they work.

Sometimes things smack him in the face like that.

He gets this weird email he knows he didn't ask for from a place called The Collective. It doesn't have a virus attached, so he opens it. (He's paranoid and checks everything after that email Puck accidentally sent him that was porn with a virus attached during last summer. It was one of those deals that sent to everyone in his contact list, so Rachel got it too, and she still sometimes asks him if he learned a lesson about email porn. He totally did.)

And inside, it's like the answer to questions he didn't actually ask. It's got a section called The Drummer's Collective. It's in New York and it's a small school for people who want careers as musicians. It's not, like, a normal college where you have to take all kinds of crap you won't need. And even though it's small, its teachers are professional musicians and its students have gone on to be professional musicians. There's a drummer's section, a bass player's section, one for guitarists, and one for keyboardists. It talks about people forming bands and playing gigs and…

… he can almost see himself doing that. He kind of stops wondering why they're emailing him or where they even got his email 'cause that's a pretty big coincidence but…it's the first time he can see himself doing something other than bumming around in the city with Rachel (who will be way too busy to just bum around with him anyway.) So he stops wondering and just spends the rest of the night looking at their website.

It feels totally backward, kinda awkward, and like a throwback to when he first met Rachel when she helps him make his audition video two weeks before graduation. He uses the jazz band kid's drums in the auditorium on the stage again and it's only the second time she's come on the stage with him while he's doing it. He watched her make MySpace videos a couple times, and he definitely helped her with her audition stuff, but this is the first time it's for him. And she can't stop smiling. He barely can do it so he can make the video without looking like a dumbass.

They had, like, a list of requirements that feel like a drum lesson. Okay, or what he imagines a drum lesson would feel like. Then they asked for a solo, so he models that after the Foo Fighter's song she turned on for him a few months ago, even though he's not listening to his iPod while he's recording this. He gets through even the hard parts and even the parts where he decided to make it more difficult.

Making the audition video feels like it kind of sums up his whole high school experience. Especially the part where it's over and she's turning off the camera and smiling at him like he did a really good job.

Her dads bought her this awesome camera that records on a memory card, so it was easy for her to upload her videos and it's easy for him to do his, too. He thinks it's kind of weird that the decision, finding the place, was the hard part. Getting in, he knows, is going to be kind of a slam dunk and it's the first time in a long time he's been that certain of something that's not the girl sitting next to him and kissing his neck and giggling like she's not totally distracting even when he's finally got focus.

They graduate and spend about twenty minutes at Santana's graduation party (he thinks they're only invited because she used to be a cheerleader and he used to be on the football team, truthfully).

They spend the rest of the night by themselves and he likes it. A lot. He doesn't really want to take her back home the next morning. It feels like the second major realization he's had in the last few weeks.

He gets a letter and it's not a rejection, but it's not really an acceptance either. They don't have application deadlines and they really, really liked his audition stuff, they just don't have any open spots in their full-time program until January or even after that for some of their certificate and part-time programs.

Rachel's parents give her an apartment in NoHo for a graduation present. Like… they buy her an apartment.

He got her a ring—no, not that kind of a ring—and it's just her birthstone and she says she loves it and all but her dads got her an apartment and she's going to New York and she'll be fine on her own if he wants to wait to come out until he can start school because everything is fine since they bought her an apartment and yeah. Sounds about right and about like his life that he'd finally know what he wants to do but he'd have to wait to do it. Figures.

She moves almost a full month before school starts because she's so excited. He finds, like, the world's smallest studio apartment in Jersey City and doesn't tell her 'til he gets there, but he moves three weeks before she starts school. By then he has almost enough saved to pay his rent for the whole year he has to sign his lease for. She basically spends two and a half weeks in Jersey City.

School is going to cost him a fucking arm and a leg. His parents can only front so much because they're also helping Kurt pay for his stuff at NYADA (and damn if that school isn't super expensive), so he gets a job and starts kind of hoarding money. He's not going to be able to claim supporting himself 'til he pays taxes like next year or something. But Rachel's so busy with school and all her other stuff that he gets a second job just for something to do. He's still only 20 minutes away from her or so (he can usually afford to take a cab so it's not much longer than that into the city; it's like the one splurge they both have in their budgets) and that's about as far as he really wants to be. He doesn't mind living there, but she loves it and he's so excited to start school.

Excited. For school. Yeah, he thought it, all right? It's totally weird for him to be excited, but he really is.

And then this girl Rachel's been going to school with is attacked when someone somehow breaks into the dorms. It sets off a little bit of a panic amongst the students, and Rachel is a mess because one of the first friends she made at school is not okay and she goes back home to Michigan and basically, he pays until the following August for an apartment in Jersey City that he doesn't really live in after the end of October.

Their parents buy them plane tickets to get them home for Christmas and her dad pulls him aside to actually thank Finn for moving in with her by giving him a bunch of cash to cover rent that's cheaper than breaking his lease this soon, even though neither he or Rachel have mentioned it (and that was on purpose.) His mom is "worried" about the arrangement, but she's basically awesome; she seems to understand that they don't really get to have any more sex than they ever have because Kurt practically lives in the apartment with them. Even when he's not staying there having girl-bonding with Rachel, he just walks in like he owns the place. Truthfully, Finn sees more of Kurt in the city than he does the entire time they're all home for Christmas and Kurt is off hooking up with Blaine.

He starts school and it's just… he's living with Rachel and he's doing something he really loves every day and… this is how he thought it could be. No—this is how Rachel knew it could be. He doesn't think any of it happened by accident, really. He thinks she somehow found the school and contacted them but used his email and he thinks she got the ball rolling. He doesn't think she faked her friend getting hurt, but he's not surprised they're living together after less than a year in the city and he's really, really, really not surprised that they're as happy as they are. He has the two things he's ever needed—her and music—and he's cut out the rest of the crap. He thinks if time stopped now and he had to just live in one spot of his life forever, this would be the time. He would be really great.

He asks her one night. He gets home really, really late because he's in a band with a few other guys from his school and they have a regular deal at this bar around the corner. He slips into bed behind her in just his boxers because the rest of his clothes smell like he has been drumming in bar for the better part of two hours, and kisses that spot behind her ear to wake her up just a little. He whispers a question about how she even knew about his school. She says she just knew what to look for.

He spends way more time thinking about that than he should. How does she always know what to look for, like in him and for him?

So he's in the full-time program at the Drummer's Collective, and they have this fall recital thing. They do it every year, but he obviously missed it the first year because he didn't actually go there in the fall. He's a little nervous and it's just made worse by the fact that Rachel has some dinner theater thing that night she absolutely can't get out of or she'll fail a class (her professor is, honestly, the world's biggest asshole. Which is saying a lot for a guy who still emails Noah Puckerman every couple weeks or so.) She has tried everything she can to make it up to him, which is really great of her and he totally understands. But the auditorium they're performing is huge and it's crowded and there's a lot of people there who do, like, hiring for studio drummers and shit and – he's just nervous and he would feel a whole lot better if it were a Glee performance where he could look across the stage and see her or a football game where he's busy Quarterbacking but he can see her in the stands. He wishes she could be here almost harder than she does, if that's possible considering she's the girl who wishes too hard for everything to be perfect.

There are two other groups who go first and they're really, really good. The first one is a group from the part-time program. The other is a group from the full-time program he's in but they're almost done so that means they're like two years ahead and…just wow. It shows because they kick ass.

So he takes the stage with these guys he's been playing with four nights a week or so, letting his eyes look out over the crowd (the crowded crowd because holy shit there are so many people there to watch them and he doesn't think there are this many people in all of their old high school let alone that there ever were at like one event for it). Even if by some miracle—he doesn't really believe in those—she were here, there is no fucking way he'd be able to see her. He knows he'll just have to do his best so he can tell her later that he did his best. That's all there is to it, and she'll catch the next one.

He was wearing his jacket because it's been a little drafty in some spots in the auditorium while they were rehearsing earlier in the week but he knows he needs to take it off now. So he does that and a piece of paper drops out of the pocket. It's dark where he's at and he has about five seconds before he's on stage, but he opens it anyway because it's purple and it smells like his girlfriend.

You, I know you're nervous but break a leg. I can say that because you belong on a stage, just like I do. It's not the same as I always imagined it, and I don't believe it is for you either, but we made it through. Enjoy your moment in the spotlight because you've earned it and it's the first of many. You're the gold star here. I love you, Me

With her words in his pocket and going through his head, he feels a lot better. It might be stupid and the other guys would totally bust his balls for it, but he might even kiss the gold star on the outside of the folded paper square before he puts it away.

It only takes him a second to catch his breath once the lights flood him and he can't see anything at beyond the shadow of the lead singer moving around somewhere in front of him. The four songs they're playing are really difficult and they kind of require him to play his heart out (well…him and everyone else). There is no way he could've played the last one, especially, before he came here. He didn't have enough heart to get through it. And now? Well, now he's pretty sure he does.

The last song opens with him seriously beating on the toms as hard as he can and then speeding up until the others join him. It's kind of like a solo, but it's also really hard to swing his arms like that and keep a regular beat. He's muttering the count under his breath, unable to see anything with the smoke machine (their lead singer insisted and just…oy, all right?) going and the spotlights running over them and out over the crowd. But somehow, in all that chaos and even with the beat and the anticipation of what's coming in the song running through his head like a freight train, he swears to God he hears her voice calling him from somewhere in the back and to his right.

It can't be her because she would have to be screaming to project that far, even with as loud and wonderful as she is with stuff like that. And Rachel Berry does not scream because a scream is like "…stabbing yourself right in the vocal chords, Finn. It takes weeks for them to heal from even just one scream. I mean, I don't know how Patrick even has a voice with the way he carries on while you guys are on stage."

But he knows her voice and he knows what her eyes feel like on him and she's totally there somewhere. And it's all he can do not to toss his sticks out into the crowd and leap off the stage. Instead… instead, it's almost like he's flying. His life with her is dancing through his head and his arms, his legs, his whole body is humming and moving without him really thinking about it. It's like he's weightless, he's fearless, and he can do anything. Because he knows she's there somewhere.

She's always been there. She's always looking, always knowing, and always his. She always will be, just like he'll always be hers. He swears he can hear her voice again and she sounds so, so happy. He can't wait to see her, because everything is suddenly so clear to him. All the things he couldn't see, all the things he was so frustrated with not knowing about, they're gone and it took him some time to realize what he can see when he sees his whole future, crystal clear and laid out in front of him as far as he wants to take it.

It's her. It's them. It's this.

He has everything he always wanted even if he didn't know it—because she did all along. And now?

Well now she's found and talked her way backstage somehow and he was right (she basically screamed herself hoarse and her voice teacher is going to be so, so mad he wishes he cared even a little bit). Of course he was right and she was there and she'll always be there and he can do anything as long as she's always there to talk him through it, even when she's busy worrying like she does, and then again what she thinks when the smoke clears. And sure, maybe in this particular instance, it's literal smoke and all, but somehow it's her glowing review that matters. Since that's, like, the one thing that hasn't changed, he's pretty sure it's not actually ever going to.