Hello! This is an AU that I previously posted on Tumblr. There are four parts total but I'm trying to clean them up a little bit and may re-work a few things, so this is all you'll get for now. :-P

Disclaimer that I don't own anything Glee-related and any typos remaining after clean-up are totally my fault.

Oh, and this is rated T for now... but that will change next chapter. ;-)

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Finn strolled into second-period health class, high-fiving a few of his football teammates before taking his seat towards the back of the room just as the bell rang.

"All right, class, settle down," Mr. Gleason said sternly from the front of the room. "This week we'll be beginning our unit on responsible adult households, meaning how to handle logistical and financial decisions you'll be faced with over the course of your lives. You'll all be paired off and assigned a different life phase - newly married couple, family with young children, parents about to send a child to college, couple contemplating retirement, etc."

Finn rolled his eyes at the lame assignment while his teammates groaned their own frustration. They were 16 - why did they need to care about these adult decisions now?

During his internal rant, Mr. G had begun reading off the name pairings. Since they weren't necessarily mixed-gender Finn fleetingly hoped that he'd be with one of his buddies. As weird as it'd be to pretend to be married to a dude, he'd prefer that to being stuck with a girl he didn't like.

"…Rachel Berry and Finn Hudson…"

Upon hearing his name Finn searched the front row of the room for Rachel.

They'd only had a few random classes together since she was in all honors classes while he struggled to keep up in the normal levels of math and science. (He did pretty good in history since that was mostly about wars and presidents and he liked that stuff. And in English it was easy enough to get by reading summaries of novels instead of the actual books.) The one thing he knew for sure about Rachel Berry was that she was super involved in music and drama activities and was constantly complaining to Principal Figgins about how the arts didn't get enough attention at their school compared to sports.

And the way her eyes were narrowed in his direction indicated that she wasn't thrilled with the idea of working with the school's quarterback.

Finn cringed at the thought of just how unpleasant the project was going to be.

After the pairings were all announced, a representative from each one went to the front of the room to randomly draw their assignment and presentation time. By then, there were only a few minutes left in the period for each team to meet and discuss how to handle the project.

As soon as they were given the go-ahead to break into pairs, Rachel stood from her seat and marched back to stand over Finn's desk.

"Hello, Finn," she began, not waiting for any response from him before continuing, "According to our assignment slip, we are a young married couple about to have a child. Some inherent considerations include where to live, whether one parent can stay home or if outside childcare is needed, and how to start saving for college."

She looked at him expectantly.

"Uh, okay." He wasn't sure what else he was supposed to say.

"Our presentation isn't until next week but I'd prefer not to wait until the last minute to work on it." She opened a small planner and studied the page. "How about tomorrow afternoon?"

Finn usually didn't slack off on his schoolwork on purpose, but the thought crossed his mind that he could probably dodge her and she'd just do most of the assignment herself.

It'd be easier for both of them, he reasoned in his head.

"I, uh, can't tomorrow," he said casually. "Practice," he added with a shrug.

Rachel snickered and rolled her eyes. "Look, don't think that if you ignore the project I'll complete it myself. I may be a conscientious student but I will not be taken advantage of," she explained sternly. "And pulling the busy-jock routine definitely won't work, either. I'm plenty occupied with extra-curriculars myself."

With that she turned the planner toward him, and his eyes went wide at the different colors strewn across the open pages, noting time-blocks for glee club rehearsal, dance class, voice lessons, homework, meals… basically everything.

He'd seen people keep calendars before, but none of them looked like this.

"Okay, okay," he said calmly, studying her schedule in search of free time that matched up with his own. "How about Thursday? I should be done with practice around 5 and your voice lesson ends at the same time." He glanced at the planner again. "I'm sure your 'intensive scales routine' can wait until Friday," he added with a teasing tone.

He'd expected her to blush or react in some way, but her face stayed surprisingly calm. "Indeed it can," she replied as she scrawled something on a piece of paper.

"This is my number." She slid the paper across his desk. "Text me your address and I'll see you there at 5:30 on Thursday." At that she returned to her seat, gathering her books and gliding out of the room when the bell rang, apparently without giving Finn a second thought.

No girl had ever spoken to him that way before.

He smirked in amused disbelief.

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"Dude, I can't believe you got paired up with Berry," Puck said as he sat down next to Finn in the cafeteria. "Chick may be a little insane but she's so uptight about school I'm sure you won't need to lift a finger for this project."

"Nah, man." Finn shook his head as he swallowed a bite of sloppy joe. "She specifically said that won't happen. We're meeting on Thursday to work on it."

"Meeting? Where?" Puck asked with a quirked eyebrow.

"My house," Finn answered before eating a French fry. "Why?"

"Dude! Isn't it obvious? She wants a piece of the Studson!"

Finn rolled his eyes. "She definitely does not. Trust me."

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By some stroke of luck, practice on Thursday was short and Finn was home, showered and snacked and ready by 5:00. With nothing else to do until Rachel got there, his mind wandered to their assignment. Not having spent any time around babies in his actual life, the only reference points he had were TV shows and movies, but it was better than nothing. He tore a sheet of paper out of his spiral notebook and scratched out a few ideas that came to mind.

Rachel arrived at exactly 5:30.

"I took the liberty of making a preliminary list of the issues we should cover in our presentation," she began as they got settled at the dining room table, producing a neatly typed sheet of notes.

"Cool. I wrote some stuff down too." He tried not to feel shitty about how much shorter his list was than hers, and how crappy it looked compared to her neatly typed bullet points.

"Oh." She seemed surprised but not impressed. "Well let's compare our lists and go from there."

After they combined their lists they turned to Finn's laptop to research some basic child development issues and other logistical baby-planning stuff.

"So, uh, I guess that's it, right?" Finn asked after about a half-hour. "Seems like all we need to do is divide up which parts we'll talk about."

"I'm not sure…" Rachel answered, as if lost in thought.

"About what?" Finn asked, trying not to sound impatient.

"Well, I imagine our classmates' presentations will be the same ordinary stand-up-and-talk routines. I'd prefer to do something a little different," she explained. "Standing out always improves one's chance at a better grade."

He resisted the urge to roll his eyes at her overachiever mentality. This was health class, for fuck's sake.

"I've got it!" Finn said after a moment f thought, startling her. "Before you got here I was thinking about TV shows and movies where people need to prepare for a baby."

"Oh?" Rachel's eyes narrowed.

"Yeah. So maybe we could do our presentation like it's a scene in a movie."

Rachel raised her eyebrows. "We certainly will distinguish ourselves by acting out our discussion theatrically," she agreed. "And I'm always eager for new ways in which to utilize my acting capabilities."

"I thought you might be," Finn said with a warm smile, filled with an odd surge of pride from her approval of his idea.

She returned the grin briefly before going back to being all business.

"Okay, so," she began, reaching for the laptop and starting to type. "We should open the scene with me telling you that I'm pregnant…"

They worked for another hour to draft a script and run through it a few times. Finn was surprised at how much fun it was to get in-character and practice delivering lines. The activity also seemed to loosen Rachel up a bit, which he found himself enjoying as well.

Of course, she got a little uptight again and suggested that they have the thing completely memorized. He promised her that he would do the best he could to practice his lines over the weekend, but made no guarantees that he'd be able to present without the script in front of him.

"I suppose that'll do," she conceded with a half-smile while she packed up her things.

Finn couldn't help but think that she was kinda cute when she wasn't being such a controllist about everything.

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The next day after the last bell Finn rolled down the hallway toward the gym with a few of his teammates.

Finn was only half-listening to the guys' idiotic conversation, and his attention was diverted completely when they passed by Rachel and some of the other music/drama oddball kids. She was talking to the guy in the wheelchair, her lips moving a mile a minute and her hands waving while the others waited to get a word in.

"Hey, Rachel," Finn said with a slight nod in her direction.

All five of them looked up at the interruption. The Asian girl's jaw fell open while the black girl looked him up and down in judgment and the kid with the overly fashionable clothes rolled his eyes.

(Okay so maybe one time Finn was there when Puck and Karofsky threw Fashion Kid into a dumpster. And laughed because he was nervous and a freshman and worried about fitting in. But he never did that shit himself, and after a few weeks he stopped hanging around when the other guys did it because he didn't see the point.)

Rachel nervously tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, a blush coloring her cheeks when they made eye contact. "Hi, Finn," she replied before quickly returning to her conversation.

Pleased with that reaction, Finn chuckled to himself as he kept walking.

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At Rachel's insistence, they met briefly before school on Tuesday to run through their performance one more time before their presentation slot during second period.

When they took their places in the front of the health classroom, Finn felt a twinge of nervousness, wondering how his teammates and the other kids would react to him acting out a scene with Rachel as they pretended to be a married couple. But he also felt excited, ready to take on the challenge and put himself out there in that way.

For some reason, looking over and seeing Rachel's confident smiling face made him that much more eager to do a good job.

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By Friday, all the presentations had been given. Mr. Gleason spent ten minutes talking about the assignment and distributing their grades, before issuing all of them a pass to study hall for the remainder of the period.

"I can't believe we got an A!" Finn exclaimed as they exited the classroom.

"Yes, I'm pleasantly surprised by the outcome as as well," Rachel agreed with a bright smile.

By the time they reached her locker, though, her mouth settled into a tense line.

"I'm sorry I misjudged you, Finn." She turned to face him, glancing around as if to check that they were alone in the hallway. "I honestly didn't expect you to contribute very much to the project. But you came up with the idea to act out the scene, and did a spectacular job with the performance."

"You think so?" he asked, silently praying that his cheeks weren't as red as they suddenly felt.

"I do. You're very talented." She paused, her cute half-smile appearing again. "I should know; I'm very talented too."

"Thanks," he said, unable to keep the grin off his face. "And you are... so I'm sorry too. At first I thought you were a little nuts with your planner and crazy work ethic, but doing this assignment was really fun. And you're actually pretty cool."

She looked off to the side, her cheeks now pink as well. "You don't really mean that…"

"Nah, I do." He held her gaze, hoping it would convince her that he meant every word.

Rachel's eyes were wide and blinking, her curvy red lips in a delicate pout.

"I, uh…" he stammered, befuddled by their intense eye contact but unable to look away.

"You know you can kiss me if you want to," she said softly.

Finn's breath hitched in his throat. "I want to." With that he leaned down, pressing his lips against hers.

His heart swelled at the contact. Finn had kissed lots of girls before, but none of those kisses made him feel hyperaware of all of his senses in the space of 10 seconds.

Then, Rachel opened her mouth slightly, allowing him to slip his tongue in and increase the electricity even more. He sank one hand into her hair at the base of her neck just as her delicate fingers came up to rest on the side of his face.

When they needed to break for air he opened his eyes (when did he even close them?), leaning against the wall and trying to remember how to breathe normally.

"I-I'm sorry…" Rachel stepped back, nervously smoothing her hair before turning and walking away.

Finn stood still, completely in shock, staring as she retreated down the hallway.

She turned back for a brief second before rounding a corner and disappearing from view.

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TBC.