A/N: Past relationship, current friendship. Set during "Journey". I've missed these two during the back nine. Reviews are love.

Wish Right Now

x

can we pretend that airplanes, in the night sky, are like shooting stars?

i could really use a wish right now (wish right now, wish right now)

She's sleeping when he goes into her room.

It makes him hesitate in the doorway – she's sleeping; he shouldn't Disturb her. He nods once to himself. He'll just go, he never should have been here in the first place.

But just when he turns around to leave, he hears her voice – hoarse but authoritative – and it makes him freeze.

"Did we win?" That's what she asks.

He turns back toward her and offers up a tiny smile. "No," he tells her apologetically.

She blinks and sits up a little, adjusting the pillow behind her back. "Did we place?"

He shakes his head, repeats, "No."

"So…"

"Yeah. No more Glee Club."

All of a sudden, she looks alarmingly close to tears.

"Sorry," he blurts, flustered by the sight of the wet sheen over her golden-coloured eyes. "Sorry, I shouldn't have come – "

"No," her voice cuts in, soft and weary. "No, I'm glad you're here…Come in." She nods toward the chair by her bed, telling him wordlessly to sit down.

He pauses for only a beat before he walks inside the room and carefully sits in the blue chair. He looks at her. She looks at him. Neither of them speaks.

She looks tired (understandably) and a little bit heartbroken and…and beautiful, with her blonde hair falling into her face and the light pink of her pajamas a soft shade against her pale skin. Her eyes are a little shadowed, a little shy – and the sight of her like this reminds him of the night he picked her up for junior prom.

It'd taken him two weeks to get up the courage to ask her and when he'd finally managed it, she'd said I think that would be lovely and he stood nervously in the foyer of her house holding a corsage and her father's camera had flashed as she walked down the stairs to meet him. Her dress was a peachy pink and she had clips in her hair that sparkled under the lights; it was their first date and when he pressed his lips to hers under the stars at midnight, it was their first kiss.

"What're you thinking about?" Her voice is barely a notch above a whisper. "Rachel?"

He starts, searches her face with his eyes. He opens his mouth to say no, thinking about you, but no sound makes its way out past his lips.

"She must be upset," Quinn offers, "about Regionals. And I know you care about her." Her smile is bittersweet. "Don't look so…so caught. It's allowed."

He laughs, gives her a quick smile. "Can I…tell you something?"

She nods.

"I told Rachel that…that I love her."

Quinn stares at him for a moment, like she's waiting for him to say more or something. "That's good, isn't it?" she finally asks. "It's true."

Bashfully, he glances down. "Yeah…"

"And she loves you, too."

He looks back up at her so rapidly that it hurts his beck a bit. "How do you know that?"

She sets soft eyes on his face. "I've been in love with you, Finn. I know what it looks like."

Because she doesn't look away, he doesn't either. He tugs at the knot of his tie nervously. "I saw her. Y-your baby." The baby he once thought was his, too."

Quinn sighs so softly that he almost doesn't hear it. She does that eyebrow-arching thing she's always done so well and asks, "Yeah?"

"Yeah, she's…she's really…small." Impossibly small. "And…beautiful. She looks…looks like you."

"You really think so?"

Finn nods. Even more firmly, he reiterates, "She's beautiful."

Quinn's eyelashes flutter as she glances down at her fingers, which are knotted together on her lap, resting just on top of her blankets. A moment of silence passes and then she breathes, "I'm so sorry."

He rubs at his forehead, feeling a little bit uncomfortable. He doesn't have to ask her what she's talking about – he knows. But he's just…tired of talking about it. It hurts and it sucks but it's over. "It's…okay," he mutters.

She squeezes her eyes shut. "It's not. I broke your heart."

He shrugs. He doesn't confirm or deny.

Quinn opens her eyes, stares at the ceiling. "I miss it sometimes," she whispers. "How it used to be. How I used to be. How we used to be."

With a nod, he tells her softly, "Me too."

"It was easier."

He remembers her pink dress and her smile right before he kissed her. "Yeah."

She makes a strangled sound and he turns toward her instantly, afraid that she's crying, but she's shaking a head and there's a small smile curling her lips and she's…laughing.

"Quinn?"

"We were such a cliché," she sighs, catching her breath.

Brow furrowed, he guesses, "Football player and cheerleader?"

She nods. "I liked us, though. I liked…our cliché."

He smiles at her. "Our names rhyme."

She giggles – and it's honestly been so long since he's heard her laugh like that that it makes his eyes widen and his smile blossom into a grin. She lifts one of her hands from her lap, lays it on the side of the bed closest to him.

"We wouldn't have worked," she declares, something forced but also convincing in her voice. "We're too much…too many predictable things. It wasn't…"

For the first time ever, in the expanse of their whole relationship, he actually knows what she's going to say next. "It wasn't forever," he agrees. He thinks about touching her hand, though in the end he decides against it. "But it was good while it lasted."

Her eyes are dreamy, cloudy with memory. "I was a bitch to you."

"I was…stupid to you?" he offers.

She laughs again. And this time, without a second thought, he reaches out and lays his hand over hers.

"It was good while it lasted," she reiterates. She flips her hand over beneath his, threads their fingers together very carefully. He gives her hand a squeeze, surprised by how well her palm still fits against his.

"It's okay," he tells her, though he's not sure why. "Beth is a better name than Drizzle, anyway."

Quinn breathes out a surprised laugh, squeezes his hand back, just lightly. "Can I tell you something?"

"Yeah. Anything."

"Before…before Puck suggested that, sometimes when I thought about her…I called her Drizzle in my head."

He laughs, too, kind of delighted by that admission.

"It just stuck," Quinn defends herself softly.

"'Cause it's an awesome word," he tells her teasingly. "It's the best kind of almost-rain."

"Maybe she'll think so, too. Someday."

He nods, his smile fading away a bit. He squeezes her hand again. "You're being brave," he tells her. "Giving her away."

Something flickers in her eyes. "I just…I want her to be happy. I want her to have…" She shrugs. "Everything. But Puck…wants to keep her."

Finn shrugs. He wants to look away but he makes himself keep eye contact. "Because he loves you."

Her mouth falls open; she gapes at him. "Did he…tell you that…that he told me that?"

He shakes his head. "No, but." He shrugs again. "I knew."

"But…how…"

Looking away, he tells her, "I've been in love with you. I know what it looks like."

In his peripheral vision, he sees her tuck her hair behind her ear, suddenly shy.

He turns back toward her. "A lot has changed in like ten months."

"Everything," she murmurs. "And now it's all…over."

"Except it's different. It's not even going to be how it was, not ever again."

"Do you think that's a good thing?" Her eyes are pinned on his face, begging for an answer.

Finn loosens his tie all the way. "I'm still trying to figure that out," he admits.

"Me too."

They are quiet for a moment, sitting in the comfortable silence created by their agreement. Outside, in the hallway, shoes squeak across the floor and voices engage in conversation peppered by medical jargon, but inside the room it's just the two of them, Finn and Quinn, ten months and ten thousand changes later.

"You could go," she tells him. "If you want to get back to Rachel, or whatever."

"Yeah," he agrees slowly, "if you want to sleep or something, I could…"

"No, I just mean…you can go, if you have somewhere to go. You don't have to."

"I don't really…have anywhere to go."

Quinn smiles. "Then stay. I want you to stay."

He nods and inches the chair a little closer to her bed. She leans back into her pillow a little more, looks at him with half-closed eyes.

"I still wish…" There is a question that accompanies that statement, it lingers in her pretty eyes, looks awfully familiar to can we be in love again?

Finn swallows hard and nods, grips her hand a little tighter, smoothing his knuckle over her skin. He locks his eyes with hers, shakes his head the slightest bit, no, we can't.

But that doesn't mean there aren't moments when he still wishes, too.

fin