Welcome to my new series of short Finchel drabbles based on "One Hundred Ways To Say I Love You", 'cos I thought it was cute. It does have quite a lot of links with my other story "it's always better when we're together", but you don't have to read that one for these to make sense. I've written twenty of these so far, eighty more to go...

DISCLAIMER: Glee does not belong to me, neither does the Tumblr post that inspired this.

It's December 21st and Finn and Rachel, with Ava and Chris sitting in the back, are driving down to Lima to spend Christmas with their parents. They go back pretty much every year and it's a nice tradition. Although they hated Lima back when they were teenagers, they can now appreciate the slower pace of life (especially compared to New York). Finn is still a country boy at heart, too, and loves showing Ava the woods, playing tag with her in his parents' large garden and splashing her in the nearby lake. He's so looking forward to doing these things with his son as he grows.

Since Chris is too young to fly, they decide it would be best to drive down to Lima, leaving horrifically early (5am!) in order to avoid the traffic where they can. It's a nine hour car journey and Finn is only five hours in. They've been stopping regularly so Rachel can feed Chris, they can go to the toilets and Finn can stretch his legs.

Rachel glances over at her husband. She can practically see the exhaustion emanating from his body. His eyes have small bags beneath them, he fidgets incessantly which Rachel knows means he is suffering from back ache and he keeps having to move his legs around the confined space to get rid of his cramp. She puts her hand on his shoulder and traces circles there. He lets out a moan of pleasure.

"Finn, you're tired, exhausted, I can tell," she says, her voice soft and caring, "let me take over for a couple of hours."

"What? No. I'm perfectly fine," he responds, his urge to protect her kicking in. She'd been busy that week, busier than he had, with recording her album among other things, accompanied with a two month old child, she's just as drained as he is.

"No, Finn, you can't. You need to take a break, have a little sleep. You can't drive the entire way, it will not do your back or your eyes any good," she insists. "Also, the longer you drive, the more your concentration diminishes and you become a hazard to us and everybody around you. Do you want that?"

"No! No. Of course I don't bu-."

"Good. Then pull over, let me drive for a while."

He sighs deeply and leaves the interstate at the first opportunity. He stops at a diner and gets out of the car. He checks to see if the kids are still sleeping; they are, thankfully, and he kisses Rachel's cheek as they switch seats. He'd never say it but he was feeling worn down and his wife, his beautiful, perfect wife, didn't even have to ask, she knew instinctively that she needed to take over the steering wheel.

"Thanks," he says with a smile as he looks over at Rachel.

"You're welcome, Finn," comes her reply. She presses down on the accelerator as she re-joins the interstate and settles into the seat more comfortably. She peeks over at her husband five minutes later to discover him fast asleep, snoring lightly.