For the sake of this story, Finn and Rachel are still together and everything with Puck and Santana never ever happened.

Rachel opened her eyes to the glaring sun beaming across her face and she immediately squeezed them shut again. A cross between that and the squawking of birds above her, combined with the shouts coming from all directions was beginning to threaten a headache, spasms of pain were already creeping behind her eyes, shooting across her forehead. A warm breeze fluttered over her, blowing her loose hair up to gently tickle her face, a strand landing across her lips, containing the faint taste of salt.

Without opening her eyes, Rachel pushed herself slowly into a sitting position, supporting herself from behind with her hands. She took a deep breath of the warm, salty air, tasting it on her dry lips as she inhales. A loud screech of an angry seagull sounded close to her left side, but she didn't open her eyes, wanting to enjoy the peace of the blindness for a few more moments, imagining where the sounds were coming from, what they might mean. The shout of laughter to her right could have been Puck torturing Quinn with a fistful of wet muddy sand, or Brittany running from the seagull screeching feet away.

"I was starting to think you'd actually fallen asleep." A voice very close to her ear made Rachel jump and her eyes snapped open accompanied by a gasp. She turned her head quickly around to see Finn's face inches from hers, his mouth turned up in a 'ha, I got you', smile.

A sudden thud from beside her made Rachel jump again, this time a scream escaped her throat. "Calm it my Jewish Princess, it's only me," said Puck. He had thrown himself down on her other side, a smirk dancing across his lips. "You coming in the water? Santana's trying to force in Brittany but she's worried that a shark will attack her unless there's a large group of us to scare it off."

Rachel shook her head. "No way, do you have any idea about the sort of things that are in that water? Being in the sea is like going for a swim in other people's waste-" She was cut off mid sentence, letting out another scream as Puck lifted her into the air, one arm around the back of her knees, the other around her back, and began to carry her across the sand.

"Noah! What are you doing? Put me down!" She shrieked. Finn leapt to his feet, quickly following them.

"Dude, what on earth are you doing?" He asked over Rachel's screams.

"Getting your girlfriend to loosen up," Puck replied, as if kidnapping a girl across the beach was nothing out of the ordinary. He leapt up onto a dock leading out into the sea, Rachel still in his arms.

"Put me down now, Puckerman!" Rachel yelled, struggling in his arms.

"Yeah Puck, you've had your fun, now leave her alone," Finn agreed, his stare focused on Puck's bare hands on the backs of Rachel's legs. She was wearing nothing but a one piece bathing suit.

"Certainly," said Puck as he dropped his arms, allowing Rachel to fall from them with another scream. Finn watched as she dropped into the sea, several feet below and disappeared under the surface. She emerged a few seconds later, gasping for air and coughing, barely tall enough to stand on the ground below the water. Her wet her was plastered to her forehead and around her face, blocking her vision.

Puck looked casually on without an ounce of guilt as Rachel swung around in the water to face him, scraping the wet hair out of her face. "You are so dead!" She gasped, still struggling to catch her breath. She grabbed the edge of the dock and hauled herself out of the water with a surprising speed for her small build. Puck smirked and turned away from her, running back across the dock before she could even gain her footing.

Unphased by his head start, Rachel took off after Puck, ignoring Finn's shouts from behind her. Her wet feet slapped against the wood as she ran, almost slipping from underneath her more than once, but she kept going, determined to get Puck back for the dirty salt water she could taste in her mouth and the germs she could feel creeping all over her skin, the smell clinging to her hair that she knew she wouldn't be rid of for days. Adrenaline ran through her body, giving her the extra burst of speed she needed to be hot on Puck's heels.

Suddenly, Puck spun around, stopping dead as Rachel charged towards him and he grabbed her around her waist as she reached him, lifting her off her feet for the second time that day. He swung her around in the air, tightening his grip on her waist to keep her there.

"Ow!" Rachel gasped, her own hands shooting to her stomach. Puck released her immediately, putting her quickly but gently back down on the sand.

"What's wrong?" He asked, suddenly serious. Rachel shook her head, taking her hands away from her stomach.

"Nothing," she muttered, frowning gently. "Just a stomach ache."

From the dock, Finn watched as Puck's arms slipped around his girlfriend's waist, hoisting her up into the air. He watched as he put her back down again, as quickly as if her touch her burned him, a sudden solemn expression on his face. He'd felt something. Finn burned with jealously as he saw Rachel drop her gaze away from Puck, her arms wrapped where his had been just moments before. They had both felt it.

…

The arcade was lively with kids and teenagers when the Glee kids entered it, adding to the noise. Immediately, the group split off, Santana, Brittany, Sam and Quinn heading off in one direction and Puck going in the other with Rachel and Finn. Half an hour, several dollars and nothing to show for it later, they had just about given up on the thought of achieving anything and started to look for the others.

"What about one last shot at winning something?" Suggested Puck as they walked past a machine none of them had tried before. It wasn't one like the others that could only ever earn you meaningless prizes that were flung into a corner and forgotten about as soon as the novelty of actually having won something had worn off. It was one of the few with proper prizes. Jewellery, watches, cash prizes and even an I-phone.

"Come on Noah, those ones are even more of a con than the others, I doubt it's even possible to win on those ones, they just put fancy prizes on show so that people will be attracted to wasting their money on something that's never going to happen."

"So? You buy heels to make yourself taller don't you?"

With a scowl, Rachel rolled her eyes as she and Finn followed Puck to the machine. He inserted a five dollar bill, the cocky smirk never once leaving his face as he tired over and over to hit the button on time to stop on the red light that would win him the prize. Rachel rolled her eyes again, leaning against the side of the machine.

"Just give it up Puckerman," she said with an sigh. Puck grinned at her.

"No way, I have one more go and I'm not losing this thing again."

"I think you're fighting a lost cause dude," Finn said, siding with Rachel.

"Wanna bet on that?" Said Puck with a smirk as he hit the button, signalling the end of his last turn. But that time, the light landed right where it was meant to, stopping on red. His smile soon faded as the small box, dropped from the machine.

"Nice," Finn commented as Puck bent down to collect his prize. A pair of gold stud earrings in the shape of stars. Puck scowled, but then his face brightened suddenly, and he flung the box in Rachel's direction.

"Happy Hanukkah."

Rachel stared down at the box in her hands and the small earrings that lay within it. "You're giving me these?" She switched her gaze from the box to the boy who had just thrown them at her.

"Well I'm hardly gonna wear them," he shrugged. Rachel smiled and slipped the box into her pocket, stepping forwards towards Puck, who backed off, looking wary. She rolled her eyes at him and flung her arms around him before he could back off again. He hesitated before returning her hug.

"Thank-you," she mumbled, finally pulling away. Puck shrugged again, looking away from her and towards the beach still visible from the arcade. Very determinedly looking at neither Rachel or Finn.

"They're just earrings, and it's not as if I'm going to find much other use for them." He turned back to Rachel, a smug smile suddenly on his face. "And at least this way I get to rub the fact that you were wrong right in your face. Every time you wear those, you can think of today and remember that you're not always right."

"Today was a very rare occurrence that I am sure will not be happening again," she said, swatting him with her hand. "Now we'd better find the others if we don't want to miss the last train home. My dads will panic if I'm not home by the time I told them I would be." She headed across the arcade, still talking over her shoulder and Puck and Finn followed behind her, Puck resisting the temptation to roll his eyes.

…

Finn stared in jealousy at the studs resting in his girlfriend's ears as he lay beside her on her bed. He wanted to ask her why she was wearing them, but something told him the question wouldn't go down well. They were hers, and he hadn't upped any protest when Puck had given them to her, although he'd felt his insides burn with resentment and jealousy.

Shaking off the feelings which he knew were irrational, Finn slipped his arm around her waist, holding her tighter to him, but instead of sinking into him, Rachel flinched and jerked away, freezing as soon as she had reacted, as if she hadn't meant to show her distaste. "Rach?" Questioned Finn, propping himself up with his elbow and staring down at her. She refused to look at him.

"Why'd you do that?" He asked, a slight edge to his voice. Still, she did not look at him.

"I-I just didn't want-" She stammered, but Finn interrupted her.

"Didn't want what? I was just holding you, nothing more. It's not as if it's the first time we've done that." Rachel finally looked at him, shifting her eyes slowly to his. Behind them, Finn could see unease, and a hint of something he couldn't quite place. Guilt? Or even fear?

"I know, I-I'm sorry."

He glared at her, struggling to stop the thoughts that were gathering in his mind. Thoughts of her with someone else, letting them explore places he'd never been allowed near. She'd never been keen to be intimate with him, but never that bad. Finn tired to force the images from his mind of her with a faceless man who was taking the shape of his best friend more every moment it remained burned in his imagination.

"Maybe I should just go," he snapped suddenly, rolling away from her and swinging his legs off the bed. Rachel sat up abruptly and opened her mouth, her protests rushing up her throat and resting on the tip of her tongue where they remained stuck, even as she tried to force them out.

"Wait-" she managed, just as he reached her bedroom door and extended his arm to open it. Finn paused at the door, but didn't turn around, staying there for a few moments as if waiting for Rachel to carry on, but she remained silent, struggling to find the words.

"I'll see you tomorrow," he said coldly, before pulling open her bedroom door and disappearing out of it, snapping it shut behind him with a little more force than necessary, leaving Rachel sitting alone on her bed, and wondering what it was, exactly, that she had done wrong.

…

Rachel pulled open her locker the next day with bleary eyes. She yawned, rooting through her books to find her Spanish one, tired from the lack of sleep she had managed the night before. Her mind her been filled with thoughts of Finn and their argument. If it could even have been called that. They hadn't fought exactly, but Rachel had felt his cold anger as he'd left the room, convincing her she must have done something wrong.

All night she'd tired to think of exactly why Finn had seemed so mad at her, but even with her intelligence, she'd came up with nothing. Unless he'd realised the real reason she had flinched away from him and was disgusted by it. Maybe he'd felt beneath her top and hated her for what she had done.

As lost in thought as she was, Rachel didn't hear him come up behind her amongst the noise of the rest of the student body as they lazily strolled to their next period, chatting about meaningless topics that Rachel never bothered herself with. She didn't notice him, in fact, until he came right up behind her and slammed her locker shut from where he was stood. She only just managed to move her hands out of the way in time.

Shocked, she spun around, angry words forming on her lips until she saw who it was. Rachel closed her mouth again, a frown working its way across her face. She'd thought things between them would be back to normal, that Finn would have realised he was the one in the wrong and being irrational towards her, but the way he was glaring down at her, anger flashing behind his eyes, told her otherwise. He was more furious than ever before.

"W-what's the matter?" Rachel stammered, unable to draw her eyes away from him. She kept her gaze fixed on his face, as if afraid of what he would do if she turned away.

"Don't pretend like you don't know, Rachel!" He half yelled, causing several heads to turn and stare in their direction. She blinked at him, completely bewildered.

"Finn, due to my above average scores on every test I take, I am usually able to keep up with whatever comes up in conversation. But I can honesty say I have no idea what you are referring to."

Finn's glare grows even more intense. "Don't start with all that 'I'm so amazing' crap that comes out of your mouth every time you speak, because you know something? You're really not."

One.

Rachel blinked, her eyes suddenly swimming with unshed tears as she stared at her furious boyfriend.

"What have I done?" She asked, quietly, her voice shaking. "I'm sorry if I didn't want to get any closer last night, but if you want to go out with me, you're going to have to be a lot more patient than you were with Quinn."

"Yeah, well it's lucky I don't then."

Rachel stared at him, her lip beginning to quiver with the effort of not crying. She pressed her lips together and closed her eyes, briefly. When she opened them again, she was not looking at Finn, but at the floor. "You don't want to be with me?" She almost whispered when she could trust herself to speak. As she did, the tears escaped her eyes and ran down her face, creating tracks for new ones to fall.

"No. I don't." He looked her up and down without a trace of regret. "And I don't know why I ever did."

Two.

More tears followed the first ones, splashing down her cheeks no matter how hard Rachel tried to stop them. She kept her eyes on the floor, not trusting herself to look at him. "Do you mind telling me what I've done wrong?" She asked, quietly, but the quiver in her voice betrayed her tears. She barely made out Finn's angry voice, the rest of the world seemed to have fallen away, and it was just the two of them. But she was sinking faster, falling down with the rest of them, but no one reached out to catch her.

"I know Rachel." Was all he said, coldly and with no trace of humour. If he was joking, it had gone too far. "Santana told me. She saw the two of you in the auditorium."

Told you what? Rachel thought, but she found the words once again blocked as soon as she tried to speak them. Who was she supposed to have been with? And what were they meant to have been doing? She could guess, but could not think why Finn would think that. Not on Santana's word.

"I'm not surprised. After what happened with Quinn, I expected this, from him, but I never thought you would. But look," he tangled his fingers into her hair, forcing it back. "You're even wearing his earrings."

For a moment, one heart jerking second, Rachel was afraid he was going to pull them right out of her ears, and perhaps he was too, for he let go of her, pulling away as fast as if touching her had scorched him. Finn stood there, and she could eel his eyes on her, boring into her and alight with anger, but she couldn't bring herself to look at him, even the denial was stuck somewhere between her throat and the air.

It was obvious now who he was referring to, what he was talking about, but Rachel still could not think why he would believe Santana's word without so much as asking her if it were true. She could not believe he would say those things to her, accuse her of something like that without even her conformation. "Are you not even going to ask me if it's true?" She managed at last, not bothering to disguise the tremble in her voice.

Before Finn could say a word in response, someone slammed into her shoulder, flinging her into the lockers with a loud crash and Rachel turned her head to see Karofsky laughing over his shoulder as he ploughed through the corridor, students darting out of his way to avoid being slammed. "Sorry hobbit," he yelled. "I didn't see you there."

Finn didn't say a word in her defence, or even ask if she was okay, and she hadn't expected him to. Rachel rubbed her arm where she had fallen into the lockers, and didn't let go again, wrapping it around her stomach so both her arms were folded across it, as if she was trying to protect herself from the pain.

"I don't need to. I've seen the two of you together. I was there you know, at the beach. I saw him pick you up, his hands were all over you. And what was with those earrings?"

"He won them, just like he said Finn, he was hardly going to wear them. What would you suggest he do? Just throw them away?"

Finn glared at her, too angry to hear a word she was saying. A part of him knew she was right and wanted to believe her, but the images that ran through his mind told him otherwise. Images of Puck's hands running over her legs, hoisting her into the air, spinning her around with his arms wrapped firmly around her waist. The look on Rachel's face when he presented her with the earrings, throwing them casually in her direction as if they were nothing more than cheap plastic. Another of the two entwined together, sneaking into the auditorium as soon as they could both escape him.

"I didn't expect him to give them to my girlfriend, that's supposed to be my job! There's no excuse for the rest of it, what are you going to come up with for the fact that you've been fooling around with him for weeks behind my back?" He was yelling so loudly, that a crowd had gathered in the hall, spectators there to stare. "I thought you were many things Rachel, but I never had you down as a cheat. But at least now I finally have an excuse to trash you. Do you know what everyone thinks of you?"

Rachel tightened her arms around her waist, casting her eyes back to the floor and keeping them firmly fixed there, hiding the tears pouring thick and fast down her face. "Yes, actually Finn, I do. I hear it every day."

"Well do you know what they think of me for going out with you?" Rachel closed her eyes, willing herself somewhere else. Anywhere else. She wasn't standing there in the school corridor, being yelled out in front of half the student body, it wasn't Finn saying those things. She was on stage, on Broadway on the night of her first performance. She was nervous, but she knew it was where she was meant to be, what she had worked and pushed for since before she could walk. She belonged there.

But another image travelled through the haze of her dream. Finn's angry face stared out at her from the audience, his mouth forming the words that she dreaded to hear and suddenly, she forgot all her lines. Everything she had learned and worked for vanished from her mind and she couldn't think of what scene came next, what she was supposed to be doing. All she heard was his voice, calling to her from the front row.

"They say you're just kidding yourself that you have any talent, that you're nothing out of the ordinary and even if you did have the talent to make Broadway, your personality is too horrible for anyone to be willing to put up with you, and for dating you, that makes me a zero too. It makes me a loser, bottom of the pile just like you are."

Three. Four. Five.

Rachel wanted to clamp her hands over her ears, she didn't want to hear anymore. She no longer even cared about convincing him of her innocence, she just didn't want to stand there and listen to his words, hear everything she was afraid of about herself coming from his mouth. But then there was another voice, someone calling from across the corridor.

"What is going on here?" Mr Schue strode over to where Finn and Rachel were stood, a majority of the student body gathered around them, a crowd that had grown by the second. Mr Schue stared from one to the other, waiting for an explanation as one by one, the students who had stood to watch realised the show as over and slunk back to where they were supposed to be. Finn opened his mouth, as if to attempt an explanation, but closed it again with a scowl. Mr Schue's gaze fell to Rachel, who refused to even look at him.

"Look guys, whatever row you're having, it can either stay under control or wait to after school hours. I don't want to come across you screaming at each other in the middle of the corridor disrupting everyone else."

Rachel bit her lip and squeezed her eyes shut to stop herself sobbing aloud. Her breath caught in her throat as she struggled to stop crying. She had a sudden desperate desire to get out of there, Finn was no longer shouting but she could still hear his words ringing in her ears and feel both his and her teacher's gazes boring into her, one glaring in anger, the other searching her out.

"Both of you get back to class," snapped Mr Schue eventually, when it became clear he wasn't going to get an explanation out of either of them.

"Gladly," said Finn, coldly. He turned away from Rachel and stormed down the corridor, not once looking back, leaving her for the second time in less than twenty four hours, but that time, Rachel knew he wasn't coming back.

…

You've got your dumb friends
I know what they say
They tell you I'm difficult
But so are they
But they don't know me
Do they even know you?
All the things you hide from me
All the shit that you do

The music filled Rachel's mind, blocking all her own thoughts of Finn and pushing down the roaring pain that had been twisting inside her heart since Finn had left her standing in the school corridor, his words echoing inside her head time and time again until she could head nothing else.

You were all the things I thought I knew
And I thought we could be

You were everything, everything that I wanted
We were meant to be, supposed to be, but we lost it
And all of the memories, so close to me, just fade away
All this time you were pretending
So much for my happy ending

As much as she tried to block out Finn's voice with the lyrics, she couldn't stop it merging into the song. Rachel had thought, stupidly, that he was different to everyone else, that he wasn't like all those who teased and tormented her, that even if things did go wrong for them, he would never stoop to that level. But perhaps she deserved it. She certainly did in his eyes.

It's nice to know that you were there
Thanks for acting like you cared
And making me feel like I was the only one
It's nice to know we had it all
Thanks for watching as I fall
And letting me know we were done

Tears begun to leak from her eyes once again, falling with a slow rhythm down her face. She had long since got used to them and didn't even try to brush them away as they spilled onto her pillow, causing small, damp patches. She yanked the I-pod earphones out of her ears, unable to bear the sound of her own failures blasting through her head. But the silence was worse.

Rachel pressed her hands to her stomach, feeling the comforting sting at the same time as a pang of regret. She knew what this meant. She knew she was no longer going to be able to hold off what she'd spent all evening trying to avoid. She had promised herself she would stop for him, that he she wanted him one day and didn't want to have to explain what they were, why she hadn't let him touch her until then. But he didn't care now. She had no one to do it for.

Almost roboticly, Rachel sat up and got too her feet, swaying a little from the head rush caused by lying down for so long. For the first time since Finn had left her alone in her room the previous night, she felt calm. She'd regret it later, she'd hate herself for it, she'd be disgusted with what she'd once again caved into, but it didn't matter. And perhaps she wouldn't anyway. There was no one to feel guilty for now.

The can felt cool to her touch as she picked it up of the self and pulled off the cap. A hiding place no one would think of looking in. Rachel tipped the lid upside down and immediately, two thin blades fell into the palm of her hand and she could already feel the bad feeling, the hurt beginning to fade and the edges of the gaping hole softening. She closed her fingers around the tiny releases, sitting back down on her bed carefully, as if she'd break if she did it too suddenly.

Then, with a sudden urgency, Rachel pulled up the hem of her top, revealing what she allowed no one else to see. Her stomach, patterned with a web of scars old and new, fresh cuts and deeper marks, even some words. All there by the tiny objects in her hand. One for every insult, every put down thrown her way. Some of the words etched into her skin so she'd never forget.

Today, she had counted five.