DISCLAIMER: I neither own Glee nor the characters. They are the property of Ryan Murphy and FOX. This is purely for fun. Enjoy :)

A/N:**NEW STORY** Buckle your seat-belts kids, you're in for quite the ride.

Hero

Chapter One: A Woman's Love

"NO! NO NO NO NO NO!" Carole Hudson screamed at her son, louder and more forceful than he'd ever heard her scream. Louder than the time he ran over the mailman.

"Mom, please calm down!" Finn put his hands up, defensively, trying to placate his hysterical mother. This wasn't going as well as he'd planned it in his head.

"No! I will not calm down! I can't calm down. NO!" She was pacing around the living room, her hands twisting around themselves in an anxious tick. Her face was rigid with pain, and he could see tears streaming down her cheeks. He burned with shame. He'd known that she would be upset, but he'd never thought she'd be this upset. He couldn't do this to her. She was never going to give him her blessing.

He looked out of the corner of his eye to see Burt peeking out at the two of them from the kitchen. He shot a pleading look to his quasi-step-father, hoping Burt would know what to do. He could see Kurt behind him as well, watching the conversation with anxious curiosity. Burt looked solemn, but made no move to interrupt the conversation. He gave a hard, solid nod to Finn, giving him the encouragement to continue. With a deep breath, Finn turned back around to his mother, ready to plead his case.

"Mom, you know I didn't get into college. I've accepted that. I know sometimes I'm too dumb to function, but I never thought I wouldn't get into a decent college. I didn't even get into Allen Community!" She stopped pacing, and looked at Finn with nothing but desperation and fear in her gaze. "Everyone is leaving, Mom. Rachel, Kurt, heck, even Puck and Quinn! I don't want to be stuck in Lima without an education or a career. I think this is my one good shot to make something of myself." Carole stopped pacing, and looked at her one and only son with nothing but desperation and fear in her eyes.

"The answer is no, Finn. No." She started to walk away, thinking that her word had been final, but Finn wasn't done yet.

"I'm 18 now, Mom. You can't stop me from enlisting if I want to." She stopped on her way to the kitchen, frozen from the truth of the statement. She turned around to look at her son with something akin to betrayal in her eyes.

"It was bad enough that I lost Christopher, Finn. If I lost you too, I don't know what I would do with myself. Do you understand that? Do you?" Finn looked down the ground, the shame returning, burning him, weakening his resolve. "And what about Rachel? Does she know yet, Finn? How do you think she's going to feel when she finds out her boyfriend wants to join the Army?" He winced from the sting of truth, knowing full well that if his mother was this hysterical, Rachel would probably be much, much worse.

"She'll understand. She has to. She always understands me." Saying it with all the conviction in the world, he knew it was the truth. Rachel had always known what he was thinking, feeling. Hell, she knew better than he did most of the time. They were always in perfect sync with the other, something that had kept their relationship strong for the past two years. "I have to do this, Mom. If I ever want to have a life with Rachel after she's done with school, than I need to have an education and a career. The Army can give that to me. I'll go for the few years, come home, and they'll pay for my entire education. And you know how bad things are getting in the Middle East. The Army needs recruits, and being a soldier is in my blood. I'll be a hero, just like Dad was."

"Yes, Finn. But your father also died a hero's death. Is that what you want? Is that what you want for me and Rachel?" She broke down into sobs, collapsing onto the brown armchair that had once belonged to her husband. Her hero. He went over to his mother, and dropped to his knees in front of her, looking at her at eye level, trying to get her to understand.

"Mom, I have to do this. I need to do this."

She looked up at him, and he could hear the anguish in her tone. "Why?"

"Because I know I'm more than just a dumb jock who wasn't good enough for a scholarship. Rachel is going to Juilliard. Juilliard, Mom! The best music school in New York City. What's going to happen when she gets there? She's going to meet a million other guys who are just as awesome at music as she is, and she's never going to pick a Lima Loser over them. I need to prove to her, and to myself, that I can be responsible and successful. I just need this chance."

She closed her eyes, and continued her sobs. He looked over at Kurt and Burt in desperation and the two Hummel men shared matching looks of incredulity, shaking their heads in sync while shrugging their shoulders. All of a sudden, she stood up abruptly, walking past Finn and over to the picture of Private First Class Christopher Hudson, hanging on the wall. She touched his face and smiled lightly. "I remember the day he told me about joining the Army. I was furious. Hysterical. Just like today. We were married and broke after he'd lost his job at the factory in Ada. I'd told him I didn't want him to go, and he turned around and said, 'Carrie, honey, I want to have the chance to prove myself to you. That we can support a family.'" She turned to her son, furious again. "He saw you once, Finn! Once! He came home one time after you were born and then he went back and was gone. He'd never had the chance to prove himself to me! Is that a risk you're willing to make?"

He stood up straight, reaching his full height, knowing that he had to take ownership of his decision. He wasn't going to be the one left behind. He was a leader. Being a soldier was in his blood. He was doing this for his future and Rachel's as well. What had happened to his Dad had been an accident. Finn would know better, he would never let what happened to his Dad happen to him. "Yes."

She started to nod her head, slowly, trying to absorb the reality of the situation.

Her son was going to join the Army. To fight in a war halfway around the world. Against the same people who took her husband from her.

Burt came up to her, finally, after a tense minute where Carole seemed to realize that there would be no talking Finn out of his decision. He was going to enlist regardless of her tears and her cries. Finn sighed. He never wanted to hurt his mother like this, but he knew more than anyone that sometimes a mother's love could be overwhelming. They were all the other had for sixteen years before she'd met Burt, and even though the Hummel-Hudsons functioned as a quasi-family, they were still dependent on the other.

"Alright. There's nothing I can say that's going to change your mind. I get that. I'm not happy with your choice, but I'll respect it, because I love you. And if you think you have to do this, then do it." Burt wrapped an arm around Carole's shoulders in support and she leaned into his embrace. "But don't think Rachel is going to take the news any better than I did. Trust me, I know too well how she'll be feeling, and it's not going to be pretty."

He half-smiled, thinking of his girlfriend and how she managed to look adorable even when she was furiously angry. "I think I'll be able to handle it."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

He was not able to handle it.

Rachel sat on his lap, on his bed, sobbing uncontrollably into his embrace as he rocked her back and forth, trying to calm her down. He could feel his heart clenching in his chest at the sound of her heaving breaths, and his shirt was soaked with her tears. She hadn't said a word to him, only cried endlessly, collapsing into herself as he held her tightly.

He'd never seen her cry like this before. Rachel Berry yelled, screamed, raged, stormed out, and pouted, but she never hysterically cried like this before. At least, not in front of him. He barely knew what to do. So he just held her and let her cry it all out.

"Shh, Rachel, It'll be okay." He didn't think it was possible, but she started to cry even more. A harsh, sharp sob of hysteria escaped her lips as she clutched his shirt in her fists.

"How can you say that? How can you say that you going to the Army is okay?" She looked up at him and her eyes were bloodshot and liquid with tears. "You don't know that, Finn. I can't even begin to think about what could happen to you."

"Don't Rachel, I'm going to be fine." He rubbed her back in soothing circles that had little to no effect on her hysteria.

"You don't know that! Anything could happen Finn, it's war! You know how bad things have been getting over there in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It just keeps getting worse!" He knew deep down she was right; terrorist activity had been increasing steadily over the year, which was the main reason the Army needed recruits.

"Rachel, I didn't get into school. You know that. I don't have any other choice."

"Of course you have a choice! You could find a trade, get a job, do something in Lima."

"I refuse to be stuck in Lima pumping gas and changing tires when I could be making something out of myself." He held her close to him, kissing her face in every spot he could reach. He kissed her temples and her hair. He kissed the tears that trailed down her face. He kissed her full, pouting lips, petal-soft and sweet like honey. "Rachel, I'm doing this for us. For our future. I refuse to hold you back. When I get back, I'll go to school, and we can start a life together. You'll see. It'll all be perfect, I have it all planned out."

"But life doesn't always go as planned, Finn. We've been together for a long time, and you should know by now that you could never hold me back. I love you."

"I love you too, Rachel. But I can't just sit by and watch all my friends move on without me. I have to move on as well. And then we can be together, I promise."

"What about your Mom? You can't honestly sit there and tell me that she's okay with her only son going off to the Army. Especially with everything that happened to your dad."

He looked away from her guiltily, thinking about his previous conversation with his mother. She was still furious at him, and would barely speak to him. Every time he'd tried to talk to her, she would cry. It wasn't helping his resolve, but he knew that he had to stand up for his choices. "She's not in love with the idea, but it doesn't matter. I'm going."

She shook her head over and over, trying to ignore his statement. "I don't like this, Finn. I really don't."

"Listen, I think I could actually be good at it, you know? Being a soldier. You know how much I love first person shooters!"

She looked at him angrily. "War is not a video game, Finn! There are no restarts, no do-overs. You get shot, you're dead. End of story."

He sighed and took her hands in his. he loved the women in his life, he really did, but they were so overprotective! "Remember how you always used to tell me that I was a leader, someone who could take control of a situation when no one else could? I feel like I could actually be happy in the Army. I've thought about it a lot. I didn't make this decision overnight." She looked away from him, hiding her face in his shoulder again. He lifted up her face by her chin and looked into her chocolate brown eyes. "I've read the pamphlets and looked on the web site. I can do great things for the Army, Rachel. I can save people. I can be a hero."

She smiled at him, softly, sadly. "You're already my hero."

And her lips crashed to his, sealing the statement with a kiss.

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Salut mes amis!

Get ready for Mega Angst, more angst than you could ever imagine. Don't worry, Finn isn't going to die, I promise.

Also, follow me on Twitter, my name is TheMinsk. The link is on my profile page!

Until Next Time. . . *sings* Don't Stop. . . Reviewing!

Merci Mille Fois

The Minsk