A Different Life

thirty four

It was almost midnight when Rory heard the door unlock, she had been waiting up, reluctant to go to bed until she knew that Finn had made it home safely.

"Ror, I'm home," he shouted as he locked the door behind him. "Oof!" he exclaimed as Rory crashed into his arms.

"I was so worried about you. I knew you were fine but I was still so worried."

"I was fine," he said, looking down at Rory, brushing her hair away from her face. "A few extra hours in Vegas, the only thing suffering is my bank account."

"Did everyone manage to get a flight?"

"Yes, Jess even managed to get one straight to Philly instead of having to come here first like he originally thought he might."

"That's good," Rory said releasing him, "You probably want a shower after all that travel, are you hungry?"

"Not hungry Kitten, I'm just going to have a quick shower and then we can head to bed? It's been a long weekend. I'm sure you are just as tired as I am," Finn said walking towards the master bathroom.

Ten minutes later Finn walked into the bedroom with a towel wrapped low on his hips. He finished drying off and quickly slipped a clean pair of boxers on before slipping into bed next to Rory. She was about to slide closer to him when she saw a shadow on his chest, so she turned and flicked the overhead light on instead of the bedside lamp.

"Finn, what happened here?" Rory was lightly tracing the bruises left from the harness in the dune buggy.

"I had some issues in the dune buggy on Saturday, it looks worse than it is, they don't even hurt."

"What kind of issues?" Rory asked skeptically.

Finn sighed before answering her, he knew there was no point trying to hide anything from her. "Logan rammed me a few times, and he managed to force my buggy to roll so it landed on its roof and I was hanging upside down for a while until Robert and Jess came along and helped me."

"Seriously, I can't believe him, are you sure you are okay? You could have been seriously hurt Finn, he can't go around doing things like that. This is real life not some dumb video game."

"Rory, come here." Finn said, pulling her into his arms. "I am safe, yes it was dumb and dangerous, but I am safe, just a few bruises."

"I wouldn't know what to do without you Finn."

"I know that, and I never want you to have to find out. I made a promise to myself when we got together, that that was the end of the extreme sports and dangerous dumb stunts."

"You don't have to do that Finn, I don't want you to have to give things up for me." Rory said, looking at him while nervously biting her lip.

"I'm not doing it for you Rory, I'm doing it for us. Before I never had anything real to live for or anyone to miss me, so if something went wrong on a stunt the only one I hurt was myself. I saw you back when Logan got hurt in Costa Rica, even though you weren't on the best of terms at that point, it killed you to see him in the hospital. I never want you to have to feel like that again, especially not just so I can have two minutes of a thrill, it's just not worth it. " Finn said earnestly.

"Okay, we will maybe review that again later. What else did you do on Saturday?" she asked, snuggling into his side.

"I watched and filmed all the boys do the jump off the strat, and then we did the burlesque show and private supper that I told you about before we left. Then we hit the casino, Colin and I played blackjack, while the other guys did poker and roulette. Jess cleaned up at poker, Doyle cleaned up at roulette but didn't know when to stop and lost it all, so Paris might kill him," he said laughing.