"I really fucking hate that Biff guy."
She had been waiting for him ever since she got back to Lima, and here he was now, crawling through her window unannounced as he had so many nights during their time at McKinley. "Oh, yeah?" she asked without looking up from the sheet music she was studying at her desk. It had been so long since she had been alone with Noah, long before Finn's funeral, but it felt like no time had passed. She was still the same old Rachel around him, not some version of herself she had made up so that she could fit in New York. It was kind of nice.
He watched her for a long moment, huddled over her stack of papers and had to smile to himself. "Yeah, he's a douche," he insisted, staying poised in his place in her windowsill. She finally swiveled around in her chair to regard him. "He's exactly the kind of guy I would have beat up back in high school. A huge part of me still wants to clock him, you know? But I can't because of that whole behavior-honor-code bullshit the Air Force has going on."
"Doing the right thing always was inconvenient for you," she teased, her dark eyes glittering mischievously. She quickly tucked away the papers and switched off the desk lamp before crossing the room to hug him. "I'm glad you were able to make it back. We weren't sure if you would get leave, but it wouldn't be the same without you."
"I figure Schue deserves a proper send off, don't you? I mean, after all he did for me back in high school and all the shit I put him through, I kinda owe the guy," he replied honestly. A dark look passed through his hazel eyes. "Besides, it's what Finn would want me to do, and right now, that's how I'm making most of my choices."
They were both quiet, her in his arms thinking about her lost love and him trying to push down the tears that were always just brimming below the surface when he thought about his best friend. Then, as they were apt to do, the moment drifted away and Rachel took a step back to help him fully into her room.
"So you're still hung up on Quinn, I see," she said quietly as she moved around her childhood bedroom.
She went to the closet to toss him one of his old shirts, a castoff from somewhere along the way that she had always just kind of kept at her house for him. He quickly discarded his crisp uniform shirt in favor of the worn tee. He shucked off his pants afterward, glad that he no longer went commando on the regular because the uniform pants chafed. Meanwhile, she had pulled on a nightgown of her own, a white cotton chemise thing that sort of reminded him of that getup she'd worn in his dream sophomore year.
"It's not that, not really," he insisted. He wasn't sure if it was a lie, and if Rachel thought it was, she didn't bother to call him on it. "I just don't think he's good enough for her. I don't really know what her problem is. She was hooking up with that professor at Thanksgiving and then she kissed Santana at Schue's wedding and now this. It's like she's lost her damn mind or something."
Rachel considered this for a moment. "I think we've all been a little lost these past few months, Noah. We've all dealt with everything in our own way, and Quinn seems to have dealt with all the changes by not dealing at all. She barely talks to anyone because she wants to forget. You and me and Finn, we all represent things she wants to remain in the past."
Part of him knew she was right, but he also knew that he still felt some kind of connection when he looked at Quinn. He knew that most of that had to do with Beth, but he really had loved the blonde in his own way. "Fine, whatever, let's not talk about her any more," he declared, mentally brushing away all thoughts of Quinn. "So tell me about New York."
And for the next thirty minutes, tucked into her old bed with a sleepy Noah at her side, she told him all about her life in the Big Apple. She talked about school and living with Kurt and Santana at the loft and how big of a mess the whole thing with Brody had ended up. She told him about Funny Girl and being a waitress and all the shows she had seen with half-price tickets. She told him about her favorite vintage shop and the really great record store she knew he'd love on Bleecker and a bar she couldn't wait to try when she turned twenty-one. She told him how much she missed Finn and showed him the tattoo she had gotten and admitted that she swore she still felt him sometimes.
And somewhere between telling him about open mic night at the coffeehouse down the street from her apartment and asking him about basic training, Noah turned on his side and quieted her with a kiss. They fell right back into conversation without acknowledging it, though Rachel was admittedly snuggled closer to him now, his arm loose around the small of her back and her feet tucked snugly between his calves. She kept waiting for him to get up to go because that was how most nights like these had ended in high school, him leaving once she was asleep and neither of them talking about it afterward.
But she was awake when he started to go this time, reaching out to grasp his hand at the last minute. These nights never went as planned, but she didn't want him to go. "Won't you stay with me?" she implored, clutching his hand tightly. "I haven't had a really good night of sleep in so long, and you always help me sleep. Please, Noah, you're all I need."
He looked down at her in the sliver of moonlight that had managed to creep its way into her bedroom. "Rach," he drawled out softly and then he realized she was crying. He slid down in the bed and pulled her against his chest. "Oh, darlin'. Missing him, huh? I know that look. I wear it too much myself when I'm alone. Don't think it's a good look for either of us, babe, we gotta get better at keeping it together."
"Why am I so emotional, Noah? I keep thinking it won't be hard, but being back here in Lima, it doesn't feel like home without him in the same way anymore. I used to feel so safe here, but now it feels like everything is so fragile," she whispered. He combed his fingers through her hair, scratching lightly against her scalp. "I miss him all the time and I try not to make everything about him but it is still. I feel like I have to make up for everything that went wrong between us by doing everything perfectly from now on."
"That's a whole lot of pressure to put on yourself, babe," he told her. "But if anyone's gonna get it, you know it's gonna be me. I signed up for the Air Force to finish a mission he couldn't. It's why part of me is thinking about going to college to teach after all this. He always thought I'd be a fun gym teacher. We even talked about both of us coming back to McKinley to coach football together. It made a whole lot more sense than that screenplay ever did. I still can't spell worth a damn."
Rachel looked up at him. "I'm sorry that I never talked to you after the funeral. It was just too hard. It hurt enough being around Kurt, but it was even harder to see you. I knew that no one other than maybe Carole was feeling it as deeply as you, and I couldn't bear the thought of us trying to comfort each other. I should have been there."
He pressed a kiss to her forehead. "The road works both ways, Rach," he reminded her. "Besides, it's good that you had Beyonce. Beiste was there for me. And we're together now and there is no one else who would understand why I showed up here tonight other than you."
She turned around in his arms. "I just want to forget, Noah," she whispered, her forehead against his. She looked searchingly into his arms, and she knew that they were going to kiss. It would only last a night, but it would be theirs. She liked the thought of having something like that with him. "I know this never works when we try, but can we just have tonight? Just lay here with me until I quit remembering, stay until it doesn't hurt."
That was an impossible request, but it didn't stop Noah from trying. He kissed her then because she was asking him to stay, something no one had done for a really long time. She might have thought that he was all that she needed, but it was only a temporary reprieve really. They made love slowly, quietly, intimately, until she fell away with a soft gasp and he collapsed onto her chest.
He was gone when she woke up the next morning, his shirt folded neatly on the window pane and a note with a promise to call her when he got phone time on base. And he did call, two weeks later, and then every other time he got to call for the next four years. Leave time got split between Lima and New York and then Lima and LA. Maybe it hadn't been love the first time he had stayed but it was eventually.
They were all the other needed.
Author's Note: Inspired by Sam Smith's "Stay With Me." For Amy, by request.