Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 64th cycle. Now cycle 65!

"Reignited"
Rachel/Puck, Quinn/Finn
Sunshine Girls series
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)

If her stomach didn't settle, she would be out on a dinner date where she couldn't eat, because she wouldn't be able to keep anything down. Anyone that would dare say to her to calm down because it was 'just a date' had better get away from her, because she just might smack them very, very hard. This wasn't just a date, this was her and the guy she loved, trying to make things work again. It had taken so much time for them to get to where they were, and she wanted to believe that it would all come to work out, with all that they had gone through in their time apart, but there was still that fear, that they couldn't be those two people they had been before.

The cause of their breakup had been her. Already this was something heavy for them to carry, especially once they added the reason behind the breakup. Feelings had been hurt, on both sides, and those wounds had been given all this time to try and heal… What if it wasn't enough?

When he'd come to get her, she was almost relieved to see he was nervous, too. He'd try to hide it, and she wouldn't call him on it. They headed out to Breadstix, and while the car ride had been filled with nothing but awkward silence, as they got to the restaurant, her mind turned elsewhere. She had asked Quinn to be there, somewhere in the restaurant, just in the event that she might need her, if things were going bad, or she got stuck…

She spotted them, her and Finn, sitting on the other side of the restaurant. She would need to remember to thank him for doing this as well. As irregular situations went, having your ex there with your best friend, to provide support on a date with his best friend and the guy she'd cheated on him with and gotten pregnant by… that was the biggest one she'd faced.

They were both staring at her, though they were trying to be discreet, and she had to remember Puck, who had no idea about this. She didn't want him to know how desperate she had been for this to go well, because he might think it was the other way around, that she needed them to bail her out of something she didn't want.

The silence from the car had made for the start of their date to be as awkward as things got, and this mood carried on into the first few minutes of them sitting at their table. She thought they would never get past it, but then Puck had held out the cup of breadsticks toward her with a smirk, and she laughed, taking one.

"Thanks," she told him, splitting it in half and giving it to him.

"Nice," he sat up, crunching into his half stick.

"These? Not so much," she pointed out, and he agreed.

"It does the job."

"Well, we shouldn't have too many before our meal or we'll fill up and, wow, I sound like my dads," she bowed her head.

"I'll pace myself," he vowed. "So how are your dads?" he took the opportunity to get conversation started.

"They're good," she nodded. "They were all over me tonight, while I was getting ready like they were Cinderella's fairy godmother."

"So they're okay with this?" he asked.

"Absolutely," she assured him, testing the waters and reaching for his hand. He took hold of hers, and she beamed. "And your mom, she's doing alright?"

"Completely back to health. It's easy to tell; when she's fine, she nags at me and my sister all the time," he joked. Rachel knew he would take the nagging over his mother being sick any day.

"Yeah, my dads are kind of like that, too."

"My sister's been crazy ever since I told her we were going out tonight," he told her and she laughed. "Stopped calling me an idiot, that's a bonus."

"She called you an idiot?" Rachel snorted.

"Yes, she did," he sat up. "For not getting back together with you earlier. I'm starting to see her point now." She had missed seeing this smile on him, more than she realized; it was the smile that belonged to her.

The awkwardness and the silence were both gone. Now they were talking, smiling and laughing, like they had been doing it their whole lives. Puck would tell her stories, and even if at times they would make her squirm, she would be smiling the whole time. Rachel would tell him about the things she was working on for Glee Club and for other possible projects, and he would listen, even offer feedback and ideas.

Before she knew it, they were ordering dessert. At no time since they had arrived had she thought about Quinn or Finn and asking them for help, and when she realized this, she turned to look at their table, only to discover they were gone. How long ago they had left, she wasn't sure, but there was already another couple at the table. Puck looked over his shoulder when he saw her staring.

"Do you know those guys?" he asked.

"No, I…" she blinked, shaking her head and turning back to him. "I thought I saw… It's nothing," she shrugged. Maybe she'd known. It was like in the stories. When the helping hand wasn't needed anymore, it just left…

After they'd finished dessert, they had gone about, walking around the mall for some time before they could go, but then she had asked if he'd like to go see a movie, and he smiled, putting his arm around her shoulders and leading her toward the theaters.

"So does this mean we'll have ourselves a second second date?" he asked, working it out in his head, and she laughed.

"Yes. Definitely."

THE END

A/N: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.
In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are
always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!