Noah Puckerman…
Resident Badass, womanizer, school player, man-whore, natural charmer, and wide receiver of McKinley High's football team. He's a full packaged ladies-man. He doesn't get tied down, nor does he get heartbroken. But when it comes to Quinn and his baby girl (who Quinn had given up for adoption), he would drop everything and go running to them in a heartbeat, and he's had his heartbroken over and over again for and by Quinn... But of course, he always keeps his cool, especially when he's at school, where his reputation as a badass needs to be upheld.
He smirks, struts, swaggers, grins, winks, flirts, and openly flaunts his extremely good looks everywhere. He's cocky, confident, egotistical, and sometimes a complete ass to anyone and everyone who dares to try to bring him down from his rep. unless of course, if it's Quinn.
He follows her around school, chasing after her, trying to impress her, and always asking her to give him a chance again. Even when she avoids him like the plague, he can't help but hope for the day when she will finally wake up and realize that he really loves her and wants to be with her. But that day seems to become farther and farther away, every time she blows him off. She always screens his phone calls and text messages, but it doesn't stop him from leaving her little messages here and there. He goes as far as writing her little notes which he slips into her locker, leaving his name out of it. He waits nearby her locker and watches her. He feels hopeful every time she reads one of his notes, and she has that faint smile on her lips.
Most of his notes include little romantic and sappy things he would never say to anyone.
I'll fight for you. No matter what happens, I won't stop until you tell me to.
He loves her… He's in love with her. And he would admit it to the world. Hell, high school is the world, and frankly the whole school knows that he's in love with Quinn, and he doesn't care one tiny bit.
He guesses that years of having his heart broken, battered, bruised, and crushed by his father, and most of the people close to him, not including his mom and sister- has prepared him for the constant heartbreaks from Quinn. He's begged her to pick him at least five times. He knows for a fact that she loves him too because she had told him last year after Beth's birth that she loved him. She may not act like it now, but he knows that deep down inside her heart, she still loves him.
It's been a few months since he asked her to give him a chance again, and when he manages to catch her alone, he asks again. He was happy and extremely excited about these types of things, but he was not prepared for this particular day. Today, he asks her, and that's when she explodes. She yells at him, calling him obscenities and every name in the book, but it doesn't budge him. He's determined. That is until she tells him a moment later that she loves Finn. He's caught off guard at that, but by the look in her eyes, he tells himself that she's lying. But it doesn't stop the words from stabbing him in the heart. He feels like he's about to cry, but he holds back his tears. "You don't mean that." He tells her. She scoffs and looks him dead in the eyes, "We will never be together, Puck."
The glue's, tapes, and bandages he's used over the year to hold his heart together comes apart in one moment, and he feels his poor, broken heart shatter into a million pieces. "What happened to you?" he asks softly. "What happened to the Quinn who used to laugh at my stupid jokes? What happened to my Quinn... My friend?" his voice didn't even sound like his own to him, but he didn't care. Not anymore.
She looks away from him as she tries to hold herself together. He doesn't know how painful it is for her to see him like this, but the pain of him reminding her of everything they've been through last year from him changing for her and their daughter, to giving their baby up for adoption is just too much for her to handle. Every time she sees him she can't help but be reminded of the pain of giving up their precious little girl.
"I was never really your Quinn." She says softly, avoiding his eyes because she knows that her own eyes will give away her lies… she's always belonged to him. Wholeheartedly, whether she wanted to or not. "We've never been friends before either… not really." Her voice is soft, but stern.
"You wrote once that you'll fight for me until I tell you to stop." She says, and Puck knows exactly where this was going. He could already see himself walking away from her, with his heart bleeding inside his chest.
"Well, this is me telling you to stop..." She mutters.
Puck looks away and he fights with all his strength to keep his tears from falling, but his eyes watered anyways.
God, it hurts so much.
She breaks his heart… again.
And again.
She's done it at least five times, and he still chased after her like the idiot he is. He doesn't know why he keeps setting himself up for an inevitable heartbreak, and he wants to shake himself and punch himself, and just beat his own brains with a bag of bricks.
Why? He asks himself. Why does she always do this to me? What's wrong with me? Why can't I just let her go and just leave her the fuck alone? Why does she keep picking Finn? She gave Beth away, after telling me that she loves me, and then went back to Finn as soon as school starts up again, leaving me again, without another backward glance. Why do I do this to myself?
He's never cried before when she broke his heart all those other times, because he always had a back-up plan. But this time is different. This time he doesn't know what to do anymore, and it hurts too much. He's so tired of fighting a losing battle…
She tells him that she doesn't want to be with him. He was silent for a moment, as he stared at her. She was crying, but he doesn't care as he yells at her, "Don't say shit you don't mean!"
"Like when I said, I loved you?" she shot back angrily, and his heart drops to his stomach, his breath hitches in his throat, and his eyes sting with tears. He's silent again.
His shoulders sag in defeat. Quinn looks up at him, her hand shooting up to block the gasp threatening to escape her lips at what she had just said. Her tears kick in full force when she sees the shocked and pained look on his face.
He nods his heart shattering inside his chest. Without another word, he turns on his heels and walks to the door of the choir room, finally letting his tears fall.
Quinn feels a rising panic as his back is turned towards her.
"Puck wait!" she calls and runs to him, managing to grab his elbow and turn him around before he reached the door. "This isn't how I wanted this talk to end!" she cries.
He looks straight at her, and Quinn couldn't hold back a gasp at the sight of tears streaming down his cheeks. Never in her life, had she ever seen or heard of Puck shedding a tear.
"What?!" he yells at her, startling her a little.
His voice turns calm and his expression turns sad and dejected. Quinn is at a loss for words. She has no idea what she wants to say. Or want.
"What do you want from me, Quinn?—what more can you possibly have to say to me?" he says sadly as his tears continue to fall, each teardrop like a sledgehammer to Quinn's heart. Before she could tell him that she didn't mean to say what she had said about not loving him, Puck pulls away from her and backs away towards the door. "I give up… you win, Quinn. I'll give you what you want. .. Because I'm done." He whispers and turns away, not bothering to wipe his tears as he opens the door and leaves quickly.
Quinn stares in shock and utter horror as she watched Puck leave.
Done… he's done with her. She should feel relieved and happy that she'll finally be able to walk the halls of McKinley High without his presence making her want to cry and hug him and kiss him, and have him tell her that everything will be okay… but it doesn't. Instead, she feels like the pain of watching him walk away from her is ten billion times worse than before.
She immediately realizes that she has made the worst mistake of her life, when her somehow still beating heart throbs so painfully in her chest that she literally falls to her knees, clutching at it. She feel's her lungs fighting to take in air, and she thinks she's about to have a heart attack. She crumbles to the ground, struggling to breathe, and the tears keep coming. She screams as soon as she can breathe, and she cries, beating the ground with her fists. She doesn't know why but this is not at all what she expected to feel. She thought that if Puck left her alone, everything would go back to normal, and she'd be happy with Finn, but the sinking feeling in her heart tells her otherwise. She can no longer control the emotions rolling over her, and she finally breaks down and sobs on the floor of the choir room.
-One week later:
It's been a week since their fight, and Quinn tries her best to ignore the fact that Puck hasn't approached her, tried to talk to her, or tried to get in her line of sight at all like he used to do every single day. He doesn't even call! He always calls... even if she never answered. She had broken things off with Finn who seemed quite upset about it. They had argued about it, but Quinn had her mind set. They went their separate ways. Finn started staring after Rachel again, and she tried to find a way to apologize to Puck, tell him how she really feels, and kiss him to her heart's content.
She has already tried calling and texting him, but he doesn't answer. She waited by his locker every morning for the whole last week hoping to be able to apologize for her stupidity last week, but he never shows up when she does.
Quinn is walking with Mercedes and Kurt towards the doors of the school, when suddenly, they swing open, and Quinn feels utter relief and happiness when she sees's Puck up close for the first time in a week. "This is it" she thinks, but then her mind goes blank as he gets closer.
He has his head down, and Quinn's stomach churns because she knows that she's the reason he looks so sad. She's the reason why the over-confident, cocky, egotistical Puck, looks like he has no use for his life.
The two girls and Kurt stop in their steps right in front of Puck, and he finally looks up. Kurt who had been inching slowly away (and getting ready to make a run for his life if Puck tries to drag him to a dumpster and throw him inside), stops abruptly.
Mercedes, who had been all smiles a few moments ago, goes rigid and her smile disappears instantly.
Puck's face was pale and hollow like he hasn't eaten for days, there were dark circles under his eyes, and his usually wide grin was non-existent. He looked so….. Broken.
Quinn who was in between her friends and right in front of Puck, expected him to say something to maintain his badass reputation, but he just looks once at her, before looking back down, and walks around them with his head down, and then continues walking to his locker. Quinn couldn't help but look back at him in confusion.
What had just happened? How come he didn't say anything? Wha-?
Quinn tries to ignore the dread in her chest when flashes of their fight popped inside her head.
He can't… he can't mean what he said, he just can't! He can't be done with me. He loves me. He'll come back even if I told him not to... She thinks all these things, but her heart aches still.
She waits patiently for something that never happens.
Seven. Weeks.
It's been seven weeks, and Puck hasn't spoken one word directly to her at all. He hasn't looked at her, he hasn't called, or answered her calls and texts, and he gets his sister to answer the door to his house and to tell Quinn that he left to buy something from the seven eleven, but is actually a terrible lie because his car is parked outside. Quinn hasn't seen him at any of the parties she's attended in the last five weeks which is so unlike him (he's a party animal), and she doesn't find him sleeping behind the bleachers during his math class which he always skips. He doesn't even acknowledge her existence. It's like she was invisible to him.
It hurts. Like she was being stabbed through the chest.
Two days later:
He finally said something to me today. Quinn notes.
He said, "Here" and gives me the music sheets that Mr. Schuester gave him to pass out to the club. It's something, right?
She cries in a stall of the girls bathroom for two class periods when she finds the custom made guitar pick that she had given him for his birthday last year (with P&Q engraved on it) in her locker.
She cries herself to sleep on the night of the day she sees him handing a slushie (instead of throwing it) to Rachel, and he smiles at her the way he used to smile at Quinn.
She gets sick and dry-heaves for half an hour when she sees him walking Rachel to her class.
She panics when Mr. Schuester announces to the club a week later that Puck had quit football, basketball, and glee.
She stops eating when she finds out that he and Rachel were dating now.
She nearly dies when she catches sight of him making out with Rachel at his locker.
She starts to have nightmares of Puck and Rachel getting married and having a family, while she stays lonely forever.
Quinn is tired, exhausted, and heartbroken, and she was just raving mad now. How dare he move on! He can't do this to me. I won't let him do this to me. Because I… I…
She can't sleep when she realizes that she's totally, undeniably, completely, head over heels in love with Noah Puckerman, and she'd be a complete idiot if she sits by and lets him go.
Quinn Fabray is anything but an idiot. So she gets up at 10:43pm on a Sunday night, and gets ready to drive over to Puck's house, demand to talk to him, and finally get what she wants… him. Just him… all of him.
When she parks her car in front of his house, she could feel her heart rate increase. Her palms are sweaty, and her stomach was fluttering with what felt most likely like pterodactyls and airplanes, because butterflies don't even begin to describe the feeling in her gut.
As she rings his doorbell and waits, she begins to worry that he had really moved on. It was all or nothing now. She wants to know if there was ever a chance for them again. She wants to apologize and beg him to take her back. She wants to kiss him and hold him and never ever let go. She wants to be the one who holds his heart because whether anyone likes it or not, he is and will always be the one to hold her heart. Forever.
The door swings open, and Quinn is over the moon when she see's its Puck. He seems both surprised and shocked, but quickly goes back to his blank expression.
"Finn lives two streets down from my house." He says and begins to close his door, but Quinn was set on talking to him. She grabs the door before he could get it closed. "I'm not looking for Finn," she says, feeling victorious when he lets her push the door open again. "You… I want to talk to you." She says softly. Puck looks at her in confusion.
"Why?" he asks bitterly.
"Because I… I need to say a lot of things to you."
"Look, you already said what you wanted, and I get it… I don't have much choice but to accept it and I have. So you can go home now. I'm okay, I'm alive, and I'm not having suicidal thoughts." He begins to close his door again, but before he even gets it closed, Quinn lunges forward and grabs him by the front of his shirt and drags him out.
"What the hell are you doing?" he bellows as he pulls away from her while trying to straighten out his shirt.
"I won't let you walk away." She cries.
Puck scoffs, "Why, you didn't have a damn fucking problem with walking away from me, so why should I stay here and listen to you? I get it alright!" he says yells, and Quinn tell that he was getting angry. "You love Finn, you'll never love me, you hate me, and I get it. Fine, whatever. I really don't care—"
"I LOVE YOU!" she screams, effectively cutting him off.
Puck stares at her for a long moment, and then he suddenly bursts out laughing.
That was definitely not the reaction that she was expecting from him.
"Right, and I'm the smartest kid in school." He says sarcastically before turning to go back inside his house.
Quinn doesn't let him leave; she grabs his arm and pulls him back. He sighs heavily and stops fighting her, but he looks away towards the streets.
"I really do love you, Puck." She whispers with tears in her eyes.
Puck scoffs. "You don't love me Quinn. You said it yourself, remember? You didn't mean what you said when you told me you loved me after Beth was born, and that's fine. You love Finn, and we will never be together, so we're cool. Now go home before you catch a cold." He turns away, and this time Quinn has had enough of trying to talk some sense into him, so she pulls him back, and slaps him. Puck staggers back, but before he could say anything else, she screams at him. "Shut up, and let me speak first!" Puck goes to say something but she cuts him off again. "The last seven weeks, have been the worst seven weeks of my entire life! I've stood by and waited for you to show up at my locker or something, but instead you move on and date Rachel Berry of all people! She's tolerable now, but still as annoying as ever. Now I'm not trying to tell you what to do, but you CANNOT move on from me, when I CAN'T!" she begins to calm down, and the waterworks come running down her face.
Puck breathed harshly through his nose. "Isn't that what you wanted?... For me to leave you the fuck alone and move on?... God, I don't even know what to do anymore Quinn!... I don't know why you keep giving me mixed signals… first you don't want anything to do with me, and you keep blowing me off, while I run after you like some stupid idiotic fool, and when I finally give you what you want, when I finally try to move on, and actually getting some progress, and you show up at my house and tell me that you love me?... I don't get you! I don't know what you want from me!... Please! Just please for the love of all that's holy, Quinn, just tell me what you want from me! Stop bullshitting with me, and stop trying to confuse the fuck out of me, and tell what the hell you want from me!" Puck fumed. Quinn's tears kicking in full force as she watches the only guy she's ever loved, and will ever be able to love, plead for her to tell him the truth.
"Please, Quinn," he says, his voice going soft and his eyes filling up with tears. "Please just tell me what you really want… because I am tired of running around, chasing after you, and having you lead me on, just to leave me hanging in the end… I'm tired of having my heart broken over and over again. I'm tired of fighting a battle that I keep losing… so just tell me… tell me if I even have a fighting chance—tell me what to do… tell me that I'm not fighting for nothing… because I'm sick of this… I'm sick and tired of waiting for something that never happens, I'm tired of loving someone who doesn't even know if they love me back, and I'm so damn tired of having my heart and my feelings thrown into the trash every single time." He says, tears rolling down his face, and Quinn's heart clenches tightly in her chest. She has hurt him so much, and she's so damn fucking stupid for pushing him away so many times before, when all she's ever wanted was him. All she's ever hoped for was him… the only person she will ever love as much as she does, is him… Noah Puckerman.
"The only reason I pushed you away was because I couldn't handle being reminded of our little girl. I regret so much of the last year, but I don't regret ever telling you the truth of how I felt about you. I never regretted losing my virginity to you. What I said in the choir room seven weeks ago, was a lie. I didn't mean it. I just wanted to stop the pain of losing our baby… but the pain I felt when you walked away was much worse than before. I thought that if you stopped trying to be with me, I would forget… but I didn't. And I don't want to forget." She cries silently as Puck stood there, watching her unfold and tell him everything. "I love you, Puck…so much, it hurts…I love you. I always have and I always will."
"How do you know that? How do you really know that you love me?" he questions.
Quinn doesn't bat an eyelash as she answers honestly. "I know because I carry you in my spirit… I pray for you, more than I pray for myself. When I'm away from you for more than an hour, I can't stop thinking about you… when I don't see you for more than a day, I can't sleep. When you ignore me, it makes me want to die… I know I love you because every time I close my eyes, you are the only one I see… every time I go to sleep, it's you I dream of… and every time I try to tell myself that I don't love you, my heart tells me ten thousand fold, that I do… So if that's not love, then I have no idea what the hell it is."
"How do I trust you?... all you've ever done was lie to me, and break my heart… how do I know you won't ignore me again tomorrow?" he asks pathetically. Quinn steps towards him.
"Trust me… I will never make the mistake of pushing you away ever again… I nearly died the first time around. This time, you're going to have to beat me away with a stick for me to even consider letting you go."
Puck stands stock still, not wanting to blink because he's scared this might be a dream, and if he blinks, Quinn will vanish and he'll wake up and find that none of what she's just said was true. But when Quinn steps forward and presses her lips to his, he knows it's not a dream, and he allows himself to close his eyes. The kiss lasted for a few seconds, but it seems like their entire lives flashed before their eyes. Quinn couldn't begin to describe the happiness and relief she felt when Puck let her kiss him, and she's sure that this was what a true love's kiss felt like. Atomic bombs, fireworks, flash grenades, and every bright thing you could think of went off in her head, and behind her eyelids, and she couldn't help but moan in pure ecstasy as she wrapped her arms around his neck. When they pull away to breathe, she's surprised to see Puck's smile. It's the same sweet smile that he reserved only for her. The one he gave her the first time he held their baby girl for the first time. The one he used when she told him that she loved him too.
"I don't know why it took you so damn long to admit that… wasn't too bad, was it?" he jokes, and Quinn can't help but grin like an excited four year old.
"Not at all… I guess it took almost losing you for me to realize that I can't live without you. I was surprised every time I woke up in the mornings because I was sure that I would die any day now that you've given up on me."
"I never really gave up on you." Puck whispers sadly.
Quinn smiles at that because she believes him. More than anything, she wants and she does believe him.
Puck looks away.
"What?" Quinn asks curiously.
"I—What about Rachel?" he asks, and Quinn's stomach churns. She was ruining his relationship with Rachel. Whereas the old Quinn would probably scoff, roll her eyes, and say something like, "Paybacks a bitch", the new Quinn, the one who actually liked Rachel, was worried that she herself was becoming a home-wrecker. And then, the part that scares the living hell out of her; "Do you love her?" Quinn's not sure if she wants to know the answer to that question, but she came here to get answers, and she's determined to get them.
Puck sighs heavily and stares off onto the streets. "I—Yeah…" he nods, and Quinn's face falls as she tries her best not to get sick and die on the spot. "But—I love you more… yes, I love Rachel, and she's a really cool person once you really get to know her and give her a chance, but… we don't choose who we love. I never meant to fall in love with you, Quinn." He says, and his words sting at Quinn's heart.
"But I did." He continues, "I fell in love with you, and I never looked back. I gave it my all, and I tried my best to fight for you, even when you kept choosing Finn over me. I gave up when you told me to, and I tried to move on to Rachel. And for a moment, I was able to tell myself that I really have moved on, and that I really was in love with her… but then I catch a glimpse of you in the hallways, or in a classroom, or in glee, or on the football field, and everything comes rushing back. Our past, our Beth, our first time together, our stolen kisses, and hugs, and just every single reason why I loved you then, and will always love you. No matter what I do, or where I go or am, my heart will always beat for the day when you'll look me in the eye and tell me that you love me too… I love you Quinn… always have, and always will. Now until forever."
Quinn can't and won't stop the tears that were now staining her cheeks. She can't help but throw her arms around his neck, and pulling his head down to hers so she could kiss him. The kiss continues for a full minute until air became an issue.
She doesn't know what to do, or what will be next for them, and she's thankful when Puck speaks again. "We'll figure something out... Everything will work out." He whispers against her hair, and she nods happily because he said we. And she believes him. She'll always believe him. After all, she's never been good with not believing every word that comes out of his talented mouth. When he told her she wasn't fat, she believed him. When he told her he had a condom, she believed him. When he told her to trust him, she believed him and did. When he told her he loved her, she believed him. When he says that everything will work out, she believes him.
"I love you." she murmurs softly to him. He smiles that smile he reserves only for her, and she knows he believes her.
"I love you too." He whispers back.
She believes him. After all, they trust and love each other, and that's enough for the both of them.
