Disclaimer: I do not own Glee.
Author note: Inspired by this prompt (.?thread=5440119#t5440119) on the Puck/Rachel drabble meme.
Author note the second: Not betaed, so apologies for any and all mistakes. Also, I am ignoring from the second half of season two and all of season three for no other reason than this is where the above-linked prompt took me.
Would You Miss Me When I'm Gone?
School has been back in session for four days after the holidays, and Puck hasn't seen Rachel Berry on any of them. It's not like he keeps tabs on her or anything, it's just the skirts she wears half the time are totally not regulation length or whatever, and he likes to look.
It's weird, though, when she isn't in Glee throwing sad eyes at Finn while she sings about, like, forgiveness, even though he's the douche who dumped her over a kiss when he totally lied to her for like a year. Schue asks after her, but everyone shrugs and he just goes on with the lesson.
It feels kind of mean, actually, that no one's checked it. It's probably something like the Misters Berry dragging Rachel away from her 'rigorous academic and artistic commitments' for some extra holiday time, because he's pretty sure some yenta from temple would have call Ma if something bad happened, but still. It's been at least three weeks since school let out, and it sucks that not even Chocolate Thunder or Emily the Strange bothered to check in with her.
Anyway, he's driving by her street on the way home from practice, because he felt like taking the long way home and not because he wanted to check on her or whatever, and he sees the Berry car in the driveway and some massive suitcases, so he figures he's right about the extended holiday.
Until he glances in the rearview mirror and realizes the suitcases are being put in the trunk and not taken out.
He pulls a U-ie and parks his ancient truck across the street. 'Daddy' Berry is just easing the trunk closed as Rachel and her dad come out of the house with a couple of small cardboard boxes and a duffle. Rachel looks up in surprise as he gets out of his truck to cross the street, says something to her dads that he can't hear. They look at her a long moment, put the boxes and bag in the back seat, then nod and go back into the house as he comes across the street, hands in the pockets of his jeans.
"S'up, Berry?" he nods, and she glances down at her feet. She doesn't even bother to correct his informal greeting, just says a quiet hello and looks at her feet. They stand in awkward silence for a really long time.
"So... What's up with the bags? You misplace your calendar, 'cause I'm pretty sure holidays are over."
"Noah," she says, shaking her head.
"You missed, like, four days of school," he plows on. "Should I get prepared for an epic Berry freak out any second?"
"I didn't miss any school," she says evenly. "I am no longer a student of William McKinley High School."
His stomach legit drops. "Since when?" he blurts.
"Officially? Since the office opened last week and Dad could go in to withdraw me."
"And unofficially?"
"Unofficially since a colleague of Daddy's went to take her middle school daughter on a tour in preparation for next year, used the ladies room, took pictures of the things written on the stall about me, and showed my parents."
She hasn't looked up once, has spent the entire time studying the buttons of her ridiculous rainbow coat or the laces of her boots. He wants her to look up.
"Shit, Rachel, so you're just done? You're just going to let them get to you?"
She looks up him then, and he's a little shocked at how hollow her eyes look. There's no spark, just two haunted, dark orbs.
"I'm just so tired."
"Of what?"
"Everything..." she says. "Of hiding my laundry and my dry cleaning bills. Of picking through insults on MySpace so they don't see them. Of keeping a can in the paint in my locker so I can cover pornographic pictures scratched in my locker because Principal Figgins says the school can't afford to keep painting it every time someone defaces it. Of being called Manhands and Treasure Trail and worse things I won't even repeat. I'm just so tired, Noah, tired of fighting, so when Dad and Daddy offered to send me to live with my aunt Charlotte and go to private school in New York, I decided not to fight anymore. We leave tomorrow morning, and I start first thing on Monday."
"You weren't even going to come and say goodbye?"
"Say goodbye to who, Noah?" She laughs and the sound is so bitter and unlike her, he actually takes a step back. "To a group of people who, and I quote, only 'pretend to like me'?"
"Hey," he protests weakly. "I said I kind of like you."
She smiles a little sadly at that. "Thank you, Noah. I appreciate your coming to my defense - your always coming to my defense - but one person who likes me in a school full of people who go out of their way to make my daily existence unbearable? I wish it were enough, but..."
"What about Finn?" he asks.
"What about Finn?" she counters.
"Don't you like, love him and stuff?"
"And where has that gotten me? Abandoned in a tree lot out of town, where I had to wait almost an hour in the cold for someone to come get me, because three people ignored my calls?"
"He did what?"
She waves a hand to dismiss it. "Kurt drove in from Dalton to take me home. It's done. I'm done. I'm just... I'm done."
"You could have called me," he said. "I would have come to get you."
"I know," she says. "I just... I know Finn told you to stay away from me and..."
"And that shit doesn't fly when you leave girls alone in tree lots. Ever."
"I shouldn't have gone there with him in the first place," she admits. "I shouldn't have bothered to try to win him back at all. I've had a lot of time to think about things, and I've come to realize that I deserve better than a boy who lies to me about his sexual history, especially after I told him the truth about Jesse, that we hadn't slept together."
"Wait... so you didn't sleep with St. Douche?"
She shakes her head. "No. But it doesn't matter. Finn lied, and it isn't just that he lied, it's what the lie means. He knew we were working our way toward a sexual relationship, and when you sleep with someone, you're sleeping with everyone they've slept with. He had sex with Santana Lopez, and she's had sex with a few people, including you, and no offense, Noah, but your track record with condoms is obviously less than stellar."
"No offense, taken, Babe. Lesson learned, but yeah. I'm no saint."
"At least the women you sleep with know what they are getting into," she says, wiping at her eyes. "If they want to put themselves at risk, it's their call. You aren't a saint, but you don't lie about it. Finn put me at risk, and maybe he wants to vilify me for kissing you, but he put me at risk and he took away my choice by lying about it. And I don't deserve that. I don't forgive that."
She scrubs an arm over her face, and he sees that she's crying. He pulls his hands out of his pockets and swipes tears away with the pads of his thumbs. It's kind of weird, because usually chicks crying makes him uncomfortable and send him off in another direction, but he doesn't feel like moving. Her cheeks are cold.
"I'm sorry," she says. "I promised myself I was done crying about this, and I am. I'll stop."
"It's okay," he says, then smirks. "I know you're just upset about leaving behind the Puckerone."
She grins a little at that. Her hands come up to rest on his wrists, since his hands haven't moved from her face. "I'm sorry. I should have come to say goodbye, to you at least. You deserve that much. Maybe we didn't start out on the best foot, but you've been very good to me for quite some time and... and I should have come to say goodbye to you."
"I'm here now," he whispers, leans his forehead close to hers.
"I'm going to miss you, Noah," she whispers back, leans up to press her lips gently to his. He's having none of that chaste bit, tugs her closer when she goes to pull away. One hand makes it's way into her hair while the other presses her closer. They pull apart reluctantly when Rachel's daddy clears his throat and calls her back to the house from the doorway a minute later.
"I have to go," she says, her arms still looped around his neck.
"This new school of yours," he says. "It got a uniform? Like, one of those stripy skirts and little ties?"
She smiles without opening her eyes. "Plaid skirt and tie? Yes."
"You gonna send me a picture?"
"If you'd like."
"Yeah, babe. And you could like, call and stuff."
"I can do that."
"And it only takes like a day to drive there, right?"
"About that," she says. "It's a little over ten hours, depending on how fast you go."
"I got a truck. Maybe I'll drive down sometime."
"I'd like that," she smiles, leans up to kiss him once more gently before leaving his embrace. "Goodbye, Noah."
"I'll see you, Rach."
If it sounds like a promise, that's because it is. And when the Gleeks finally find out she's gone for good almost three weeks into the school year and start bitching about her so-called betrayal and having to look for another member, he tells them to make it two. He's got better things to do with his time anyway. He's got a girl in New York to see, after all.