"Surprise!"

To say Rachel was surprised by the shout that greeted her when she opened the door of her apartment was a massive understatement. While she saw Kurt, who had also moved to New York for school, on occasion, the contact she had with most of the remaining members of the McKinley High Glee Club was sporadic and superficial at best. In fact, the members of the club she most often chatted Mike and Brittany (on the phone) and Santana (also living in the city), weren't there.

In a cluster behind a bemused Kurt were Mercedes, Finn and Quinn, none of whom she had seen since Brittany's 'I Miss You All' pool party after freshman year.

Rallying herself, Rachel replied, "Yes! A surprise, come in."

They entered the small, neatly kept apartment and Rachel gave Kurt a look. He shrugged and murmured, "They plan on surprising Santana next. I predict bloodshed."

Santana and Quinn hadn't been on the best of terms since Finn broke up with her to get back together with Finn in their junior year of high school. Rachel raised a brow at Kurt. "Can I watch?"

The others had seated themselves on the couch and immediately began talking about what everyone was doing now that college was over and done with. Mostly, people were looking for jobs, but other bits of info leaked out too.

"Mike's opening a dance studio…."

"Tina got a job designing covers for fantasy books…."

"Brittany and Artie are expecting baby number 2!" Rachel had already known that.

"Finn and I are engaged!"

That last tidbit came from Quinn, who held up her left hand to display a small ring. Finn grinned equally happy and Mercedes looked at Rachel for a reaction. It was like they expected the same old high school broken hearts drama to play out again.

No way in hell.

"Congratulations!" Rachel exclaimed and asked, "Have you set a date? Where are you going to live?"

Quinn's smile dimmed slightly, but Finn continued, clearly pleased, "No date yet, but I got a job at a car dealership in Lima. It'll be nice to be by mom."

Apparently, Quinn's dreams of getting out of Lima had altered slightly in the past few years.

"Oh," Mercedes said, warming up on the topic. "You should have the old Glee club do a number at the wedding."

"That would be cool," Finn said, then frowned. "We'd have to find someone to fill in for Puck though. No one's heard from him in years."

Huh?

She looked over at Kurt, who rolled his eyes. Finn still tended to not look at the big picture.

"I…," Rachel began, but was interrupted as the bedroom door opened and Noah stepped out, dressed in the navy t-shirt with its white FDNY emblem, BDU pants and black boots that were the basic components of his uniform in warm weather. His trademark Mohawk was cut extremely close to his head, in deference to his jobs grooming standards.

"Hey," he said, tossing a greeting to their guests. "You guys shoulda called. I gotta run, or I'll be late. See ya, Rach."

Then he leaned down and kissed Rachel softly but passionately and, under three gob smacked stares, gathered his duffle bag and headed out.

Allowing them to be shocked, Rachel turned to Kurt, "I'm guessing you never mentioned the fact that Noah and I live together."

Kurt grinned. "I'm trying not to be a gossip…plus Santana and I though the reactions would be funny. We were so right!"

"How long has that been going on?" Mercedes asked, finding her words before the other two.

"Noah and I came here together. He worked as an EMT until he could take the FDNY test and he's just finished his probie year," Rachel answered, then looked at her watch. "I'm going to have to go soon as well. Rehearsal."

"Tell me when opening night is," Kurt said, but was interrupted by Finn.

"Wait, so…Puck's a fireman?" He said, clearly working hard to put things together in his head. "And you two knew and didn't tell us? Why?"

Rachel gave him a look, then glanced at Quinn who looked like she was trying to decide whether to be angry or just sick. "Kurt has already stated his reasoning and none of you attempted to keep in touch with me after high school. Our Friends know. Mike visited last summer, as have Artie and Brittany. Santana had us over for dinner last night."

This seemed to make sense to Mercedes and Quinn, though the latter was still very pale. Finn however was working himself up. "So, we're not friends because you never bothered to call us?"

"You basically ignored us for the second half of junior and all of senior year. The only interactions we had were Glee related. I felt no need to extend a hand in friendship, as I'd learned you'd simply reject or mock me."

In high school, Rachel had wanted people to like her, but at some point, after multiple painful instances that proved many of her teammates weren't worth the effort, she'd just stopped trying with them. That let her cultivate real friendships with others.

They came here expecting high school Rachel. But, while they were still crouched in that mentality, Rachel had grown up. She was no ones door mat and if they tried pulling any of that old shit on her she'd open a can of whoop ass.

Four years of living with Noah had rubbed off on her. In all the best ways!

Because I am somewhat obsessive about having fics that are factually correct, I researched this and the timeline could be possible.

Say Puck and Rachel went to New York after senior year. If they had been planning this, Puck could have taken some EMT type classes in Ohio and taken the NYS DOH EMS test, since the requirements to be an FDNY EMT are being least 18 years of age, having a high school diploma or equivalent, a New York license and an Emergency Medical Technician Certificate.

He could become an EMT fairly quickly and Rachel would probably encourage him to take classes, maybe at John Jay. Then, at 21, he could take the firefighters exam, cuz you know Puck would want to be a Fire Fighter!

Comments, pretty please?