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 59th cycle. Now cycle 60!

This is a shift day. There are two updates today.

"Solar Temperature"
Rachel & Quinn, Puck, Puck/Rachel, Finn/Quinn, Sarah Puckerman
Sunshine Girls series
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)

A/N: This story and all stories for two weeks (days 1240-1253) are dedicated to
a very dear and awesome friend on the occasion of her birthday ;) Here's to you, Anne!

Puck's mother had been in the hospital for a week. As stressful as it could be, for him, for her, for his sister, they were not alone. Rachel's fathers had been essential in keeping them fed, and Rachel had gone and gotten his sister to and from school every day, bringing her to the hospital to see her mother before taking her back to the Berry house, where she stayed through the week.

The day his mother was released, he took her home, and Rachel brought Sarah back to them. His mother would still need to recover, and as he left her to rest, he found Rachel in the hall.

"I'll be here as long as you need me," she promised.

"You don't have to," he closed the door. "I'm sure you've got other things to do."

"It doesn't matter," she shook her head.

"What about school?"

"All up to date, actually kind of ahead."

"What about Glee Club?"

"They can do without me, for a few days."

"Rachel…"

"Puck, I want to help," she insisted. "You won't do yourself any favors if you just exhaust yourself. I'm here, I want to do it, so will you let me…"

"Okay," he cut her off. She took a breath, looked at him and nodded. He laughed, which got a smile out of her. "Thanks, really." He paused. "You know what's weird?"

"What?"

"This week's been hell, but except for… my mom and all that… This hasn't been a completely bad week. You, your dads… We would have been screwed without you."

"I didn't wake up," Rachel told him all of a sudden.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean they woke me up. My dads, they said they told you they wouldn't do it, but… well they knew I'd want to be there, for you. What I don't understand is why you called them, of all people."

"They said… I ran into them a little while ago, I was at the supermarket with Nora and there they were. We talked, and…" He didn't want to go into the details, about what they'd said, about the breakup. "Before they left, they said if I ever needed help, for Nora or… They said I should call them. I didn't want to, but I couldn't wake up Quinn, she had Nora, and… I didn't know who else to call, and they'd offered."

"Yeah, that sounds like them," she breathed.

She would have said more, would have said how she missed him and how she knew exactly what he meant about this time they'd been spending together. But how could she do that, expect anything from him, when she'd been the one to break his heart? She didn't want to look like the desperate one, who had let him go and now took advantage of his needs to benefit her own. She was helping him because she cared about him, and she knew he needed the help, no matter how much he would keep it to himself.

So in the next few days, Rachel would continue to be part of Puck's mother's recovery. She came and helped him cook, look after his sister, make sure that his mother had everything she needed.

Even more than the week when she was in the hospital, they had been spending all this time together, and with fears of anything really going wrong with Puck's mother having faded away, it opened the floor to them talking to one another. They hadn't gotten to spend so much time together, not like this, not in a while, and whether they would say it or not, they knew it felt good.

One night, after Rachel had gone home, Puck recruited his sister to help him with the dishes; he cleaned, she dried. "You're quiet," he nudged his sister's foot with his own.

"You're an idiot," she retorted and he looked at her.

"Excuse me?" he laughed.

"You're in love with her," she accused, staring up at him.

"Sarah…"

"You're just standing there, not doing anything. She's going to get away."

"And that makes me an idiot?" he kept scrubbing at the plate he held.

"I'm being nice. I could have called you worse," she grabbed a glass to dry it.

"You better keep those to yourself if you don't want to get in trouble," he stared her down.

"Good brother," she started.

"I'm listening…"

"Be smart, like I know you can be."

"You mean instead of an idiot?"

"Don't let her go."

He wished he could brush off her words as nothing more than his young sister talking about things she didn't understand. But Sarah was most certainly not an idiot, 'like him.' He knew she was right, and he hated that she could see it, because then what did it mean?

Yes, he wanted Rachel back, but it wasn't just up to what he wanted. There were other factors, things Sarah would not know or be able to even begin to understand, there was the fact that Rachel had been the one to break them up, not the other way around, and the reason why they had ended up being parted. He remembered what her fathers had told him at the supermarket, remembered all that they had done for him and his family over the last few weeks, and it left him with so much to consider that he knew he couldn't just decide overnight.

Over the days that followed, with Rachel still there to help him and Sarah, he could just see his sister throwing him looks behind Rachel's back. Even if she didn't, he already had plenty on his mind. Whenever he saw her now, he kept thinking, asking himself if he was going to be an 'idiot' forever or if he was going to do something to change it.

THE END/TO BE CONTINUED (DAY 1267a)

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!