A/N: I can't promise that my characters will be 100% canon. In my story, Quinn never agreed to give her baby up for adoption to Terri and Puck and Rachel getting together in Mashup (Ep 8) also never happened. I guess this is what happens after Ep 7 in my twisted brain.
This is my first fanfic so I hope you like it.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Chapter 1
***RPOV***
It had been two weeks since I returned to Glee Club. I hadn't returned for my own sake. I did it for Finn Hudson. Dreamy, handsome, sweet, caring Finn Hudson. After the initial shock of learning of Quinn's pregnancy, I knew what I had to do for Finn. He needed the music scholarship so he could support Quinn and the baby. I will do anything for him. Besides, this is just a bump on the road that leads towards my inevitable relationship with Finn. My dads have always taught me that the way to achieve one's goals is through perseverance. I will patiently wait for Finn. I know deep in my heart that all of these secret kisses that have passed between Finn and me mean something. How could they not?
So there I was on my way to sixth period, excited because it means the day is almost over and then I have Glee rehearsal. Glee is by far the best part of my day. It is the time I can forget all of the drama of high school, let all my cares go and just feel the music. I can forget that Finn still hasn't realized he wants to be with me. I can forget that Quinn is pregnant with Finn's child. I can forget the slushee facials. I can forget the taunting of most of the McKinley High student body. All I need to do is sing. Oh, and I get to sing with Finn, dance with Finn, and touch Finn.
As I entered my sixth period class, Jacob Israel cornered me. When will this kid get a clue? I have absolutely no interest in him. "Rachel, you must be excited."
"What are you talking about Jacob? Excited about what?" I snapped back at him. This kid is forever baiting me for a reaction and I was getting sick of his game.
"Didn't you hear? I can't believe you haven't heard yet!" Jacob's eyes lit up with the anticipation of divulging juicy gossip to me. "Quinn confessed that Puck is the father of her baby, not Finn. Looks like you'll finally get the chance to snag your man."
I didn't wait to hear any more from Jacob. I had to find Finn. He must be devastated right now. I knew that he and I were always meant to be together. I hurried out of the classroom and into the hall. Finn's sixth period class was only two doors down from mine. I needed to get to him to be there for him in his hour of need. I ran out into the hall and there was Finn. I called out to him and he stopped.
"Finn, oh Finn. I just heard the news. How are you doing?" I said breathlessly as I caught up to him. "You must just be devastated finding out that Quinn cheated on you, that Puck betrayed you, that the child you thought was yours isn't. . ." I had intended to say more, but Finn cut me off.
His voice was strained when he answered me. "Of course I'm hurt Rachel. What kind of stupid question is that?"
"I'm sorry Finn. I didn't mean to offend you. I was just trying to let you know that I am here for you." I stuttered out. Just then, Quinn turned the corner and linked arms with Finn.
"What are you doing here freak?" Quin spat out at me. I looked up at Finn in disbelief. Why wasn't he pulling away from her? Why didn't he defend me like he normally did? A crowd had gathered around the three of us in the hall. I could start to hear the whispers building around us and more students were coming out of the classrooms to join the crowd.
"Finn? What is going on?" My heart was sinking and the normal self-confidence I exuded was crumbling.
"Nothing is happening Rachel. That is the point." Finn's voice was raised as he said this. "I am staying with Quinn."
"How can you say that Finn?" My voice was cracking.
"This whole mess has made me realize that I love Quinn no matter what. I'm not happy about what happened, but she and I will get through this." Quinn was smirking at me as Finn was talking. "I'm going to stay with her and rise this baby."
"I thought what we had was special, Finn." I managed to whisper. I didn't trust my voice to speak any louder.
"What we had was a mistake. Do you hear me Rachel?" He then turned to all of the others standing the hallway. "Everyone hear that? Rachel Berry and I will never ever be an item." I didn't hear anything after that. The blood started pounding in my ears and it was all I can do to stumble further down the hall away from Finn and Quinn. All I wanted to do right then was to get away from the school and curl up at home in my bed.
***PPOV***
"You're a Lima Loser and you're always going to be a Lima Loser." It had been two weeks since Quinn had said those hateful words to me. They ran on an endless loop through my brain. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't get those words out of my head. The only time I seemed to have any relief was in Glee. I know, it seems strange that I like Glee so much. I was the last one to ever see this coming that's for sure. All I know is that when I sing, all my troubles disappear and I can forget about all the bullshit.
I didn't want to be together with Quinn. What happened between her and I was a mistake. I still can't believe I betrayed Finn that way. Quinn claims I got her drunk on wine coolers. She took four sips of one of the wine coolers that she stole from her parents' basement and started acting all giddy and ridiculous. In truth, she was getting on my nerves and I was just about to send her home when she started coming on to me. I tried to resist her, but I'm a teenage boy and I can only resist so much before I give in. Quinn was eager, very eager and I caved. Immediately afterwards I felt horrible. Quinn told me to "man up and get over it." I couldn't believe that she didn't feel guilty for cheating on Finn.
Despite the fact that sleeping with Quinn was a mistake, that doesn't mean I won't take responsibility for my actions. I don't want to be like my loser father. Quinn won't even give me a chance to prove I can take care of my child. It is tearing me up inside to know that I have a child on the way and that I will never be able to be a part of its life. Even now that she has come clean to Finn. Now both her and Finn have deemed me a bad influence. My own best friend. I had known him since we were kids, but all of a sudden I wasn't good enough.
I was running late to my last class of the day. I had been daydreaming in the library during fifth period and lost track of time. The halls were empty as I made my way to English. At least this way I didn't have to pretend to be happy and carefree when my mind was weighed down with other things. As I turned the corner, I saw Rachel Berry stumbling down the hallway. I groaned to myself. Just what I didn't need right now. Rachel Berry is a gigantic pain in my ass. If only I would have been on time. I could have avoided this. She continued stumbling down the hall with her right hand running along the row of lockers for support.
"Hey Berry! What are you doing? Shouldn't you be sucking up to a teacher in your class right now?" I yelled in her direction. She didn't turn around. What's up with that? I watched her stumble a few more steps before I realized that something was seriously wrong with her. Crap! I know I torture Rachel on a daily basis, but she was scaring me here. I couldn't leave her there to fend for herself in this condition. My plan was to just get her to the nurse and be on my way. I jogged to catch up with her calling her name a few more times. She still didn't turn around. I made it to where she is and tapped her left shoulder with my right hand.
"Rachel?" Once I touched her, she whirled around to face me. When I saw her face, my stomach dropped. She had tears running down her face and her normally fiery eyes were dead. She didn't even look at my face until I grabbed both her shoulders and shook her a few times. The scariest part was how quiet she was. Rachel Berry was never quiet.
"Rachel! Did you take something? Tell me if you took something." I never took Berry for a pill popper, but her behavior was so off I didn't know what to think. As I finished saying this, Kurt came scurrying around the corner. He had Rachel's bag and jacket in his hands.
"Oh thank God you found her! I ran to her class as soon as I heard. Her stuff was there, but she was gone." He said all of this in one breath as he smoothed his hair back into place.
"What the hell is going on with her Kurt? Did she take something? Is this a medical condition?" I was so frustrated. Why couldn't he just say what was going on?
"I'm afraid this is much worse. We need to get her out of here pronto."
"Cryptic much? Tell me what's going on now," I demanded.
"Finn declared to the entire student body that he and Rachel were never going to happen. It was a public spectacle. You know how Rachel feels about Finn – she must be in shock." Rachel started to falter and sway like she was going to faint. Kurt went to grab for her, but given his lack of strength he could barely hold her up.
"Give her to me." I couldn't believe the words as they were leaving my mouth. All I knew was I needed to help Rachel. She looked so small and weak at that moment - so different for her norm. "Listen, Kurt, I'm going to take her home. You tell Mr. Schu that Rachel got sick and that I had a doctor's appointment or something."
"Um, okay," was all Kurt could manage in reply. I took Rachel's bag and jacket from Kurt. I slung the bag over my shoulder and wrapped her jacket around her shoulders before picking her up and cradling her to my body. She was so tiny.
I easily made it to my truck and strapped Rachel in before placing her bag by her feet. I ran around to my side, jumped in, and tore out of the parking lot. Rachel was still out of it. I sure hoped someone was home at her house. Shit! It would help if I knew where in the hell she lived. Great! Now what I was going to do? I hadn't really thought through my plan when I took Rachel from Kurt back there in the hallway. I slammed my hand against the steering wheel and let out a grunt of frustration.
"What's going on?" a scared voice asked. My outburst had finally managed to rouse Rachel from her catatonic state. She looked at me with her big eyes. She obviously didn't trust me.
"Um, you kind of freaked out back there at school and I got you out of there." I said as I shrugged my shoulders.
"Noah. I beg you - if you have some ulterior motive to further humiliate me today. . . please, just don't. I can't handle it." Her voice sounded so small and defeated.
"Can't you believe that I'm just doing something nice for you?"
"What part of your past behavior towards me would lead me to believe that?"
Damn it. She had a point. "Well, um, nothing. I'll just take you home. I doubt you want to go back to Glee and see Quinn and Finn right now."
"No!" She shouted making me jump. "No. I can't face the kids in Glee today."
"That's what I figured. Where do you live? I'll drop you off."
Rachel started groaning. "No. I can't go there either. My dads will want to know why I'm not at Glee and I just can't bear to tell them." Her voice broke at the end of her sentence. "Oh God. Where am I going to go?" she choked out through her tears.
I didn't say anything. I didn't know what to say. I never knew how to handle emotional girls. I wasn't really good with emotions in general.
She sniffed and tried to control her crying. "I guess you can drop me off at the public library. I can kill time there until I can go home."
"Is that what you want?" Why was I asking her this? I should just drop her at the library and be on my way. I couldn't shake this nagging feeling though that I needed to take care of Rachel. After all we were both suffering for the same reason. Rachel still hadn't answered me.
"You don't really want to go to the library do you?" She just shook her head. "That's what I thought." With that being said, I whipped a u-turn with my truck and turned away from the Lima Public Library.
***RPOV***
Noah's truck careened around and started driving in the opposite direction of the library. I had to grab on to the door handle to keep from sliding across the bench seat. "Noah. Where are you taking me? You just turned away from the library."
"What no lecture about the dangers of disobeying traffic laws?"
"You didn't answer my question." Why did he always have to be so difficult to be around?
"Don't worry about it Berry." He didn't say anymore after this.
I still felt numb from the humiliation I had suffered earlier. I had been so sure that it was just a matter of time before Finn realized that he and I were meant to be together. I felt so foolish. The whole school knew how I felt about him. I didn't know how I was going to face everyone at school again. The sharks were going to be out in full force tomorrow. It would be a feeding frenzy. I had lost myself in my thoughts and hadn't paid attention to where Noah was driving.
I roused myself from my thoughts as Noah parked in a driveway a few doors down from Finn's house.
"What are we doing here Noah? The last thing I want to do is see Finn right now thank you very much."
"This is my house Rachel." He was looking at the steering wheel as he said this. "I figured it was the last place anyone would look for you since you don't want to see anyone. . ." he trailed off. I was speechless. It was actually kind of thoughtful of him. "C'mon. No one's home right now." He got out of the cab of the truck and walked around to my side and opened my door. He grabbed my bag and held his hand out to me.
"How did you get my bag?" I hadn't noticed it up to this point.
"Oh, um, Kurt brought your bag and jacket when he came to check on you. I took it from him when I told him I would take care of you." Noah was still there with his hand out to me.
"So Kurt knows I'm here?"
"Not really. He knows you left with me, but not that you're here. I told him I would take you home."
I was speechless again. All I could do was nod my head like a fool and put my hand in Noah's. My hand fit so nicely in his. Why was I even noticing that? I was with Noah Puckerman - the jock who had tortured me through high school. He was the inventor of the slushee facials. I took one step out of the truck and felt my knees buckle. Before I could grab on to the door of the truck for support, Noah had his arm around my waist steadying me.
"Whoa there. Looks like you're still a little shaky."
God this was so embarrassing. "Thanks, but you don't have to do that. I'll be fine." I tried to take another step, but by legs failed me again.
"Don't be stubborn Rachel." In one swift movement, Noah bent down, picked me up and started carrying me towards his house. I was cradled securely against his body. For a fleeting second I felt relief, but I quickly pushed that aside. I chalked it up to temporary insanity left over from my earlier episode.
"I could've walked you know. You don't need to trouble yourself this way."
"It's no big deal. It's not like your heavy. I could hold you all day. Not that I'd want to hold you all day or anything. I just mean you're pretty light and it's not hard for me to carry you." Noah was fumbling around for words. His outburst had taken me by surprise. "Look, the point is we need to get in quickly before anyone spots you here and knows where to find you. That won't happen if you're standing outside waiting for your strength to come back."
"Uh, okay thanks." I was still stunned. This was surreal. Noah Puckerman was not only being nice to me, but he was willingly carrying me into his home. His home was modest, but immaculate. Noah carried me to the couch and laid me down before pulling the blanket from the back of the couch over me.
He flopped down on the end of the couch by my feet stretching his legs out in front of him and tipping his head back toward the ceiling. "Do you want to talk about it?" His voice was hesitant.
"No, not really. I don't think I can handle that right now." The tears threatened to start falling again as I said this.
Noah breathed a sigh of relief. "How about we just watch TV and pig out? I'll get us some snacks."
"Won't your mom be mad if we eat in here? She seems like a very particular housekeeper."
"My mom works a lot and can't keep up with this stuff. I am the housekeeper here." Noah's admission left me shocked yet again. How many times was that going to happen today? I was starting to realize that I had no idea who the real Noah was.
"In that case, I accept." I grabbed the remote and stared flicking through the channels. I didn't know what was typically on at this time of the day since I was normally still in school. One of the movie channels was playing "A Star is Born" and I decided a little Judy Garland was just what I needed at that moment.
"What is this?" Noah asked as he returned with some popcorn and sodas.
"Hmmm. I should've known you wouldn't want to see this. It's okay. We can find something else to watch." I reached for the remote again intending to find a different program.
"I didn't say I didn't want to watch it. I just asked what it was." He continued on in a softer voice. "After the day you've had it's the least I can do."
"Oh okay. Well, um, this is 'A Star is Born' starring the incomparable Judy Garland." Once I said that we settled in to watch the movie. Noah returned to his spot at my feet and we set the bowl of popcorn on the couch between us where we could both reach it. I lost myself in the scenes and Judy's singing.
As the end credits rolled, I turned to Noah, "I just love that movie."
"Yeah. It was okay I guess for a musical and all."
"Well thank you for indulging me." I was a little uncomfortable again. I didn't want to overstay my welcome, but I really wasn't ready to go home yet either.
"Hey let's go to my room and we can do our homework." Noah was cleaning up the remnants of our snack. He returned from the kitchen, grabbed my bag and picked me up again.
"I don't know if that is such a good idea."
"Rachel. This is all harmless. My mom and sister will be home soon and things will get kind of hectic in here. It will be quiet in there and I promise to mind my own business and not bother you." The whole time he was saying this he was carrying me to the back of his house. He opened a door revealing his bedroom. He set me down on his bed, smoothing the blanket from the couch over me again. I decided not to over think things for once and started in on my homework. I didn't have much tonight and I was done quickly.
"Noah. Thanks again. You have been so kind today."
"Don't worry about it Rachel. The way I look at it is we are both being shut out. You're being shut out by Finn and I'm being shut out of my child's life."
"Oh God, Noah. I've been so selfish. I didn't even think of your feelings here." I was so ashamed of my complete lack of concern for his situation.
"It's okay Rachel."
"No, it's not. It most certainly is not. Isn't there something you can do? Can't you get a lawyer?"
"How would I afford that? There is nothing I can do."
"This is so wrong Noah." The room fell quiet again. Neither one of us knew what to say. After a couple minutes of awkward silence, I cleared my throat. "Noah, can I ask you something?"
"I guess. What do you want to know?"
"Why are you always such a jerk at school? Why do you treat everyone like dirt?"
Noah let out a long sigh. "I promise to answer your question truthfully if you promise to answer one of mine truthfully."
I was shocked. I thought he would have some kind of sarcastic remark. "That sounds fair."
"I told myself when my dad left that I would never let myself be hurt like that again. I hurt others before they can hurt me." He let out a small chuckle. "I've never told anyone that before. It's just easier being the asshole than making sure people like me."
"Thank you for your honest answer. I know that letting me see this side of you can't be easy."
Noah was quiet for a moment before he turned to me, "What about you?"
I gave him a confused look. "What about me?"
"Why do you act like a pixie on speed at school? You've been so calm the whole time you've been here."
"Um, same reason," I answered him quietly. "I put up an armor just the same as you." Just then my eyes feel on the clock beside his bed. "It's already 5:00. I should get going. I like to post my daily Myspace performance by 6:30 every night."
"You're still going to do that even after everything that has happened today?" His voice was incredulous.
"Of course. I can't let the rest of the students see me falter. Besides, I know the perfect song for today. The movie inspired me."
"Okay, I'll take you home." Noah held out his hand and helped me to my feet. "Just so you know though, most girls beg to stay in my room with me, not leave." A smirk was playing at the edges of his mouth. I couldn't help it –I laughed.
***NPOV***
Later that night after I had dropped Rachel off, I laid in my bed trying to sort out everything that had happened today. Today had been a shit day. I was still shut out of my child's life and Finn hated me now. I'm not stupid. I understand why he does, but why was Quinn held harmless in all of this. It takes two to tango. She is just as guilty as me.
Then there was Rachel. I had never really thought of her much before. I bullied her and her friends everyday, but I never thought beyond that until now. I didn't know how to reconcile the feelings I was having. Besides, not even Rachel deserved the level of humiliation she suffered today. I can't believe Finn treated her like that.
I laid there fidgeting a little longer before starting up my laptop and logging on to Myspace. It didn't take me long to find Rachel's page. I clicked on her newest video posting.
As you know, I usually preface my performances with an explanation about the song. I'm not going to do that today. I think everyone can figure out why I picked this song.
The music started and then Rachel began to sing:
The night is bitter
The stars have lost their glitter
The winds grow colder
And suddenly you're older
All because of the man that got away
It was one of the songs form the movie we had watched together. She took my breath away. The amount of passion she conveyed through the song was just. . . well, beautiful. A soft knock sounded at my door and my mom stuck her head in to my room. Rachel's video continued to play in the background.
"I'm sorry Mom. Is my music too loud?" My mom worked so hard ever since my dad left us. I hope I hadn't disturbed what little sleep she is able to still get.
"No honey – just saying good night. Everything okay? You've been holed up in here all night." I really wanted to tell my mom about Quinn and the baby, but I couldn't worry her like that.
"Nah Mom, I'm fine – just a lot of homework." I lied through my teeth.
My mom's attention was captured by Rachel on the computer. "Who is that honey?"
"Oh, um, that's Rachel Berry – a girl from school and Glee club."
"Wow. She is amazing."
I smiled at my mom, "Yeah she is, isn't she?"
A/N: So there it is. I hope you like it. I don't have a beta so I apologize for any mistakes. The song Rachel sang was "The Man That Got Away." You can find it on youtube.