Though no one would have believed them, it actually did begin innocently enough.
Puck happened to step into the choir room and Rachel, hanging something on the wall, tumbled off of a step ladder and into his arms. He fumbled and caught her awkwardly, just managing to keep her from bashing her head on the floor. In his haste to catch her, he'd grabbed her chest without meaning to.
For a moment, she gasped, clearly thrilled not to be in intense amount of pain. Then she noticed that he hadn't removed his hand from her breast. But he had a reason, really.
"Noah!" she exclaimed and he rushed to right her as she batted at his hand. "Thank you for catching me, but don't think that means…."
"Berry."
"…you can just grope my…"
"Berry."
"…breasts without…."
"Rachel!" The urgent tone, the expression on his face and the fact that he used her first name seemed to penetrate the head of indignant steam that Rachel was building and she fell quiet as he lifted a hand and pointed at her chest. "That didn't feel right."
The scowl returned. "Are you criticizing my bosom?"
Damn it! "No," he said firmly, then shook his head. There was really no way to say this nicely. "I've had a lot of tits in my hands and something was there…something that shouldn't be there, Like a lump."
Rachel's eyes popped wide and her own hands flew to her chest. Puck's mom was a nurse and he'd heard her talk enough to know that no good came from breast lumps.
"Where?" Rachel asked, sounding a bit nervous.
Puck considered how he'd been holding her. "Right one…on like the inside curve." He cupped one hand and used the other hand to indicate where he meant. "'Bout there."
She nodded and fled into the small attached office, slamming the door and demanding, "Keep watch! Don't let anyone in here!"
This sort of shit was not supposed to happen to high school girls. Didn't they already have enough drama and craziness to deal with?
Since the room was empty, Puck allowed his nerves to get the better of him and paced restlessly. No one even glanced into the room during the interminably long five minutes until Rachel emerged.
From the tense, fearful expression on her face, Puck knew she'd found something before she confirmed it. "There's a lump," she said, trying to keep her voice steady and calm. "I called my doctor and she can squeeze me in this afternoon. Could I ask you to drive me, Noah? My car is in the shop and my fathers are out of town…Of course, I could walk home and use their car…."
"Rachel, I'll drive," he assured her, then put a hand on her back to lead her out of the room. She fell quiet and her little hands wrapped around his arm, holding tight.
Puck tried not to show that he was terrified too.
Strolling into the choir room, Brittany looked around, seeing which of her friends had beaten her there. Almost everyone had, but that was okay, because there were several minutes left before the practice began.
Santana was only a few steps ahead of her and headed to her seat without pausing.
Artie waved and Brittany smiled, bouncing over to a chair by him. Artie was a nice boyfriend. He actually seemed happy to see her and spend time together and he even listened to the things Brittany wanted to talk about. Most guys just wanted her around for one thing and, when they'd gotten that thing they didn't want to deal with her.
After glancing around the room, she realized Puck and Rachel were missing. It actually seemed kind of quiet with out them, as Rachel was always loud and Puck wasn't exactly quiet.
Mr. Shue, at the front of the room, seemed to notice their missing classmates and asked, "Guys, do any of you know where Rachel and Puck are?"
Everyone shook their heads and Brittany wondered why Finn looked mad. Holding up her phone, Mercedes said, "She's not answering."
"Neither is Puck," Mike added, looking puzzled.
Everyone knew Rachel was like, obsessed with Glee Club and Puck seemed to love it too, so it was weird that they'd both miss a practice.
At the drums, Finn snapped, "Well, if they can't bother to be on time or show up, I don't think we should have to wait for them."
"It's Puck," Santana said, looking really angry. "They're probably off having…."
"Santana," Mr. Shue interrupted before she could finish her thought. He seemed unhappy, for some reason. Handing around some sheet music, he continued, "I'm sure they each have a good reason. Let's focus on the music, okay?"
As everyone took their music, Brittany saw that Mike looked a little worried and she realized she felt the same way.
After practice, she was going to talk to him. Mike was smart, he'd know why she was worried, even if she wasn't all that sure herself.
This was not happening.
Well, obviously it was, but Rachel really didn't have the faculties to consider all the possibilities, even though she knew there was a chance the lump Noah had found in her breast wasn't malignant, she was terrified. The word cancer kept running through her mind, over and over.
Noah seemed nervous as well, though he was attempting to keep up a stoic front. She appreciated that, as there was no way she could deal with someone else's meltdown when she really wanted to be crying herself. So it was nice to have him standing there, big and solid and still beside her, not even complaining as she clutched his hand.
He'd seemed a little surprised when she'd towed him into the exam room with her, had tried to escape when the doctor came in, but Rachel had refused to release her grip on him. This was just not something she could face alone and the doctor had relented and pulled the curtain around the bed, to block Noah's view while still allowing Rachel to hold his hand.
Dr. Miller found the same lump they had noticed and her reaction was both soothing and unsettling.
"Now, Rachel, only 10% of masses found in breasts turn out to be malignant, so I don't want you to assume the worst. It could simply be a cyst or a fatty lump, but we're going to have to do a biopsy, just to be sure. I'll call your father, I have his number…"
Rachel shook her head. "My Daddies are on a second honeymoon. A safari trip in Africa. I have the number for the satellite phone their guide is supposed to be carrying."
The doctor looked a bit taken aback. "Oh…well, I'll need to speak to them and they'll need to authorize an adult to sign some forms for you. I was hoping to get this done as soon as possible. This isn't really the sort of think you want to wait to do."
"My mother's a nurse down in the ER." Noah spoke up for the first time since Rachel had introduced him to Dr. Miller. I'm sure she'd be willing to help."
Dr. Miller nodded and, accepting a slip of paper from Rachel, on which she'd jotted the sat phone number, she said, "You can use the house phone there to call her."
The doctor left and Noah gave her a little smile. "See, it's probably just one of those non cancer lumps."
She tried to return his smile, but really couldn't. Clearly, he didn't know what to say to her, so he wrapped one of his arms around her and pulled her close to his strong chest as he lifted up the phone and dialed a number.
After a moment, he said, "Yes, Razi Puckerman, please… Mom, can you…No, I'm not in trouble, I swear…My friend, Rachel, we're upstairs at her GP…NO, not that again…I drove her to the doctor, 'cause she found a lump in her breast and her dads are away and can you come up here please?…okay, thanks mom. Dr. Miller….See you in a few."
He hung up the phone and used that had to stroke her hair lightly. Rachel just leaned into him and said, "Thank you, Noah."
She felt him shrug and he said, "Us hot Jews gotta stick together."
It was such a Noah reply that she couldn't help but smile.
Rachel knew she'd been lucky. After Mrs. Puckerman, who was the Nurse Manager of the ER, arrived, spoke with Rachel's dads on the phone and signed some papers, things had moved very, very fast.
They'd been able to schedule her for a fine-needle aspiration, where the surgeon put a thin needle through her skin and into the lump, that evening. Through the needle, cells were drawn and given to a pathologist to look at under a microscope. The needle aspiration determined that the lump was in fact a cyst and, now that the fluid had been removed, the cyst would deflate and disappear.
Upon hearing that news, Rachel had finally broken down into tears and collapsed against Noah's chest. She heard Mrs. Puckerman making soothing noises nearby and the doctor telling them everything would be fine. There was very little pain from where the needle had been and, according to the doctor, she could go home and resume her normal activities.
Mrs. Puckerman had insisted they gather some of her things and settled her in to stay in the guest room at their house until Rachel's daddies could return.
The next day, Noah had driven her to school (a little early, because there were a few things she wanted to do in the choir room). Her spirits were much lifted and it seemed to her like far more time had passed since they'd made that terrifying discovery the day before.
"Thank you for helping me with this, Noah," she said as they stepped into the room. "I really wasn't looking forward to climbing up on that ladder again. Bad associations, you know?"
He nodded, clearly not sure why she wanted to put all the little music notes up on the walls but not willing to say anything. "I got your back," he said simply, putting the box down on the piano bench and pulling out a poster. "Where do you want the kitten playing the piano?"
The pained tone in his voice made her laugh and he joined in after a moment…which was why they missed the arrival of a few of the other members of the club.
"So, where were you two yesterday?"
Finn has no right to make his question sound accusatory.
That was the first thought that flitted through Rachel's mind when her ex-boyfriend led the majority of their fellow club members into the room. The second thought was one of surprise that she hadn't felt that pang of guilt that seemed to swell up in her chest every time he gave her a disappointed look.
The third thought was also surprise as Brittany bounced over to her and hugged her. "I'm glad you two aren't dead!" she announced blithely and Rachel blinked at Puck over her shoulder.
He shrugged so Rachel had to ask, "Why would you think we were dead?"
"Well, you never miss practice and you weren't here yesterday. That made me worry, but Mike called Puck's last night and Mrs. Puckerman said you two were sleeping, so then I figured you were sick." After spitting that out, she hopped back. "Are you sick?"
Both Rachel and Puck shook their heads as several things happened. Eyes widened, heads turned to look from Rachel, to Puck, to Mike…and then the questions began.
"Why did Puck's mom know you were asleep, Rachel?"
"What the heck is going on?"
"How could you not call us after you talked to Mrs. Puckerman…and why did you call there?"
The tone of the questions made Rachel's hackles raise and she exchanged a look with Puck. No way were they gonna say anything if the others were going to act like this.
Mike looked a little chastened as Tina gazed at him expectantly. "Britt and I just thought it was weird that they weren't here yesterday, so I called Puck to see what was up. After I talked to Mrs. P, I called Britt to let her know they weren't dead…and I didn't call the rest of you cause you all seemed to agree with Finn's guess where they might be."
Rachel didn't need to be told what that guess had been. She turned a glare at Finn, who had been glaring at her. The tall boy seemed surprised when she didn't back down and a hand on her back let her know Noah had stepped up behind her to be silently supportive. "Thank you Mike, Brittany, for not thinking the worst of us. If you want to know, I'll tell you two where we were later. The rest of you can just…bite me!"
With that, she spun on her heel and stalked back over to her box of decorations, dismissing them. She heard a murmur of discontent, but Noah spoke over them. "Uh-uh, get lost. You're not going to be able to walk all over her today. Think about trying to pull your heads out of your asses, then come back later. Britt and Mike excepted, of course."
There was a rustle of clothing and the shuffling of feet and Brittany called out, "See you later!"
Then they were alone in the room again and Noah started hanging some of the posters. Rachel watched him and had to smile. It was really nice having someone there who was actually supportive of her, someone who actually stood up for her when the others ganged up on her.
Unrolling a poster, she nodded. Today was the first day of the rest of her life!
Comments, pretty please?