[A/N: Around the time when Puck and Rachel are working on the song Need You Now. This is just a chapter of where he is now, the other chapters leading up to how he got there. Please review!]

Please Don't Say

I Told You So

It's late. The crickets chirp noisily around him and he grits his teeth as he dots in the digits for a familiar voice. The phone rings, and his breathing is laboured, his heart is beating wildly in his chest and his eyes are watering.

Keep it to-fucking-gether, Puckerman, he scolds himself, and wipes the unshed tears inconspicuously with a damp palm. He's about to hang up when she answers.

"Hello, Rachel Berry speaking."

"Rach," he whispers and sighs in relief, he flood of emotions sending him on the brink of crying. Her name falls like a prayer from his lips and he leans his head against the glass of the phone booth.

"Puck?" she gasps, and he can imagine her holding her hand over her heart, eyes wide and lips parted.

"I need help." he says, trying his best to sound badass. But it's kind of hard to do that when you're nearly in tears and have a fuckload of shitty issues.

"Are you hurt?" she asks, her voice rising an octave and he chuckles, his other hand coming up to his face as he pinches the bridge of his nose with his eyes closed. He sighs shakily.

"Nah, I'm not hurt. But I need help. See, my baby girls asleep in cab of my truck right now and I'm at least half a day away from Lima."

There's baited breath and then she whispers "Oh, Puck…" but it isn't pity or disappointment in her voice, but it sounds like awe or some shit and he thinks he might die if she says anything else.

"I know, I know." he says and hates himself for sobbing under his breath-but if anyone were to start on him for it, he wouldn't deny it. It's his baby girl in the car right there and there's at least a two story house worth of fucked-up shit between him and proving his mom wrong when she turned to him and said "Oh, Puck. You're just like your father…" she breathes and tears drip onto the linen beneath them like a curse.

In a way, he's already fucked up.

"Where are you?" she asks and he can hear the sound of something being zipped up.

"Ah, fuck. I don't know… This hick-town near…"

He looks at the sign and tries to read it.

"Verbitz?" he mumbles but she knows it anyway.

"Okay, call me back in precisely five minutes, I'm booking a hotel." and before he can ask, she's already hung up. He's got at least 200 in the bank, but all he's got on him right now is a couple of cents.

Puck looks over to the baby seat in the car, the little girl in it, breathing softly and snoring, just like him, and he thinks maybe once he gets out of prison he'll realize it was worth it.