It all starts with Kelly Clarkson's hit "My Life Would Suck Without You." Actually, it technically starts with "Sweet Caroline," but they both know that the real thing starts with Kelly Clarkson and the evening after sectionals when Rachel Berry first realizes that Noah Puckerman cares about Glee.
They have all just discovered Sue Sylvester's sabotage, and there's no time for any sort of discord. Santana has just made the unexpected confession that she actually cares about Glee, so Rachel uncharacteristically lets the betrayal of a quarter of the club slide. When someone boldly states the question that they're all thinking ("what the hell are we gonna do?"), she looks at Mercedes, who looks like someone just killed her puppy. But then the Glee Club's second most dramatic diva just shrugs and tells Rachel that she's only prepared to sing "And I'm Telling You." Rachel shocks everybody again when she vehemently protests taking Mercedes' well-deserved spotlight away, but when Kurt (Mercedes' self-proclaimed superfan) insists along with the rest of the club that Rachel taking the ballad solo is the only way the club has a chance to win, her mind immediately settles on "Don't Rain on my Parade." She smiles broadly when Quinn speaks softly from the corner. She really hasn't said much since Rachel blabbed about the baby's paternity. "We can do 'Somebody to Love.' That's a real crowd pleaser."
"That and a can of soup will buy us third place," snaps a frustrated Puck. Left hanging in the tense air are two unwelcome implications. First: third is also last in this particular competition, and second: anything but first and the automatic berth in Regionals that it garners spells the E-N-D of the club at McKinley High School.
Everything after that is a blur. Finn saves the day with the arrangement of "You Can't Always Get What You Want" that Mr. Schue steered him toward. Matt, Mike, Santana and Brittany put together solid choreography considering the time constraints under which they worked (sixty short minutes). New Directions has many heroes that day (it takes all twelve of them to pull together a performance and win), but when Rachel tries to coax her adrenaline filled body to sleep after the competition, the moment that she keeps returning to is Noah Puckerman, green eyes snapping rage, as he bites out the obvious shortcomings of their patchwork, two-song set list. So as her eyes fall upon the trophy glinting in the darkness of her room (she has possession until their next rehearsal; she is the captain after all) and she realizes that Mr. Schue didn't see one second of their winning performance (which wasn't anything like the one they were planning to do at the end of Friday's rehearsal), she decides that they should perform something for him. They don't have rehearsal until Tuesday, and she knows that she'll need help from a jock to earn the acquiescence of the Cheerios. She decides almost instantaneously on Puck, who despite the recent scandal, still holds significant social clout. And she realized in that moment today that he cares much more about the club than Finn ever had. So she rolls over in bed, plucks her BlackBerry off her bedside table, selects a number from her contact list that she hasn't used for a long time and quickly taps out a text message. I have an idea.
Her phone buzzes a minute later. No pleasantries there Berry. What's up?"
Is it too late to call?
Please, Berry, remember who you're talking to."
She can feel her brow furrowing as she glances at her bedside clock and sees that it was close to 11:30. She supposes given that it's a Saturday, it isn't late at all for someone as "studly" as Puck. Sighing, she selects his number from her contacts again and presses call.
He answers halfway through the first ring. "If this is a booty call, Berry, I'll be there in 10."
"Noah! Don't be such a pig."
"Sorry, sorry," he rolls his eyes and lies flat on his back. "What's up, B?"
"I have an idea, and I need your help."
"This is so a booty call. What else would you ask my help with?"
"Noah, it's not. It's about Glee."
"Why aren't you calling Saint Finn?" He doesn't bother to hide the bitterness in his voice. Berry's a smart girl; she's probably already figured out the complicated nature of his relationship with his former best friend.
"Due to a multitude of events over the course of the past several weeks, I have come to the realization that he doesn't care about our club nearly as much as you do."
Puck tries to respond, but words just won't form. Berry knows he cares?
Well, shit.
Apparently that girl knows every damn thing. He sort of grunts, assuming Berry will be more than happy to take control of the conversation.
She isn't. The phone line is silent for several moments before he worries that she might have died or something. It's the only explanation for her not speaking when she has the opportunity. "Berry? You alive?"
"What kind of question is that? Of course I'm alive."
"Well you weren't talking, so I thought you mighta died."
"I was waiting for you to respond. We're having a conversation which means you should be an equal participant."
"That's never bothered you before."
"Well, maybe I'm trying to damp down my intensity a little bit."
Puck is taken aback. He's never thought that she would even try to change. He finds himself hoping she won't alter herself too much. And then he finds himself saying that. "Don't change too much, Berry. I like your brand of crazy. It's what makes you you."
Fuck. How did that slipped through his well-oiled filter? That's the kind of thing he never lets himself say. But he hears her sharp inhalation at his soft sort-of compliment, and the vulnerable whisper that carries her "thank you" over the phone line just about makes him want to hold her and tell her just about everything he likes about her. And Noah Puckerman? He does not have those types of urges. Ever.
He's had enough of his feelings. The discovery that he likes and wants to protect Rachel Berry is fucking with his carefully monitored balance. "So, Berry, what the fuck did you want?"
"Oh right. Well, I had an idea."
"So you've said. Hit me with it, B."
"I want to put together a performance for Mr. Schuester. He wasn't able to see our performance due to the unfortunate betrayal of our set list to the other clubs in the competition, so I thought we could put something together to perform for him in rehearsal on Tuesday. He's done a lot for the entire club, and…"
"Berry!" he interjects, while she pauses to take a huge breath, knowing that she is just getting started on a long-winded speech.
"Yes?" she answers, and she sounds confused that someone's brave enough to interrupt her rants. She thinks that his ability to stand up to her might be good for her and Noah's friendship (she thinks that this phone call might be the first of many).
"I think it's a good idea. You're gonna need to get Finn on board, though, our only interactions these days are his fist with my face. I'll handle Matt, Mike, Q, Santana and Britt."
"So you have the jocks other than Finn, and I have Finn and the Gleeks? Do you have any song suggestions?"
"Berry, I don't give a shit about what song you pick. Just tell me the time and place and I'll make sure that the Cheerios and football guys are there, okay?"
"Choir room after last period on Monday. I'll make sure Mr. Schuester isn't around and I'll get the Gleeks there. Can you warn Matt, Britt, Santana and Mike that we're definitely going to need their help with choreography? I'll provide the arrangement."
Puck nods. "You got it, Berry. See ya Monday."
"Thank you for your assistance, Noah."
He picks out the five numbers from his contacts (Matt, Quinn, Mike, Santana, Brittany) and bangs out a quick text message. Glee meeting after school Monday, working on a number for Schue. Berry's idea. He sets his phone down on his bedside table and rolls onto his stomach. He drifts off easily for the first time in a while, feeling warm that Rachel turned to him for help in getting this little performance for Schue going. For whatever reason, the fact that Rachel thought he could help her makes him feel like the fucking man, even if Rachel has probably already forgotten their entire conversation.
She hasn't. She's actually lying awake at home wondering exactly what it all means.
He's actually surprised that Quinn, Santana and Brittany show up in the choir room after school on Monday. Q is pretty much pissed off at the world, which, alright, he can understand, and Santana has been such a bitch lately, and Brittany just does whatever Quinn and Santana do. None of them responded to his text, so despite the fact that when Rachel asks Monday morning if they're coming or not he says "fuck, Berry, I said they were coming, didn't I?" he actually has no idea whether they are. He sees both of them in the halls between classes, but he doesn't bother to try to talk to Quinn and Santana just says "don't talk to me, Puckerman. You screwed over my best friend and yours."
He rolls his eyes and shrugs. "You already knew that, and don't forget that you're head cheerio now. You aren't that pissed." Santana responds by throwing her patented filthy look over her left shoulder then flicking her ponytail dramatically behind her.
Puck throws his hands above his head in frustration, wondering why he bothers. Everyone always gets on Rachel for being dramatic, but he thinks that most of the time she's got nothing on Santana or Mercedes.
But he gets to the choir room at 3:30 and Santana, Quinn and Brittany are sitting in the back corner giggling together about something. Quinn looks up when he walks in and their eyes meet. She gives him a little smile, and he flicks his hand at her in a little wave. This, he thinks, is a step in the right direction for whatever relationship they might have. He figures that they're going to need to be cordial—yes, he knows what it means—for as long as their kid is in her stomach. There are appointments and decisions and conversations, and they need to not be blaming each other for a mistake that was as much her fault as it was his or they'll never get anywhere. Still anything beyond civility is pushing it with them, so he chooses a seat in the front corner, opposite from the giggling girls.
The rest of the club trickles in and Rachel arrives last, breathlessly handing out sheet music. "I took the liberty of picking a song that I thought we could all have fun with and I put together a simple arrangement that we should all be able to grasp by tomorrow. Since I got a hold of Finn yesterday, I arranged the song for the two of us on lead, and the whole arrangement is very easy. I thought that I would bring the trophy and we would give it to him then we can sing and maybe take the rest of rehearsal off, if you guys want to."
Puck knows his mouth is hanging open, but he doesn't think that he can physically shut it. Rachel thinks that they can miss a rehearsal? They're going to regionals and Glee club is her life.
Rachel notices the eleven shocked faces staring back at her and blushes self-consciously. "It's been a hard few weeks for our club, and I thought it might be beneficial for us to take the time to relax and regroup. Rest assured, I'll be back to my crazy, intense, abrasive self in plenty of time to prepare us for regionals."
Puck laughs. He knows she's trying to make a joke, and she sends him a small smile for understanding. He wonders idly what it might mean that he gets her jokes even though they barely know each other. They just sort of get each other, he thinks. He has to wonder what the deal with that is.
He doesn't have much more time to think about it though because Rachel has Matt and Mike, who have both been warming up to her for a couple weeks now, start working on choreography, and they enlist the help of Brittany and Santana, and soon all twelve are being positioned. An hour and a half later, they've got the singing and simple dance steps down, and they've agreed that Brittany is going to distract Mr. Schue after school the next day with Spanish questions while the group goes over the routine one last time.
The plan goes off without a hitch, and Mr. Schue tells Brittany he'll print her some extra worksheets and meet her with them at Glee. The whole club is settled when Mr. Schuester gets there, and he smiles when they force him into a chair at the front of the room.
They put the trophy on Artie's lap and he wheels it forward to their teacher. Even though he knows that they won, he still gets this huge, douchebaggy (also sort of amazing) smile on his face when Artie hands the award to him. It makes Puck feel pretty awesome when that smile just gets bigger over the course of their performance. After they've finished, Schue claps for them, tells them that they're free to go and bolts out of the room.
Puck wonders what the hell is going through their teacher's mind, but Kurt just sneers "Oh, Wemma," and picks something off his fingernail.
"Yeah," Mercedes says, leaning forward, "I heard Miss P is leaving. Mr. Schue must be heartbroken."
"I think he was trying to catch her," Tina speaks up quietly, and Puck just stands up and walks out. He doesn't have patience for much these days, and this kind of asinine gossiping is pretty low on his list of priorities. He stands up and shuffles out of the room toward his locker. He doesn't really have anywhere to go or anything to do until he has to pick up his sister from soccer practice in an hour, and he usually kills the time between the end of Glee and picking up his sister with a quick 7-11 run. He knows he can't waste the entire sixty minutes at a convenience store without wanting to kill himself, but he definitely doesn't want to listen to the stupid shit that Kurt and Mercedes talk about.
Like he does every day, he internally curses the fact that his locker is at the opposite end of the school from the parking lot and the choir room is right between the two. He grabs his stuff and retraces his steps past the choir room, where most of the club is still gossiping enthusiastically. Rachel's locker is also between his locker and the parking lot (it made slushie tossing much more convenient at the beginning of the year), and he's surprised to see her popped up on the balls of her feet digging through her bag for something.
The way she's standing makes her legs look fucking excellent, and he slows his lazy shuffle down even more to get a really good look as he walks past. But it's not until he stops checking her out and speeds his shuffle back up that she calls his name.
"Sup?" he turns toward her and hitches his backpack up on his shoulder.
She slams her locker shut and walks toward him, tugging her trolley bag behind him. "Thank you for laughing at my joke during our Glee rehearsal yesterday."
He knows he looks confused, and he sorts through his memories of the previous day to figure out what the hell she's talking about. When he does, he laughs. "Berry, it was funny, you don't have to thank people for laughing at your jokes."
She shrugs a shoulder, and he doesn't like the way the uncertain movement looks on her usually confident form. "Still, you were the only one that laughed."
He laughs again and slings an arm over her shoulders. "You're one in a million, B-money. Let me give you a lift."
"B-money?" she asks, and he thinks the way her nose is all crinkled at the nickname is adorable.
"Yep. B-money. Why aren't you bonding with the rest of those losers over whether or not Mr. Schue is boning Bambi-eyes?"
"Noah, that's disgusting," she chastises, shrugging out from under his arm and delivering a surprisingly painful slap to his chest. "And I don't indulge in petty gossip like that. It only ends up being unproductive and hurtful."
"I thought you were all about team bonding and making friends with them and shit."
She sighs. "Not when the team bonding involves discussing lies and rumors, the validity of which are completely unknown. That kind of immaturity and pettiness is the reason that I don't have any friends, and I refuse to use the events of someone else's life to form a friendship. If that kind of gossip is the basis of a friendship it's not a very strong one."
He nods. If you make the effort to sift through her big words and superior tone, Puck thinks, you realize that she's actually just saying what she believes in the only way she knows how. He thinks it might take a lot to understand her, but once you do, you figure out that she only thinks she's better than anybody else when she's singing. The rest of the time, he thinks, she's thinks she's pretty damn average.
He doesn't know why, but that makes his stomach drop and gives him an undeniable urge to wrap her in his arms. So he shoves open the school doors, lets her walk through ahead of him and throws his arm back over her shoulder to guide her to his truck.
He drives a 1979 Ford, which is a fucking sweet antique. It was completely useless when he got it, but he fixed it up himself, and now it runs like a champ. He gets a kick out of watching Berry getting into the passenger side, so he doesn't offer to help her. Once she's in, he reaches under the bench seat of the truck and blindly presses play on the killer sound system he installed there a couple weeks back.
The strong beat of K'Naan's "Fatima" vibrates through the system, and Puck tears out of the parking lot, ignoring the stop sign and pulling directly onto the public road. He also decides to ignore the indignant "Noah, that was a stop sign!" that comes from the passenger seat.
They ride in silence for about five minutes while he navigates the quiet back roads near the high school. Finally, Rachel uncrosses her arms and asks him who the artist blaring through the speakers is.
He doesn't answer her question. Instead, he offers "finally got your panties out of a twist about the stop sign?"
She lets out an exasperated breath and he glances over in time to catch her rolling her eyes. "I just want to know who wrote this song."
"K'naan is his name. He's Somalian."
"I like it. I've never heard him before."
"He's not on Broadway." He stops at a red light and ignores Rachel's snarky "at least you stop for lights" while he counts the tracks in his head as he pushes the button under his seat.
"This is his most popular song. 'Waving Flag.'"
When I get older, / I will be stronger / They'll call me freedom / Just like a waving flag
He watches her out of the corner of his eye as the lyrics wash over her. Her eyelids fall shut and she moves her head gently in time with the beat. She looks so peaceful that he has to tear his eyes away from her and focus on the road before he does something totally stupid: like think she's just so fucking beautiful, or something even worse than that, like tell her how beautiful he thinks she is.
When they get to the end of the song, he thumbs through the CD for one more that he thinks she'll like, and they sit in her driveway listening to the second half of it, his truck idling loudly.
It ends and he cuts the engine, looking across the cab of the truck at her. She's fiddling nervously with the hem of her skirt, and she can tell she's nervous.
"Look, Berry, stay or scoot but I gotta go do shit." As soon as the words are out of his mouth, he curses himself. He doesn't know why he has to fall immediately back on 'asshole' setting the second he feels even a little bit uncomfortable.
She immediately grabs her bag and pulls urgently on the door handle, but the passenger door is the one thing in his truck that he hasn't gotten around to fixing (literally, the last thing). It gets stuck from the inside all the time—he always has to open it for Quinn and his little sister. He chuckles as she gets completely flustered; when he's skirting around the front end to open the damn thing for her, he realizes that she probably feels awkward and just wants to run inside because he went from friendly to gruff so quickly, and she probably has no idea what she did or what happened. So he yanks open the offending door and then grabs her bag for her and helps her jump down—it's a really long way for such a midget.
"Anyone home?" There are no cars in the driveway and the house looks really quiet, so he just kind of assumes that her dads are both at work.
He's right. "Dad works until 5 every night, and Daddy's in Boston at a conference until the end of the week."
When they get to her front door, he hands her the handle of the trolley bag and rubs the back of his neck. "Sorry about earlier, in the truck, you know?"
It takes a couple seconds, but she nods her head a couple times when she realizes that he's actually asking her a question.
"Yeah, I get mean when I'm uncomfortable. Actually I get mean in most situations, but I shouldn't have said that."
She shrugs a shoulder. "It's alright, Noah, I understand. Do you actually have plans or would you like to come inside?"
He smiles a little. She's so damn polite all the time. "No, I gotta pick up my brat sister. She's mine to torture every afternoon."
"Okay," she smiles up at him. "Well, thank you for the ride. I'll let you go."
He smirks at the idea that she could control anything that he does or chooses to do but lets the comment slide. He's halfway down the walk before he turns back to her. She's got the key in the lock and her hair is hanging halfway down her back. "Hey, Rach?"
She turns quickly. "Yes?"
"You said your dad works 'til 5. How d'you usually get home?"
"Kurt, if he doesn't forget. When he does, bus."
"The city bus? Rach, there are creepy fucks on that thing."
"I'm fine, Noah, I can handle myself."
He doesn't doubt that, but he still is freaked out at the thought of her riding that bus all by herself. Lima is home to some weird dudes. "So how often do you take the bus?"
"Two or three days a week. Kurt tends to forget about me on days when we don't have Glee."
"Hey, look, next time he forgets, just call me, alright?" He runs his hand over his Mohawk and rubs the back of his neck again. She thinks it might be his nervous habit.
"Alright, Noah, I'll keep that mind. Don't you need to go collect your sister?"
She watches as he glances at the watch on his left wrist. "Shit, yeah!" He turns on his heel and rushes to his truck, but still waits until she's in the house before he backs out of her driveway.
Puck's a couple minutes late when he pulls into the parking lot of the soccer field where Eliza has practice. He sees a couple of the girls that are on her peewee team, but she's standing under a tree by herself, and he knows she's upset. He jumps out of the car and strides over to her, smiling for her benefit when she sees him.
She runs up to him, and he lifts her tiny frame easily. "Hey, kid, sorry I'm late."
She sniffs. "S'okay, Noah, I just got scared."
He nods and sets her down, tugging her dark ponytail playfully. "I know, I didn't mean to be late, I promise."
Curious eyes meet his, and he groans before she even starts asking all her questions. "Why were you late, anyway? You're always early on Tuesdays because you say there's 'not time to do shit 'cept go to 7-11' between the end of Glee and picking me up."
"I drove someone home."
"Who? All your friends can drive." She starts to tick off the names she knows. "Finn, Matt, Mike, Quinn, Santana, Brittany."
He opens the door to his truck for her and easily lifts her into her booster. "I have friends besides those ones, you know."
"I've never met them," she tells him defiantly, and he's proud of her for arguing her point.
It doesn't mean he's not going to argue back though. "Doesn't mean I don't have them, kid."
"What's his name?"
"Rachel." He doesn't bother to correct the personal pronoun.
"Rachel is a girl's name." Her voice is whiny, and he can't stand it.
"Rachel is a girl. We've said the name Rachel too many times. Can we talk about something else now?"
"Nope. I wanna talk about Rachel. Is she pretty? Is she nice? Is she your girlfriend?"
"I don't have a girlfriend," he bites and thinks about Quinn living in the guest room of his house. She is the closest thing he has to a girlfriend, but the thought of dating her makes him want to rip his brain out just to stop thinking it. He's not a girlfriend guy.
"What's she like? How do you know her? How old is she? Is she pretty? No-ah, answer me!"
He tugs on her seatbelt to make sure it's fastened tightly, then looks at her. "Rachel's okay looking (lie). She's a sophomore, so she's fifteen, probably, I don't know though (lie: she's 15 now, but she'll be sixteen at the end of March, just before he turns 17). And she's in Glee club."
Eliza pauses to digest all the information he's offered her, and he takes advantage of the opportunity to turn on the radio although he does switch the CD to a mix of songs that he and Eliza like.
He doesn't really get to hear the music though because Eliza starts to speak again. "So, Rachel's in Glee club? Is she any good?"
He laughs just because he can't help it. Asking if Rachel is a good singer is like asking if the sky is blue. It's a fact: Rachel can sing; people need to breathe to live. "Yeah, Lize, she's got the most beautiful voice I've ever heard."
The little girl's eyes grow wide. "Better than Hannah Montana?"
He smiles at his sister and leans over to look her closely in the eyes. "Compared to Rachel, Hannah Montana is tone-deaf, alright, kid?"
She nods, in either shock or disbelief, and he kisses her hairline and runs his hand over her head before the light turns green and he returns his focus to driving.
A Miley Cyrus song comes on the CD, and he scoffs a little. This chick's got nothin' on Rach.
