It's only fitting that they ended up in the bleachers.
He hasn't talked to her since the funeral. Hell, he hasn't really talked to her in two years. She'd been up there in the front row just like him, tucked neatly between Mr. Hummel and Kurt, making all the right noises to let everyone know that she was a properly grieving girl. He had been quiet, seemingly cold and stoic, on the right of Carole, holding her hand tightly just like he knew that Finn would've been up there with Ma if the situation were reversed.
Puck looks down at her and he swears that it's sophomore year all over. Only this time, rather than knee socks and one of her stupid striped cardigans, this version of Rachel is wearing a little black dress that screams expensive and New York and everything that Puck's not. Her eyes are dull, her smile stunted. He hates how she's looking at him, through him, as if she understands anything about the way he feels.
"I thought you might be here."
He rolls his eyes before sliding his gaze back out to the empty football field. A million memories rush through his brain all at once and he has to look away. Somewhere in the background, he can hear the incessant hum of her rattling on and on about what's happened, what's happening, what's going to happen. He doesn't care enough to pay attention to any of it. He just wants her to go away. She's acting like this is happening to only her, has been since Kurt got the call back in New York and Santana had put both of them on the first plane back to Ohio. They hadn't been there when he'd gone with the police to tell Carole and Burt. None of them had.
"You're so fuckin' selfish, Berry."
"Excuse me?" she gasped incredulously.
She had thought, stupidly, that he'd understand out of everyone. What she didn't count on was that Puck held everything against her, against Quinn and Santana and all the others who had ever made Finn feel like he was anything less than the fucking star that Puck had always known he was.
"You're not the only one this is happening to, you know? You walk around, crying like he was still yours or something, but he wasn't. He hadn't been for a whole year," he spat angrily. He knew somewhere in his mind that she didn't really deserve how he was treating her. It wasn't the way Finn would want him to be. But he's just so mad at her for not being there – for Finn and for him. "Carole lost her son, Kurt lost his brother. They were his family. This should be about them, not you."
"Oh, Noah," she exhaled softly. She noticed for the first time the red satin he was clenching in his lap. Kurt had his lettermen jacket, Rachel had taken the red tee he'd worn during that first big Journey performance. It only made sense that Puck had that piece of him. "I'm sorry."
His eyes flew to her, the hazel so full of fire. He'd only met her eyes once at the church, and the haunting look had reminded her so much of the lost one he had given her at the hospital the night that Beth was born. They'd all been so tangled up then, her and Noah and Quinn and Finn. It felt like a million years ago and yesterday in the same breath. Rachel sort of wished the blonde was there with them now but knew it was better that she wasn't. She wouldn't have really understood anyways, not the way she knew that Noah did.
"What are you apologizing to me for?"
Rachel played with the hem of her skirt for a moment. "You know, Finn once told me about this conversation he had with Burt after he married Carole. They were talking about how both Finn and Kurt had always been only children when Carole walked in. She had looked at Burt as if he were crazy, it always made Finn laugh," she remembered.
"Does this story have a point?" he asked rhetorically, angrily.
"And you know what Carole said? She told Burt that she'd always had two sons and that Finn had had a brother since the second day of first grade when you threatened the school bully for picking on him," she pressed on. She exchanged a knowing grin with Noah. He slid so easily into that smirk, the one that he used whenever he was professing himself a proud badass. "The two of you were always so connected in a way that I could never understand. He could forgive you anything. It might take some time, but he always came around when it came to you. Finn was an amazing guy, but he wasn't like that with anyone else. He gave a part of himself that no one else got."
Puck ran his thumb over the white number on the jersey splayed over his lap. "Finn was there the night my dad left. He'd never seen me cry before, but Ma was on the kitchen floor, just sobbing while she held onto Sarah," he murmured softly, looking out in the distance to keep the stinging wetness in his eyes at bay. "I knew I had to step up, be the man of the house, but Finn just let me be a kid. For five minutes, standing up in my bedroom, he put his arms around me and let me cry like a baby. He never made fun of me for it, never told a single soul. He just loved me, and I never forgot that."
Rachel slid gracefully to the next row so that there was only a single bench between them. "He never did either," she assured him. "Even after everything that happened, he didn't give up on you. He believed in you and you believed in him. Yeah, you two might have had these passive aggressive jokes that I still don't quite comprehend, but you got past everything. He used to write me these long, rambling emails last spring about how much he was loving college and how proud he was of you for writing your screenplay and how great it was to be going through all of that with you. Sometimes I'd think that maybe that's why he and I didn't work out, why he didn't make it in the Army. Maybe you guys were supposed to have these past few months…"
"But I wasn't his brother, Kurt was."
She smiled a little at this. "I suppose that's true in a way," she admitted, "but Finn didn't choose that. He didn't ask for his mom to fall in love with Burt, for the two of them to get married and turn them all into a family. Those things just happened to him. But Finn chose you, Noah. He picked you as his best friend. He decided to forgive you, to keep you in his life. So Finn might have inherited Kurt as a brother but he chose to have you in his life."
There's a small but content smile that passes over his face. "Yeah, I guess that's true," he accepted before looking skyward. Rachel knew that he was having a silent conversation in that confusing head of his with Finn. She had always admired the way the two boys had been together, the unyielding loyalty that shifted over the years but went away. She had never had a best friend like that, and she was starting to suspect that friendships like that didn't come along every day. "So shouldn't I, like, be comforting you or something?"
Rachel giggled and shook her head a little at his sudden abruptness. No one had ever accused him of being tactful. "I honestly don't know what we're supposed to be doing, Noah."
"The Hummels are having everyone back at their house. Carole made her chocolate cake. It's really good cake," he smiled. It was Finn's favorite, his too. "We could go back there, see how everyone else is doing. Blaine could probably use your help with Kurt right about now. The guy's a mess."
"Not like us," Rachel teased as she stood up and followed him down the metal stairs, her heels clicking loudly.
"Not like us," he confirmed as he reached his hand out to help her back onto flat ground. He held it there for a moment, the two of them exchanging a long look, before he pulled her into a hug. She felt so tiny against his solid chest. It only took a moment for her to start shaking, and if he started crying into her dark hair, well, she was nice enough not to point it out. When they finally separated a few minutes later, he brushed the tears away from her pretty face with his thumb. "Not like us at all."
