AN: Written three years ago for a prompt on one of the now-deleted original entries of Puck/Rachel drabble meme on Livejournal. Recently exhumed (ha!), now posted.

Title & fic inspired by "Call & Answer" by the Barenaked Ladies.

Feedback is always appreciated :)

the remains of love exhumed

"I'm going to be the laughing stock of the entire industry!" Rachel Berry laments into her phone.

On the other end of the line, Noah Puckerman winces. His ex-wife's voice can reach octaves he's sure not even dogs can hear and she's just unleashed one directly onto his right eardrum. Now, it might seem strange to most that he is willingly listening to his ex-wife complain. They aren't married anymore, he's got no obligations. Except, this time, he totally does.

See, here's the deal: They're pregnant. They've been divorced for nearly seven months and she's six weeks pregnant. And it's his.

Yup, they're going to be the laughing stock of the entertainment industry for sure. It's probably the first time he has completely agreed with Rachel in over a year. The last thing they decided mutually was that they would sell the house and he could keep all the cars save her damned pink Porsche.

Rachel's voice breaks through his reverie and he rolls his eyes at words she has been saying to him since they dated the second time for three months at the end of high school: "Noah! Are you even listening to me?"

He flops back into his chair and props his feet up on the edge of the soundboard. "What do you want me to say, Rach? Yes, I know we're going to be fucking jokes. It's not like the whole world doesn't know all the dirty details of our divorce and now they're going to know that even though you went on Larry-fucking-King to explain exactly how much you hate my fucking guts, I still can't keep my dick out of you."

She snorts and it makes him smile a bit because it still is a pretty cute sound. "Like you're the one who's going to be humiliated? I'm the one who let you—as you so eloquently put it—'put your dick in me' and make me pregnant."

He can easily picture the face she is most definitely making as she says those words. But more than that, there's something surprisingly hot about her talking about him putting a child inside her. He doesn't quite understand why he finds this to be such a turn on but there's no denying that his jeans are significantly tighter than they were a minute ago. They need to talk about something else, like, right now. This whole Rachel turning him on thing? Yeah, that's how they wound up in this mess in the first place.

"Look, right now, I don't think this is about you or me or the fucking media. What are you going to do, Rach?"

Puck's not an idiot. He's learnt—from his own experiences and Chris Rock—that when a woman gets pregnant and she isn't your wife, you don't really have a say in the fate of the child. And this thing with Rachel? Even if she was his wife, they would still be having this conversation. This is one of the things that fuelled their divorce. If he's entirely honest, this is one of the issues that caused it to become the nasty shitfest it was.

See, this is how it went: Puck wanted children. Rachel did not. Rumors about Puck's infidelity (that had never bothered Rachel before) suddenly started chipping away at their solidity and the next thing he knows, she's on CNN crying about them not connecting like they used to and he's on fucking Ellen explaining that he never cheated on her, not once, but they really do have 'irreconcilable differences'.

And OK, maybe that time he was cornered coming out of a club at three in the morning and wound up shouting at the paps that she was a "hard-hearted, megalomaniac, selfish bitch" wasn't the best way to keep it all clean and friendly to the media. But he wasn't alone in the slander. Once, they caught her at an afterparty and she legit said, "I want his balls fed to a lion."

But the funniest thing about all this? Neither of their careers has been negatively impacted by it. Puck doesn't make it a habit to follow what the media is saying about him (it's usually not much since he mainly produces music now) but he needs to know some of this shit, you know? So his publicist keeps him updated and, honest to God, it's almost like the media is, for once, just a spectator. Apart from the few out-there rags that claim to have the sordid details of Puck's affairs or Rachel's anger management issues, the media has actually been totally benevolent toward the both of them. Sometimes, it seems like the world is just watching them fight like children.

Speaking of which, "Rachel?"

She's been quiet for a long time. He doesn't usually complain at the breaks, especially when she's in the middle of rant, but he wants an answer to his question. When she finally responds, she's sniffling a bit and he knows that can't be good. "I don't—Noah, can you come over?"

He's already standing up by the time he answers her. "I'm at the studio. I'll be there in twenty."

He makes it to her new apartment in fifteen minutes (yeah, he knows where it is) and he will certainly have a speedcam ticket in the mail soon but he doesn't care. Because, look, there's something you need to know:

He's still in love with her. She sent him the divorce papers. The night he got drunk off his ass and screamed at the paps that she was a bitch? It was the night they ran into each other at the house for the first time since he had gotten that manila envelope.

And the night she got pregnant?

The night she got pregnant they were both back in Lima for Rosh Hashanah. He hadn't made plans with her and she hadn't spoken to him since they signed the divorce papers. Neither expected the other to show up at their childhood JCC but there they were, at opposite ends of the room, glaring at each other. And it totally would have stayed that way if their families weren't so bloody in love with each other.

The details of what happens between his mom and sister dragging him across the room to be met half way by her dads and them fucking in her childhood bedroom are muddy in his memory. It's no secret that his mom and Sarah adore Rachel. The surprising thing is that her dads seem to like him just as much. So they all stood there and chatted. Then Adam turned to his mom and they started talking; Sarah spotted her friend across the room and wandered off; and he and Rachel just got left there together. Everybody else was trying to be inconspicuous about their side-eyeing but the scrutiny was obvious. Eventually, Rachel just walked outside and he, having nothing better to do, followed.

Then things got a bit crazy. He remembers arguing with her—like, properly shouting shit at her in the middle of the parking lot—and then she was crying and he felt like shit because fuck, it's Rosh Hashanah. It's no time for tears. So he tells her that but she doesn't stop crying. He remembers moving closer to her because she looked like she needed a hug but he wasn't sure if he could give her one. Then she had looked at him and said, "God, Noah, I don't know why I ever loved you."

And something inside him that he will never be able to identify snapped. He just reached out and hauled her against him and he knows he said something but he can't remember what and then they were kissing and it was like breathing for the first time in too long.

His car was closest but her house was closer than his. She wasn't even wearing her top when he pulled into her driveway. He had her once against the inside of her front door and he lost count after that. The next morning, she was gone before he woke up and he...well, he had breakfast with her dads and bought a ticket on the next plane out. Lima's never been good for either of them.

So yeah, when Rachel calls him and says she's pregnant and it's his and he needs to go see her? He will. This is why:

Rachel Berry has had him tangled around her fingers since they were sixteen. He's probably been a little in love with her since before that and yeah, he's said it before but it bears repeating, he's still in love with her. To be honest, he doesn't think that's ever going to change. So she calls and he answers.

He also has no doubt, like he absolutely knows, he's the last [and only] person she [has ever] had unprotected sex with. As he rings the her doorbell, he can't help but think that not even a whole year ago the thing he wanted most in the world was for her to have his baby.

The first thing she does when she opens the door is wrap herself around him. He doesn't even think about it, he opens his arms and hugs her back just as hard because standing there with her makes the reality of their situation sink in and it's fucking scary. He holds her just as tightly as she holds him and that's what they do all night long. She lets him sleep beside her that night and it's the easiest thing in the world to slip under the covers on his side of the familiar bed (yeah, she won it in the settlement) and pull her against him.

In the morning he wakes up first. When she stumbles into the kitchen he hands her a cup of decaffeinated coffee and asks her what her plans are. She says she needs time to think about their situation but she'll call him as soon as she figures things out. He nods because what else can he do? She'll make her decision and he'll live with it.

Then, defying everything he's learnt over the years, he looks her dead in the eye and says, "You know what I wanted, Rachel. We can still have that if you let us."

She keeps her eyes on her coffee and doesn't respond. He expected as much. He feels better having just said the words.

Before he heads out her door he leans in intending to kiss her cheek. He doesn't know why she does it—he supposes it's just habit bred of ten years together—but she turns to meet his mouth. When their lips collide he blinks and she's wide-eyed with shock. For a while neither of them moves until he thinks 'fuck it' and kisses her properly.

She kisses him back.

Her lips move with his and by the time they're done her arms are wrapped around his neck and he has her pressed against the foyer wall. The air between them comes in harsh pants.

"I'll call you," she whispers into the silence. They disengage and he leaves.

Two days later, he's in the middle of a meeting with a prospective artist when his secretary buzzes him a call. She only does that during meetings if it's one of two people. He doesn't even think about it, he just excuses himself, tells his assistant to start outlining the contract details and walks out of the room. He calls Rachel from his cell phone because there's no way he's having this conversation on a company line.

She answers after the third ring, "I was already on your office line, Noah."

He kind of smiles because she's always so cute when she's irritated. "Hello to you too. So, what's up?"

It may sound casual but his heart is hammering. The rest of his life with or without Rachel rests on this decision he just unquestioningly handed over to his ex-wife. No matter how much his head tells him he should have made more of a fuss (he remembers what happened with Quinn), his heart trusts Rachel intrinsically. He's anxious to hear her decision but there's a part of him that is positive that she'll make the right choice.

The right choice being that she'll keep the baby and let him be a father and maybe let him call her his again, eventually.

"I can't do it," she whispers.

His whole body goes still. Thank God he made it into his office because he doesn't know what his face looks like but he knows he doesn't want anyone to see it. He thinks he might cry. Just burst into tears right there with his back pressed against the hard oak of his office door.

"I can't—." He's barely hearing her anymore. "I went to the clinic today—." How is any of this even registering? "They said I had plenty of time but I thought about—." Beth, he hears it anyway.

On the other end of the line, Rachel's breathing is coming in small gulps like it always does when she's trying not to cry and failing terribly at it.

Finally she says, "I can't abort our baby, Noah."

He hadn't realized that he'd stopped breathing until he took his next breath.

END