Title: Say Goodbye (So I Can Say Hello Again)
Category: Glee
Genre: Romance/Drama
Ship: Puck/Rachel
Rating: T
Prompt: Picture / "There's a difference between goodbye and letting go. Goodbye is 'I'll see you again when I'm ready to hold your hand and when you're ready to hold mine.' Letting go is 'I'll miss your hand. I realized it's not mine to hold, and I will never hold it again.'" by feldhocky9 – puckrachel drabble meme (part 8)
Word Count: 1,975
Summary: "In three-hundred-and-sixty-five days, I'll see you again… I'll see you and I'll hold your hand just like this and then… We'll be ready… We'll begin."
Say Goodbye (So I Can Say Hello Again)
1/1
"So you're really leaving…"
Rachel paused in her steps, lingering on the stoop, staring at him. Despite the fact that they were now high school graduates, considered adults even, he looked just the same as ever. He leaned against the hood of his beat-up blue truck, large and somewhat out of place in her driveway, his hands stuffed in his pockets, his shoulders slumped in that "I don't care" kind of way that he'd perfected long ago, even if it was completely and entirely false.
If he didn't care, he wouldn't be standing there. But he was; he always was. Just on the fringes of her life these last two years, within reach whenever she was upset or mad or needed somebody to tell her it would be okay. Noah Puckerman was there.
She nodded, though the cheer she'd been feeling over the fact that yes, she was leaving, she had her flight booked for New York, had now faded, and in its place was a sadness she'd never thought to associate with leaving Lima, Ohio. But then, it wasn't escaping Lima that had her feeling depressed all of a sudden. It was this boy – no, man – who was looking at her from hooded green eyes, his teeth clenched tight, trying to seem unaffected.
In all of her planning, all of her dreams of New York and stardom and Broadway, she'd neglected to ask herself what if might be like to leave the actual people of Lima. She'd thought of some of them; mostly the bullies that had offended her over the years and how they might gape at her actually doing something with her life. But the rest hadn't played much into her planning. Though, most of the gleeks were leaving Lima too, not to New York but to somewhere.
Not Noah. Not yet.
"You got all your stuff packed?" he wondered, ducking his head as he kicked at a rock.
She bit her lip, thinking back to how she'd eagerly stuffed only the necessities in her bags, dubbing the rest as childish and fit for Lima-Rachel, not New York-Rachel. "Just what can fit in a small dorm," she told him.
His lips quirked up. "Tisch… Big time for you already…"
She couldn't help the smile that made its way onto her face. "I wasn't sure I'd get in."
Puck laughed. "Liar."
She rolled her eyes. "All right, I had a pretty good idea…" She skipped down off the porch and fiddled with her fingers as she made her way toward him, trying to catch his eyes. "I am Rachel Berry!" she said, in her haughtiest voice.
He smirked. "Reputation must precede you …"
He finally raised his chin enough that they were eye-to-eye, just as she reached his truck and leaned herself back against it mere inches from him.
The summer heat paled in comparison to the warmth radiating off his body so close to hers. Though it helped in making sweat collect enough to keep his t-shirt clinging to his skin, and what a nice image that provided.
"Well… I have been sending them footage of my amazing capabilities for a few years now," she admitted, shrugging lightly.
"Just a few?" he teased.
She knocked his shoulder with hers, or as near to it as she could get with their height difference. "Admit it… You're proud of me!"
He turned to look at her, all of his amusement and teasing completely gone from his face. "I am," he told her seriously. He licked his lips, brows furrowed. "But I always knew you'd get your way out…" He shrugged. "Just wasn't sure you'd actually leave."
Rachel frowned, eyes falling. She remembered arguing with Finn just weeks before graduation, when suddenly her acceptance into Tisch was real and the summer seemed so short. "I couldn't pick him," she told him, her voice firm.
She wasn't questioning her decision; she'd made the right one. She loved Finn, she did, but sometimes she wondered if maybe that love and that boy were a part of Lima-Rachel, the same as those things she'd left in her room, certain they would have no place in her life once she got to New York. That she might look at them one day in the future with fondness, even a little amusement, before realizing they were better left in the past.
Funny how so much of her wanted Noah to be in the 'take with' pile.
"Good," he told her, his voice heavy with a sigh. "Shouldn't even be a choice."
Her smile came back slowly and she looked up at Noah, his head tipped back and his eyes closed, feeling the sun on his handsome, tanned face.
"Not every boy knows me like you do," she said quietly.
His brow quirked, his eyes opened, and he looked down at her with that same intensity she'd been questioning for more than a year. There was something there, something she was so close to understanding but always just a little out of reach of.
"Yeah, well, I'm a man of many talents, Berry…" he said, smirk sliding into place.
She let him play it off, rolling her eyes. "So you've boasted many times…"
"You want proof?" He leaned toward her, his arm brushing against hers. "Say the word, Rachel…" His breath skittered off her cheek in a way so intimate, she gulped. "I'll share all my secrets."
Her eyes cut up to him thoughtfully. Much as the words were classic Puck, who she was looking at would never quite be the badass he wanted others to see him as. Rachel had long ago seen the man behind the smirk, behind the effortless charm and the flexing guns… She'd seen the little boy abandoned by his father, the conflicted teenager who gave up his baby so she'd have a better life, the son who would do anything for his family, the man who… Who loved her. Even when she continued to make the wrong choices, choose the wrong boys, pushing him away and yet keeping him close.
Her heart ached for that.
As much as she was seeing Noah instead of Puck, she thought she might just have seen a little more of herself behind the stage smile.
"I'm going to miss you," she told him honestly, her voice wobbling ever so slightly.
He sobered, looking away. "I'm missable," he muttered.
"Noah…"
His jaw ticked. "It's just one year, right?" He tried to smile. "One year left in Lima and then… Whatever." He shrugged. "I'll get out. I will."
She blew out a long breath and fell into his side, resting her head on his tensed bicep, closing her eyes. She just leaned there awhile, breathing in his familiar and comforting scent, feeling the muscles play under his skin, letting herself dream about how easy it would be to just take his hand and ask him to come with her.
"You could sleep under my bed," she told him. "I assume I'll have a roommate, so you'll have to keep yourself scarce, but I'll keep you stocked up on food, even poor dead animals if I have to…" She sighed wistfully. "You can play music at night, in some smoky lounge bar where your artistic soul will be better appreciated…" With a smile, she added, "And you can talk me down from my diva fits and talk me up when somebody else gets a role I wanted and we can take over New York, just us, and—and it'll be so, so perfect, Noah… Won't it?"
He was quiet a long moment, before finally she raised her head, chin resting on his arm, and peered up at him hopefully.
"I'm not sleeping under your bed, Rach… Unless you've got a husband I need to hide from, we're sharing covers!"
Her nose wrinkled. "It's a very tiny bed, Noah."
He grinned. "Even better."
She slapped at his chest playfully but then frowned as reality set in. "You aren't coming with me, are you?"
He glared out across the lawn. "It's just one year… Ma needs help paying the bills, Becca's at that age where she's too old for a babysitter and too young to stay home alone and… We can't afford a babysitter anyway, so…" He reached up and scrubbed a hand over his head, scraping his nails through his 'hawk anxiously. "Tell me I'm not fucking up my whole life! That I'm not just, I dunno… Scared of whatever's outside ofLima…"
She stepped in front of him, her hands pressed to his chest, and told him with all authority, "You are the bravest person I know, Noah…" She stared up at him searchingly, hating that he wouldn't look in her eyes and see the truth there. "What you're doing for your mom is right! It's noble!" She shook her head. "You didn't want college or university anyway and your music…" She smiled brightly. "This just gives you another year to write more songs, to get yourself more prepared for when you shock and awe the entertainment industry!"
He ground his teeth together, looking just past her shoulder. "What if I say goodbye and I just… I stay here? And you go there and then…" His brows furrowed. With a kick at the ground, he let out a growl of frustration "It wasn't supposed to be like this!" His hands balled into fists and he laughed humorlessly. "It was supposed to be me and you in New York and- And Finn would be back here… Finn would be the guy who gave up the girl 'cause he was too chicken-shit to get out…" He shook his head. "And I was supposed to show you that I could be your leading man…" He stabbed a finger at his chest. "I could make it in New York…" He raised his eyes to hers, his face screwed up with defeat. "And instead, I'm just… I'm letting you go!"
"No." She shook her head hurriedly. "No, Noah, it's not like that at all…"
He snorted. "Rachel…"
"There's a difference between goodbye and letting go," she told him, gripping his shirt tight in her hands. "Goodbye is… It's, 'I'll see you again when I'm ready to hold your hand, and when you're ready to hold mine…'" She stared up at him softly. "Letting go is 'I'll miss your hand. I realized it's not mine to hold, and I will never hold it again…'" With a smile, she reached down and took his fist in hers, uncurling it one finger at a time before sliding her own between them. "In three-hundred-and-sixty-five days, I'll see you again… I'll see you and I'll hold your hand just like this and then… We'll be ready… We'll begin."
"That's a lot of days," he said thickly.
She nodded. "It won't be easy…" She squeezed his hand in hers. "But I'm willing to wait for you if you'll wait just a little longer for me…"
He reached out, fingers threading in her hair and pulled her a few inches closer, their bodies brushing together. "I already waited two years…" He licked his lips. "What's one more, right?"
Her smile lengthened, big and beaming. "I promise it'll be worth it."
He kissed her, slanting his mouth across hers, heated and possessive. He turned them around so she was pressed against his truck, his long, broad body covering seemingly every inch of hers. And he kept kissing her until their lips were bruised and puffy, their lungs ached from lack of air, and even then he pressed his forehead to hers and sucked at her bottom lip, dragging his teeth across it and smirking whenever she shuddered.
"Already is," he said, nuzzling her nose.
She grinned, knowing it was true. And that it would stay true.
Because he never once let go of her hand.
[End.]