Rachel has always tried to have faith in Noah. She really has. Ever since that week in sophomore year they dated she knew that deep down inside of him, beneath the bravado, the machismo, the badass exterior there was a really good guy. Most people either couldn't or wouldn't see it but she knew it was there. And so she always tried to have faith in him after that, in his ability to be a good guy, to do the right thing. Whether people believed it or not he actually treated her better than any other guy she had tried dating even though it was for such a short period of time. And that was mostly because even when he didn't get her he respected her.
He respected her dreams and her ambitions; he respected that there were things about her that he wouldn't ever really completely understand and he respected that she had this drive inside of her that she couldn't always contain. It was different than when she was with Finn. Even years after she dated him in sophomore year, after a pathetic engagement to Finn her senior year that ended in an inevitable breakup and somehow turned into her and Noah getting together again she knew that he respected her.
It was different than being with Finn. In some ways she could explain it; in some ways she couldn't. She would never lie and say that she didn't love Finn because she had. The thing was the more she thought about it the more it seemed like she was in love with the idea of Finn, of that cliché dream where the quarterback who could have any girl he wanted looked at her and suddenly decided that yes, he wanted her, that lowly little geek of a girl that guys never seemed to notice. It was the idea of being with the first man to pay attention to her; it was the idea what they could have been rather than what they were. But the problem was that they never started to reach what they could have been and in the end, despite everything, it felt like she was constantly changing herself to be with him and at the end of the day, when she really and truly was brutally honest with herself, she didn't like who she was changing into.
The breakup with Finn was hard. After being with him for so long, idealizing who they were and what they could be, planning a future in her head built around their relationship it wasn't easy to let go despite the fact she knew their relationship had run its course. It was made even harder still because that put Kurt right in the middle- between his best friend and his stepbrother. Because despite the evidence right in front of him that things weren't working Finn hadn't been able to accept that she was ending things between them. (Given that when she looked back he was always breaking up with her she gathered it must have been surprising for him to be on the other end.) And so Kurt was stuck between a rock and a hard place, not wanting to side with either of them while not wanting to say either was wrong.
Rachel tried her hardest not to put Kurt in the middle even though sometimes it was almost impossible not to. There were times when Finn would still call her after the breakup like he was just waiting for her to admit that the breakup was a mistake and all but beg for him to take her back and when that would happen she couldn't stop herself from ranting to Kurt about how insensitive Finn was being and how he just had to accept that their relationship had run its course. Finn would always hold a sort of special place deep in her heart but their time had come and gone and they both had to accept that. They both had to just live their lives and whatever happened, well, it happened.
The situation only became harder once she and Noah had reconnected and began seeing each other. She couldn't rightly explain how their casual hanging out had turned into something more than that. It seemed that one day she considered him an old friend she reconnected with and enjoyed spending time with and the next day it just felt entirely different. They went from barely having any physical contact at all save for a hug in greeting to her impulsively kissing him- an act which left her mortified and stammering, heading for the door with her cheeks burning before he grabbed her wrist and kissed her himself. Their relationship was strangely organic, came about without any real effort on either of their parts. It seemed somehow so much easier than she could have ever imagined though truthfully she never expected to be dating Noah again.
For the first couple of weeks she didn't say anything to Kurt about her relationship with Noah despite her and Kurt's practically biweekly get together to discuss their lives and how things were going for them. But when she finally decided to tell him the truth Kurt didn't seem very surprised. He didn't seem surprised at all, in all honesty. He simply arched both of his eyebrows, his head cocking slightly to the side, a sort of sage smile spreading across his face as though he had been waiting for her to tell him something like that which in all honesty flabbergasted her.
The fact was that Finn, however, was none the wiser until he came out to Kurt's apartment for the party that was being thrown with Blaine. At first when she walked in with Noah and Finn saw them he didn't seem to think much of it. Obviously she and Noah had known each other for quite some time and perhaps he assumed that they had simply run into each other and decided to walk in together. She couldn't blame him if that was what he assumed because it would have been a logical assumption. But then she met his eyes from across the crowded living room and Noah slipped his arm around her shoulders, sort of hugged her against his side and Finn's face changed. The tension in his features was undeniable.
Rachel did her best to steer clear of Finn and any possible questions he might throw at her which was no small task as Kurt's apartment wasn't all that big. But somehow she managed to avoid him, to keep Noah with her long enough so that Finn couldn't say anything to him. While she hoped they had all matured enough not to have petty fighting at a friend's birthday party she remembered that when the two of them fought it tended to get physical and that wasn't something she wanted to happen and ruin Blaine's party.
It wasn't until more than halfway through the night that she had lost track of Noah somehow in the throng of people and was looking for him that she actually got to hear Finn's voice. He was standing just inside the kitchen with Kurt and from the small opening in the doorway Rachel could see him, leaning against one of the counters, his long legs stretched out in front of him, ankles crossed, a beer bottle between his fingers.
"She's just trying to act like she's moving on," he declared as he looked over at his stepbrother who Rachel could only see the back of as he moved around in the kitchen. "It's Puck. No one dates Puck and means it. He's just not that guy."
Something inside of her ached at those words, something she couldn't quite explain but also guilt. Because she was just as guilty as most girls of using Noah in a way. Neither of them really wanted to be with each other sophomore year, they both wanted someone else, but he tried, at least. She was too busy pining over Finn to give him a real chance. And then, of course, she had run to him any time she needed to make Finn jealous junior year, used him like he was there just for her amusement. She hadn't really been fair to him back then. But she was a kid. She was a kid then and things were different now.
"I wouldn't be so sure," Kurt hummed with a barely perceivable shake of his head. "Rachel seems quite happy with Puckerman. It doesn't seem, to me at least, that she's using him for anything. She seems to genuinely enjoy being with him."
"But she loves me."
"She did love you," Kurt corrected, turning his full attention on his stepbrother. "Finn, you're my family, and I love you, but the fact is that she broke up with you. She's moving on. And the last time I checked girls don't often breakup with the man they agreed to marry at seventeen unless they honestly and truly don't feel the same way about them as they used to. That doesn't mean she doesn't care about you. It just means that she's not in love with you. It happens."
"She shouldn't be here with Puck," Finn muttered as he lifted his beer bottle up to his mouth. "She's mine. She's been mine since sophomore year. Puck knows that."
"Pretty sure Rach doesn't belong to anyone." She wasn't sure when Noah went into the kitchen through the other door but she knew his voice despite not being able to see him. She knew his voice very well. "Last time I checked you can't own a person, Hudson."
Finn swallowed his beer like he was drinking something sour. "That's not what I meant," he spat. "But she was mine first."
"Oh, so we're pulling the 'I saw her first' card," Noah drawled though his tone was quite sarcastic. She saw him come into her line of view, nodding his head with an almost passive look on his face. "Yeah, you kinda didn't see her first though. Hard for me to have spent over a year throwing slushies in her face and not see her, you know."
"Yeah, well, that's not the same," Finn argued with a roll of his eyes. "And anyway, dude, you noticed her because you were torturing her."
"And you told me you thought she was a crazy fucking stalker when you first met her. Can't say you were much better to her, buddy."
"So? She was intense. You know how she is. And anyway…I had her first."
"No," Puck argued with a shake of his head. "You kissed her first. But dude? I dated her first. You're standing here talking about her being yours but, asshole? You were dating Quinn when you kissed her-"
"Like you're one to talk about loyalty."
"- so she wasn't yours to begin with. And if this shit is about the bro-code or whatever, you know what? I dated Rach first which means you broke the bro-code when you went out with her. So you're just gonna have to deal."
"She loved me." Finn sounded like he had just said the most obvious and hurtful thing he could to his one time best friend. "I was the first guy she loved. I was the first guy she ever slept with. She agreed to marry me."
"Yeah, guess she did. But guess what? She gave the ring back. And even if she didn't? She never belonged to you. She belonged to herself. And she may have agreed to marry you when she was seventeen but she's not seventeen anymore. And last I heard? Wedding was off. So, grow up Hudson. Grow up and move on. If she wants you she'll go back to you. And if she doesn't? Well, you're gonna have to grow a pair and deal. Now, I told Hummel I'd take some of this shit out." Without so much as another word he grabbed the metal serving tray Kurt was holding out to him and towards where Rachel was standing.
She tried to duck away from the kitchen door before he could see her but she couldn't move away fast enough. To his credit though he didn't give her a weird look when he saw her. He didn't even say anything. He just leaned down and kissed her in a way that wasn't possessive but felt like she belonged to him regardless.
Her and Noah's relationship progressed pretty easily after that point. It wasn't at warp speed or anything but it certainly wasn't a slow progression either. Within a year of that party they had moved in together and despite Kurt's protests to the contrary she was positive that when word got back to Finn he had less than complimentary things to say about the whole situation. She found it increasingly hard to care about what he was saying when it came to her by that point.
The truth was that Rachel had been pretty sure that everything was going quite well with her and Noah. When they fought there were never great big blowups. They didn't try to really change each other as people; they respected each other. Things were great in her mind. Until that morning when he told her he was going into work early.
She didn't even question it. He had gone into work early once or twice before so it wasn't that bizarre. Instead when he announced he was going into work early the night before she had simply nodded. And she got herself up early that morning, made them both coffee, sat with him in the morning like they did on all the days he was going in his normal time. She kissed him goodbye and told him to have a good day just like she always did.
It wasn't until she called his job about twenty minutes later to check and see if he wanted her to be the one to pick up a birthday present to send his sister that she even got worried because the receptionist who she had spoken to a million times before got very silent when she asked to speak to Noah and after several long beats she finally said that he wasn't supposed to be in for over an hour at the least. According to her Noah wasn't supposed to be coming in early at all.
Rachel tried to think nothing of it, she really did. She tried to shrug it off but sitting on the couch with her legs curled up close to her chest, some stupid soap opera playing on the television her mind went back to that party, back to Finn's jab about how Noah wasn't one to talk to about loyalty. And in high school that wasn't too far from the truth. His feelings were always very mercurial back then. Who he had feelings for, who he wanted to be with, it seemed to change constantly.
Rachel knew that Noah wasn't the same man he was in high school but the more she thought about it the more it became obvious that there was something going on with him lately. He wasn't exactly sketchy so much as he was just acting strange with long searching looks and moments when he seemed to be in a whole different world entirely. He was definitely acting like something was going on though what it was she couldn't even try to guess. And as she thought about that she got more and more worried. And the more worried she got the more suspicious she got until she had this feeling deep down in the pit of her stomach that told her over and over again that Finn had a point and that the only logical explanation was that Noah was, in fact, cheating on her. And the very idea of that hurt more than she could have imagined.
By the time Noah gets home that night the fear and the hurt, the anxiety is so strong that Rachel can barely breathe and it only seems to get worse when he walks in with his normal smile on his face, his usual greeting. When he comes over and kisses her temple she feels sick to her stomach. "Where were you this morning?"
Noah just looks at her for a moment like she lost her mind, his eyebrows furrowed, an almost amused chuckle slipping past his lips as he moves backwards towards the refrigerator. He still has his jacket on and looks ready to bolt at any second which just makes her even more anxious. "I told you- I had to go into work early."
"I called you there. Carolyn said you weren't supposed to come into work early today."
"You checked up on me?" He sounds mad and normally that would bother her but at that moment it didn't bother her in the slightest.
"I called to see if you wanted me to pick up a gift for Sarah!" He scoffs, shakes his head disbelievingly and she wants to hit him. It's childish but she does. "Are you cheating on me?"
"What?"
"Are you cheating on me? Because if you are then you should be a man and admit it."
Rachel watches his face, which had only seemed slightly annoyed up until that point, start to shift, the annoyance growing and turning into anger, his eyes darkening with it. The muscle in his jaw ticks and if she didn't know him better she would say he was about to hit her. But she knew Noah would never do that. It wasn't the type of guy he was. For all the bad things he had ever done in his life hitting a woman wasn't one of them. And she knew it wasn't something he ever would do.
He reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls something out of it, slams it and it's his hand down onto the kitchen counter. "Fuck you, Rachel." His words sting but she doesn't let it show even as he turns and walks away, leaving a little black box sitting there on the counter. It's not until she hears the front door slam that she goes over and picks up the little box.
For several long beats she just looks down at it, rolls it in her hand like she can't decide whether or not she should look at it. But, predictably, her curiosity gets the better of her and she opens it up. There, sitting inside the box, she stares at the ring looking back at her almost mockingly.
She's not sure how long she ends up sitting on the kitchen floor crying before she pulls herself up and climbs into bed but it feels like an eternity.
Noah doesn't come to their room that night. Or the night after. And by the third night when Rachel wakes up in the middle of the night to find the other side of the bed, stumbles down the hall to see if he even came home and finds him sleeping on the couch she feels like someone punched a hole in her chest. She knows he's mad at her, so mad he probably doesn't know what to say without being cruel but it breaks her heart to have him so far away from her while still being so close.
She doesn't sleep well the rest of the night and he leaves in the morning to go to work without a single word. She finds herself later that day sitting on Kurt's couch watching something or other on the television though she's not really paying attention. Her mind is back in the kitchen, the look on his face when she accused him of cheating a permanent fixture in her mind. But she's fine, or at least she tries to be. She doesn't want to worry Kurt; she doesn't want to upset him because she's upset. And she does a good job of hiding how horrible she's feeling until the girl on television kisses her boyfriend. And then she breaks down into a sobbing mess on her best friend's couch.
To Kurt's credit he doesn't say anything until she calms down. He lets her cry until her heart is content, until she can get all of it out. She sobs until her throat hurts from the sounds she's making and then when Kurt's hand appears in front of her face with a tissue she just takes it and blows her nose, tries to dry her face off. "I'm sorry." Her voice sounds like a croak.
"Rachel, I understand you're hurting right now, but honestly, you brought this on yourself. He has every right to be mad at you."
Rachel turns her head sharply to look at him like he just said the most offensive thing in the world, her eyebrows furrowing together in frustration. "How can you say I brought this on myself?"
"Rachel, if you don't realize by now that Puck loves you then you're an idiot. He's been half in love with you since your pathetic attempt at dating sophomore year."
"Noah hasn't been in love with-"
"Oh, come on. You're a lot smarter than that so stop acting like you're not." Kurt sits back in his seat, both of his eyebrows raised, his face a mask of something akin to amusement with a dash of frustration. "I know you were too in love with Finn to realize any other man existed but let's face it- Puck treated you differently than any other girl. He didn't see you as someone to just sleep with and he went out of his way to do things for you when he didn't have to."
"You're being ridiculous," she insists. She sniffles loudly, pats at her eyes again. "If he had any feelings for me then he would have said something long ago. We both know he's normally as subtle as a brick to the head."
"But for Puck you aren't the normal, everyday girl he's used to. Don't you get it? He cared about you so much that he just wanted to see you happy even if it was with someone else. You were so in love with Finn you barely seemed to realize Puck existed, unless you needed him to do something for you or he cornered you to get your attention. Quite frankly, I think not being able to have you is part of the reason he had that…admittedly disturbing fling with your mother."
Rachel blanches feeling sick to her stomach at the mention of Noah and Shelby sleeping together. At the time, when Quinn first told her, she played it off as though it didn't bother her at all but deep down it did. It bothered her because Shelby could come back into town and run a glee club and make time to sleep with Noah but despite her claims of wanting to fix things with Rachel did nothing to do so. And it disturbed her because while she was in love with Finn she sort of felt like it was a betrayal, like Shelby took Noah away from her which she knew was ridiculous. Noah wasn't hers to begin with. But the idea of the woman who birthed her having sex with her then ex-boyfriend had sickened her. She just kept it hidden. "I don't want to talk about that."
"It's a part of your and Puck's history. You were obsessed with Finn; he wanted to be a part of his daughter's life and couldn't have you. It actually makes a great deal of sense in a twisted, demented sort of way. And, apparently Finn went to talk to Puck before you and he…well, before the play and asked for advice and when Puck thought Finn was cheating on you he was quite unhappy."
"How do you know that?"
"Finn told me. He said he didn't get why the idea upset Puck so much. As much as I love my brother he can be rather dimwitted at times." Kurt shakes his head as though Finn not getting such obvious things truly saddens him and then he heaves a dramatic sigh. "Oh well. Nothing to be done about that, I suppose."
"All that aside, Kurt, what does any of this have to do with you telling me I brought all of this on myself?"
"Rachel, Puck has been in love with you, at least partially, since sophomore year. There's no way he would risk losing you now by cheating on you. You hurt him, Rachel. You made it seem like you don't trust him. We both know his history is less than savory but he's never been anything but good to you."
"I know he has." She nods her head slightly as though she has to so Kurt can know she agrees with him. "I know he has. And I love him. I do. But the idea of him cheating on me…"
"But you know he's not," Kurt reminds her, his tone pleasant enough though she knows him well enough to know he's hitting her over the head with a proverbial mallet. "He was out buying you a ring, Rachel. A ring! Obviously he loves you. And you need to apologize to him. You need to make things right. If you don't then you two are just going to fall apart."
Rachel knows in her heart of hearts that Kurt is right. She's just not sure yet how to go about fixing things between her and Noah. She's not sure if things can be fixed. But she really hopes they can be.
She doesn't want to lose him. She loves him too much for that. If she loses him after that misunderstanding then she would never be able to forgive herself.
Rachel only decides that she should go visit Noah at work as she's leaving Kurt's apartment. She figures that if she's going to fix things she should do it as soon as she possibly could. So she gave Kurt a hug and thanked him for letting her vent, for letting her sit there and cry in his living room. Not as though Kurt would have been able to stop her. But Kurt didn't point that out. He simply hugged her back and told her he was sure everything would be fine. And she wasn't even out of his apartment building when she decided that she should go talk to Noah and try to fix things as soon as possible.
She knows how to get to the building where he works from almost every part of the city. She's gone there so many times to visit him that she could probably navigate her way there in her sleep. Everyone who works there knows her; she has had so many conversations with them about their personal lives you'd think they were lifelong friends or something. That's why the sort of pitying look the secretary gives her when she walks into the building doesn't go unnoticed which can only mean that Noah has said something to someone about what happened between them. And she's not sure why but it really and truly upsets her.
Rachel is polite, however, and keeps her annoyance in check. She simply greets her and makes her way to talk to Noah. And she finds him in one of the rooms and though she can hear that he's talking through the open door she can't hear what he's saying. But she sees him standing there with Linda. With pretty Linda with her shock of red hair and her surgically enhanced chest. Linda with her model-like face and her tall, slender figure. Linda who is over a decade his senior, not that that big of an age difference had ever been an issue from him in the past.
He's smiling at her in a way he hasn't smiled in days.
He catches Rachel's eye from over Linda's shoulder and excuses himself, makes his way out into the hall and his face changes. The joy that had been on his face is gone as though he merely wiped it away and she thinks, not for the first time, that she misses his smile. And it might be her own fault but the fact his smile is gone when he's with her makes her chest hurt.
"You need something?" His dismissive tone is a slap in the face and even though she knows- with much prodding from Kurt- that it's her fault they're in the place they are that doesn't make his tone hurt any less. If anything his apparent indifference to her and anything she may have to say stings like nothing she has ever felt before.
And the big speech she had planned in her head when she walked into the building is suddenly gone, suddenly seems pointless. It seems like to say any of the things she planned on saying would do no one any good. He's angry, that's obvious, but it's more than that. It almost seems like he's completely erased her from his heart and it makes her feel as though her own is being torn to pieces. So the speech gets locked away in a secret part of her brain which she's sure will be its final resting place. Her throat feels tight when she swallows. "I just wanted to remind you that Sarah and your mother are coming out for a visit. And since we're supposed to be celebrating Sarah's birthday we shouldn't ruin their trip by being at each other's throats. Or having the awkward silences."
"I'm not an idiot. I know to play happy for them." She knows it's not about lying to them for him. It's about wanting to wait for a better time to tell them that things are bad. His sister's birthday isn't an opportune time to say the least. They both care too much about her to drop something like that on them at that time.
Rachel simply nods, the motion jerky, her whole body feeling heavy and listless. She bites the inside of her lip to keep from crying again, mumbles a goodbye. It's not until she's halfway down the hall that she turns to look back at him, watches him talking to Linda again, his eyes smiling, his head cocking in a way that she knows oh so very well, that arrogant nature of his shining through stronger than she had seen it in a while. She takes in his stance, his expression, his body language screaming something she doesn't want to acknowledge.
The flirtation is obvious. And heartbreaking.
He does a surprisingly good job of faking happy around his mother and his sister. She's not sure if that should make her uncomfortable or not, make her wonder what else he may have faked for such a long time. He seems to be perfectly content with lying to them though, with playing the part. It's not so simple for her.
Lying to his mother is one thing. She doesn't agree with it on moral grounds but his mother is so intense that sometimes you need to lie to her for her own good. If you don't then she's just going to work herself into a tizzy. So she knows that lying to her is what's best for her in that situation. With Sarah it's different. They spent a month back in Lima over the past summer and she had spent a lot of it with Sarah. They had grown rather close, so close that Rachel felt as though she were her own sister. Lying to her is harder because over that time Sarah had gotten to know Rachel rather well. Not that she was, of course, quite good at hiding her emotions to begin with. When she felt something strong enough her face was a mask of emotion. Everyone who knew her knew that.
She knows Sarah can tell there's something wrong. She knows because on the second night as Rachel is bringing the dishes from dinner into the kitchen Sarah follows her, leans against the wall, her arms folded across her chest in the same way that Noah always did. The subtle similarity in their mannerisms is sometimes scary. Sarah asks her if there's something wrong and Rachel responds that she's just not feeling well. "Oh, I'm sure," the younger girl mumbles under her breath and Rachel can't help but wonder if the Puckerman sarcasm is genetic.
She and Noah sleep in the same room for the second time that night. Sarah is on the couch and their mother is in the spare bedroom- he insisted he hadn't been staying in there because it just felt like sleeping in his mother's room as she stays there every time she comes out. The night before they didn't speak the entire time they got ready for bed. They moved around the room as though they were in two different dimensions, avoiding contact with each other as though one of them were carrying a highly infectious disease.
Sitting on the bed watching him move around the room though she knows she has to say something. Her legs are drawn up close to her chest, her arms wrapped around her knees, her nightgown sliding up and bunching around her thighs. She feels small and weak sitting there watching him, knowing he holds her heart in his hand even if he doesn't know that he does. It feels like at any moment he could break her into a million pieces.
"Are you going to be mad at me forever?"
"Dunno." The response is so simple, so concise that it almost knocks the breath out of her. He sounds so cavalier about it that she's not sure if it's even worth the effort. But that idea only lasts for a moment because she knows deep down it is worth the effort. It's just hard to put the effort in when things seem so hopeless.
"I'm sorry I hurt you, Noah."
He turns to look at her then, his face stoic. It's impossible to read him when he blanks out his face that way even after knowing him for all that time. It's like he knows just how to hide himself from her and a part of her likes that because it means they know each other well. Another part of her hates it because she doesn't like not being able to have the vaguest idea of how he's feeling. It makes life so much more difficult.
"Yeah," he finally says though she's not sure if he's saying that he knows she's sorry or if she did, in fact, hurt him. And the question as to which it is dies in her throat when he turns off the light and climbs into the bed, his back to her. And she doesn't cry as she's falling asleep but she wants to.
The rest of his family's visit is uneventful. They dance around each other like they're at some ball doing some old-fashioned dance she doesn't know the steps to. And once they're gone he goes back to sleeping in the living room which upsets her but she can't say anything about because she knows he's still hurt.
Finn calls her a few days after their visitors leave and she almost asks how he knew that they were having problems but she knows Kurt must have mentioned it in passing. He probably didn't even think about it when he did it so she can't even bring herself to be mad at him.
At first Finn seems supportive and seems as though he just wants to make sure she's alright which she appreciates given how she's feeling but when it becomes obvious that he's simply calling her to casually gloat about knowing that her and Noah's relationship wasn't going to last she hangs up on him without feeling the slightest bit of remorse.
It rains for nearly a week after that, like the world knows how upset she is and keeps a constant drizzle falling over New York City, bathing the whole place in gray, dim light and a damp, musty feeling that's impossible to shake even when you're inside. The bedroom is lonely at night watching the rain hit the windowpanes and listening to the sound of it falling. She's used to snuggling up close to him and resting her head on his chest at times like that but there's no comfort to be found in her far too empty bed. Only loneliness and desolation.
She's awoken in the middle of the night one night by the sound of screaming she barely registers as her own and by two hands shaking her as though trying to snap her out of some reverie she has found herself lost in. it takes a handful of seconds for her eyes to focus in the dark and a few seconds longer for her to realize the hands on her arms and the face in front of hers is belong to Noah. Noah who is looking at her with wide eyes and furrowed eyebrows, a juxtaposition that isn't lost on her because he simultaneously looks confused and sort of annoyed. It's lovely to know she can still get to him in some way despite everything that's happening in their relationship.
"You were screaming like someone was stabbing you to death." He tries to come off sounding purely annoyed but the concern seeps through at the edges of his words despite the fact that he tries to hide he feels any concern at all.
"Bad dream." She can't even remember what the dream was about. All she can remember is the terror and the sadness that came with it, the way she wanted to sob until her chest felt like it might cave in.
"Right." His eyes search her face like he's trying to be sure that she's not going to freak out when he leaves but when he seems to decide she's fine his hands fall away from her arms and he starts to climb off of the spot on the edge of the bed he had sat down on to shake her.
"Noah." It's a gut reaction to reach out and grab onto his arms, her finger closing over his bare skin as though she could truly hold him back if he desperately wanted to leave. She's all too aware that she couldn't but to his credit he doesn't try to pull himself out of her grasp. He merely settles back down and looks at her like she's lost her mind for her impulsively grabbing at him like that. But she couldn't stop herself anymore if she tired.
Her hands go off of his arms and she moves so she's sitting up on her knees, her hands going to either side of his face. "Noah, just stop. Stop being so mad at me. Stop sleeping in the living room every night. Just stop. I said I was sorry. I'll say it again: I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"Yeah." That word makes her want to scream because it means nothing and everything all rolled up into one. It tells her nothing other than that he heard her and she needs more than that. And she knows he knows that so she can't help but feel bitter that he won't give her more.
She moves closer to him, moves so she can rest her forehead against his. "I love you," she whispers to him. "Don't you understand that? I love you and I'm so sorry. I was just…I was so scared…"
"Scared?" He sounds incredulous. "Scared of what?"
"Losing you," she breathes out. "You lied to me, Noah. You lied to me and I didn't know what to do. I was so freaked out. I panicked and the only explanation I could think of was the worst. I didn't even want to think it but I couldn't help it. You lied to me and all I could think was that you were going to break my heart, that you were cheating on me, that I lost you. I couldn't help it. I was so, so scared of losing you I felt like it was happening."
His jaw ticks and she knows she said something that upset him. She's even more sure of it when he reaches up and wraps his hands around hers, moves them away from his face. "I've never fucking cheated on you, Rachel. I'm would never cheat on you. I'm a fuck up and I've done some really fucking shitty things in my life. But that's not one of them."
"You were flirting with Linda when I came by to see you."
"I wasn't flirting until you were leaving. I wanted to piss you the fuck off. I wanted to hurt you the way you hurt me." It doesn't make her feel better but it doesn't make her feel worse. She supposes she might have deserved that. And she's just glad he didn't do anything more than that. If he had she was sure he would tell her since things were already so bad between them.
She pulls her hands out of his and presses her palms back against his face. "I never meant to hurt you, Noah. But you lied to me and you've never lied to me before. And I was so scared and hurt and I panicked and I instantly thought the worst. And it was stupid but the idea of losing you hurt me so badly that I just panicked. I panicked and I thought the worst because I couldn't even begin to fathom you wanting to actually be with me. And I know it's stupid for me to be so insecure but-"
"Shut up."
She blinks at him, her mouth opening and closing like a fish. "Noah…I…"
"No, seriously, Rach. Shut up."
Her eyebrows start to furrow in frustration and she opens her mouth again to give him a piece of her mind for telling her to shut up but before the words can get out of her his mouth presses against hers. It's not overly sweet, it's not romantic. It's more like he's trying to shut her up but also like he's trying to tell her something that he can't figure out how to say with words.
She's not about to object though because it's been so long since she's kissed him and so long since she felt anything except anger coming from him that the contact is like morphine. It soothes the pain, it cures the itch and she sort of melts into it, responds to it mindlessly like she's a puppet and he's pulling her strings.
It's raining so heavy outside that it sounds like pebbles slamming against the windows but she can barely hear it over the pounding of her heart in her ears. His arms go around her, pulls her body closer to his and without any prompting she climbs into his lap, her hands still pressed against his face like she's holding onto him for dear life.
She doesn't even realize it when she starts moving her hips against him, not until she feels him hardening beneath her. The clothes go very quickly after that and she's not quite sure who removes what only that it seems like in the blink of an eye they're both naked and his hands are on her hips while she's in his lap, guiding her up and down on top of him. And for a while her world is filled with heavy breathing and moans and groans and the feeling of sweat coating her skin in the cool spring air.
They sort of collapse onto the bed when it's all over, their legs entwined, both of their chests heaving, the room so dark they can scarcely see each other. She knows that it doesn't mean everything is perfect between them but it feels like it's at least a start to being all right. And when she falls asleep it doesn't feel like a chore for the first time since the fight in the kitchen.
She's awake when he wakes up in the morning. She's sitting on the bed wearing nothing but one of his t-shirts- it sits on her almost like a dress. She found the box that morning and she's rolling it around in her hands as he watches her, rubs the sleep out of his eyes. He doesn't say anything as he rolls over onto his back; she doesn't look at him. "You can probably return it and get your money back." She's not even sure why she says it. The words hurt her to speak but she knows they're true.
"Probably." His voice is scratchy from sleep and while he doesn't look completely awake yet she knows he's more alert than he appears to be. He can be pretty deceiving that way.
"Do you want to?"
"Come here." He pats his stomach and watches her for several beats like he could just wait forever for her to move. Maybe he could. She's not sure. But in the end she moves so she's straddling his stomach, her hands resting just above where she's settled, the box still clutched in one of them. And when his hands go to her thighs she knows it's not sexual. It's just a way to keep her there.
"So?" she prompts. "Do you?"
"I love you." It's not the first time he's said it but he doesn't say it all that often so each time feels like the first time. But it's not an answer and they both know it. Her eyebrows come together in a sort of frown which just makes him heave a heavy sigh and squeeze down on her thighs. "I mean it, Rach. I love you."
"Yeah…I love you, too."
She sounds less than enthusiastic but he doesn't comment on it. Instead he reaches up and takes the box out of her hand, looks at it for several long beats. "Took me two months to actually decide to buy this thing."
"I'm sorry." She's not sure why she's apologizing. It just feels like the right thing to say.
"We got two options here. I could return the ring and get my money back and be done with it. Or you can start wearing it and that'll be that."
"What do you mean?"
"You're a real pain in the ass sometimes. And sometimes your insecurities are a fucking bitch. And you pissed me off big time thinking I was fucking around behind your back. But some of your crazy must have rubbed off on me 'cause truth is? Just can't imagine life without ya. So, what do ya say, Rach? You wanna get hitched?"
Rachel blinks at him like he just grew an extra head. "Are you serious?"
"No, I'm just fucking with you. Yeah, I'm serious." The hand still on her thigh squeezes down a little. "This is about the time you give me an answer, y'know."
For what feels like forever she just looks down at him like she's trying to find a joke in his words but when she finds none? Yeah, she smiles like an idiot, leans down and presses her mouth against his, kisses him like her life depends on it, kisses him until they're both panting.
"Guess that means I gotta return the ring," he breathes out.
Her eyes narrow into a half-hearted glare and she snatches the box out of his hand, sits back up. "Don't even think about it, Noah Puckerman. You're stuck with me now."
"Yeah? For how long?"
Her eyes skip to the box in her hand and back down to his face. "Forever sounds about good," she decides with a casual shrug of her shoulders.
"That a promise or a threat?"
"Consider it both."
His hands move to her arms and he tugs her down closer to his face, brushes a ghost of a kiss across her mouth. "I'll hold you to that. Now, you gotta take my shirt off."
"What? Why?"
"Because we have some celebrating to do."
And for the first time in what feels like forever she laughs.