A.N. Thank you to everyone who reviewed or added this story to alerts/favorites. I'm so flattered and thrilled. I'm going to try to update this once a week, and I'm going to try to keep everyone in character to the best of my ability. If anyone has opinions on characters they'd like to see featured or directions to take the story, let me know. In this chapter, I refer back to what happened sophomore year with the baby and how that situation affected the glee club. So this is more dramatic than the first chapter, but I didn't feel like I could continue much without referring to my version of the events leading up to the start of Chapter 1. That won't be the focus in the future because my point of writing this story is to explain how Puck and Rachel get into a relationship and what happens when everyone finds out about them. This time we learn a bit about what is going on with Quinn and Finn, but I try to keep the focus on how this affects Rachel and Puck.

Disclaimer: I do not own Glee or any songs.

Start of School, Junior Year

If the first meeting of glee club could be summed up in one word, it would be "awkward". To the amazement of the five original members of New Directions, the football players and Cheerios started filtering into the music room. Everyone was quiet, looking around the room and assessing the situation. As Mr. Schuester entered the room, the only former glee club member missing was Quinn Fabray.

Finn glares at Puck, but sits next to him. Finn is furious and never expected that Puck would have the stones to come back to glee club, his club. It was like his former best friend was trying to ruin his life. Finn knew why he came back for another year of glee. In part, he's there because Mr. Schue has been so nice to him, almost like a father figure, and he knows Mr. Schue could use some support. Finn didn't have time to dwell on it, but he was sure that Mr. Schue must have had a hard time learning that his wife had faked a pregnancy and had plotted to take Quinn's baby. Finn also felt a strong compulsion to be near Rachel, and staying in glee club was the best way he figured he could do that.

"What are you doing here?" Finn whispers loudly through clenched teeth.

"Dude, chill." Puck replies without answering the question.

"No, I will not chill!" Finn's voice gets louder. "Why are you here? Quinn's not even here!" Finn knew by now that Puck had originally joined glee club because of Quinn and her baby. He assumed that he wouldn't be able to avoid seeing Puck in school and in football, but he thought that at least glee club could be his safe haven where he could just try to be happy and try to see if he could move forward with Rachel.

"Nobody wants you here!" Finn was standing and gesturing wildly.

Puck stood up in response. Everyone was looking at the two boys. Mr. Schue was heading up the risers as he saw Puck rise from his chair. Before Puck had a chance to say or do anything, Mr. Schue was there between them, a hand on each of their chests.

"You two are best friends. I know a lot has happened, but please, try to get along here." Will pleaded. "Otherwise, I'll have to cut you both." He threatened.

Everyone knew Mr. Schue meant that he'd kick them out of glee, but a few people giggled at the resemblance of Mr. Schue's words to Mercedes' common threat "I will cut you".

Finn nodded, followed by Puck, but they both moved to new seats so they didn't have to sit side by side.

"Ok…now I know that it may take us a while to get on track again," Will started. "But the first thing on our agenda is recruiting new members. So, we are going to prepare a number to perform at the next school assembly, which also happens to be the pep rally for the upcoming football game."

Santana raises her hand. "But we have to wear our uniforms on game day, and the Cheerios will be performing of course. There's no way we can change into glee costumes too."

"That's true, Santana," said Will. "The Cheerios and football players will wear their sports attire, and the rest of the glee club members will wear their costumes. This will help emphasize the diversity of the students in New Directions." Will was pleased with himself, since having football players and Cheerios featured in the performance would be sure to encourage lots of kids to audition.

The jocks nodded at this plan. The gleeks all had similar reactions, their jaws dropping to show they were offended by what the statement implied. But they were mostly resigned to their status.

"Mr. Schue, you were obviously an athlete in high school," Kurt piped up. "What sport did you play? Soccer?"

Will replies, surprised, "Yes, Kurt, I did play soccer in high school. Good guess."

"It figures, too many balls to the head," Kurt mutters under his breath. Mercedes overhears and laughs, but Mr. Schue continues oblivious to Kurt's jibe.

"Why'd you guess soccer, Kurt?" Mercedes whispers.

"Well, his body looks like an athlete with endurance," Kurt starts, almost wistfully. "I thought of soccer and track, but track doesn't explain why Mr. Schue acts so clueless sometimes. Balls to the head while playing soccer may be the answer." Kurt finished, shaking his head at their choir director.

"You may be on to something," Mercedes agrees. Then they both decide they better listen to what Mr. Schue has been saying.

"Well, guys, we're going to perform 'Somebody to Love', but instead of keeping the arrangement we used for the Invitational last year, we'll be adding some additional soloists, which will change up the choreography just a little. I think that will be a good way to show that everyone can get a little piece of the spotlight, and it will be easier than preparing a new number by Friday. "

"So, you don't think that's false advertising, Mr. Schue?" asks Artie. "I mean, I agree that this is much more logical than learning a new number in a few days, but maybe it would be more realistic if we show that in any given song only a few people will be given a solo…" Everyone had noticed that Rachel and Finn got the majority of the solos. Occasionally solos were assigned to others, like Mercedes and Artie.

Mr. Schue protested and said that this year they might be shaking things up a bit and they could really use more members so they could compete against Vocal Adrenaline and other large show choirs in the upcoming competitions. The rest of period was spent dividing the verses into solo and ensemble parts, and adjusting the positions of each member to fit their solos and make up for Quinn's absence in the choreography.

Rachel felt relieved because this first glee club meeting could have gone much worse. She had been very worried about how everyone would interact, and she wasn't sure who would continue in glee and who would drop out of the club. Rachel decided that she could do this, and maybe she could even imagine that the events of last year hadn't really affected them as a group. She was also able to use the rehearsal time to sneak a peek at Puck's hand. He wasn't wearing a wedding ring. Rachel knew that he and Quinn were going to try to raise the baby together and that they would probably then get married, even though they were so young. She also learned through the rumor mill that before school started, Quinn and Puck had let a couple adopt their daughter. She didn't know the details. Rachel was concerned about them all: Finn, Puck, and Quinn.

When the truth came out that Puck was the father of Quinn's baby, everything changed. Rachel tried to stay out of it. Finn was angry, hurt, and humiliated. Quinn was ashamed and scared. Puck seemed relieved, defeated, and sad. Finn was the obvious victim, and Rachel did her best to be there as his friend and to comfort him. Quinn had seen some good in Puck, and since her parents basically disowned her and Finn had broken up with her, she desperately needed Puck and his help with the medical bills. They had tried to be together for the sake of the baby. While Puck and Quinn were getting closer, Finn seemed desperate to be with Rachel at the end of sophomore year. Rachel and Finn started with friendship and were trying to edge into romance without being to hurtful to others around them. She and Finn had tried to date and be romantic, but that lasted about a week. This seemed like what Rachel had always wanted, but given the situation, things just weren't right. Rachel wasn't comfortable and she convinced Finn that it would be better if they remained friends, at least for a while, so that Finn could be sure that he was over Quinn.

And luckily for Rachel, she was able to leave for the summer to go to show choir camp, which further cemented her friendship-only arrangement with Finn. She still thought about Puck and Quinn, two scared teenagers trying to raise a baby. She felt terrible for them, in spite of the fact that they were responsible for their actions that resulted in the baby. Her heart had gone out to Puck when she learned that Quinn had turned down his initial attempts to be responsible. Something about that knowledge made Rachel swoon inside. It helped that her heart had already started to soften toward Puck before the end of sophomore year.

Rachel had seen Noah Puckerman's good side for the few days they dated, but she felt that ending their relationship was for the best since she was hung up on Finn and he seemed to love Quinn. But what really softened Rachel's heart was what he had written in her yearbook last year. Yearbooks had arrived at the end of May, just before Quinn had her baby. Everyone was exchanging books in glee club for signatures. Toward the end of the period, Rachel looked around anxiously because she hadn't received her yearbook back. She briefly worried that someone was defacing her book, and this feeling intensified when her eyes settled on Puck and realized that he was the one with her yearbook. But she could tell he was writing intently, not flipping through pages to write obscenities and draw pornographic pictures, so she settled down and waited as patiently as Rachel Berry could. A few minutes before the bell rang, Rachel sat beside Puck, waiting for him to finish and trying to get a peek at what he could be taking so long to write. When the bell rang, he seemed startled. Then he signed his name, handed the yearbook to Rachel, and walked out of the room. Rachel was curious, but she had to get to her next class, so she put the yearbook away for later. When she finally had the chance to read her signatures, she was shocked. The entry from Puck was written in his messy scrawl, but despite his small printing, he had taken up about a quarter of a page. The next thing she noticed is that the entry started with "Rachel", not "Berry", or "Man-hands", but her first name; and he had signed it "Noah Puckerman". But it wasn't until she read what he wrote that Rachel felt her heart flutter. It wasn't rude, crude, flirtatious, just heartfelt. He wrote about how much potential she had for stardom and how he wished he had just a tiny bit of the potential that she had. Rachel was so moved by his words. She couldn't even remember exactly what she had written in his yearbook. It was something trite about him being a good performer and how she was glad she had gotten to know him in glee. She had written similar things to everyone else in glee, she realized bitterly. And if Noah had read what she wrote in anyone else's yearbook, he would realize that too. Rachel felt terrible and nearly cried at the thought. She never had a chance to thank Noah for his kind comments, but she had taken the yearbook with her to show choir camp, and she would re-read what he wrote to her whenever she needed a pick-me-up.

Rachel had tried to think of Finn and Puck as little as possible during her summer at camp—but that meant she thought about them all the time. Somehow over the summer, Rachel built up an idea of Noah Puckerman in her mind of a sensitive thoughtful boy inside the body of a bully. Every school needed an obligatory sexy bad-boy, and that was Puck. But she thought that inside Puck was the real Noah, who didn't want to be stuck in Lima, who wanted to be responsible, who wanted to be somebody. Rachel would remember how sincere Noah had seemed about wanting to show her that he could be with her when they had dated, and how he needed to hear that she was proud of him and his "Sweet Caroline" solo. And she couldn't help but think of how charming he was during that song, and how hot their makeout session had been before she ended it. Rachel knew she was an idiot. Throughout the summer, she had worked herself into a tizzy over Noah Puckerman. She knew it was inappropriate since Noah was with Quinn and their daughter, so she tried to squash her feelings and start fresh her junior year. Then, when she had learned things hadn't worked out between Quinn and Noah, and that Noah was going to stay in glee club, she momentarily forgot her vow to try to focus on friendships and not romantic relationships. But Rachel really wanted to be friends with Finn and Noah, just friends.

Rachel didn't know that Puck's summer was anything but wooing housewives with his shirtless pool cleaning business. Well, ok, it was a little bit of that, without the actual sex. Puck needed money for Quinn and his daughter, so he took all of the pool cleaning jobs he could get. He also did landscaping, home repair, and construction, whenever he could find such work. He was actually making a fair amount of money, but he had to work a lot of hours. That left Quinn mostly alone to raise their daughter. Quinn's parents kicked her out of their house when she decided that she wanted to try to keep her baby, and it didn't help that it was Puck, not Finn, who was the father. She moved into the guest room at the Puckerman's, which they converted into the nursery. The two of them really tried to make things work. Puck thought he loved Quinn and he knew he loved their unborn daughter. Quinn had changed a lot, she was more humble, but she was also depressed. When the baby was born, life became 1,000 times harder. Puck's mom worked long hours as a nurse, so she couldn't be around much to help Quinn. Puck had to work long hours to support them and pay the medical bills. Puck's little sister stayed with friends during the day for most of the summer, but Quinn's baby was too young for any babysitters or daycares to accept her. Puck and Quinn had mutually decided that they would take care of their daughter together and at the end of the summer they would decide if they would continue to do so or seek adoption options. Within the first six weeks, it was clear that they both loved little Diana Isabel, but they were both struggling to keep up with the demands of being young parents. Quinn would usually sleep in Puck's room after she put the baby to bed, so that they could both sleep without fear of waking her up. Both of them (especially Quinn) were too exhausted to think about doing anything besides sleep when they slept together.

Puck remembered the days leading up to their decision to find a couple to adopt Diana. He and Quinn were sleeping when Diana started crying from the nursery. Puck shook Quinn to wake her.

"Can't you take her?" Quinn murmured sleepily.

"You're the one with the boobs. She's probably hungry." Puck grumbled.

"Fine, but can you just get up and bring her in here?" Quinn asked in a way that told Puck he shouldn't argue. Puck did as he was asked, and Quinn began nursing baby Dizzy. Puck looked at Quinn's bared breast appreciatively. Quinn smiled and rolled her eyes. "It's nothing you haven't seen before."

"Doesn't mean I can't enjoy the view," he said warmly. And he felt warm, happy even. Puck didn't think that he and Quinn were in love like you see in the movies, but he could picture himself with this life. He thought school was for suckers, so he welcomed the idea of continuing to work full time instead of returning to school in the fall. Then maybe they could afford to pay someone to watch their daughter while Quinn went back to high school. He knew she didn't want to be a stay-at-home mom, and that was fine with him. But his vision of the future was not to be.

"Puck," Quinn started softly, her eyes filling with tears, "I don't think I can keep this up…"

He knew where she was going with this because they'd been having these conversations since the beginning. This time though, Quinn won. He couldn't force her to want to be a mom, to be happy in this situation. So the next day they started the process of finding the right couple to adopt their daughter. Quinn wanted a closed adoption because she said it would be too hard unless she had a clean break. But she compromised with Puck since he wanted an open adoption with the option to remain in contact with their daughter. Quinn didn't have to participate if she didn't want to, he told her.

The fall was here, Puck's daughter was gone, and he and Quinn couldn't bear to see each other. It hurt too much. Quinn's parents took her back in once she had removed the parts of her life that had so offended them; namely, baby Diana and Noah Puckerman. So Puck tried to reclaim his bad boy existence and return to life as normally as he could. He had decided to try to stay in glee club for two and a half reasons. First, Finn had been his best friend, and he wanted to try to make things right. He knew that they had named their daughter Diana Isabel and called her "Dizzy" because it was as close as Quinn would come to calling her "Drizzle". He knew that Quinn still had a spot in her heart for Finn, and maybe Finn could forgive Quinn someday. And maybe Puck could get Finn to really forgive him too, so he could have his friend back. The second reason Puck returned to glee club was because singing and memorizing choreography seemed like a good way to occupy his thoughts to keep his mind off of the wreck he's made of his life. And the half of a reason Puck returned to glee was for Rachel Berry. It was ridiculous, which was why he considered it very low on his list. But he admired her determination and her unwavering belief that she was going to be star. Puck figured it wouldn't hurt him if some of that attitude could rub off on him. She also seemed to be the only person in school besides Quinn who could stand him after the news broke that he was the "baby daddy".

So now here he was in the music room, Finn glaring at him from time to time, the others whispering to each other, and Rachel giving him a sad smile as they worked on the new choreography which involved Rachel standing between Puck and Finn for the end of "Somebody to Love". Puck wasn't sure if this was a good idea after all.

A.N. The next chapter will tell how Rachel and Puck go from the beginning of school to being in a secret relationship by November (where Chapter 1 opened). I'm sorry I couldn't fit that into this chapter, but I felt like I needed to get this background information about the situation with the baby out of the way. After Rachel and Puck get together, the future chapters will reveal how their relationship goes public and the fallout.