Disclaimer: Glee and its characters belong to Ryan Murphy and Fox Network. I am neither, hence the disclaimer.

Noah stood at the island in his kitchen mixing ingredients while he flipped through the pages of "The Great Gatsby". He may have had the reputation of being a total badass, but Noah Puckerman was no dummy. While Math and History bored him to tears, English was possibly his favorite subject. Sure, he didn't always speak the way he could given his love of reading and extensive vocabulary, but that didn't mean he didn't appreciate the art of the words on the page of a good book. He was lost in thoughts of Daisy Buchanan and didn't hear his younger sister come down the stairs.

"Noaaaahh!!" Anna yelled from her spot at the foot of the stairs, a mere 10 feet away. "I need help with my homework!"

"I'm busy right now, Sport." Noah replied, turning to see Anna holding a math book. 'Oh, great. She needs help with math. Kill me now.' "When I'm done in here I'll help you, kay?"

"Okay." Anna turned to retreat to her bedroom when she saw ingredients for cake scattered across the kitchen island. "What did you do?"

Puck looked at his sister incredulously. Seriously, couldn't a guy just bake a cake out of the goodness of his heart? "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You only bake when you're about to tell mom really bad news." Anna stated matter-of-factly. "So what did you do?"

"I didn't do anything!" Puck replied, trying his hardest to avoid the pointed look his sister was giving him. For an eight-year-old, Anna was pretty observant about these things. "Ok, maybe I did do something, but you can NOT tell Mom, do you hear me?"

"We are officially in the Cone of Silence, Noah." She climbed into a stool at the counter and rested her elbows on the tile, propping her chin in her hands. "Spill."

"I made a girl cry." Noah blurted out. He had meant to start off with the fact that this girl ruined his life, but that would mean explaining to her what she had done to ruin his life which would eventually lead to him telling her about the baby and he was definitely not ready to have a Birds and the Bees talk with his baby sister. "And she's Jewish. And I feel like complete shit-"

"Curse!" Anna shrieked, swatting her brother on the arm for good measure.

"CRAP. I feel like complete crap about it." Noah corrected himself, rolling his eyes as Anna stuck her tongue out at him through the gap where her front teeth used to be. "So I'm making her a cake to apologize."

"Is it that Rachel girl?" Anna questioned innocently.

"What? No. What makes you say that?" Noah said, stumbling over the words as they came out.

"Because you have star-shaped sprinkles, and when I asked you who put the star sticker on the back of your guitar, you said it was Rachel." Anna shrugged. Her brother could be so dense sometimes. "And you said the only reason you let her do it is because she was a hot Jew. It doesn't take a genius to figure it out, Noah."

Noah said nothing, because he knew that at eight there was no way he would have been able to put two and two together so fast. Why did she need his help with math again?

"Ok, fine. It's for Rachel. But I swear, Anna, if you tell Mom about this she will have a freakin' cow that I made a nice Jewish girl cry. And you know Mom. I'm already gonna have to deal with Berry's crazy tonight, I don't hers too."

"How did you make her cry?"

"Because she's a chick with no friends and I'm the only person in Glee who felt the need to point that out to her." Puck could feel his cheeks flush from embarrassment. Sure, he had been pissed at the time, but that was no excuse whatsoever for him to say what he said to Rachel, and as long as the thought stayed in his head, he would even admit that he was ashamed of himself for it.

"Maybe you should be her friend, Noah. It can't be very fun to not have friends." Anna patted his shoulder and disappeared up the stairs into her bedroom to finish her Language Arts homework before having to ask Noah for help with Math.


Three hours and two pages of fractions ("I get to take fourth grade math because I'm super smart, Noah!") later, Puck had finished decorating the cake and was frying hamburger to make spaghetti sauce for dinner. After pouring the meat into the pot of tomato sauce, he looked to the counter to admire his handiwork. The cake (which was lemon because during their week of dating, Rachel had found it simply amazing that they both preferred lemon cake to chocolate) was covered completely in hot pink icing and little yellow star sprinkles. On the top were the words "I'm Sorry", written in purple. Being the undercover literature buff that he was, he wanted something to symbolize her love of grape slushies. She was always speaking nonsense about metaphors; well this cake was the closest thing to a tangible metaphor that she would get from Noah "Puck" Puckerman.

Returning to the task at hand, he stirred the sauce while mixing in the packet of spaghetti sauce seasoning he had lying on the back of the stove. Knowing that Anna hated when he mixed the sauce with the noodles, he declared dinner ready and shouted up the stairs for his sister. Reaching into the cabinets he pulled out two plates; a plain glass plate for himself, and a plastic seahorse plate for Anna. He cut a slice of French bread and scooped some noodles onto each plate before adding sauce to his own.

"Anna!" Noah shouted, not looking up from his plate. "Did you hear me? I said-"

"I heard you the first time!" Anna shouted back, stifling a giggle when he brother jumped slightly. "Noah, the cake is… pink." She crinkled her nose is disgust, as if even seeing the color made her sick to her stomach.

"Yeah, well that's her favorite color, so…"

"Awwwwwe!" Anna squealed. "You like her!"

"Fuck no, I don't!"

"Curse! Curse! Noah said a curse!"

"Whatever." He grumbled, snatching the ladle from the sauce pot, pouring some onto Anna's plate and mixing it with the noodles. "Eat."

"You mixed my food!!!!" The young girl shrieked, causing Noah to cover his ears. "I hate you! I hate you! I HATE YOU!!!"

"Whatever." Puck grabbed his plate and headed to the living room and grabbed a TV tray, turning on "How I Met Your Mother" before tuning out his sister as she stormed upstairs with her plate in her hand. The last thing her heard before starting on his own food was her door slamming. "Thank fuck." He muttered under his breath. He loved Anna, sure, but she could be more dramatic than Berry sometimes, and everyone was entitled to want to strangle anyone that crazy from time to time.


After dropping Anna off with the next door neighbors, Noah went back into his house to grab the box he had put the cake into the deliver it to Rachel. He placed the box into the passenger seat of his Camaro. It was old, and rusty, and a total work-in-progress, but he had saved for an entire year in order to pay $500 for it at the junk yard, and another $500 over the next six months to get in up and running. This was his baby. 'Until Quinn pops out the kid, anyway…' he thought, sadly at first, but he was determined to make her see that he wanted his daughter. "One step at a time." He told himself as he climbed into the driver's seat and drove almost on auto-pilot to Rachel's house, nothing to three cars in the driveway; her dad's Prius, daddy's Lexus and Rachel's Ford Focus. "Well shit, now I have to apologize to her in front of them. Fuck me…"

He sat in his car for a few minutes, trying to figure out what exactly he would say to her. He had never said the words "I'm sorry" to anyone in his life, save for his mother and the time he apologized for slushies past when he and Rachel were alone in the bathroom. Keyword there being "alone." If her dads weren't home, he would just hand her the cake and leave, but there was no way he was going to humiliate her in front of the two men who believed everything was fine and that she actually had friends. 'Man up, Puckerman. It's just Berry. All you gotta do is give her the cake, say you're sorry and leave. Maybe you won't even have to see her dads.' Too late.

"Can I help you, son?" Josiah Berry, Rachel's dad, asked from the passenger window and Noah immediately regretted driving with the windows down in the first place.

"Um, yes sir. My name's P-Noah Puckerman." He figured her fathers might not take too kindly with Rachel talking to a boy who went by 'Puck'. "I'm a… friend of Rachel's. Is she home?"

"Come on inside, we were just about to sit down for dinner. Join us!" Josiah said, ecstatic to finally meet one of Rachel's friends. "Rachel's told us a lot about you!"

"She has?" Noah asked, completely confused, as he grabbed the cake and got out of the car. "Like what kinda stuff has she told you?"

"Nothing bad, I promise." Josiah said, smiling and the baffled look on Noah's face. "Josiah Berry, Rachel's dad. I'm such a horrible host, not introducing myself like that. My sincerest apologies!"

"Nice to meet you, sir." Noah said, extending his hand to offer a handshake.

"Please," Josiah said, taking Noah's hand in his own. "Call me Joe."

Noah nodded as they reached the front door of the Berry household. He had been here three times in the week that he'd dated Rachel, but had never seen any part of it but her bedroom. It was much bigger than his own, and once inside he could see why Rachel was as uptight as she was. His house was always clean, but this one was the definition of spotless. Not a single paper was out of place on the desk in the office that they passed, not DVD cases stacked on the TV set, no coats thrown over the back of the couch. Noah decided instantly that if he lived in a house this clean, he would commit suicide after 24 hours.

"Rachel, dinner time!" Josiah called up the stairs to his daughter. "What's that you have there, Noah?" he asked, as if noticing the box in the boy's hands for the first time.

"Oh, just something for Rachel…" he replied, hoping that her father would get the hint and not pry anymore. Thankfully Rachel had a pretty observant dad because he didn't ask any questions after that.

"What are we having tonight, Dad?" Rachel asked as she descended the stairs. "Noah?" she asked in disbelief. Her eyes had to be deceiving her; there was simply no way that Noah Puckerman was in her house conversing with her father at the foot of the stairs. "What are you doing here?"

Seeing the uncomfortable look on the young man's face, Josiah excused himself and headed into the kitchen to make a place for Noah at the table.

"Well?" Rachel said, putting her hands on her hips impatiently. She was kind of cute when she was irritated, Noah decided, before the thought was pushed away with the reminded that he had caused the irritation.

"I just… Well… I wanted to…" he slowly looked up to meet her eyes. The hurt that had been there the day before was replaced with pure anger now. Shit. "Here." He said, handing her the box and stuffing his hands into his pockets, waiting for her to open it.

She looked at him curiously before slowly lifting the lid, as if any sudden movements could cause it to explode like a bomb. When she had lifted enough to see what was inside she caught his eye again, questions swimming through her mind. She pulled the lid back all the way to reveal a pink cake. She no longer looked angry and Noah let out a breath he hadn't been aware he'd been holding until then.

"It's lemon." He said, which was rewarded with a mega-watt smile that definitely wasn't one of her fake ones.

"I accept your apology, Noah."

"Just so we're clear, Berry: this doesn't mean we're friends now." He didn't say it in a harsh tone like he had before, and that gave Rachel hope. She nodded her understanding, her smile never faltering. "Right, well… I have to get home before my mom, so I guess I'll see you at school tomorrow."

"Goodnight, Noah."

"Goodnight, Berry."

Noah turned and headed for the door, looking over his shoulder once to see Rachel smiling at her pink cake. He had gotten her to forgive him and still not hound him about being friends? He was so the man.

OK guys, I appreciate all the alerts and favorites and ESPECIALLY reviews the first chapter go so here is chapter two! I got 9 reviews, and 37 alerts. That's a LOT of alerts!! Come on guys, you can tell me what you think good or bad! I'm working on the next chapter already, which will feature (gag me now, please?) Finn. Noah said they're still not friends, which Rachel takes as they are sooo totally friends now. Finn no likey. But that's ok, because I don't like him so much. Anyway! NYN is going to be on the back burner because this story has gotten a better response and I'm not feeling it anymore for that. Will update sporadically as requested by readers, but other than that this is my new focus. Someone mentioned liking the title of this a lot, so I challenge ya'll to find the band/song. The actual title is more the reason I chose the lyric. Anyway, happy reading, I hope to get more reviews than I did for chapter one!! if not, oh well.

Love & Rockets :]