Now, Rachel generally wasn't the one to take compliments too seriously, one because she rarely heard them unless she was giving them to herself, and two when she received a compliment the conversation generally went something like this:

Stranger overhearing Rachel sing: "Oh, sweetie, you sing so well!"

Rachel: "Yes, I know."

Because of Rachel's matter-of-fact acceptance, people would often get exhausted from complimenting her and would generally stop all together. Only recently had Rachel started feigning humility, as it was necessary to keep Glee together, and Glee, she was convinced, was her ticket to stardom (well that and her Myspace videos).

So while Rachel generally would not have reacted to a compliment such as the one Puck gave her, hearing those words, out loud, from a male other than one of her dads made her smile without even thinking and question that the words were said at all. Puck's reaction, of course, was quite different.

Puck looked at Rachel who had a goofy smile plastered to her face and he rolled his eyes at her before just walking away. Fucking girls he thought. "I didn't mean whatever it is you thought I meant by that comment." He told her over his shoulder.

He meant it, though. She thought to herself. Rachel's grin broadened involuntarily from the thought. Her smile was quickly washed away, however, as Mr. Schuester came down the hall.

"Rachel, Puck, there you are. Guys, you have to actually be in detention to get it counted as you serving detention. You've both been gone too long. Get in there before I can't give you credit for serving your time." Mr. Schuester very nicely informed the two.

Although Rachel had wanted to talk more to Puck about what had transpired in the hall before they were beckoned back to detention, she found the watchful eye of Mr. Schuster to be a great deterrent. So, Rachel and Puck went into detention and served their time without as much as another syllable uttered to each other. But as they were leaving, Puck, for some reason (he couldn't tell you the reason himself) decided to be nice to Rachel.

"Hey, Berry," Puck called after her as she walked down the hall quickly away from detention, "You need a ride home?"


After school, Finn went immediately to his car. The events of that still reeling in his head, he was especially upset at himself for not stopping Rachel when she walked away from him earlier. He thought about running up to her, catching her by the arm, spinning her around, and kissing her like he wanted to (and like he had seen in some romantic movie he had been forced to watch once) but then he just stood there after she didn't stop and did nothing.

When Finn arrived at his car, he was sullen and not enthusiastic about the person waiting there to talk to him.

"Quinn." He said flatly. Quinn was leaning on his car and stood up straight when Finn said her name.

"Finn. I wanted to talk to you." She said sweetly.

"Huh. Well I don't really want to talk to you Quinn. So, I'm going to go, excuse me." Finn moved Quinn off his door and he unlocked his car opening the driver's door she was leaning against.

"Finn. This is ridiculous! It's been a month. You haven't really talked to me in Glee, and you don't even acknowledge my presence otherwise. It's rude and not like you, not to mention not fair." Quinn whined.

"Not fair? How the hell is it not fair? You cheated on me, Quinn. And then you tricked me into thinking that I got you pregnant. And I stepped up and was trying to be a good father. You're the one who wasn't fair to me." He spat back.

"Yeah. I know. None of that was fair. I shouldn't have done that to you. You didn't deserve it at all, you're a good guy, Finn. But that's what you're not being fair about. I haven't had the chance to even apologize to you. You wouldn't talk to me or look at me for two weeks and now, though you look at me, you don't let me talk to you. You won't let me explain or apologize or anything! But you talk to Puck. How is that fair?" Quinn questioned with pain in her voice.

Finn thought for a moment. He didn't want to have this conversation right now and not in the school parking lot but it seemed Quinn wasn't going to back down. "Look, okay, I'm not being fair. But it's different with guys. Puck and I had it out a week after the whole thing happened. I kicked the crap out of him," Finn lied about that, they both had sustained injuries, "and we're not friends anymore. But I have to put up with him for the sake of football, and well now, because of basketball. But honestly Quinn, if I could have it my way, you both would be somewhere very far away and cold, like Canada."

Quinn just crossed her arms and looked at Finn for a moment before saying anything. "Fine." She finally choked out. "Well let me know when you're grown up enough to talk to me, because it's getting a little old."

"Alright. I'll get back to you about that. Can I go now?"

"You can do whatever you like." She retorted moving away from his car.

"Yeah, right." He muttered to himself.


Finn found himself driving around aimlessly for a long while not going anywhere in particular. Then he found himself parked in front of Rachel's house. He had had a long time to think, and in all his thinking, he gave himself a headache and came up with a plan. A plan he wanted to share with Rachel. So he pulled up to her house and firmly knocked on the door.

"Hi, Mr. Berry." Finn greeted one of Rachel's dad as he opened the door. Finn had only met Rachel's parents once, when he picked her up to go bowling and they greatly intimidated him. But there was no hint of intimidation in Finn's voice this time when he spoke to one of Rachel's dads.

"Oh, hello, Finn." Mr. Berry greeted back, "Uh, Rachel's not here right now. She should be getting home shortly. She texted us to let us know she would be getting home late."

"Oh," Finn said, his confidence quickly dwindling. "Well, will you let her know I stopped by? Wait, nevermind. I'll just call her later. Thanks, Mr. Berry." Finn bounded for his car.

Serendipitously, the precise moment Finn got into his car was the same moment that Puck's truck pulled up to the Berry house. Finn, having parked across the street from the Berry residence saw Puck's truck and immediately froze, the keys to his car in the ignition.

Puck brought his truck to a graceless stop in front of the Berry household, barely missing clipping the mailbox with his passenger-side mirror.

"Noah, be careful! You almost crashed into my mailbox." Rachel chastised.

"Chill out. I didn't hit it. I know where the sides of my truck are and I'm a good judge of distance." He said with obvious irritation. Rachel and he hadn't really said a word to each other the whole ride, not that the ride was far (only three miles) but it had been a fairly awkward five minutes. "So, you wanna make out?" Puck threw the suggestion out there just in case Rachel wanted to, because really, he hadn't made out with anyone in far too long (and also because he really did like kissing Rachel, though he didn't really know why).

Rachel simply glared at him across the truck, her arms folded across her chest. "Noah. Honestly?"

He smirked at her, licked his lips and raised one of his eye brows, "What? Like you haven't thought about it. I know you kissed me back outside the cafeteria earlier. I'm just wondering when you'll admit it to yourself. You like kissing me." Puck didn't really know why he going with this line of conversation. Just something in him (probably the teenage hormones coursing through his veins) made him want to make out with her right then.

"Noah. We have discussed this. While I am a teenage girl and I, like all teenagers, have hormones, I don't always have to act on them. And while yes, I do like kissing you, it is a purely chemical and physical reaction I have, nothing more. Furthermore, we both know while kissing one another is fun, we are both thinking about other people. And I for one would rather wait to kiss that person I keep thinking of then make out with you everyday and have fun."

Puck lost his smirk and furrowed his brow. "You take life too seriously sometimes, Berry."

"You don't take things seriously enough." She snapped back.

"So, about the whole Finn thing…" Puck began before he was interrupted by a loud smack on the window behind his head.

"What the fuck?!" yelled a familiar voice.

"Finn?!" Rachel questioned incredulously as Puck spun around to see a very irate Finn in his window.

"This is like freaky deja vu." Puck said as Rachel climbed out of the truck. Finn went around to the front of the truck and Puck got out of the truck too.

"Finn, what are you doing here?" asked Rachel.

"What is he doing here?" Finn shot back.

"He just drove me home." Rachel said calmly.

"Yeah, after doing what with him? Is that why you were late getting home? Because you were 'hanging' out with him?" Finn put quotes around 'hanging'.

Rachel looked at Finn and stomped her foot hard on the ground, "UGH. Finn. Stop being so fickle! Just go home." Rachel stomped up to her house and turned around quickly when she heard Finn following her. "Seriously, Finn. Leave. I don't want to talk to you right now." And with that Rachel, in her dramatic style, flew into her house and slammed the door. Finn looked defeated.

"What does fickle even mean?" he muttered to himself.

"It means you're an asshole." Puck said and Finn turned to face his former best friend, with a fire of pure hatred burning in his eyes.


AN: The next installment will hopefully have more action. This one didn't. Sorry for the delay and the lack of action. Stick with me I promise it will get better. Thanks for all the views and reviews too! They do help me write faster I feel more pressure. :) Happy New Year!