A/N: So, the votes are in. Let's see how it goes shall we?

Chapter Four

So, in hindsight, he probably shouldn't have punched the paramedic. Or bitten the nurse. Hell, his Ma was a nurse and it always worried him when he heard stories about her patients doing crazy hysterical shit like that.

But to be fair, they all refused to tell him how both Rach and his Baby Mama were.

Yeah, he thought, tugging idly at the four point restraints that held him to the bed, should not have punched the paramedic.

They'd drawn the curtains around his bed as they wheeled the others in, telling him, when he'd calmed down they would revisit the restraints situation when he was calmer and not a danger to himself and other people.

And that was before they'd sedated him.

The curtain rustled before pulling apart enough to allow Hiram Berry, the smaller, less imposing of Rachel's fathers, to slip through.

"How are you feeling Noah?" Hiram asked, pushing his glasses back up his nose.

"How's Rach?" he asked, completely ignoring the question, "And Quinn. How are they?"

"Quinn and the baby are fine." He said, smiling knowingly as he sat down on the edge of the bed, patting his leg, "They're fine."

Noah frowned, noticing how red the man's eyes looked, how sad he was, "How's Rachel." He asked again, his body tensing under the restraints, "How is she?"

"She's alive Noah." He said, smiling up at him in a way that reminded Noah so much of his girlfriend, "That's the most important thing."

"What. Is. Wrong?" he asked again, slowly, grinding each word through his teeth. "Is she awake? Can I see her?"

"She's in a coma." He said finally, silence falling between them, "The doctor's say she hit her head pretty hard as the bus flipped, they're treating the swelling-"

"She's gonna be okay, right?"

Hiram sighed, seeming older than his thirty seven years, "She's in a coma, the doctors believe it's because of the trauma, that she'll wake up when she's ready. And no son, not yet. From what your Mother said, you're in here til morning. Longer if you don't behave." His lips curled into a smile as a string of curse words flew from the footballer's mouth, "So be good Kid. Stay calm and you can see her tomorrow, alright?"

He stood up as Noah nodded, "Yeah, alright."

Pausing at the edge of the curtain Hiram looked back at the folorn figure on the bed, the smile never leaving his lips, "I'm glad you're alright Noah."

One week, three days, sixteen hours, thirty six minutes and twelve seconds later

She'd been watching the clock since they'd brought her in. Watching, waiting, hoping, to hear something, anything, that would pull her back in.

But there had been nothing.

Nothing at all.

Nothing to pull her back into the land of the living, and she was so terribly, terribly bored.

She wasn't sure how, but she'd been feeling more and more tired since the crash, since she'd reached into her own body, wrapping her hand around her heart and willing it to beat. She couldn't die, there was still so much, so very much more to do.

Rachel Berry, or at least, the ghost thereof, had lost her spark.

She'd watched, in a twisted sense of fascination as her body had stopped breathing, twice, on the way to the hospital. Three times it had been her hand that brought her back from the brink, still unable to rejoin her body.

So she watched.

She watched as the paramedics fought to keep her alive, her body, finally understanding her goal, letting them help her.

Listening as the doctors talking to her fathers, she heard the words, 'swelling on the brain', 'coma' she didn't understand out of all the gleeks, how come she was the only one broken? How come she was the only one not allowed to go back?

It wasn't fair.

It wasn't fair Damnit! She was Rachel Berry!

Noah had spent most of the last ten days by her bed, his face and hands, a silent immovable force beside her despite the protests of his mother and her fathers. She'd talk to him sometimes; tell him stories of the others' visits, of her plans for the future, for them.

She told him and her fathers how much she loved them.

Stubble had begun to grow on Noah's scalp and chin she noticed, ten days into her coma, a smile twisted across her lips at the thought of one of her more derogatory sounding nicknames, Stubbles, perfectly described her boyfriend.

She watched him now, his 5ft11 frame hunched up and curled around her, careful of tubes and IV lines, humming the tune of Sweet Caroline in her ear, "Wake up Babe, I need you to wake up."

Oh, he had no idea, just how badly she wanted to do that, to wrap her arms around him again and tell him, how much she loved him.

The door opened, causing Noah to bolt off the bed as if he'd been burned, "Beyonce? What are you doing here?"

Kurt smiled, "I just came to see how the Diva was going?"

"Same as yesterday." Noah grumbled.

Rachel smiled, being stuck with Kurt, just for that little bit extra time wherever she was, had forged a bond between the Divas, Kurt coming in and sitting with her almost as long as Noah had been.

"How are you going Puck?" he asked tentatively, his fingers curling around Rachel's, "Have you been home?"

"Nah." He said gruffly, leaning down to brush Rachel's hair back from her face, "Someone's got to be here," he reasoned, "in case she wakes up."

She watches Kurt frown, sniffing the air in distaste, "Go, find a shower. Bathe."

Puck's brows draw together, "Listen here Hummel, I don't need you coming in here telling me-"

"Yes." Kurt cut in, "You do. You won't listen to anyone. You stink. I don't care if you toss me in a damn dumpster for saying so, but you smell. Pong. Reek."

"I get it. You don't like the way I smell. Big whoop. I could go rolling around in a dung heap and it wouldn't fucking matter. So, don't you sit there having a go at me-"

Rachel frowned, they shouldn't be fighting, they'd been so good, so nice to one another, watching the way Noah's muscles flexed she knew, knew that he was moments away from punching the fashionista, she had to do something!

She took her own hand, bending it, curling the digits around the worn hands of her lover's, willing them to do as she begged, to hold his hand, for him to notice.

Noah's eyes widened, looking down his lips curled into a grin, "Rachel!" his hands cupped the one she was holding, "C'mon Berry..."

"Puck?" Kurt questioned, "What-"

"She's holding my hand!" he cried, the grin threatening to split his features, "Ten days, not a thing, now, she's holding my hand!"