She'll Never Be Me
A Glee Fan Fiction
Chapter 7
A/N: Anybody call for some Puckleberry?

Rachel was sitting in her room, her feet curls underneath her on her desk chair as she worked on her trig homework, biting the cap slightly as she focused on problem, dressed in a pair of black yoga leggings with a hot pink waistband with PINK written across her butt on silver studs with a black racer back tank top with her feet bare when her phone rang.

"Hello?" She asked into the phone, settling it between her shoulder and her ear as she flipped it open easily with her thumb, not bothering to check the ID. It was probably Santana to give her advice on what to wear the next day, or Brittany with some stupid question that would make Rachel laugh out loud. Perhaps it was Sam, trying to come up with a plan for the next day of their little plot.

"Rachel? I need you." A soft, deep voice. Rachel frowned as she took her phone away from her head and studied the tiny little screen where it told her who she was talking to and exactly how long the call had been going on. She had been right when she'd heard the voice on the other end of the line. It had been Puck calling her, and it wasn't for some sort of stupid reason. He needed her.

"Noah? What's the matter? What's going on?" She asked, pushing away from her desk and unfolding her legs, lifting herself from her chair and standing up, walking towards her make-up table to study her reflection in the mirror, pulling her hair into a low ponytail and checking her make-up for any smudges. She had a feeling she'd be leaving for the Puckerman residence soon, and she didn't want to have to worry about her appearance on the way.

"My mom had to work a double shift so she left me in charge of my little sister, Rebekkah, and I have to make dinner and I just realized that I suck at it and she's complaining about being hungry and the kitchen's a mess and there's smoke everywhere and, well, Rachel, I just don't know what to do, alright? Help me?" He begged. He sounded so panicked that Rachel couldn't help but laugh.

"Calm down, Noah. I'm on my way, okay? I'll be there soon. I'll pick up some pizza on the way to your place and then we can clean the kitchen, alright? I'm going to help you, alright? Now please just calm down and wait the forty five minutes it's going to take me-at the most-to get to your house with some food, okay?" She giggled as she slipped on a pair of flip-flips and started towards her house.

"Since when can you drive, Berry?" He asked, a teasing hint to his voice. It was clear he was slowly startling to relax. "And you have a car? How come I didn't know that? And how come other people are always giving you a ride places?" He asked her as she exited her house and slid into the front seat of her car, rolling her eyes as she started it up.

"I'm seventeen. I got my license last year and my fathers bought me a car for my birthday, alright? That's what happens with most teenagers in America nowadays, Noah. And the reason I always get a ride is because my driving abilities are somewhat debatable between my few friends. Meaning they hate letting me behind a wheel." She rolled her eyes.

"But...Rachel, I don't get it. If you have a car and you can drive-no matter how bad people think you are at the task-why the hell don't you drive yourself to and from school instead of having Satan and Britt cart you all over the place? And why the hell do you ask Sam freaking Evans for a ride places? Since when are you and him all buddy buddy?" He questioned.

Rachel couldn't help but smirk at that. Santana and Sam had been right. Puck was jealous and the plan was working. When Sam had told her how guys always wanted the girl more when they couldn't have her anymore because she'd found somebody new, he had been absolutely right. She grinned as she thought about her next response, deciding to tease him just a little bit.

"Sam and I are friends. Well, we were. We're dating, now actually, although I'm not so sure that's any of your business as this is the most civil you've ever been to me before. Now, if you're done questioning my reasons for always getting a ride places, it's going to take me longer if I have to go order your pizza when I get to the pizza place rather than call right now to place the order," Rachel said as she hung up and dialed the number for pizza.


Rachel walked into Puck's house with an antipasti balanced on top of two pizzas-one with goat cheese for herself and plain pizza for Puck and his sister. She entered the kitchen, grinning at her memory for having not forgotten the way to his house, his favorite pizzeria, where he always hid the spare key, or the layout of his house from when they were children and always doing something together, which usually involved getting into lots of trouble together. All because of her crazy pranks, although to this day, she'd still argue that all the blame belonged on a certain mohawked boy with the name of Noah Puckerman. And most people believed that it was all on him.

"You're a life saver," He grinned at her as she set the pizza onto the counter and then placed the salad besides it. She couldn't help but notice how the kitchen was one hundred percent spotless. Or how Becca was sitting there patiently with a slightly confused grin on her face as she watched her brother's happy reaction to Rachel coming. Rachel remembered that PUck had always been an excellent cook, actually, and she found herself smirking as she realized that this was just another one of his jealous antics, doing his best to make sure that she wasn't doing anything with Sam that night, and that all of her attention was focused where it was supposed to be. On himself.

"Hey there Becca," Rachel smiled at the female version of Puck. "Why don't you fix a plate and go in the living room while your brother and I sit in here and talk over our dinner? You can watch cartoons and I won't let Noah tell your mom," She said in a secretive whisper to the ten year old girl. Becca smiled happily as she jumped to her feet and hurried to get her plate together, rushing into the living room. Rachel shook her head as she heard the theme song to Spongebob start to play, signaling that Becca had, in fact, decided to take Rachel up on her generous offer. "What's up with you? You and I both know you're an amazing chef," Rachel said, rolling her eyes.

"She's a very stubborn girl. She wanted some sort of spaghetti thing that I couldn't make. You just took too long getting over here so I cleaned the kitchen so it didn't look like we were a bunch of slobs who didn't know how to clean up our own house without some help while we waited for you to show up," He said defensively, crossing his arms over his chest as he leaned against the counter. Rachel gave him a look full of disbelief and he sighed, pushing from the counter and working on putting together his own plate, his back to her as he spoke. "Maybe I just wanted to see you. I miss hanging out with you, alright? We haven't really hung out alone in years, except for that short while we dated," He said simply.

"Noah, come on. You know who's fault it is that we never get to see one another. You started the slushy facials, remember? You tossed that blueberry one in my face on the first day of freshman year. I hate blueberry, by the way. And it was a pain in the ass to get out of my clothes that day. And my hair? I'd spent forever making it look that way and then you ruined it with that icy slush that drenched it and made it frizz and curl. And my plaid skirt was practically white! It was see through for most of my morning classes and all of the boys were laughing at me because they could see my underwear." Rachel reminded him as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"They were white. With little gold stars on them," Puck said slowly, as if he were just remember it now. "And you were wearing a little plaid skirt. It was a light grey with pale pink and white in it. It was really short, and this soft yet thick material...and you had it on with a tank top, fuzzy pink sweater that was extremely low cut. And knee socks. White knee socks with grey flats. And I remember thinking you looked so amazing...so incredible. And it made me mad, because I remembered how I'd asked you out over the summer and you'd told me no. And I'd picked up a slushy on the way to school, so I walked over to you and I tossed it on you. All because you said 'hi Noah' like everything was okay." Puck said.

"You...you threw a slushy at me because I rejected you and then said hello?" Rachel frowned. "But you could have had any girl in school. You did have every girl in school. What did it matter that I said no? And, do you remember why I said no? I said I didn't want to throw away your friendship because it meant so much to me, and I was afraid of what would happen if we didn't work out. Do you remember that?" She gave off a bitter laugh at this part before she went on. "It was a stupid mistake on my own part, though. If I'd said yes, I probably could have been popular all through high school. I mean, I lost your friendship either way, really," She shrugged, shaking her head.

"Hey, come on, let's not talk about sad memories anymore." Noah sigh, shaking his head. He didn't want to make her remember all of the reasons she had to hate him-and she had a lot of reasons to despite him. She was supposed to remember all the of the things she liked about him. The things that had been the reason he'd been her first kiss. Her first boyfriend. Pretty much her first everything, except for her first time. BUt nobody had that title yet, so he still had a chance. He'd invited her over tonight for the sole purpose of trying to get her back. "Let's just relax, eat, and share a few laughs. And then you can help me back because you know I suck at that and Becca always has something freshly baked before bed. It's a tradition," He made a face.


"NOAH!" Rachel shrieked as an egg cracked over her head and the yellow, runny liquid inside of it filled her hair and began to drip down her face. Unlike when Jesse and the other members of Vocal Adrenaline had tried this on her the year before, her feelings weren't hurt and she wasn't about to go crawl under a rock and cry herself to sleep over the pain. And it wasn't just because she knew Noah's family used only cage-free, organic eggs. It was because this wasn't done to be cruel. It was done in a teasing, friendly manner. "You're going to pay for that," She warned.

SHe grabbed the bag of flour from the counter and tore it open, reaching up as high as she could to dump it onto of his head. The end result was that they were both evenly covered in the white powder with broad grins and laughter ringing from the kitchen and reminding them of when they were young as Rachel grabbed the melted butter and smashed it onto Puck's face, grinning triumphantly as he smudged it against his own face while trying to get it out of his eyes so that he could see her.

"You're going down," He said, reaching out and grabbing her around the waist, lifting her up and swinging her onto his shoulder. He made his way from the kitchen and into the living room. "Becca? You're cookies will be done in five minutes. You can take them out. I need to deal with Rachel because she was picking on me." He whined as he continued to walk upstairs without pausing. He tossed her onto his bed when he reached his room and grabbed his AXE-knowing full well that she hated the smell of it-and spraying it all over her with a smirk.

"You suck," Rachel whined, taking in the smell as he tossed the empty can to the aside and jumped onto the bed besides her, wrapping her tightly in his arms, rolling over so that he was on top of her and smirking down at her pleasantly. "And you're heavy. Get your fat ass off of me," She whined, trying to free her arms to shove him off. But he was much too strong. And besides, she was kind of enjoying having him on top of her, despite her control complex where she felt the need to always be on top. Besides the fact that she was so much smaller.

"No, there's a correction to that statement. You are the one who sucks, because you're the female," He grinned down at her. "And don't call me fat either. I'm not fat, I'm muscle," He stuck his tongue out at her. "Although, I have to admit that you swearing is a major turn on. And it's very rare that I ever find a girl more attractive or more bad ass than I am. I mean, look at me-I invented bad ass as far as our high school goes. I set the record there, didn't I?" He smiled at her playfully, causing her to giggle a little bit.

"Yeah, I know you're turned on. I can feel it," She rolled her eyes.

"Big right?" He asked.

"You're disgusting!"

"No, just horny."

"You have a girlfriend," Rachel said.

"Lauren?"

"Duh."

"We aren't dating. We just hang out."

"But you like her."

"She's cool. BUt she's too much woman for me."

"That's so rude! Just because she's-"

"I don't mean because of her weight, Berry."

"Then how do you mean it?"

"Don't worry about it. Besides, I'm into somebody else."

"Who?"

"It doesn't have anything to do with you. And it doesn't matter anyways, because she's into somebody else. BUt I don't want to talk about Lauren or any other girl right now."

"Then what do you want to talk about?" She wondered curiously as he finally rolled off of her and propped himself up onto his side so he could face her with a playful grin on his face.

"Well, you know that sex is always number one on my priority list, but since you're seeing Sam right now and my little sister is downstairs, I don't think that one is such a good idea at the moment," He sighed.

"You have a one tracked mind and I can't help but find it rather disturbing. I mean, you were just saying that you're into somebody else and now you want to have sex with me? You're horrid," She rolled her eyes.

"I'm just a man with needs and not afraid to admit it. I know what I want and I know what I need. So what if I like to try and get them fulfilled as often as I possible can? It just makes me more bad ass, if you ask me."

"I think it makes you a womanizer," Rachel informed him. "And I think that I should be going now as well. I came here to help you feed your little sister and I've done just that. I've stayed too long."

"What? Are you meeting Sam for sex or something?" He asked, his playful mood turning into a harsh, cruel and cold sounding tone of voice as he spoke to her now. "Whatever. Have fun with Trouty Mouth." He rolled his eyes as he sat up.

"I'm not going to meet Samuel right now," Rachel defended herself. "I just have to go. It's getting late and it's not appropriate for me to be here any later than I've already stayed," She explained.

"You used to stay until midnight. You used to cry when you had to leave and beg to stay longer. You used to just sleep here and then borrow something to wear in the morning and make it work." He said harshly as she started towards the door.

"I'm not a little girl anymore, Noah. You and I are not eight years old anymore. We're teenagers and it's no longer appropriate for me to sleep over at your house and wear your clothes. I can't stay until morning anymore. I'm not a little girl," She repeated.

"Trust me, Rachel," He whispered as she stormed out of the room and down the stairs. "I know that you're not a little girl anymore. Believe me on that one. I've noticed that you've grown up," He sighed, remembering how good it had felt to hold her just a few moments ago.