A.N. Hi, everyone! Sorry it's been so long since I've written! Here's the update! I think you'll enjoy it…I don't think I've spoken about Puck's sister yet in this story or named her…so I did this chapter. If I did name her in a previous chapter, then, well, I'm sorry! Just let me know and I'll try to fix it and be consistent!

Puck drove with his head in the clouds. He couldn't believe what had just happened. He just needed to wrap his head around matters, and then he'd be better…he hoped. He walked into his house, dumping his keys on a table near the door.

"Hello?" he called, walking towards the kitchen.

"Hey," a voice answered from somewhere close by.

He walked into the kitchen to find his sister's babysitter there.

"'Sup, Quinn?" he asked as a greeting, opening up the fridge and sticking his head inside, scouting out some food.

"Nothing much by me," she said. "But what's up with you?"

After years of watching his sister and being around the Puckermans, Quinn could read Puck like a book. It also helped that she was married to a guy who wasn't the biggest talker in the world. Artie Abrams wasn't shy, but he wasn't a blabbermouth either…and Quinn had learned how to interpret body language from everyone, due to her interaction with Puck's family and her own husband.

"What do you mean?" Puck looked at Quinn innocently. He knew she wouldn't give up or back down until she got to the heart of the matter, but pretending to be dumb gave his a few more seconds to figure out exactly how he would word what happened with Rachel.

"Puck," Quinn admonished, "Stop playing dumb and just tell me what happened."

"Hey, where's Abby? Shouldn't she be here, somewhere? Abby! C'mon, kid, I stopped by to say hi!" Puck tried to give himself more time by using his sister as a distraction, but to no avail.

"Abby's at a friend's house. She should be in 25 minutes or so. That should give you just enough time to tell me what's going on. So spill." Quinn was using her no-nonsense voice that Puck knew better than to try to deflect.

Puck inhaled deeply and then let out his breath slowly. "Alright," he said, and Quinn looked at him with a self-satisfied smirk on her face. "I was at Rachel's for the past few hours, working some stuff out."

"Stuff like….your feelings for her?" Quinn asked, eyes sparkling.

"Yeah. And, as it turns out, her feelings for me," and now it was Puck's turn for his eyes to sparkle. He still couldn't believe the recent events.

"Her feelings for you?!" Quinn exclaimed. "Man, this is better than watching the afternoon soaps!"

"Har, har. Anyway, I went over there because, well, as you know, we had this huge fight recently, and things were really awkward."

"A fight about…?" Quinn prompted.

"About my feelings for her, yes," Puck sighed. "She confronted me about them and about the way I'd look at her and then everything kind of came out in a rush and I said some things that were really out of line. She got really pissed off at me and we didn't talk for a while. But then, Finn's mom called me and asked me to go check on Rachel because she was being weird again, so I figured now was as good a time as any to apologize. Except that instead of Rachel accepting my apology hesitantly and then kicking me out of her apartment for a few more days, she confessed that the reason she exploded at me when I told her my feelings was that she was starting to have feelings for me, too." Puck let out a huge breath.

Quinn stared at him as if he had grown a moustache. "Wow," she breathed.

"Yeah," he said. He was slowly coming to grips with everything.

"Is that it?" Quinn asked. "Then what happened?"

"I started analyzing what that meant," Rachel went on, and Puck snorted because that was so Rachel, to analyze her own actions. "and I realized that my feelings for you weren't completely platonic," and at this point, her voice got significantly lower, "but slowly, I was starting to have other feelings for you, too."

Puck's jaw dropped. Literally. Like, he was seriously standing there, looking at Rachel with his mouth open. He didn't know what to say. The emotions coursing through him were overwhelming to say the least.

"Wh-" Puck shook his head, trying to clear it, and started again. "What kinds of feelings? What're you saying, Rachel?"

"I'm saying," Rachel said slowly, "that I feel for you kind of like you feel for me. I'm saying that…" she trailed off.

"What?" Puck asked urgently, then regretted it. He didn't want to push her, even though he REALLY wanted to know. "What?" he asked again, more gently.

"I don't even know!" she shouted. "I don't even know what I'm saying! All I know is that I have a boyfriend, someone who I love and who loves me and right now, he's not here and you ARE here and I feel a connection to you that I thought I only feel with Finn and I don't know what to do with it! All I know is that I'm standing here, and you're just looking at me like that, and it's been so long since I've had someone to…" And Rachel stopped, just staring at Puck.

"Since you've had someone to…" Puck prodded.

Rachel didn't say anything. She simply stared at him. Just when he was going to ask her if she was alright, she was a flurry of movement and she flung herself at him. Before he even had a chance to question what she was doing, her lips were on his.

Rachel kissed him and it felt amazing. He was still for a second, trying to process it, but once he did, he couldn't help but kiss her back. As their lips moved over one another's, heat spread through Puck's body. It felt so right. He and Rachel kissing, it was right. This what he should've been doing for the past years, kissing Rachel. If he hadn't let Brittany stop him in high school that fateful day, this is what his life would've been like, should've been like. One of Puck's hands was entangled in Rachel's hair while the other was caressing her arm. He couldn't help but think that this was where they belonged, in each other's arms, embracing and kissing. This is what should've happened, if only he hadn't been detained and Finn gotten to her first.

Finn.

Oh, darn.

Puck knew he had to pull away, but it was so darn hard. He deepened the kiss for a few seconds before somehow summoning up the willpower to force himself to pull away from Rachel's addictive mouth.

It Rachel a second for her gaze to clear, but once it did, oh, gosh.

"Rach," Puck said, starting to caress her arm again.

"No," she whimpered. "That shouldn't have happened. I shouldn't have done that. We shouldn't have done that. What kind of person am I? What, I don't hear from my boyfriend for a few weeks and now I just go and hop into bed with his best friend?! Who does that?!"

"Rachel," Puck said firmly, gaining her attention. "You're an AMAZING person. Never doubt that. We didn't hop into bed; we just kissed." An awesome kiss, Puck couldn't help but thinking, but he didn't voice his thoughts out loud. "And why didn't you tell me that you haven't heard from Finn for a while?"

It really explained a lot, now that he thought about it. It explained why Rachel had been so on edge for a while. He knew that Finn had always made sure to find some way to get in touch with Rachel every week and a half; occasionally, it was every two weeks, but he generally found some way to do it more often than that. If Rachel hadn't heard from Finn, he could just imagine all the thoughts that must be going through her mind.

Puck pulled Rachel into his arms. At first she resisted, but he held onto her, not letting her pull away. She whimpered, then buried her face in his shirt, her tears soaking through the material.

"Sh," he whispered. "It's okay. Finn's okay."

She pushed away from him a bit. "How do you know that, huh? You can't know that! And here I am, kissing you while my boyfriend is in a hostile country somewhere! He could be lying in a ditch, bleeding to death! He could already be dead! And I'm kissing you!" she reiterated, a full-fledged sob preventing her from continuing further.

As Puck soothed her, thoughts were speeding through his mind like a NASCAR race.

When Rachel was able to compose herself a little, she started speaking again. "I don't know anything anymore, Noah. I used to know everything. I knew what I wanted to do with my life, I knew who I wanted to spend my life with, I knew it all. Now I feel like nothing is the same. The guy who I thought I wanted to spend my life with is gone, I haven't heard from him, I don't know if he's alive, and for some reason, I'm here kissing you, and it feels so darn good!" Whoa, Puck wasn't expecting that last part. Not that he was complaining; Rachel was pretty much repeating the same things over and over again, but that last part was new, and boy, it felt good. Well, it'd have felt a lot better if he didn't have the Finn thing to worry about…

"Rachel, I'm going to talk now, okay?" Puck said, speaking to her like a child, but it seemed to be the only approach that he thought would work. She nodded. It was working. "Rach, Finn left you here to go serve in Iraq; he knew the risks, he's not dumb. If something happened to him," Rachel whimpered, and Puck hastily added, "and I'm not saying it did, but if something did happen, you would deal with it. But you wouldn't be dealing with it alone, Rachel. I will always be here for you, do you understand? I will not let you suffer alone; I will be here for you through it all, alright?"

Rachel looked up at him, the tears in her eyes sparkling like diamonds. She nodded, mutely.

"But for right now, we don't know what's going on, Rach. It could be that Finn just hasn't had a chance to contact you. Don't jump to the worst conclusion, okay? I know it's hard not to, but you're strong and you can do this."

As Puck finished, Rachel looked at him with so many emotions in her eyes, he didn't know how to interpret them all. Then she clung to him as if she was never going to let go.

Puck knew he had to broach the other subject though. "As for the kiss, well, we've been spending a lot of time together, Rach. It's only natural that we'd been drawn to each other after all the emotionally-charged things we've been through. The kiss, as amazing as it was for me, I realize is not really what you want, what you're ready for; therefore, we can just forget about it for now, okay?"

Rachel muttered something against his shirt that he didn't understand. "What?" he asked.

She muttered it again, but Puck still couldn't hear her. "I can't understand you," he said.

"I said, what if I don't want to forget about it?" Rachel said more clearly.

"Rachel…" Puck started, but she interrupted him.

"I know the kiss was wrong, Noah, but at the time, it really did feel right. I know this is wrong, so wrong, but I just have so many things going on, I'm a jumble of thoughts and emotions. I can't sort through any of them right now, and whenever I'm alone, I always end up trying to. When we kissed, all thoughts left my head, I could only feel…and what I felt was good. I just felt good and warm and loved again, and it feels like it's been so long since I've felt that way."

"What are you saying, Rachel?" Puck asked, not sure what she was getting at.

"I'm saying that I know this is wrong on so many levels, but I just can't deal with everything right now. I need an escape route, and for me, you're my escape route. Being with you makes me feel lighter, happier, and that's something I really need right now. Before, it was okay just to hang out with you, but now that this all out in the open, I guess I kind of want more."

Puck was flabbergasted. "What do you mean, you want more?"

"I'm saying that I want to hang out with you, have fun with you. I'm saying that I want to kiss you! I don't just want to forget about it, Noah!"

Puck was literally speechless. He didn't know what to make of this. He just stared at her, trying to see if this was really Rachel.

When Puck didn't respond for a few moments, a horrified expression appeared on Rachel's face. "Oh my gosh, I'm being so selfish and now you're repulsed by me! See, I'm a terrible person! What kind of person asks their best friend to be friends with benefits just so that they can feel a little bit better? I'm so selfish! I should be locked up! They should just cart me away now!" she wailed.

Puck did the only thing he could think of: he kissed her.

The second kiss was as awesome as the first; even better. Both Puck and Rachel both got into the kiss, deepening it within seconds. They were pressed so close together, you couldn't have gotten a music sheet between them. After a couple of minutes, Rachel slid her hands under his shirt, and Puck realized it was time to pull away. Darn, it was annoying to have to be the noble one! He wished he could revert back to his early high school days when he was just a jerk and did what he wanted, rarely considering what others wanted.

"Rachel, this is too fast. We have to stop, babe," Okay, that last word slipped out, but the term of endearment (what? It was a term of endearment!) felt so good directed at her.

When Rachel pulled away to look at him, he could see the fear reappear in her eyes. "You don't want me?" she asked in what had to be the most pathetic voice ever.

"No, no, no," Puck said. "C'mon, Rach, you know that's not true. I've never wanted anything as badly as I want you. But you know this isn't right." He saw start to speak, but didn't give her the chance. "What I mean is that if we're going to do this, we're not going to sleep together now. Let's take it slow, very slow, and then we'll see where and how it goes, okay?"

A smile spread slowly across Rachel's face. "Thank you, Noah," she said simply. He smiled back at her.

"Whoa," Quinn breathed. "That's some intense stuff, Puck."

"No kidding," Puck said, clearing his head from the dreams he was having about kissing Rachel. Yes, he knew the whole situation was wrong, it was wrong and unfair to Finn, but he felt like he couldn't help it. He wanted to be there for Rachel. If things had gone the way they were supposed to in high school, he'd have been the one with Rachel all these years, he just knew it! Yes, Finn ended up getting to her first, but now Rachel wanted him, Puck; how could he resist it?

A.N. Okay, I know these characters, particularly Rachel, might've seemed pretty OOC in this chapter, but the whole point is that she's really distraught and she's just so emotional, she's clinging to anything she feels is stabilizing to her, and right now, that's Puck. I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Please review and tell me what you think! Oh, and for some reason, even though I probably wouldn't write a story about them, the Quinn-Artie pairing has the potential to be really cute, I think, so I have them as a side pairing in this story.