Disclaimer: I do not own glee or any of the characters.

Thank-you all so much for reading this so far, comments and reviews would be cool. This chapter it s bit fluffy and full of emotions but hey, it all starts to fall together soon. Be patient and enjoy. (:

Chapter 10

Six smoothies and a broke Quinn later, Puck was ready to talk.

"Oh come on, one more?"

"You've had nearly every smoothie on the menu; it would have been cheaper to get you a goddamn pizza!"

"Not my fault you're boring and have the same smoothie everytime."

Quinn blushed at this.

"I saw that."

"Saw what?"

"You blush. Why the same smoothie?"

Ignoring the question Quinn said, "Help me first and I'll tell you." Although, in all honesty Quinn never intended on telling Puck why she chose the same smoothie, at all, ever. Ever.

"Well, if you want to kiss her and touch her and…"

Puck stopped mid sentence seeing Quinn's frown.

"Look all I'm saying is that if you want to be intimate with her, then it's much more than friendship."

Puck had a very good point. No one feels this way about someone they tortured for the last three years.

"Okay, so now what? What do I do Puck? I could have everyone, crowds would part, in their heads people were cheering me and I was the most popular girl in school; but were not at school anymore and Rachel is not everyone else is she, I can't just have her, like I 'had' everyone else."

Puck was stunned into silence by this. He'd never thought of Rachel in this way before, but after Quinn had brought it all to his attention he noticed it too. However much Rachel got bullied she'd still continue to do the same thing that got her thrown into dumpsters and slushied day after day after day.

"I have an idea, but you said you'd tell me the smoothie secret."

Trying to distract Puck, Quinn asked, "Why didn't we ever smoothie people? Why slushie?"

"Cheaper, the people we slushied weren't worth smoothies and it doesn't have the same ring to it does it?"

Puck morphed his face as if he was talking to Finn, "I smoothied that loud mouthed Rachel Berry today. It just doesn't have that ring to it."

Noticing Quinn's face he hurriedly apologised for using Rachel as an example.

"I have the same smoothie because it's my favourite…"

Puck cut across her, "So you have it 'cause it's your favourite?" He looked a little unbelieving towards Quinn but before he could say anything else, Quinn snapped, "No actually I dreamed as a child that if I ever had a baby they'd like the same foods as stuff as me; and I wish I could have found out if Beth liked them," Quinn held backs her tears but carried on, "If I keep drinking them the one I love, I can still live in hope that she'll like them too, but, but," Quinn's tears were falling freely now.

Puck reached across the table and put his hand on top of Quinn's that was still holding her half finished smoothie.

"But, I'll never know will I," she finished bitterly.

"Hey, come on," Puck said comfortingly as he squeezed her hand.

Quinn tried to force a weak smile but from where Puck was sitting it must have looked more like a grimace as he didn't return it.

"You know, I still think about her too you know. All the pool cleaning money would go to her and I'd have stopped picking up random chicks. I'd take her to the movies and I'd buy her Disney films to watch for when she was sick. I'd have tried to be a great dad."

Tears were slowly filling Puck's eyes as well. Quinn stopped holding her smoothie and squeezed Pucks hand back.

"We did the right thing though Puck, and one day you will be a great dad whether it's to another daughter or to a son."

"And so will you," he said smiling. "I'm sorry I asked."

"Don't be, it's fine. I only talk to you about this kind of stuff; I can't talk to anyone else. If I bring it up in conversation to my mum she just cries and starts apologizing for kicking me out and not standing up to dad. I don't see him that much anymore, in a way I'm glad, every time I go up there he asks how many children do I have now. I was young and I made a mistake, we made a mistake, why can't anyone just understand that?"

"I know babe, but you can always talk to me you know.

After giving Quinn a reassuring smile he finished his last smoothie and stood up, holding out his hand.

"Shall we?" he smiled.

Quinn took hold of Puck's hand dragged herself out of chair and let her be lead along to wherever he was taking her. With every step they neared closer and closer to the field, at first Quinn thought Puck was just taking a detour back to the truck, but he wasn't.

"You said it was romantic so let's go, maybe I can repeat the situation that I had as a fifteen year old," he said winking at Quinn.

Quinn let go of his hand and pushed him over.

"Hey, no fair."

"You, were on the team, so you," she said pointing at him, "can't complain about being weak, unless you are of course."

"Okay, fine, let's bring it on," he said running up to Quinn grinning and then rugby tackling her to the floor.

The grass had recently been cut as there were haphazardly placed piles of grass cuttings all over the field. So Puck didn't hurt Quinn he'd always tackle her into a pile of the soft yet sweetly smelling piles of grass. After a while Puck got tired and rolled onto his back in the midst of one of the piles. Quinn threw herself down next to him and thanked him.

"What are you thanking me for?" he asked looking puzzled.

"Making everything feel as if it will be okay."

"Of course it will babe, and if it's not, well, the puckster will be kicking so butt won't he."

"Okay, please never call yourself 'the puckster' ever again and I was a cheerio, wait, not just any old cheerio, the head cheerio, so I can kick butt all by myself."

Puck laughed and sighed.

"Babe, you just pranced around during practise, a little bit like Kurt does around Blaine."

Quinn slapped Puck hard in the chest and shouted, "You're going to pay for that, I worked goddamn hard to get guns like these."

Rolling up the t-shirt sleeves of her baggy white top, Quinn tensed her muscles with all of her might.

"See, you don't just wake up one morning with them."

Puck however, wasn't really listening. The whole time Quinn had been talking Puck was gathering up grass cuttings in the hand the Quinn couldn't see. Not realising what Puck was doing Quinn made to stand up but was pulled back by Puck's free hand and the next thing she knew, or should she say felt, was Puck's hand go sliding down the neck of Quinn's top throwing a handful of grass down there.

"Puckerman!" Quinn screeched. "You are dead to me."

"What ya gonna do? Hit me with your obviously mind blowing guns?"

At this Quinn couldn't help but let out a feeble smile. It was nice to be at ease with someone again. Okay, she didn't have Santana at the moment, and she probably owed Sam an apology but she wasn't completely alone anymore. She had Puck. In away she'd always had Puck and probably always will. He was one of those people that are always there even when you don't expect him to be. People don't give him enough credit, Quinn thought, they all judge him for his mistakes and look straight through the good things that Puck has actually done.

Forgetting why Quinn had gone out with Puck in the first place she asked, "Why did we even come here anyway?"

"You wanted to talk about Rachel stuff, and I was hungry."

Quinn rolled her eyes. He was as bad as Finn. When she'd been pregnant, despite eating for two people both Finn and Puck had eaten more in one day than she'd eaten in probably a week.

"Oh yeah," Quinn said completely fazed.

She'd almost forgotten about the whole Rachel fiasco, but as soon as Puck mentioned it a hollow feeling formed in her gut. She missed Rachel, not just in a personal way but just seeing her herself. Watching her not talk was excruciating for Quinn because she'd known it was her fault for Rachel's silence. I just want Rachel to be happy and if that's without me then I'll be fine, Quinn tried to convince herself. In a fruitless attempt to act like she was still fine she through a half hearted handful of grass back at Puck.

"Hey babe what's up?"

"This is all so pointless Puck; she won't talk to me or look at me. I've made her life a living hell and she never deserved it. I want to apologize to her, for every last little thing I did. I want to apologize for the people I paid to slushie her. I want to apologize to her for wanting to lower her confidence. I want to apologize to her for slapping her at the prom when all she did was try to help me. That's all she does Puck, she just tries to be herself because she wants to be accepted by everyone else. Apart from Kurt she's the bravest person I know. No one in this sodding town act like who they truly want to be; we all hide it so we don't feel like an outsider, so we feel as if we have friends, so we feel normal. But that isn't what normal is about is it, being normal is being who you are, being normal is doing whatever you want that makes you happy despite how others disparage it. I want that for her Puck, I want to apologize to her for putting her down when all she wanted to be was herself, and that takes guts. I walked all over everything she wanted; I'm not surprised she ran away from me. I'm not surprised she felt insecure, I gave her every reason for feeling insecure, but not anymore, she deserves better. And better clearly isn't me."

Puck was speechless and a little shocked by the so called 'Christian's' language. He could see the tears rolling down Quinn's cheeks. Never had he seen this side of Quinn before, the side of Quinn which everyone believed she didn't have; a vulnerable side. He wanted to hug and tell her it would all be okay but he couldn't do that anymore. He didn't want to give Quinn false hope; he did however want to help her.

"Come here," he said, beckoning Quinn towards him.

Quinn let Puck's arms melt into her and she felt safe again. She'd never felt safe Finn or Sam, rarely even Santana. In a street fight she might have felt protected by Santana but not in an emotional way, Santana was just like her; out to destroy everyone else because she is just afraid to be who she wants to be. Santana loves Brittany but she doesn't fight for Brittany because she doesn't want to start getting thrown into dumpsters and being slushied everyday of her life for loving a girl, in Lima being yourself was a complete brick wall.

Pulling away from Puck he began to talk, but not the usual Puck talk, actual sensible talk.

"I can't promise that you'll be able to make it up to Rachel in the way that you want and I can't promise that it's going to be okay anymore, usually I would but I don't want to lie to you Quinn. You mean too much to me than for me to lie to you."

Quinn smiled knowing that he meant well.

He continued, "But one thing I'm positive on is that Rachel deserving better is you Quinn. Even if you don't see it, I do. I always have. You're not that bitch in uniform and a lot of people know that. At the party everyone was shocked to hear you being nice, but they didn't say anything because they knew it was in you somewhere and that you just needed to find it. Everyone takes their own time to find out who they are and you're slowly getting there, and that's fine. I'll help you Quinn, Rachel is like a weird Jewish-sister-cousin-person to me, and I want to see both her and you happy, so I'll do what I can okay."

A silence fell between the pair.

Then suddenly Quinn broke it, "I've never heard you string more than a few words together to make sentences so that was definitely an achievement. Maybe it's a Jewish thing, the whole stringing long sentences together, maybe you and Rachel would be perfect together," she teased.

Puck frowned.

"Our kids would be gold stars with Mohawks and that would be a painful birth."

Smiling, Quinn saw out of the corner of her eye that Puck had screwed his face up. He must have been picturing the image of Rachel trying to give birth to a gold star. Painful.

Not knowing what she was really about to do Quinn stood on her tiptoes and kissed Puck lightly on the cheek and whispered in his ear, "Thank-you."

He blushed and smiled a very reassuring smile, flashing his pearly whites at Quinn.

"Come on then Robin we have a plan to sort." Quinn grabbed Puck's hand and started dragging him back up the field in direction to the truck.

"Why am I Robin?" Puck said disappointedly. "He never had a Mohawk."

"No neither did batman but I probably look better in a leather suit than you do," they both laughed heartily.

"That's true, but you could just be cat woman," he voiced trying to hide the sound of arousal in his voice.

"You have one dirty mind Puckerman," Quinn said unsurprisingly.

As they passed the smoothie bar Quinn felt someone else's presence, as if she was being watched. She whipped around. Nothing.

"What?" Puck asked looking confused.

"Nothing, I thought I was being watched."

Puck dismissed it as almost as Quinn said it, let go of her hand and unlocked the truck.

"Your carriage awaits madam."

Quinn laughed. She hadn't laughed this much in a long time and it felt good to be happy again. The rest of her day was set, she thought. Go home and work out how to meet up with Rachel without Santana or Finn getting suspicious. She'd have to ask for puck's help but it'd be worth it, right?

Puck had his hand held out ready to help Quinn into the truck but before she took it she curtseyed and said, "Why thank-you dear sir."

Puck, who decided to play along too, bowed and then bent down on one knee taking Quinn's hand and kissing it.

Passer's by were giving the pair very weird looks and were chivvying their children along as fast as they could.

Puck helped Quinn up who immediately lost her balance and fell straight into his arms. He tried to mimic a romantic dance move in which he moved Quinn to the right of his body, supporting her with just one arm and then leant over her.

Their faces were a couple of centimetres apart when Puck said, "If you didn't have the hot's for Rachel right now I'd totally hit on you."

Quinn laughed and pulled herself upright, completely forgetting the feeling of someone else's presence. She climbed into the passenger side of Puck's truck just as he began revving the engine. After the engine spluttered and failed a few times puck managed to get it going and they roared off down the street.

From the other side of the road Rachel had been watching the pair muck around with each other smiling at Quinn's ease around him. But now she just stood stock still, tears in her eyes from the scene she had just witnessed. Quinn hadn't cared about the kiss at all and now she was with Puck again, Rachel thought, trying not to push the image Puck on one knee kissing Quinn's hand out of her head. Throwing the flowers she was holding into a nearby bin she hauled her bag onto her back and walked off feeling crestfallen.

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Next chapter: Do Quinn and Rachel's parents find out about their odd behaviour?