A/N: I can't wait for "The Road to Sectionals" to come out. I am so excited about it, it's a little ridiculous. Please read and review!
Disclaimer: I own not a thing.
He had been hell-bent on keeping his anger inside of him. He knew it seemed like the pussy way out, but he had been over it and over it and had decided that he needed to do whatever it took to get back into her life, and that he would deal with all of the consequences of that later. He just needed to get the ball rolling. Where it rolled after that… that was an entirely different story.
She had gotten down on her knees and begged him. The idea of Rachel Berry begging had crossed his mind before when he had initially envisioned these confrontational moments, but actually seeing it happen was so much better than he could have imagined. He had her by the figurative balls… he could walk away, if he chose to. She was begging him. She was humiliating herself for him, because (as she had once told him) the act of begging was a supreme act of humiliation, and she would never humiliate herself in such away. The slushies and taunting in high school had done that enough. She would never debase herself by begging for anything. And yet…she was begging for him.
He didn't want to give in too easily; however. If he gave in too easily, he was a pussy, and Noah Puckerman was no pussy. That's what he had spent four years avoiding – the stigma of being the bitch that had gotten stood up by Rachel Berry, Queen Gleek.
Of course, at the time, she had been his Queen Gleek and her stigma had faded significantly until it was in the distant past. It hadn't mattered at all, until she had left town. Then… well, everyone at McKinley and in Lima who had known about Leah instantly sprang to his defense and had ridiculed her for months. He knew that was why she almost never left her fathers' house when she came home for vacations. Practically the entire town was defending him and siding with him.
As much as he loved the fact that she was begging him on her knees to have him take her back, he felt bad for leaving her there for so long. He knew how degrading she found the act, and so, in an act of mercy, he had pulled her back up onto the chair. And then he had decided to have a little fun.
He had noticed the way she had first looked at him, when she had seen him shirtless, when she had watched him wake up. He wondered how long she had looked at him the night before prior to falling asleep – or had she simply stayed up all night staring? It would be such a very Berry thing to do.
So he began to tease her, leaning close to her body so that she could feel his body heat on her skin. He kept just far enough away so that he wouldn't accidentally brush up against her, and he leaned in to breathe in her ear, smell her neck, smell her hair. She was intoxicating, and his drunkenness was one of the reasons why he had to make her speak. He had to find out if her words were true – the best way to do that was to get her to answer while she was distracted. She always told the truth when she was distracted; she couldn't think of any lie clever enough to tell.
He had finally decided to break his hold over her, and was leaning in to kiss her, to really, really kiss her, when the phone began to ring. He had hoped that she would ignore it, and was emboldened when she did. He needed to test the waters and see if they still had their physical compatibility. It had been so long since he had been with anyone, and while the idea of Rachel with anyone but him made him want to throw up and punch holes in walls, he knew that he had been holding out for her, and that no matter what happened in the future, he needed to experience her again, at least one more time.
However the kiss went would dictate their future. If there was no spark, no passion, no love, he would finally be able to move on. He knew that she wouldn't be able to act her way through a kiss, not the kisses they used to share. If there was anything still left there, if she wasn't just lying and messing with his head, then her kiss would show that to him.
She was leaning towards him and he could smell her hair all around him and then the answering machine began to play, bringing the moment to a slamming halt. "Ray-Ray, it's Daddy," he heard. Having known her fathers for as long as he had, he knew from her father's voice that something had happened.
"Please, call me back as soon as you get this message. I need to talk to you," her father continued, and then the machine cut off and there was silence for a split second before Rachel pulled away from him and moved into action.
He was immobilized on the floor trying to comprehend what was going on. He was 22 years old. He was in Rachel Berry's apartment, crouched in front of a chair in his boxers, and he had been just about to kiss her. But his mind wasn't there. In his mind, he was back in his mother's house, feeling the world drop away as Finn told him about the car accident.
He snapped back to reality when he heard Rachel shout, "No!" into the phone, and his instincts, honed through three years of being with her, reacted instantaneously. He moved to her automatically and pulled her towards him, sheltering her in his arms. He didn't even pause to think about how it felt to finally hold her again after all of these years. Instead, he simply felt the pain moving through her and the hot wetness of her tears on his skin.
He listened to her tell her father that she was coming home, and he felt his brain stutter to a halt. He felt like he had temporarily separated his mind from his body – his body was still standing there alert as Rachel pulled away from him and began rummaging through her closet, but his mind was watching the whole thing from up-above, while split-screening what he had imagined she had looked like packing when she left four years ago. His heart spasmed at the thought.
She was racing through the apartment grabbing random objects, and he knew that she was reacting to her fear and letting her anxiety overwhelm her. She needed him to be calm for her, to be there for her.
"Hey," he said as he slipped his hand around her wrist, gently halting her.
"Dad had a heart attack, I have to go home," she said, and tried to pull away from him so that she could finish packing.
"He's going to be okay, Rach. He will be. I know he will be. But, Rachel, I'm not letting you pack up and leave without me again. I'm coming with you," he said, and tugged her to him. "I'm coming with you." He didn't know what had made him say it, but he was glad that he did. Her eyes dissolved into tears and she rushed towards him.
He pulled her close to him and wrapped his arms around her tightly, holding her and letting her cry. He was rubbing her back as she cried, but he didn't make any of those stupid, soothing, comforting noises. They didn't help. He knew that first-hand.
"He's going to be okay, Rach," he said to her, and hoped that he wasn't promising her something that wouldn't be true. "We just need to get you home so that you can see that, okay? You pack; I'll get on the computer and look up flight information, okay?" he said reassuringly.
"Okay," she said, and he released her to walk to the outer room. He knew that by not asking where to go to find the computer he was giving himself away, but he also knew that she wasn't paying enough attention to notice at the moment.
He found the computer and booked the first tickets he could find, leaving LaGuardia in 2 hours.
"Rach, come on, we've gotta go!" he called as he walked towards her room. She was just zipping the suitcase and had her purse on her shoulder.
"Pack up the laptop, would you?" she started to ask him, and then she turned to him. "Where are your clothes?" she shrieked.
"In the wash, where you left them," he replied.
"Oh shit," she cried, and he had to stop himself from laughing at how deranged she looked. It was almost like the old days, before she had begun to calm down a little bit.
"They're going to mildew, we can't leave the dryer on when we don't know how long we'll be gone, but you're in boxers and you can't get on a plane in boxers, much less get into a taxi or go out on the street to get clothes…" she was tumbling through her words, and he was watching her in awe.
"Sweatpants, Berry?" he asked. "Where is that old Buckeyes shirt of your dads that you sleep in?"
"Umm," she paused, and for a second he thought he was going to have to go to the airport in soaking wet clothes.
"I have a pair of your old sweatpants and a jersey of yours here…" she said quietly. "I sleep in them sometimes, when I miss you."
He was wondering how often she missed him when she pulled his WMHS practice jersey and a pair of black sweatpants from her dirty laundry bin. Guess she missed him a lot. The thought made him feel slightly comforted, and he dressed quickly.
They got through security quickly and made it to the plane just as they were beginning to call their section for boarding. They quickly joined the queue at the counter and were shuttled onto the plane. They stowed her bags in the overhead bin (Noah had agreed to use one of her carry-ons as his own, so she wouldn't have to pay the extra fee) and settled into the seat.
"Breathe, just breathe," he reminded her as she nervously tapped her toes and drummed her fingers on the armrest. He could feel the adrenaline running through her; her nervous energy was seeping into the air around her. He wanted to comfort her and calm her, but he found that he didn't know how to do that anymore. He wasn't sure who this new Rachel was. He wasn't sure how she needed to be comforted, or if she would even accept his comfort.
The plane finally took off, and he and Rachel spent the entire plane ride in silence. They spoke only when the flight attendant asked if they would care for an in-flight beverage. While he could definitely have used a stiff whiskey to center himself again, he knew that it wasn't really in his best interests to do so. Plus, if he had a drink, Rachel would have a drink, and the last he knew, Rachel was a lightweight. And she was in shock. That would not be a good combination.
He declined the drink and so did she, and then they returned to the silence that had been hovering over them since they had boarded the plane. It felt almost as if they had been slammed back together because of an external, powerful event even though they weren't ready to be back together yet.
He pushed the thought out of his mind – now was not the time to be thinking about his relationship, or lack thereof, with Rachel. What was more important was her father. The man had held him as he cried for his daughter, and had stood up to Rachel for him on more than one occasion when she had gone a little crazy on him. Both of her fathers had attempted to step up and be the man for him that his father never wanted to be, and the fact that one of her dads, one of his dads, was in the hospital after having a heart attack, and was undergoing open-heart surgery, was painful to contemplate.
He knew that he had impulsively decided to go with her so that he could honor what her fathers had given to him and done for him. He had attempted to pass it off under the guise of being wary of letting her leave him, but he knew that he had really done it for her dad. So that he could be the sort of man her father had wanted him to be.
When the plane landed the two of them ran for the car rental area and Rachel used her credit card to secure a four-door sedan that had seen better days. Noah shoved her luggage in the trunk and opened the passenger door for her to get in. Wordlessly, she sat on the seat and pulled the seatbelt across her chest.
He walked around to the driver's side of the car thinking about how scarily quiet she had become. He had seen her fall into silence before, but not one as penetrating and as permanent as this. He had expected her to be full of tears and dramatics, but instead she had retreated so far inside herself that he could barely find a glimmer of life in her eyes.
Their silence extended as he drove them to the hospital. It was only when he began to pull into the parking lot that she turned to speak to him.
"Did you even call your mother to tell her you were coming into town?" she asked him, her voice monotone.
"No," he confessed guiltily. "I just got on the plane. I didn't think to let her know. I was more just in go-mode, you know?"
"Sure, sure," she replied, and then whispered, "thank-you for coming."
"Of course," he started awkwardly. "I care about your fathers. They're both good men. I owe it to the both of them to make sure that their daughter gets to them safely. I owe it to the both of them to make sure that they are okay, after they looked out for me for all of these years." He snapped his mouth shut. He had said more than he had intended to say.
"Oh," she said, and turned away from him again, staring out the window until he pulled into the parking spot. The ceasing of the motion seemed to snap Rachel out of her reverie and push her into action once more. She tore off her seatbelt and bolted from the car, leaving him to race to catch up to her.
She was running as she reached the admittance desk in the ER.
"We're here to see my father, the last name is Berry," she began, but Noah tugged her away from the desk.
"Noah!" she exclaimed, shocked, until she turned in the direction he was pulling her. She stopped fighting him and instead released his hand and ran across the hospital floor towards her father.
"Daddy!" she shouted, and Noah watched as her father caught her in his arms and held her to him. He hung back, wanting to give them space. Mr. Berry was a tall man, but his stature seemed so diminished as he held onto his tiny daughter for support. Noah could see that his shoulders were shaking, and he feared that they hadn't gotten there in time. He could feel himself begin to sink into the old memories when he heard Rachel call to him across the lobby.
"Noah! Come here!" she commanded, and he felt his heart lift. If she wasn't sobbing, if she hadn't collapsed, then it must not be over. The worst had not yet happened.
He walked over to Mr. Berry and held out his hand. Instead of shaking it, Rachel's father pulled him into a hug and whispered in his ear, "We'll talk about this later, okay?" before he pulled back.
"How is Mr. Berry, sir?" he asked, trying to hide the shock he felt at the older man's words.
"He made it out of surgery. There was a clot in one of his arteries and it moved into his heart. They got the clot out and performed some major surgery in there, but they think he's going to recover well. I told him to lay off the cream cheese, but no," Noah attempted a weak smile at the feeble joke.
"Can I go see him, Daddy?" Rachel asked her father, but the man shook his head.
"Not now, star," he said affectionately. "He's still in recovery, and he's knocked out with some very serious drugs. He wouldn't normally wake up for a few more hours at least, but they're going to keep him asleep a little longer to give him more time to rest and heal. You should go home and get some rest yourself, baby girl."
"Daddy…I want to see him. I need to make sure he's okay; that he's not going to…" Rachel's voice trailed off, and he could see that she couldn't even bring herself to say the words.
"I know, honey, but it's going to be a little while. Go home. Sleep. I've drunk too much Red Bull to do that now, even though the nurses keep trying to get me to lie down. Go home and rest. When I crash, you're going to have to be able to look after your dad while I sleep, okay?" her father said, and Noah appreciated the logic he was using to convince Rachel to go home.
"C'mon, Rach, I'll take you home," he said. "You need to get some sleep."
"Are you sure, Daddy?" she asked her father once more.
"Yes, I'm sure. Now go with Noah," her father said sternly.
Noah watched as Rachel hugged her father once more, and then stepped in to embrace the man again.
"This is an interesting development," Noah heard as he hugged her father again. He chose not to comment, and instead expressed his thanks that Mr. Berry was going to be okay, and promised to make sure that Rachel got some sleep.
He felt like he was having an out-of-body experience. Less than 24 hours ago, he had been told that he wasn't living up to his academic potential and was overcoming a hangover, and now he was in Lima with Rachel and he was about to go to her house with her for the first time in four years. It was surreal. He wasn't quite sure how to process it. So he pushed it away instead of dwelling on it.
"Come on, Rachel, let's go home," he said, and they walked back out to the hospital parking lot.