Take anything you want, it's fine
Keep up the slow life for the night
Don't take it back, I'll just deny
This constant noise all the time

Even though you're the only one I see
It's the last catastrophe
Place your bets on chance and apathy
From the wind in front of me

{Grizzly Bear – Slow Life}

Jesse heads to the room to unpack, and Rachel's running last night over in her head. The touches, the movements, the memory of him next to her . . . Excuse her if she's being a little dramatic, but she feels like she can't breathe; like something's wrong. That's when she remembers how incredibly stupid she had been.

"Jesse!" she squeals, sprinting down the hall and up the stairs. "I almost forgot! It's garbage day today! Let me get it!" Rachel leaps over the bed, ties a knot firmly in the bag and, with a pounding heart, goes to take it downstairs.

"Rachel? What's going on?" Jesse asks suspiciously.

"I- I-"

"You what?"

"I . . . I sort of had some people over last night," she says. The idea is unfolding in her mind slowly, as though the lie had always been there but she just hadn't seen it properly. "Just a couple of the girls from work, and a few came up here with the food and there was a big mess, but I think we cleaned it up okay." Rachel's tongue almost burns with the lie, but what's another one now?

"And you thought I'd be mad at that?" Jesse laughs, wrapping an arm around her. "You're funny, did you know that?"

"I'm not funny," she says stubbornly – like Rachel Berry would – and goes to throw it in the apartment garbage bin down stairs.

When she catches her reflection in a puddle on the steps outside, she doesn't recognise that girl anymore. Her features all look bigger or smaller or rearranged – something like that. She can tell it's her, but it just doesn't seem right . . . Maybe this whole thing is making her crazy.

Maybe she's crazy to still be going through with this whole thing.

It's been months of this, now. Almost twelve months with Jesse – a lot of lying to him, too. Puck says he doesn't care, as long as he gets her occasionally, but she's starting to not believe him. Of course he's angry, Puck doesn't share. Rachel doesn't either, but she doesn't mind being shared.

The bright side of all of this, though, is that she's gotten an off-Broadway lead in a musical, and finally, she's going to make it. If she can be impressive enough, she might just get picked up by the glitz and glamour and thrown into the spotlight of the world, and then her life will be complete. She's in it with Luanna – the one she still trusts and likes – and things couldn't be better.

Except, she's gone and ruined it all, you see.

It's all just wrong, wrong, wrong. She can't stop thinking about it; she can't seem to find a way out of this without hurting someone. She could tell Jesse and break his heart, cut off all ties with Noah and break his heart, or just move back to Lima with her fathers without telling anyone, crushing her own dreams and breaking her heart. Because she knows she loves them both . . . She just has a feeling she loves one more than the other.

The trouble is, though, she doesn't know which boy it is.

One morning, she's a tangle of sheets and legs and clothes on his bed. He watches her from the other side of the room, a cigarette between his fingers, running a hand over his face.

"I shouldn't have come here, Noah," Rachel whispers quietly.

Puck shakes his head. "You say that every morning."

She sends him a glare, followed by a sigh. "Not mornings when I'm with Jesse. Not mornings when I haven't cheated."

He shrugs and looks around at his apartment. He thinks it's sad that it used to be theirs; that she used to be a part of this. That was more than a year ago – almost two, now. He still remembers how enthusiastically she had told him they would busk on the streets and she would work downtown until she got her big break. She has her big break now, he hears. He closes his eyes, leans his head against the wall and curses Jesse St What's-His-Face.

She wraps the sheets (his sheets) around her small frame and strides out of the room, tears in her eyes. Drama queen, he thinks with a sigh, watching her go.

"Rachel?" he calls out ten minutes later. "Rachel!"

"Yes?" she replies from the doorway, not meeting his gaze.

"Come here, Rach. Don't look at me like that." He notices that her fingers trace the little mark on her neck (his mark on her neck) briefly. "I just want to talk. Seriously." He doesn't, he just needs her to be next to him for a little while longer.

She smiles a small smile, crawling up next to him. "You know, I never thought I would have heard Noah Puckerman say that."

He scoffs, "Please, babe. There doesn't have to be any talking involved at all."

She rolls her eyes and smacks his arm. His body is so warm against her. She likes the way he rests his chin on her head and the way he holds her and the way he says her name (she likes everything about him). He kisses her hair and runs his hands up and down her arms.

"Why can't you just dump him?"

She ignores the question and sniffs, "I am so, so sorry. I shouldn't- Shouldn't- I'm hurting you, aren't I?"

He shrugs and turns his attention back to the sheet around her body. Unwrapping it from her, he kisses her, and it's back to the beginning again.

She thinks they're like a book. So many different stages of this relationship (but it's not a relationship) that could be referred to as chapters, and looking back over every memory is like flipping a page.

She knows, now, that these peaceful moments with Noah are only the calm before the storm; that this all comes to an end in the next chapter. They know this dance – this book – well. They've read it too many times.

"Rachel," Jesse says from the doorway. His eyes are dark and lowered to the ground, his hair falling over his forehead. "Where were you?"

"Running lines with Lu," she says flatly, placing her back on a chair. "You know we go through them more and more before performances."

"But why at her house?"

She looks at him earnestly, a small frown on her face and her hands on her hips. "Because she currently has no roommates, and I don't want to disturb you from running your own lines."

Okay, her voice has just a quarter ounce of venom. So what if he made an actual Broadway production and she's still on off-Broadway? It doesn't mean anything.

"Oh, Jesse, don't you trust me?"

She knows she plays innocence well.

He sighs and shakes his head. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Rachel, I am. I just- I get worried that you're upset I landed the role in Spring Awakening and you didn't. It's not that bigger deal."

She smiles and taps her pen against her paper as she settles down to study. He's always loved subtly rubbings things in. But it's okay, because she loves him. She loves him. She loves him. "I know. But you shouldn't Jesse. I'm fine, really."

He takes her hands, pulls her up from the chair and wraps her arms around him. "God, you're gorgeous. And I never thought I'd see you again."

She smiles weakly, threading her fingers through his. "I guess its fate."

He grins wildly. "We are fate, Rachel. Meeting in New York, with all our dreams laid out in front of us . . . We're fate."

"So superstitious," she says with a roll of hers, trying to push away the churn of her stomach. She didn't like talking about fate, about how good together they were; how perfect. All of a sudden, their apartment lights didn't seem so bright, and to an extent, their relationship seemed dull. Rachel blinks up at him and pulls away, sitting back down in her chair.

"I have to get this assignment done, Jess."

He shakes his head, leaning in to whisper in her ear. "Come on, Rach, we have time." His fingers trail along her collarbone as he kisses her cheek.(The shiver that runs down her spine is icier and more uncomfortable than it is when she's with Noah.)

"Really, Rachel, I have to talk to you. It's serious."

Rachel's head snaps up at that. Surely he'd be angrier if he knew, wouldn't he? That couldn't be it. Her mind is racing; not even noticing that Jesse has gotten down on one knee and is rummaging around in his pockets.

"Rachel-"

"Hm? Oh- Oh, Jesse . . ." Rachel mumbles.

"God, I love you, Rachel. You have no idea. You're beautiful and amazing and talented – you're so, so, so talented. And I promise, I'm going to do everything for you, and I'm going to love you now and forever. Will you marry me?" The words are so rehearsed, but he's performing them well. She thinks he's serious.

"I- I- I-"

He takes it as a yes, sliding the ring over her finger carefully.

Rachel goes to visit Puck late that night. Jesse is at rehearsal ('I'm sorry, baby, we'll celebrate tomorrow') and he won't be back for a long time. He grins at her in the doorway (he's more shameless about all of this than she is) and she kisses him as soon as he shuts the door, flinging her arms around his neck because she can't do this much longer.

When Rachel places her hands on either side of his face, Puck almost doesn't notice the cold, thin strip of metal touching his cheek. But he does. He takes her hand in his, pulling it into his eyesight. She swallows hard as he studies the ring, his face falling.

"He proposed . . ." Puck isn't asking. He knows she said yes.

"I couldn't- I just- I didn't know what to do, Noah. I still don't!" she cries, touching his arm. He flinches away, and she thinks she may have miscalculated how much this could hurt them all.

He pauses before looking at her, murder written on his face. Rachel isn't even thinking anymore – all her thoughts have broken down and disappeared. "Stop using that as an excuse! I'm so sick of you saying that you 'don't know'! You've got to fucking know, okay? This is your mess."

Her throat feels dry as she hisses, "Don't pretend you haven't played a part in this."

"Fuck you," he says angrily. She thinks he's been holding that one in for a while. He's never sworn at her before – it feels like being slapped. "Fuck you and your fiancé and your twisted life. Fuck you all."

"Don't speak to me that way!" she shrieks. This isn't fair, this isn't fair, this isn't fair. "I'm not Finn or one of your other friends. I'm a girl, Noah, and you have no idea how to respect one! If you hate me so much, why do you keep going on with it? Why didn't you just say so?"

"I never said I hated you," Puck says quietly. He's still fuming, she can almost feel it radiating off him. "But maybe I do."

"What do you feel then, Noah? I'm starting to doubt you feel much at all."

"You think I don't feel anything?" Puck's hands are shaking. "You and your fake boyfriend and your stupid lies that don't even sound real anymore! There's no way you two feel anything. How the hell does he believe you? You're such a bitch, trailing guys along like that." He's never yelled at her before. He never tells her when he's angry or upset, and now it's spilling out of him.

"STOP!" Rachel screams – a mix of her sobs and cries and shrieks all rolled into one. "Stop, stop, stop." It hurts because Rachel thinks – Rachel knows – it's true, and there's no denying any of it anymore. Why does he have to be so angry? Why is he so loud?

There's a silence while Rachel stares at the floor and he glares at her and there's so much tension in the room, she might suffocate from it.

"Why didn't you tell me you dropped out of NYU?"

Rachel's head snaps up. "What?"

"You dropped out. I heard what's-her-face-" Rachel glares at him here, "-talking about it at your work. Why?"

"I wasn't made to learn," she says flatly. Rachel had gone over this time and time again in her head, but it sounded so flat on her tongue as opposed to in her head, where it felt so inspirational. "I was made for bigger and better things. Jesse assured me of it – even if it was something I already knew."

A wooden chair goes flying across the room as Puck's foot makes contact with it. He probably snapped it in half – neither of them cares about furniture right now. He likes the sound, even if that sounds a little 'emo'. He likes the satisfaction of the crash and the vibrations running through the floor. Puck likes the sound of smashing glass too – nothing like broken glass to cure anger.

Okay, so yes, he's getting a little aggressive.

"Did you ever go to the NYPD?"

"There's no fuckin' point anymore. I couldn't give a shit about it."

Rachel stares at him. His face is blank and, for a little while, she almost believes he's given up – that she's made him give up. "Don't- You can't just-"

"Can't just what?"

"You can't give up like that!"

His eyes fall to her hand, where the rock of a ring is resting. "I dunno. Looks like you have." She doesn't quite know what he means but really, it's not that hard to guess.

"I should go."

"You should," he replies lowly and distantly, turning away from her.

She flies out the doors, tears prickling her eyes and her engagement ring feeling at least twenty times heavier than it had before.

I think I know what's on your mind
A couple words, a great divide
Waiting in the wings, a small respite
Crowding up the foreground from behind

Even though you're the only one I see
It's the last catastrophe
Place your bets on chance and apathy

{Grizzly Bear – Slow Life}