A/N: First of all, I want to apologize for disappearing on you guys. I've written this chapter four times in the past two weeks and it was really just bad – not me looking for sympathy, or digging for compliments bad, but actually really bad. I've constructed a loose outline for the story and I've written the first line to every chapter, but this one –every time I wrote it – seemed to drag on and not bring anything to the plot. Anyway, this document (with only the little tag, the title, and the first line) has been lurking around on my computer for the past few days and I've just been ignoring it and getting annoyed with myself…that is, until last night when I got an amazing review from dreamsfilltheemptysky (who's review literally made me grin fro ear to ear), and it made me think that I needed to regain my will to live, try again, and just move on from this train wreck of a chapter because I have bigger and better things to do with this story.

Anyway, rant over. Now to the begging part:

Please, tell me what you think. I know these are all kind of blending together to make a sad drunken mess of ficlets, but trust me, I have a distinct endpoint I'm planning for, and in a few chapters you'll see. You'll get it, I promise. You guys are awesome, by the way. Thanks for this. OH and by the way, never take a college ceramics class. It will eat away all of your free time and make your hands all chalky.

Title: Fleeting Moments
Author: sparklinglemonade
Rating: M
Summary: Noah Puckerman isn't a good person – he's an ass, a studly sex-shark – but when it comes to Quinn Fabray he tends to have his moments.
Genre: Angst/Drama
Chapter: Twenty One

Pollen

He wakes up itchy and covered in hives, as if she's pollen and he's highly allergic, but has been sitting under a tree all night. In all honesty, what he's allergic to is her; her being there, her being so broken, just her.

Technically, the hives are really in his imagination, but the effect he assumes they would give off is real. He's drowsy, like he's taken an extra Benadryl tablet, and he can't seem to gain enough strength to get himself up off the floor.

He carried her up to his bedroom at some point and laid her down on the mattress, then went to tell his Mother she'd be spending the night...in his bed.

"No," she says, then points her finger at him, "and before you ask me again, no, she will not sleep in your bed. She can stay here Noah, that's fine with me, but not in the bed with you, okay? I don't need a second grandchild." He sighs, rolls his eyes at her and nods before turning to retreat, "Noah?" his mother calls, and he looks back, "she'll get better. I promise, she will."

"No," he croaks out, "she won't. She'll die first."

His mother ignores this and smiles sadly at him, "she'll get better." She promises again, and then shuts her own bedroom door. He lies on his floor until the sun starts to rise, hoping his mom is right and wondering what the hell he's gotten himself into.

In the morning, he's itchy. He's red and swollen (metaphorically, that is,) and hating life - and she's gone. She left a note on his pillow that simply says "sorry" and apparently made his bed.

His mother knocks on his door a while after he wakes up, and looks at him lying on the floor like someone left for dead (and in a way, he is). He stares back at her and gestures to the bed.

"She said she's sorry," he croaks out, his throat dry and his voice raspy, "and she made my bed. I don't know…" he trails off because he isn't sure of what he doesn't know. "I told her it's going to be okay, ma, but I don't think it will be."

His mother crosses her arms and sits on the edge of the bed, "it will be," she pulls on the shoulder of his t-shirt and he manages to sit up against the side of the bed, you have to trust me on this one, okay? One day it will all be okay, and you two will start feeling like normal people again."

"When?" he asks, and his mother shrugs.

"That's up to you," she smiles, "now get off the floor, come downstairs, and make me breakfast…you at least owe me that much for all this wonderful advice you're getting."

He obliges, but as he follows his mother down the stairs he can't help but think that it's not really up to him – it's up to her. And because it's up to her, he figures that he actually may never be okay.