Strong Enough
Sheryl Crow

Just try and love me if you can
Are you strong enough to be my man?

When I'm broken down and I can't stand
Would you be man enough to be my man?

After Puck's confession, all Rachel could do was stand there for a moment and process the implications of his words and actions. She could still feel his smooth but firm lips pressing heatedly against hers. He was talented with his tongue, and the fact that he had pressed all of his lean hard muscles up against her as he mauled her against the lockers hadn't escaped her notice. He was dangerously handsome; he was definitely the kind of fire that the proverbial moth (Rachel in this instance) could get completely incinerated with…

It wasn't until she heard the whistling janitor return did she come back to reality. Puck had just kissed her… no, he had practically made love to her mouth… and Barbara help her, she wanted him to do it again. She was however perplexed… this flirtatious thing that they were doing (thing? Really? Where had her impressive vocabulary gone? Dance of seduction… there that sounds better) had never really crossed into the physical before. And as far as she knew she hadn't done anything to him to provoke such a passionate retaliation. (Not that she was complaining.) However it was what he said after the kiss that had her most confused.

"You need to figure out who and what you want."

As if she didn't already know that. She knew that she still had feelings for Finn… I mean in all honesty you can't just turn off 6 or so months of pinning after the All American Boy just like that. And to switch from sweet, patient, (and let's face it, dumber than dirt) Finn to salty (do not let your mind wander Rachel Berry! Focus!) and abrasive Puck (it just sounds wrong calling him Puck, but it creates a stronger contrast than Noah…) would give any girl pause.

It's not like she intended to string the two of them along, cause really? In what world does Rachel "Man Hands" Berry have the social juice to string not one but two of the hottest boys in school around? (Well that and, you know she refuses to pull a Finn.)

Thinking back on it, she came to the conclusion, that while Finn was sweet, patient and kind, it really was Noah that was the better of the two. Aside from the whole Quinn debacle, Noah never hid who he was, he never had an agenda, he never used her, he was always straight forward with her, and brutally honest… which she really had to admire because she was brutally honest too.

Puck was perceived as this bad-ass who didn't give a damn about anything, but she knew better, she saw flashes and glimpses of Noah, the boy who proudly held her hand through the hallways of McKinnley, Noah, the boy who serenaded her in front of the whole Glee club, the same Noah who had given up football for her (regardless of what he said on the bleachers that day). And the same emotionally vulnerable boy who had cried himself to sleep in her arms.

And yes, he was still Puck, he still threw nerds into the dumpsters if they looked at him wrong (and considering that Jacob Ben-Israel was often tossed into the dumpsters, Rachel found she didn't really mind that aspect of Puck's personality), he still never missed an opportunity to say something crass or rude, and he stilled called her crazy, but from him it was a term of endearment rather than a hurtful reminder that she was different from everyone else.

All of a sudden the answer seemed clear, how had she been so blind for so long? They were a couple of good looking Jews and it was about time that she stopped denying it… and him.

Rushing home, she quickly changed out of her Velma Kelly outfit, and into a comfortable pair of jeans and a fitted plaid three quarter length shirt. Setting up her camcorder, she quickly jumped on "the iTunes" and found the acoustic version of the song she would sing for Noah.

Smiling while it downloaded, she brushed her hair until it shined, and swiped a hint of blush on her cheeks, some mascara on her lashes, and the cherry flavored lip gloss on her lips that drove him wild.

Pressing play she smiled softly, almost shyly at the camera as the intro began to play, "This is dedicated to my leading man."

As Puck watched her video he smiled to himself and picked up his guitar. He hadn't forgotten what Rachel told him the first time that they had dated (or whatever the hell it was they had done for 6 days), that for him to be her leading man (and to deal with the ups and downs of an admittedly high maintenance woman like herself… what? He listens), he needed to prove it. Last time he had done it by singing Sweet Caroline, which won her over quite easily. This time however it was time to bust out the big guns.

What neither good looking Jew could've anticipated was a sweet, patient (and let's face it dumber than dirt) boy watching the same MySpace video and misinterpreting whom the song was really dedicated to.

Hm…. I think this is my longest chapter to date! See! I'm trying to make them longer! I actually started to write one for Need You Now, but I'm having a hard time finding a place for it… so I might just post it as a stand alone (but still within the PNBIID [Puck-n-Berry's Infinite iPod Drabbles] universe)… I'm not sure if I want to include Jesse in all of this either… although I have a feeling that if I bring him in, it's gonna force me to do more than my originally anticipated 30 chapters… or maybe I'll hit the 30 mark and then have enough material to actually launch into a full fledged fic from there… what do you guys think?

I tried to get this chapter out before I jumped on a 6 hour plane ride to New York so I could hopefully deplane to an inbox full of reviews… but since that was an epic failure and I had to wait until I got to New York to do anything, I'm hoping that I'll wake up to an inbox full of reviews… I'm about to enter the madness week of work, where I'll probably average maybe 3 hours of sleep a night if I'm lucky… so please review, give me a reason to be deliriously happy rather than just deliriously sleep deprived.

Reviews are love!