Title: Life Goes On
Author: msathenaxf
Disclaimer: Neither Glee, or any of its characters, belong to me. But I really love them and am borrowing them for my own amusement.
Author Notes: For the purpose of this story, I am assuming that Quinn, Finn, and Puck are all seniors in the current season. The others are either juniors or sophomores. I don't think their official grade levels have been mentioned yet.
Puck
Puck lost everything good from his past the day he was finally allowed to claim his future. He gained a daughter but lost Finn. Friends since eight, it ended in a flurry of fists and epithets.
It had been hard—harder than anything he had ever done—to finally agree with Quinn and sign the adoption papers. Puck knew he could take care of both of them; but he knew that their daughter deserved more than he could provide. And while it killed him, the moment he held his newborn daughter in his arms, he knew it was the right decision.
Puck stayed in Lima, to no one's surprise. However, he enrolled full-time in the local community college, and that was definitely unexpected. Unbelievably, his mother made too much money for him to qualify for financial aid, so he continued to work as much as possible. He threw himself into his studies, and worked full-time cleaning pools and, during winter, repaired houses. Things were not easy for Puck, but he was doing this for himself. He wasn't trying to impress a girl, or look cool. And that alone made the difficult experience worthwhile.
When he could, he helped Coach Tanaka for some extra money, and when there was time he would wander over to the choir room. If there were two things Puck knew, it was football and, apparently, glee club. It was actually a really unique experience to have students look up to him, not because they were scared of him, but because he had something meaningful to say. He found himself liking it.
He got to know Artie a lot better and formed an uneasy truce with Santana. And by the end of the year, Puck was only a little shocked to realize he and Rachel were friends. He showed up for their graduation and cheered loudly for all of them. Screw all the kids giving him strange looks; he was done with this place, and he could—and would—be friends with whomever he wanted.
After, he was surprised at which people he kept in touch with. Kurt stayed in Lima after high school and so did Tina. Both went to the community college and he would see them around campus. Tina tutored him in math. She told him about Rachel landing the lead in one of the state school's plays. He bought a ticket that afternoon, and sat in the third row for her opening night.
They really only ever saw each other at temple, which he did not attend nearly as much as his mother would have liked, or at McKinley when they both were there to help with glee. On the days he knew that he would see her there, Puck would bring her a slushie. Sometimes she surprised him with one of his own.
Once he had enough credits, Puck transferred to the four-year university. Because of his full work schedule, he was a year behind. The timing ended up working out well, though. He would see Rachel around campus and they met for lunch a couple times a week. That first time had been a little strange. It was actually the first time they had met up without the excuse of glee or church. Puck was pleasantly surprised to find that they still had a lot to talk about. And somewhere between rehearsal and lunch, somewhere between high school and college, somewhere between child and man, he fell completely in love with her.
He knew it was hopeless. For whatever reason, she had stayed in Lima after high school, but she would be graduating college soon. They never really talked about what would come next, but of course he knew she would be leaving this crap town. So he never said anything about his feelings, and just continued along like normal.
It was Tina who told him that Rachel wasn't planning on going anywhere after graduation. Puck had argued with her, insisting she was wrong, but Tina only laughed at him, and explained that Rachel was waiting for him. He was horrified, if a little gratified. But Puck knew that he was here for a while, at least until his sister graduated. He refused to ruin another girl's life, and being with him would do nothing but drag her down.
So he started to pull away. His work kept him from temple even more than usual. He avoided running into her on campus and cancelled their lunches. Puck did his absolute best to put distance between them. He knew he was probably hurting her, but it would be easier on both of them. One thing he could not do, though, was skip her shows, but now he always sat in the very back of the upper sections, where there was no way she could see him. And he never stuck around afterward.
One day around town, he ran into Kurt, who was glaring ahead, just daring someone to get in his way. Puck managed to keep the smile off his face at the idea of Kurt fighting anyone, but he also acknowledged that something must have really pissed the younger man off. That was when Puck learned about the freshman frat boy that had a crush on Rachel. A crush that was unrequited. A crush that required a call to campus security.
Later, in his first fight since Finn, Puck punched out a freshman that had pushed Rachel Berry against a wall, left bruises on her arm, and made her cry.
One punch was all it took, and the kid was down. Briefly, he worried about police—after all, he wasn't a juvenile anymore—but when Rachel showed up on his doorstep later, looking at him with big brown eyes and a grateful smile, he knew it was worth it.
Puck was no virgin, but he made love for the first time that night. He had not kissed her since high school, or even held her hand, but staying away from her was suddenly and completely out of the question. And to his amazement, she seemed to feel the same way.