Having made out with her for a week or so and hearing her sing all the time in glee, Puck thought he had a pretty good idea what Rachel Berry was all about. Then late one afternoon, leaving detention, he was walking by the auditorium when he heard Rachel singing. When she stopped, he slipped in the rear door as quietly as possible and sat down immediately at the back. Rachel was on the stage with just Brad at the piano, Mr. Schue sitting in the fifth row.

"One last time. I think I can do it better."

Where I go, when I go there …

she began, soft and clear and pure, gathering confidence and strength,

…Touch me, just like that
And that, o yeah now, that's heaven…

a smile in the voice, passionate, teasing, whispering to her lover,

…now lower down where the figs lie…

wanting his hand on her sex,

…touch meeeeeeeeeeeee…

a long-held high note of ecstasy,

… no more shadows anymore

only you there in the kissss…

dropping into a rich, dark, resonant vein, then

…looooove me…

orgasmic

…where the winds sigh

and a quiet final bliss.

She looked like nothing he'd ever seen of her before and sounded like nothing he'd ever heard from her before, and he got seriously hard just listening to the passion pour out of her in a voice that caused his mouth to open and damn near made him cry. "Stunning" didn't begin to describe it. When she finished, Brad, who normally left the instant the singing stopped, remained immobile with his hands on the keys for half a minute. Mr. Schue rose slowly, went up on the stage, hugged Rachel, looked at her as though he were about to kiss her on the mouth and, without a word, walked up the aisle right past a seemingly invisible Puck. That was Puck's Rachel Berry epiphany: she was clearly going where neither he nor anyone else at McKinley High could possibly follow.

That night, Puck called her.

"I heard you sing this afternoon. You were incredible. I just had to tell you."

"Thanks. I really appreciate it. It's very sweet of you. I saw you at the back, you know. Why didn't you come up to see me?"

"I felt you were in a different world from me, very far away. I didn't know."

"Didn't know what?"

"I didn't know that 'become a star' shit was a perfectly reasonable thing for you to believe, that you might actually make it. Why don't you sing like that all the time?"

"It would upset the dynamics of the club. Show choir isn't a talent contest, it's a team competition. I like to win, so I need everyone else to give their best, not just stand back and admire me. Look, my dads have taken me to Europe, to New York. I've been to museums, to musicals, to operas. I've read many, many books. If I paraded all that around, I would be even more insufferable and hated than I already am."

"What are you doing in Lima?"

"My dads' parents and most of their families are here. A couple of my grandparents are sick, one has Alzheimer's. I love them and want to see them as often as I can before I have to go away. And as long as we're speaking of hiding one's light under a bushel, what about you? A Jewish boy with a Mohawk! Gimme a break. You're extraordinarily handsome, incredibly sexy. You're very bright. If you had been 'Noah' instead of 'Puck' all the time it would be you I was in love with and there's no way I wouldn't have had sex with you by now. You're a great guy and you're very dear to me. Goodnight, Noah."

"Goodnight, Rachel."

Puck went into the bathroom and shaved off his Mohawk. He went to bed and, for the first time in his life, consciously hated himself. Sleep did not come easy.

...

By now, Puck's was the only vehicle left in the school's parking lot. He started up the truck, got a burger at a drive-in and went home. Up in his bedroom, he fished a small bottle out of a dresser drawer, opened it and sniffed. He did it not despite, but because of the pain he knew it would cause him. He wanted to wallow in his hurt, he wanted to do it once and for all. It was Rachel's shampoo. He had bought it on the internet as a present but it didn't arrive until after she had dumped him. He would open it from time to time, usually after she had smiled at him at school, or on the rare occasion she called to talk.

He took out his cell and deleted every female, except for Quinn and Shelby, who wasn't a relative. He went on line and registered for summer school. He went downstairs and kissed his mother and sister goodnight, came back up, sniffed the shampoo, and poured it all down the drain. Then Noah Puckerman went to sleep.

The End