I have returned my dears. So this chapter is again, a little one-note, but stick with it, because this needs to be done! And I realize you've seen that kitchen scene before, this is deliberate! Enjoy. Oh, and check out my new oneshot, Baby Talk!

"Do you really have to go? Don't leave me here, Noah," Sarah begged, pacing herself beside her older brother, the heels of her slightly elevated ballet flats tapping a staccato beat on the airport floor.

"Yeah, I do, squirt. Got some unfinished business," he sighed, reaching the appropriate airport gate. He tried to resist going back to New York, but it had been three weeks. Enough was enough. He'd spent the holidays with his family, people who would love him unconditionally, in a town where he was worshipped.

His ma had already done enough of the begging.

"She can wait! She's waited this long, just stay another week," Sarah cried. What was that thing Nana Connie used to say? "Let the cake cool before you frost it?" What the hell did that mean anyways? All he knew was that he missed Santana, even after the baggage she dumped on him before he left. And it might not have been the right time for their relationship to return, but it was the right time for him.

"Sorry, Sarah. But I'll get Santana to send you some free clothes or something, okay? I'll make it up to you. Bye. Love you."

"Fine. Bye. Love you too." She embraced her older brother a final time, and he walked through the terminal, on his way into another world.

No one had come to see her off, those motherfuckers. No one, except for him and Brittany, who didn't really count because that girl was practically a continuation of Santana. He knew she was putting up a brave front, but he could tell she was saddened that her parents hadn't been the ones to drive her to the airport, that no one cared enough to come say goodbye. She kissed Brittany on both cheeks, and they did their pinky linking thing.

"I guess this is it, Lopez," he said when it was his turn.

"I guess so, Puckerman."

"Go hard in New York. Bring back wild stories and good booze."

"Okay. I don't know how many crazy stories I can get in three months, but I'll save them for you." She leaned forward and gave him an uncustomary kiss on the lips. For a couple that was undefined, it was a very defined gesture.

"Jesus, what will I do without you, Santana?" He wasn't just referring to sex, but she took it that way, because that was all he knew.

"Call up Brittany," she laughed. His eyes bulged at the suggestion. Why did she say that now? When all the other times he'd asked, she'd cursed him out.

"Joking. That was a joke," she said gravely. He peered into her brown eyes. "Seriously. You touch her, and I'll kill the both of you." She didn't want Brittany to be anyone but hers, and even more so, she didn't want him with anyone else.

"You got it. Don't let random guys take you come. Be careful, okay?" he said to her, dead in the eye.

"Got it." She mocked a salute and turned around to walk into the terminal. He turned to male flight attendant standing at the counter and said to him, "Take care of her, okay? She's precious cargo; she's going to be a star." He saw her sneak a smile.

"All right," the attendant replied.

"And give her all the vodka she asks for. But no scotch, that makes her cry." She turned around and laughed, sharing one final look with him. And then she disappeared, on her way to the Big Apple.

It was only on his drive home that he realized she hadn't bothered to say goodbye. But then again, that wasn't either of them's style. They were sure to see each other again, because there was nothing one of them could do that would get rid of the other one that easily.

"Hey." Puck was the first to say something, only a minute after walking through the apartment door.

"Hey. Have you eaten dinner?" she asked, approaching him. It was eight o clock, East Coast time. Never mind that she hadn't seen him in two weeks, she was still concerned about his hunger.

"No, I guess not." He dropped his bag on the floor, and usually she would have yelled at him for it, but she supposed that in this situation, the less she talked the better.

"Well, here. Have some leftovers," she gestured to the gourmet pizza she had on the table for him. Arugula and pancetta and all that shit he didn't know existed before he had met her. He sat down at the table, and she did too, facing him.

"We need to stop meeting like this," she said quietly, attempting to break to the unspoken ice between the two of them.

He only grunted.

"How was Lima?" she tried again, attempting to be more cheerful this time. She wasn't going to acknowledge the fact that he had been gone nearly three weeks, leaving her alone and fucking terrified about the state of their relationship, and she certainly wasn't going to acknowledge the fact that she missed him. It was kind of good though, to have all that time alone. To have that breathing room.

"Fine." He didn't ask how she knew he went to Lima, but he didn't care. He just figured she knew.

"Quinn?" She didn't know why, but whenever she thought of Lima, her thoughts went first to Puck, then Quinn.

"Bitch." She let out a nervous giggle, because she just couldn't help it when it came to that girl.

"Finn?"

"Pussywhipped." She laughed freely, and he joined in unexpectedly. It was so Finn. "I saw your mom at the grocery store."

She stopped laughing. Why would he even mention that? "Yeah? How was she?" she added dryly.

"Fine. She looks older. Slumped over waiting in line," he said. Isabel had aged decades since the last time he saw her, and she looked a little defeated. He had thought about going up to her and saying hi, but decided against it when he had noticed she was moving her lips silently the way she did when she was praying to the Virgin.

"Probably from all that kneeling she does at her fucking prie dieu."

"Hey, don't talk about your mom like that. She cares about you," he defended. Isabel and Santana didn't have that great of a relationship as of now, but still, for the first sixteen years of Santana's life, Isabel had been tried to be the best mother she could be.

"No, she cares about my soul," Santana retorted, "She doesn't give a fuck what happens to me. I could burn at the stake, or die jumping off a cliff, as long as I've confessed my sins."

He didn't respond to get out of confirming or denying.

"What did your mother have to say when she found out what I did?" She changed the subject, to get out of talking about her own mother. She wanted to know what Allison thought, out of curiosity. The woman already hated her; what other terrible things did she have to say about Santana? And Santana knew that this final secret, final deed would have ended any sort of hope for a relationship between Allison and her.

"I didn't tell her," he replied without looking up.

"You didn't?" she stammered. Why? He was so angry; he must have had to tell someone. "I'm sorry. I know I already said that, what else do you want?"

"Actually, no you didn't, Santana." All she did was justify her actions and try to latch herself onto a sinking ship. And when she realized it wasn't working, she just jumped off and gave up to wait it out.

"I'm saying it now, baby." She never used terms of endearment when it came to men. Never. But he was an exception.

"I know," he said a moment after. "And I know you didn't mean to do any of it. You just didn't know any better. You were young and stupid. We both were."

Well, if he knew all of that, then why did he make her say all that shit?

"Does that mean I'm forgiven?" she said quietly, eyes cast downward. He pushed away his now empty plate. He got up and walked around to her side of the table.

"Yeah, I guess so," he said as he extended his arm to her. She jumped up and walked into his body. He didn't automatically wrap his arms around her like he did in these types of situations, and let her just stand there next to him, pressed up against his body. She could hear his heartbeat. Thump. Thump. Thump. They were creshendoing now, leading up to the grand finale. It was all in her head, of course, but it was fucking real.

"We're good?"

"We're good, Lo."

It was all she needed to hear. She jumped up at him and he was thrown aback, but caught her nonetheless.

"About fucking time, Puckerman." She knew he was going to have to stop being a little bitch about the whole situation the moment she realized she needed to stop acting like a whiny girl who couldn't live without her man. She brought her face level to his and couldn't resist one of those stupid grins she got on her face whenever she thought about him in secret. She reached out and met his lips with her own.

"By the way, a package came for you," she said, breaking the kiss, "It's on the counter." She plopped down from his arms. He walked over to the counter where Santana's stash of packages and holiday gifts were no doubt, molded into a mountain. All free swag from companies, he assumed, because as far as he knew, Santana didn't really celebrate holidays. He'd have to pluck a few for Sarah.

"Where?" He certainly wasn't going to dig through the whole pile.

"Next to that huge one some obsessed fan sent me," she gestured at the giant box with fragile written all over it.

"What did he send you?" He assumed all her fans were men, peeking in. It was a giant scrapbook bursting at the seams, something a suburban mom with too much free time would do.

"Some candy, flowers, cheesy-ass stuff I probably mentioned I liked in an interview somewhere," she laughed. She hadn't bothered to look through the whole thing. It freaked her out to be honest, too personal. "Oh, and a note saying to write back. Psycho." The entire debacle reminded her of the Jacob Ben Israel days.

"Come on, Santana. That poor bastard probably thinks you care," he reasoned. She laughed.

"Well, I don't. I can only tolerate one poor bastard," she said smiling and walked over to him. He had finally found his package. It was from the army. What more did they fucking want? Was almost ten years of his life not enough?

"It's from the army."

"Yeah? Open it." She was eager to get any kind of information about his experience with the army. He really didn't talk about it, and she hadn't ever seen pictures of anything that even suggested that he ever had a license to kill. Other than the story about Hal, she would have never known that he was in the army. She could have accredited many other things to his maturity, probably.

When he did what she told him to, he found a medal in the box. He rummaged through it for a letter, and when he found the typed note, he grabbed it with such intensity that it jerked Santana out of her own nonchalant haze.

As he read, she could see her lover's face become more enraged and frustrated. She wanted to prod him, to ask him what was the matter, but he looked deep in thought.

"What, what is it?"

"You have got to be fucking kidding me. This is fucking ridiculous." He kept grumbling the words over and over.

"What?" she shrieked.

"They gave me a fucking medal."

"So?" This was a good thing, right?

"They gave me a fucking medal for killing people, and surviving," he spit out. Great job there, America.

Oh.

It was the first time she had ever thought about how being the army meant not only did people you love die, but the people you love are killing too. Someone else you wouldn't give a shit about otherwise was dying too. And she wasn't sure she liked the idea of Puck doing that. She didn't want to ask, but she knew she had to if she was going to continue their relationship with a clear conscious.

"Have you ever killed anyone?" she whispered.

"Not directly. Not me with a gun in someone else's face, dead on," he admitted, but he had had his fair share of violence. He had thrown grenades from below, been in ambushes from the side, even dropped bombs from high up. So there was no doubt in his mind, that yes, he had done things to end another person's life. And he neither liked the fact that he did those things, nor the talking about it.

"Okay." It was better than she had expected. "Tell me about it." She knew a hell of a lot about Puck and his own dark twisty secrets. There was his deadbeat dad, who as far as she was concerned, missed out big time. There was Quinn, who she had absolutely no pity for whatsoever so she wasn't going to even bother concern herself with it. There was her, for God's sake. She knew what she did must have messed him up the least, probably, but it was what caused the final thing that fucked up Noah Puckerman. War. And that? She knew absolutely nothing about.

"No." He took a firm stance on certain things, and this was one of them.

"Excuse me?" She wasn't used to being refused.

"No. Santana, you don't want to know what it was like. I promise you, you don't." She started to protest, but he continued, "It's not that I have fucking issues sharing or any shit like that, but you don't want this feeling on your conscious. You don't want to know, and I'm never going to tell you. Never. Okay?"

He tried to think of a relatively tame memory he could tell her, but everything was clouded in his brain. All jumbled together. And plus, even if he did find one, he wasn't going to share.

Nope.

She relented and nodded. "Fine." There were things they didn't have to share with each other. He didn't mention how it was a little bothersome that his girlfriend posed half-naked for the world as a profession, and she wouldn't mention war again. He'd accepted her bitchy tendencies, which were never going away, and she was going to accept how closed-off he was. Again, they didn't have to know everything about each other, as long as they were even. She got up and reached forward, leaning against him to listen to his heartbeat once more. It was faster now.

"I'm so glad you're okay, and not dead. Or maimed. Or crippled like Artie Abrams. Because if you had let the government kill you before I did, I don't know what the world would have come to."

"Thanks, I guess," he chuckled. For Santana, it was sentimental.

"You're welcome. We can go and toss the stupid cheap-ass thing over the Brooklyn Bridge tomorrow, okay? Stop traffic. Cause a riot."

And then it occurred to him again, why he even bothered to leave the army. So he could find this girl. This girl who knew him better than he knew himself, and had no problem showing it.

Some questions to think about (and answer if you want to make me happy):

1) Puck didnt tell his mother about what Santana did. What is the greater significance of this?

2) Puck and Santana are INCREDIBLY nonchalant about their relationships (past and present). Like when they leave each other, its almost like "whatever" and fights are also just "whatever," yet they always come crawling back. What does this indicate about their relationship? Have you ever seen old married couples kind of act like this? Is this because Puck and Santana have already accepted that they're stuck together forever and everything's blase? Or do they just not stick enough effort into making it work? Or maybe I'm just a horrible writer who is passive and boring. :)

3) Think about the ideas of burden, ignorance, and protection, and what they have to do with each other (and this story!). Both of them had secrets they kept (or still keep) to themselves. What are they? And is it worth it to suffer alone to protect the other person? What if the other person is going to find out eventually? Is it still worth the risk? And what about that old adage, "Ignorance is bliss"?

If you want to tell me something else about the story you like or dislike, please do!

Review! xoxo.