AN: I've noticed that I've become notorious for not replying to all of my reviews. I try to. So when I don't it's not because I don't read them or because I don't value them. I love them, and you for leaving them.
Public Service Announcement: Sometimes being the "bigger person" isn't real life. This needed to be done. I make no apologies for it.
He'd been with Shelby when she got the call. Apparently Michal wanted to give her a heads up that Finn was looking for Rachel and she was hiding out with Satan. He resists the urge to check in with Sans and completely ignores the giddy gleam in Shelby's eyes when she announces that there seems to be trouble in paradise. What he couldn't block out is the fact that Mrs Goldman saw the Rabbi talking to Mrs. Hummel at the supermarket. And his nosey former babysitter felt the need to tell Dodah Vi because apparently "that nice Hudson boy" wanted to marry "Daniel and Michal's sweet little girl" without converting religions. And of course his dodah had to call her sister, because this is Lima and you don't hold on to good gossip. Sometimes he really wished Rebecca was a boy because as Puck-like as his little sister is, she's still a girl so he's subjected to all the gory details while the girls dished over dinner. Still he holds back everything he's feeling until Monday morning, because that's when he loving mother decides to mindfuck him sideways. He was to be sure to congratulate Rachel with the roses she'd bought and tell Finn whatever he needed to know. Luckily before he can spiral into despair his sister comments that it's a pity Rachel is marrying so young and guess she's not going to New York.
He drives to school on auto-pilot. He has no consciousness, no subconscious, just the most basic of animal instincts. Right now all he heard in his mind was Puck mad, Puck smash. There was no way, absolutely no way that Rachel Berry wasn't going to New York. There was no way she was settling for Lima. Because for as long as he's known Rachel, which is as long as he can remember, she's always wanted to get out, always wanted to go somewhere she could sing and dance and act for the rest of her life. She had wanted Broadway before she even knew what it was. And the thought that sends him off the rails is that she's probably wanted Finn even longer than that. Rachel was a girl and just like his sister she was raised on all that fairy-tale Disney bullshit. Before Rachel had put on her first pair of ballet shoes, she'd probably watched Snow White and fallen in love with Prince charming and created her happily ever after. So maybe… just maybe, she wanted Finn more than she wanted Broadway. That's what killed him inside. He lets his instincts guide him. Out of the car. Into the school. Straight to her. Straight to Finn. He's in no state of mind to catch the words being passed between the two.
She feels him before she sees him. Just as expected Finn is waiting for her at her locker. And with a brief hug and ultrachaste kiss she begins to tell him that she'd thought a lot about them over the weekend while he begins to tell her that he spoke to her Rabbi. And then she feels him. She feels Noah in her soul like a flame and he's getting closer. It's so overwhelming that she's about ten minutes behind reality. She's trying to catch up with how attuned her body to his presence. She doesn't realize that she can feel him on her skin when he lightly pushed her further into her locker. She isn't aware that she can feel just how desperate he is to get her out of the way. She is too caught up to really see him punch Finn, not in a way her brain can understand. She can't hear the commotion. The yelling that is mostly coming from Noah, mostly about her and New York and being tied down to this foresaken town. She had no idea how big the crowd was that surrounds them. She isn't cognitive enough to be surprised by how little their friends were really trying to hold Noah back. When she finally feels herself being pushed she misses Finn fighting back. She misses Noah push him further down the hall. As her eyes begin to comprehend the first punch, she missed the second. By the time she catches up enough to try and stop things, the fight is already over. She feels flowers being pushed into her arms and the words congratulations and I'm happy for you echo down the hallway like the aftershocks of an earthquake.
She's going to New York, and if you try to keep her here I will be at your door every morning beating you into a coma until her ass is on plane. The words stop her more than the actions. Shelby can hear the conviction in his voice; the sheer force of his anger. A tidal wave flowing from his very pores, laying bare all those around him. He is destruction. He is chaos. He is a father defending his family. A man protecting his mate. He was every single thing you should fear in a person. She finally understood his reputation. The reason his name sent tremors down the spines of his enemies. Noah was not a man to be crossed. She'd heard the stories about Puck, they were hard to reconcile with the man she knew him to be. Now she sees it though. Sees the man who did what he wanted, bedded whomever he pleased and made no apologies for either. The animal her daughters had tamed. She should be ashamed of the pride that bubbles in her but it was impossible. It was a sight. Such a sight that it takes her a moment to remember she was a teacher now, responsible adult she reminds herself. He's already making his way down the hall when she starts to break up the crowd. She can't help but stare as he walks away, watching the muscles in his back clench, like the coil inside is wound too tight and he was just waiting to spring. Twenty years ago, hell who is she kidding, twenty months ago Shelby would have given Rachel a run for her money to be the woman he used to unwind. The pride consumes her when she catches Rachel watching him too… the fire in her eyes, yup that girl was definitely hers.
Mercedes leads Rachel into an empty classroom. Realistically she would rather have followed Puck but it wasn't really her place. After she'd walked out of glee with him they'd had a bit of a man to man. It was no secret that there was something between him and Rachel, and it was common knowledge the way he felt about her relationship with Finn but Mercedes had never seen anything like it. His eyes, dead wasn't even the right word. No, they were more like something that had never been alive. They walked out together, and it was all good. She talked about nothing, then about glee, then Sam and then Rachel. He was an ass, and funny and surprisingly comforting. But the second she mentioned Finn, and more importantly Finn with Rachel, he just clocked out. It scared her, more than a little, it scared her greatly. So instead of driving her home they went to his house and talked more. Well she talked, he grunted mostly. But she knew he was hurting and she tried to help until she just couldn't take it anymore. It was freaky really. The second they stop talking about Finnchel it was like a part of his brain shut down and he was good again, alive again. There was an untouchable Puck, and there was a human Noah and this wall between them. And by the looks of it, the only person who could unlock both sides at once was the one hurting him the most, or was she the person hurting the most.
Quinn takes a breath. She's never seen anything like it, even her first slushie hadn't caught this kind of attention. Nor had it encompassed this kind of energy. There was a silence. One she's never heard before and in reality hardly seemed silent at all. Something happened. Something that could not be seen. Something that was heard but not heard. It was inside of Noah, maybe Finn, probably Rachel. She only cares about one though and she knows exactly where he went. So she sits with him on the bleachers. He probably doesn't even know she's there but it doesn't matter. She knows what people think about her, what Shelby thinks about her. And she knows what Noah knows about her. What she knows about him. A few months ago all she wanted was her baby back. And the person she hated more than Shelby was Rachel. Two strangers who had a better, existent, relationship with her daughter when she had nothing. But Puck was there, reminding her of all the things Rachel had done, all the things they had overcome together. So then it one stranger. Until Puck showed her the pictures, pictures of Sophia. And then she had a relationship, and less reason to hate. With every picture was a story. The way she giggled, the way she smiled, the way she gravitated towards anything green. She knows things about her baby that are all her. Not Shelby, not Noah, but her. So she stopped wanting to steal her baby back. She started just wanting to hold her, to love her. And then Noah showed her more pictures, not of Sophia but of her. Quinn as a baby, as she grew, Quinn at homecoming last year. All over Shelby's house there were pictures of her and pictures of Noah. And then she just stopped, and cried, and let him hold her. So she sits with him on the bleachers, and she holds his hand. Because he knows her. And she knows him.