A/N: not nearly as long as I wanted it to be but... yeah. Sorry for the delay. Right not I've got Power Rangers RPM stories swirling in my head and the kicking around the re-write for Liesl and YJ fic I did. It's distracting.

Disclaimer: I do not own Glee, Fox does.

Chapter 27 Quinn and Puck... and Santana

Santana was only slightly disappointed when her prediction of Glee actually becoming something interesting didn't happen. Instead, it was becoming more of an annoyance than before, it's not that she didn't like the people or the whole Glee thing in general, but there is only so much glaring one can take. She could practically feel Katrina's eyes trying to bore a hole in the back of her head just through the power of concentration. She had thought that the heir apparent, who obviously cared for her cousin, would do something, anything really, to stop her from beating up TG. But no, apparently, Katrina thought that she could stare Santana to death.

And because nothing happened, Santana supposed she shouldn't have been surprised when Quinn ambushed her after school in the hallway a few days later. She allowed the blonde cheerleader drag her into the girl's locker room, half curious and half amused by the look of anger on her attacker's face.

"Out," Quinn barked. Santana watched as Quinn glared, as if daring anyone to disobey. No one did, and Santana smirked as she watched several half dressed cheerleaders make their way, very, quickly out. The fact that they seemed more afraid of Quinn than being seen by anybody who still occupied the school spoke volumes about who was top dog. Her smile faded slightly when Quinn turned to face her, a scowl on her face.

"This is about Puck right?" Santana didn't want to stumble into the conversation half cocked.

"No, this is about your behavior in your volunteer work at the home of the chronically problem works for kids," Quinn said sarcastically. "Of course it's about Puck, what else would it be about?"

"And here I thought you were just cornering me because of my charming personality."

Quinn slapped her, "How dare you joke about this! I don't know what Puck sees in you." The blonde raised her hand again and struck again but was stopped by Santana's own. She struggled, and some dark part of Santana's mind was amused.

"I let you have that one," Santana said slowly pushing Quinn backwards. "I may have even deserved it, but you're not going to hit me again today." It was a statement, an undeniable fact. She was pinning both of Quinn's wrists against the locker and holding her off he ground. Santana felt the cheerleader's involuntary shudder even as the blonde's eyes defiantly met hers. Santana leaned forward and whispered, "Or you'll see why I'm called Satan." She held Quinn there a few more moments longer to get her point across before letting go and stepping back. Quinn wasn't ready for the sudden impact and ended up on the ground. "Don't worry," Santana said as she left. "I'll talk to him."

Walking out of the school, Santana couldn't help but think she might have overreacted. Spending so much time with Brittany was really messing with her. Something about the girl upset the careful balance of her ever complicated life. She sighed, if she was Puck where would she be? What time was it anyway? She took out her phone and looked, it was about three. Which means that he was probably at practice or something? No, wait, it's the spring season. Puck doesn't do spring sports. With Quinn at practice, he would probably be at home. She cringed inwardly as she remembered that his father had come back to visit this week. That could be why he was so on edge. How had she forgotten that? She could put it off until he went away, ugh what was she thinking? No, she couldn't. If Quinn had to have courage to confront her, then the least she could do was risk his father's wrath.

xxxxx

About an hour later, Santana was knocking at the door of Puck's house. She hated it when his father came home, multiple reasons of course. The most prominent being no parent should beat their own kid so that they have bruises that stay for weeks. One of the other reasons, and the least important, was that every time he came home, she had to go change into nicer clothes to even be let into the house. That meant clean decent looking pants, relatively nice shirt, and nice shoes. Santana would do anyway when she felt like it; she could turn heads when she wanted to. Dressing nicely really bothered her when she was required to do it and something in her bulked violently at the idea of doing this just to see her friend.

"Santana, it's been a while." The door opened to reveal Puck's mom, getting ready to leave. Santana never did understand why she had married Puck's father. His mom was hardworking and stubborn, nurses had to be, but also unfailingly kind and understanding. So it was a mystery because from Santana's point of view as to why she had married such a man as there was very little that was likable about him. It was amazing Puck had turned out half as sane as he did; although he apparently inherited part of his mother's cluelessness. Because it never seemed that she knew what exactly Puck and his father did when they were alone together.

"Puck home?" There was no need to be polite, over the years they had become, not quite friends but rather had developed a mutual respect.

"I believe that he's upstairs in his room. He might be asleep he's been up there since he got home from school. There's some lox in the fridge if you guys get hungry."

"Thanks," said Santana as she held the door for Puck's mom who now having her shoes on was running out to the driveway. Santana made a beeline for Puck's room. Without bothering to knock, she entered.

It wasn't what you would think when you entered a teenage boys' room, it was relatively tidy. Except for the bed that was currently being used, the table that doubled as a study desk was clean, the single shelf, that wasn't filled with trophies for sports, contained the reading books and textbooks that were required for school, the closet door was closed but if Santana had to guess, everything was probably hung up carefully. To be honest besides the bed, the only unclean area consisted of dirty clothes were piled in a corner. It would be hard to believe that a guy like Puck even occupied the room, except he did.

Puck was lying on the bed clearly sound asleep, half naked, one arm draped over the side of the bed knuckles grazing the floor. The other was stretched across the bed easily reaching the opposite side. His mouth was hanging open, one cheek against the sheets of the bed, and Santana had to fight the urge to wake him up by stuffing tissues into it. She could wake him, if she wanted to. But looking closer at him, it was so obvious that he was exhausted. Santana pulled out the chair from the table and grabbed a textbook with the full intent to do something useful while waiting for Puck to wake. But even as she tried to concentrate on the words, she kept wondering how she had not known how tired he was. Had she been spending too much time with Brittany and Glee when she should have been paying attention to her friend?

xxxxx

Santana woke to the unpleasant sensation of being poked. At some point in time, she must have fallen asleep and was now being punished for it. As evidenced by the fact that Puck had decided to poke her awake. She grabbed the object that was digging into her flesh only to find that it was some kind of wood.

"You decided to wake me with a piece of wood? Seriously?" She said mock glaring at him.

"Seriously," Puck grinned. "Bagel with lox?" He asked offering her what was left on the plate. She took ignored it and went straight for the one in his hand and took a bite. Puck gave her a wounded look, "This is why I can't have nice things. You always take them."

"Go cry me a river."

"I will. After I eat this." He took the last piece of bagel from the plate and popped it into his mouth. She looked at him expectantly. "What? I didn't say when." He waited for her to finish her bagel before speaking again. "So, I believe that this is the part where you tell me why you're here. Don't take this the wrong way or anything but you don't come around when he's here."

"You know I don't like him."

"My father is well aware, you don't try to hide it."

"Quinn."

"What? Is she ok? Did something happen?" It was, Santana mused, almost adorable the way Puck panicked over Quinn.

"She's fine." Ok, so Santana was kind of lying but Puck would never calm down otherwise. Besides, Quinn was fine, more or less, but she definitely would not be happy to see Santana anytime soon. "She's just worried about you." Santana frowned, "Really worried, if she asked me to drop by to find out what was going on with you."

"It's been…" Puck's voice took on a hushed tone, "weird."

"Really?" asked Santana quietly her voice following Puck's example.

"My dad's been nice."

"What?" The lack of exclamation was not lost on either of them though it was not shouted. "For real?"

"Yeah. And it's been weirding me out. I don't know. Like my spider sense has been going off non-stop but nothing's happening."

"Do you think it might be the news that you got last week?"

"My dad couldn't care less about high school football."

Santana leaned back in the chair; her brow furrowed, "Can you think of anything?" She ran her hand through her hair. As far as she knew there was nothing that could explain this change in behavior.

"I thought you might know." Puck's voice lost all seriousness as he added, "And here the great I-know-everything-that-you-want-to-know Santana Lopez is clueless. Ow!" He rubbed his shoulder where she had punched him. "What was that for?" he said with a fake innocence.

"You know perfectly well what that was for, idiot." She couldn't hate him for it, not when she did the same thing. Serious conversations always ended up like this, she'd shut them down or he'd deflect to humor and then they wouldn't get anywhere. "Just… ugh call Quinn," she got up, she didn't have the patience to deal with this, not right now. "Call Quinn and, talk. To. Her. Or go see her and kiss her. Or whatever the hell it is you do. I'm going home." Quinn might not be happy with her, not that she ever was, but she would never complain about the results that Santana got. Well, never might be pushing it, then again Santana had no idea if there was anything that could shut Rachel Berry up short of being unable to speak. It didn't help she wasn't allowed to hit the girl. Grumbling to herself about demands and impossible goals that were given to her, Santana made her way home.

xxxxxxx

Puck watched Santana take off down the street on her motorcycle. She was right, he knew, but talking to Quinn was not something he was looking forward to. The Santana in his head mentally hit him and told him to suck it up and do it. Picking up the phone and dialing Quinn's number, he sat against his bed nervously.

"Hey Quinn," he said. "Listen I'm sorry about the way I've been acting."