Note From The Author—I am absolutely overwhelmed and ridiculously gratified at the outpouring of response I've had to this story! It's been a very long time since I've had so many people reading, and you don't know how thrilled I am that you're enjoying it. I'm hoping to update with relative frequency, so I hope you'll stick around. Thanks so much!
Rachel wasn't quite sure what had transpired between her and Noah in the auditorium but she managed to resist the urge to try and figure out a label. There were bigger things going on. They sat there in the auditorium for the rest of the lunch period, rising only when the bell rang. After all, Rachel's academic sensibilities wouldn't allow her to miss class unless someone was bleeding or dying. They had made it to the auditorium doors when Puck reached out to pull her to a stop.
"Rachel…"
The brunette flashed him a sad smile. "Don't worry, Noah. I won't tell anyone about any of this."
He shifted a bit uncomfortably, staring at his shoes for a moment before managing to look her in the eye again. "Thanks, but I also wanted to say…."
"Yes?" she prompted gently when he hesitated.
His hands went to his pockets in a typical Puck defensive move before he continued. "Thank you, you know, for caring."
Then she smiled that smile that could light up an entire freaking room and stood on her tip toes to kiss his cheek. "Always, Noah." Then with a swish of her pleated skirt she was gone.
Though Rachel had tried to keep her focus throughout the remainder of the day, she kept flashing back to everything that had happened that day at lunch. She didn't really know why Noah had opened up to Mercedes of all people, but it was clear that the girls had incredibly different opinions on the situation. So in typical Rachel fashion, she made up her mind to talk to her fellow Glee member that afternoon at practice. It wasn't really all that difficult considering that she was always the first to get there. It was simply a matter of taking up residence in Mercedes and Kurt's habitual seats and waiting. She was lost in thought when her target got there.
"What's up girl?"
The voice shook Rachel from her reverie and she smiled up at the girl she had come to think of as a friend. "I wanted to talk to you."
"Okay," she drawled as she sat down. "What about? If this is about the Proud Mary solo we have so already had this conversation. I'm not giving it up and if you think I am you've finally lost your mind."
"I don't want the solo; it was practically made for you. Plus I have my own solos to worry about," she couldn't help but add primly. "No, I heard you and Noah arguing at lunch today."
Mercedes' eyes narrowed. "Me and Puck? How much did you hear?"
"All of it. Certainly enough to gather that it wasn't the first conversation you've had, and enough to know that I want you to leave him alone."
She shook her head. "Please tell me you're joking." She was on her feet, staring down at Rachel incredulously. "You really think he can be a better father than Finn?"
Rachel sprang to her own feet, meeting Mercedes eye to eye. "I think he deserves a chance to be. You don't have to like it but that's his daughter, and he wants her."
"Want in one hand and…."
She held up her hand. "Please don't be vulgar, you're better than that. I wanted to talk to you face to face because I respect you, and I'm asking you to respect this."
They were glaring at each other when Kurt chose that auspicious moment to make his usual bubbly entrance into the classroom. He saw the standoff between the two resident leading ladies and sat down on a stool to watch them, his legs crossed neatly. "Are you two finally going to have a full on diva fight?" he questioned. "If so I'm judging."
The new presence finally broke some of the tension between the two of them, and Mercedes sighed. "For some reason I sure don't get, you seem to care about the boy, so I'll lay off him."
"Thank you I…"
She held up finger. "But…. He either needs to man up or walk away. You tell him that for me."
Ignoring the questioning look Kurt shot both of them, Rachel nodded. "I will, and I'm glad we understand each other."
By the time the rest of the Glee club began to straggle in, Rachel was seated right up front, waiting for Mr. Schue's arrival. She and Mercedes were gladly pretending that nothing had happened between them, but when Puck walked in and Mercedes nodded at him, he knew something had gone down before his arrival. That was the first acknowledgement of his existence the girls had made other than screaming at him in weeks.
He shot Berry a questioning look, but she only offered a soft smile. Now Noah Puckerman may have been a certified grade A badass with a reputation to maintain, but if he had learned anything in his life it was to never turn down an ally; and Rachel was on his side like nobody had ever been. So he braced himself for the potential fallout and took a seat up front next to the teacher's pet.
"Good afternoon Noah."
As it had when they had been in the middle of their short relationship, her prim and proper language somehow managed to both aggravate him and turn him on all at the same time. "Hey," he replied.
The rest of the club was trickling in, and neither of them missed the looks that some of their friends shot them at their obvious proximity, Finn and Quinn included. Even Mr. Schue did a bit of a double take, but he recovered easily and got to work.
"Okay, Proud Mary, let's go everyone."
When practice was over and they had rehearsed Proud Mary and Don't Stop Believin' into the ground, Puck slung his guitar over his shoulder and waited for Rachel to gather her books. "You need a ride?"
Despite everything that had happened that day, she still looked a bit surprised at the offer. "I was going to catch one with Artie and his dad, but you're closer to my house. Just give me a second."
He watched as she did what could only be described as bounce over to Artie and rubbed his hand uneasily over his mohawk as when the guy shot him a suspicious look. God this was a weird day, almost too weird. But he didn't have any more time to think about it as Rachel was bouncing back towards him. "You convince him I'm not going to leave you bleeding in a ditch somewhere?"
"I'm sure he didn't think that," she answered with a frown.
"Just bleeding then, no ditch."
She sighed. "Noah, give yourself a little more credit. Now let's go."
They made their way to the car silently, neither of them quite sure what they wanted to say. They were buckled in and more than halfway to her house when Rachel finally spoke up. "I hope you don't mind, but I'm sure you gathered that I spoke to Mercedes. She said she would leave it alone."
Puck wasn't really sure if he minded, but he didn't take his eyes off the road as he answered her. "Why do I think there's a but coming?"
She nodded. "She said to tell you to either man up or walk away. Noah, have you considered telling Finn?"
"Every damn day," he told her. "But how do you find the time and place to drop that bombshell?" They reached her place and he shoved the car into park and killed the engine. "Hey dude, here's a beer and some dip, oh and by the way, the kid's not yours."
Rachel watched sadly as he dropped his head into his hands. "Okay, so that's not an option right now, but it'll have to be done eventually. You could talk to Quinn again."
"I've tried!" he shouted. "I try all the damn time and she either shoots me down or I fuck it up right when she's ready to let me into the baby's life!"
His voice echoed around them and she waited for it to die down before she spoke. "Noah, I appreciate that you're upset about this, but yelling at me certainly isn't going to helped.
"I know," he growled. "I'm just so pissed off. I'm actually sorry for yelling at you, but I don't know what to do."
That much was certainly clear, and she decided that the safest option at that moment would be to steer the conversation away from the baby drama. "Our generation has it hard," she said quietly. "More single parent families like yours, more unconventional families like mine. We're put under all this pressure to grow up so fast, to figure out what we want to do and who we want to be when we should just be allowed to get drunk and go to dances and sing at the top of our lungs just because we want to. Though some of us are already doing that last one."
Puck's eyes widened as he turned to look at her. "Seriously?"
It took her a moment to realize that he was staring at her like she'd grown an extra head. "What?"
"First you tell the whole of the celibacy club that girls want sex just as much as guys, and now you're telling me you want to get drunk?"
She blushed scarlet and turned to look out the window. "Maybe, I don't know. I guess I just hear people talking about it so much that I wonder what's so awesome about it. But if it makes me feel all manic and crazy like those pills Mrs. Schuester gave us I'm never going there."
"First, you're always crazy," he told her, though they were both surprised to hear a measure of fondness in his voice when he said it, and she turned back to see him regarding her with that patented Puckerman smirk on his face. "Second, those were uppers, and not a whole hell of a lot like alcohol. You realize that now I'll have to make it my personal mission to see to it that you get drunk."
"That'll be the day," she muttered. "Look, Noah. What I'm trying to say is that we're kind of the generation of the young and the hopeless. I want you to know you're not alone, feeling the way you do. Not all of us are dealing with something as hard as you are, but there's always something."
It was all getting a bit too much for him, and what Rachel was saying was hitting too close to home and sending him dangerously close to the edge. So rather than deal with it, he went for the joke. "Okay that was a Good Charlotte reference, the young and the hopeless." He pressed a hand to his heart in mock shock. "Rachel Berry just made a reference to music that wasn't a show tune. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll, this is huge."
Rachel resisted the childish urge to stick her tongue out at him, if just barely. Still, she couldn't help but smile. "All of you new Glee members are expanding my horizons, but Noah, I really mean what I said. We've all got something to freak out about on a daily basis." That dainty hand of hers reached out to cover his for the second time that day, warming his skin. "I'm here if you need a friend."
For the second time that day he was speechless, and as Rachel leaned over to kiss his cheek and climbed out of the car, it occurred to him that if they kept hanging out he may spend a great deal of his time without the powers of speech.