A/N: Hi everybody! I'm back- I missed you!
Extra A/N: About the PSAT comment in the last chapter- I have no idea how the PSATs work anymore; I was in high school when the SATs still worked in 1600 points. So the 147 score I chose is what the internet claims is an average to above average score for PSATs for a junior (apparently they're broken down into three scores of 20-80?). So yeah; the point was that Puck is actually a lot smarter than he appears. Sorry about any confusion.
Puck'd spent half the night thinking about what Rachel had said, and fuck all if she wasn't right. He had been this…sleazy enforcer for so long, and for whom? Quinn? His football buddies? In two years (maybe less) they'd be nothing but a memory. Why was he letting their opinion make or break him?
He didn't know what he could do, what he was capable of; but it had to be more than this. And Puck knew where he had to start.
Cheerios practice had been grueling, but Quinn never felt more invigorated in her life. She'd been told that "her skirt wasn't going to be the only interesting part to the judges" on her full back handspring round-out by Coach Sylvester (high praise); she'd lost three pounds (prompting her father to buy her a new dress); and—with the exception of that desperate duet in Glee—she'd felt she'd finally successfully knocked Rachel Berry to understanding her place in the hierarchy.
So it was with a triumphant grin that she dismissed her squad and packed up her equipment—only to have her path to the locker room blocked by one Noah Puckerman.
"I don't need you, or want you: go away," she told him curtly, moving to step past him.
He repositioned himself, still in front of her. "Lay off Rachel," he deadpanned.
She smirked, her expression mocking. "Rachel? I didn't realize you and ManHands were on a first-name basis," she sneered.
His face didn't budge from its unyielding sobriety. "I'm serious Fabray; leave her alone."
She scoffed. "Really, Puck?" she paused, but he still said nothing, just stared. "You think demanding my cooperation will really get you anywhere? You're as crazy as she is." She strode past him and reached for the handle.
"You back off or I'll go to Finn."
She wheeled around, eyes wide with disbelief. "And tell him what? That I'm making you be an asshole to her?" He'd never believe it, and they both knew that.
"How about that you're a cheating bitch?" he countered, tone full of accusation.
Quinn walked toward him, assessing the threat he presented to her. "You would really break your best friend's heart by telling him his best friend was fooling around with his girlfriend?"
Puck winced a little at the charge, feeling the weight of the guilt. He couldn't even remember now why banging Quinn Fabray had been so important, and, whatever the reason, he knew it hadn't been worth it.
But he was still prepared to wipe that self-satisfied look off of the blonde's face when he pulled out a folder and thrust it into her hands. "I don't have to," he replied. "Not when I can easily tell him about Kevin Thompson from Carmel, Zeke Plummer from Dalton Academy and Aaron McKenna from OSU." He watched her face as she thumbed through the photographs, a look of horror etched on her face. "Apparently you get around just as much as any other girl Q," he told her. "You just hide the evidence better by spreading out over a wider circle."
"All of these are over," Quinn told him, attempting to stay in control. "I ended every one of them months ago."
Puck's faced turned quizzical. "Funny;" he replied sarcastically. "I thought you and Finn had been together for two years."
The Cheerio shook her head furiously, waving the now crumpled photos in her hand. "You get rid of these immediately or I swear I'll—"
"You'll what?" he countered, and could see the rage behind her eyes as she leveled a glare that would drop him if looks could. When she said nothing else, he continued. "I know you stopped seeing these guys, and I know you love Hudson. No one outside of us needs to know about this shit if you just do me this one favor and fucking stop the razing." Puck arched his eyebrow and tilted his head slightly as he stuck out his hand. "Deal?"
Quinn's eyes were ice blue slits as she spat, "When I get through with you, Puckerman, you'll be the one in the dumpster, up to your eyes in blueberry slushie."
"So long as it isn't her," he nodded and moved aside to let the fuming blonde pass.
She shook her head. "I'm going to personally see to it that you go down Puck—hard and fast; and by the time I'm done, no one will want to be within a five-mile radius of you."
She stormed out, seeing red as she heard his quiet comment from behind closed doors: "Maybe one person still will."
Quinn flew down the hall. Her eyes gleamed, and she was done playing nice. She'd warned them both, and now he was trying to play her? She wouldn't lose Finn, not like this. She'd made mistakes in the past: trying to fulfill her needs outside their relationship so that he wouldn't feel bad about being awkward and she wouldn't feel bad about wanting to be sated. But she'd realized, after the whole mess with Puck, that maybe it wasn't wrong to want your boyfriend to know what makes you happy. That maybe God (and definitely she) would rather have Finn touch her and love her than some guy that was good because he did nothing but tap-and-go. And he'd gotten so much better, and things had been really good between them in that sense. Kissing Puck again had been a mistake, and it had made her that much more certain that she didn't want to lose Finn; that she loved him too much to risk it like this on a nobody like Puck. The smug bastard wasn't going to get away with this. If he wanted out, he was going to go the most painful way she knew how.
She reached her destination in what had to be record time and stormed into the girl's restroom where she knew Rachel Berry would be.
Rachel looked up from washing the blue slushie stain from her top and watched Quinn storm into the room with wide eyes: she looked like she was ready to kill someone, and, being the only other person in the room, this made her uncomfortable enough to take several steps backwards.
She eyed the blonde as she took a deep breath and stared hard into the brunette's chocolate eyes.
"Okay Berry: you win."
Rachel blinked. What had just happened?
"I win?" she questioned uncertainly.
Quinn nodded. "You want Puck; I'll get him for you—if you do me just one last favor."
Rachel huffed. "No Quinn," she shook her head. "I'm done trying to go around you—I've said what I wanted to say to Noah; it's up to him now."
Quinn met her eyes incredulously. "Really? That little song you put on—that's all you've got to say? You'd turn down an opportunity to really talk to him face-to-face? To actually make him get it?"
Rachel thought quickly. She didn't want Quinn to know she'd already spoken to Noah; that everything she'd wished to express to him was already out there. She had a feeling the blonde wouldn't appreciate such a communication, and that Noah (and possibly she herself) would suffer for it.
"What could possibly make me believe that this ploy is any different than the others?" she queried.
Quinn sighed, expressing a mixture of annoyance and shame. "I was jealous of you and Puck at first—I couldn't understand why he'd want to be with someone like you," she told her. "But then I realized that maybe setting you up with Puck—to whatever effect—would actually be more beneficial for me; give me time to focus on me and Finn." She looked pointedly at Rachel.
Her chocolate eyes focused on the blue ones across from her as she thought. It didn't seem to Rachel as though Quinn would open up about such a personal matter (while still insulting her) unless she was being truthful.
"If you do this for me," she continued. "And he doesn't find you that day—you can go ahead and tell Finn everything."
Rachel's eyes quirked up at the offer. Quinn stuck out her hand, and, after a moment, the brunette accepted it. Quinn wasted no time in giving out her final instructions.
"I've been so busy over the last who-knows-how-long," the cheerleader told her. "Cheerios, Finn, and especially this whole mess about you and Puck. I've fallen behind on important things—things that keep me where I am at the top." The glint in the blonde's eyes was quite unsettling.
"In Santana's locker, there's a manila envelope," Quinn informed Rachel. "In the folder is…information that helps me keep tabs on the goings on of this school."
"Gossip," Rachel supplied: she was talking to a regular Blair Waldorf.
"From sources that Jacob Ben-Israel would kill for." Quinn smiled. "Anyways, with everything that's been going on, I've been unable to retrieve my communications from Santana. I just need you to get it to me by tomorrow."
"Why tomorrow?" the brunette couldn't help but ask.
Quinn shrugged. "I have some…business to take care of," she replied. "Without the report, it won't be nearly as productive."
"And you think Santana will give it to me?" Rachel inquired skeptically.
"Are you kidding? She wouldn't hand it over to me if she could help it," the Cheerio chuckled. "But I'm sure, what with the adeptness you've shown for everything else, this should be easy."
So Rachel spent the rest of the day trying to figure out how to get a hold of information she definitely wasn't supposed to have from the one girl in school besides Quinn who would be the least likely to want to help her.