AN: Hello lovely readers! I don't have much to say other than thank you for the reviews!

Oh-one more thing. I think it was on here and not LJ but someone asked about more Fabrevans. I don't know how much this story will actually have but I have a few ideas for them to have their own story but I'll see what I can do about putting a little more in here.

R&R please! :)

Rachel wanted nothing more than to not have the heart to heart conversation Quinn was insisting on Saturday afternoon. And she would be lying if she said that she didn't ignore the first two calls from Quinn. Rachel was fully intending on answering the next call but as she was sitting on top of her bed she heard the front door slam shut and she knew that Quinn wasn't going to call again, she was going to be in Rachel's bedroom in approximately five seconds.

"Rachel Barbra Berry," Quinn called from other side of Rachel's closed bedroom door before the door opened and the blonde entered, "Why haven't you answered my phone calls?"

"I was just about to return your phone call Quinn. I was cleaning the kitchen and I left my phone up here."

"You're lying Rachel because I know for a fact that your Daddy cleans the kitchen every night after dinner. You're avoiding me."

Rachel rolled her eyes; sometimes she hated how well Quinn knew her. It made lying very difficult, close to impossible. Quinn moved and sat down in front of Rachel who didn't look up at the blond but at her fidgeting hands in front of her.

"Rach," Quinn said as she reached out and grabbed the brunette's hands, "You've got to deal with this at some point."

"I know," Rachel whispered looking up.

"So what are you going to do when you get back to New York?" Quinn said ripping the band-aid off without any hesitation.

Rachel took a deep breath, "I honestly don't know. I need to find a place to stay and to get the rest of my stuff from our-the apartment."

"Have you talked to him at all?"

"No," Rachel said, "There really isn't anything to say."

"I doubt that. You told me why you left, but what happened?" Quinn asked.

Rachel was quiet for a while, the images and the words of that night, the ones she had tried to hard to keep from the forefront of her mind, playing out in her head. And then as the tears pooled in her eyes she told Quinn everything.

"Can't you just, you know, take it back?" Quinn asked.

"I don't think it's that easy," Rachel said wiping a betraying tear from her cheek, "I'm not sure if I want to."

"But you love him don't you?"

"Of course and I think part of me always will. I just don't know how to be with him forever and not be married to him. Would you stay with Sam if he told you he didn't want to marry you?"

"I don't know Rachel," Quinn said looking down at the ring on her left hand, "But is it really worth all the pain and the heartache you're going through just because he doesn't want to get married?"

"I couldn't keep getting angry at him for not wanting the same things I wanted. Maybe he was right?"

"About what?"

"Maybe I am being selfish. Maybe this all about me but I don't want to go on pretending like everything is okay and have everything blow up and I end up hating him because of it."

"He would never let that happen."

"I used to be so sure. Now I'm not."

"Why?"

The tears poured down Rachel's face as she thought of her answer. The answer that had haunted her so many times since that night. The answer that tore at her soul, "Because he let me go."

With the words finally out of her mouth Rachel broke down. She was sobbing and Quinn moved to envelop Rachel in her embrace. Rachel clutched Quinn's shirt like a lifeline as she let the emotions that she had been so afraid of feeling for the past week wash of her. Her heart hurt and all she really wanted to do was crawl into a hole.

When she finally calmed down she pulled herself away from Quinn just a bit. Teary eyed Rachel looked at Quinn whose eyes were filled with tears, her cheeks stained with trails of tears she had already shed.

"I know this is my fault. I left and I have to deal with that. But is it wrong that I wanted him to try a little harder? He didn't try then and I haven't even gotten a text from him. I was supposed to let him know I was okay and when I didn't he still didn't try to contact me."

"Rachel, sweetie," Quinn said fixing some of the stray hair on Rachel's head, "We've both been around long enough to know that most men don't do the right thing in these situations, especially Puck. He's probably sitting at home hurting just as much as you are. But he still thinks he's a badass so he's probably trying to pretend he's okay, when really he's got your Celine CD on."

"I took that with me," Rachel said and Quinn laughed which caused a small smile to come from Rachel.

"But really, I've been around the both of you for a long time and if you can't be with Puck because he won't marry you, I will support you. But really Rachel, don't ever doubt that he loves you, because he does, and he will."

Rachel took another deep breath and wiped the remainder of the tears from her eyes, "Thanks Quinn."

"You're welcome," the former Cheerio said giving Rachel a smile, "But still. What are you going to do?"

"Well on Monday I'm coaching glee club," Rachel announced trying to avoid discussing New York for as long as possible.

"You're doing what? Why? I mean it's not like you're not really qualified but what about Will?"

"I guess he has to go out of town and with sectionals approaching he didn't want to stop rehearsals. I'm basically going to be a babysitter."

"That's exciting! But really Rach, you've got to go back and you can't just be wandering around New York City." Quinn said pulling the conversation back exactly where Rachel didn't want it.

Rachel sighed in defeat, "I'll have to look online this weekend. It's probably going to be difficult to find something that I can move into next week."

"You can look, after we've had lunch," Quinn said standing up off the bed, "We can go cook and turn the music up and pretend we're seventeen again. Your dads won't be home for a while right?"

Rachel nodded.

"Perfect," Quinn said reaching over and grabbing a hold of Rachel's hands pulling her up off the bed.

Rachel thought things went rather smoothly on her first day a temporary glee club director. She stood in front of all the kids and acted very much like she did when she was in high school. She expressed the severity of not warming up vocally, with only few protests. She made them run through their first number three times because the harmonies sounded rather sharp. She also made a mental note that some of these performers needed help with choreography and she would have to talk to Will about setting aside time with these students. While it wouldn't hurt all of them to have extra rehearsal, Rachel doubted that Will had time to call the entire group together just for a few select students. They get through all three songs on their set list and Rachel is pleased. She was surprised when most of the kids leave rehearsal without a scowl on their face.

Once they're gone Rachel was alone in the middle of the stage that she'd performed on a million times, the bright lights hitting her face as she looked out into the empty auditorium. She took the stairs down into the seats and sat down in the center of the auditorium and looked up at the stage. She wondered if maybe this was the only real view of the stage she was going to get. Not this stage specifically but all stages. Broadway seemed to be taking a backseat to the rest of her life and she wasn't sure where she lost everything. She went to New York for Broadway, there was no other reason. She wanted her name in lights and on awards and she knew that all her role models and heroes had done the same. She had only been working at the agency for two years and really as much as she loved that she was able to see all the Broadway shows and she loved some of the work she was able to do, she was still just starting out so most of the time she was just an errand girl. And maybe that was the reason she was so eager to leave New York. Maybe there was just so many things going wrong, so many dreams unable to come true; All of them in New York. But she knew she had to go back because that's where her life was even if it seemed to be in ruins. She didn't have a job here in Lima; she didn't have much of anything except Quinn and her dads. She knew that she would have to go back and face Puck and the crushing feeling in her chest would just be worse. In Lima she could avoid him. It was easier to not spend every waking second thinking about him when he wasn't around. But it was never that easy. Her coffee, her breakfast, her daddy's glance to make sure she wasn't curled up in a ball on the couch instead of just simply reading her book, everything reminded her of him. She knew that over time it would go away but right now she just did her best to suffer in silence.

She knew that she should get up out of that seat in the middle of her high school auditorium and find her life again, but she can't make herself move. There are things to do like find an apartment and book her flight for Sunday and call the agency and make sure she wasn't fired for leaving so abruptly. But all she wanted was to stay exactly where she was and pretend she was sixteen again and the only thing she really cared about was beating Vocal Adrenaline and getting to Nationals.

"Rachel?" a voice called and Rachel turned around to see a figure who was probably the most important person from her past.

"Finn," Rachel said with a smile as her tall ex-boyfriend walked down the aisle towards her.

It was quiet in their apartment and Puck was pretty sure he'd never hated anything more. He sat on the couch staring at the television which was currently playing a football game but there wasn't any sound, it's on mute. Usually when he watched the game he watched it without sound because he could never hear it over whatever 'noise' Rachel was making. If she wasn't singing for an audition, she was playing music in the other room and while she had no idea it was too loud, Puck never said anything. The audio of a game was usually as important as the game itself but he didn't care because when it was over and he walked into the bedroom she was dancing around or sitting in bed with a pen cap between her teeth (her worst vice she'd said) looking over something for work and he'd smile and he'd realize that there was nothing as important as the tiny brunette in his bed.

He hadn't slept in the bedroom in over a week. He couldn't and he felt like the worst badass ever. Granted since high school and dating Rachel, Puck was very clear that being badass didn't mean you had to be tough as nails all the time, but he still held himself to a certain level and this was definitely falling below it. So his back hurts and he barely gets any sleep because they never actually replaced that lumpy cushion and he's grumpy all the time. Especially two days after Rachel left and his mother called him practically screaming because she'd run into Rachel and Rachel told her everything. He spent an hour explaining to his mother exactly what he'd been telling Rachel for years.

"Your dad and I were only meant to do one thing, Noah. And it was creating you and your sister. It took me a long time to realize that and now I hate that you are closing yourself off just because of a few mistakes I've made," she had told him.

He told her it was more than that and she sighed and told him she loved him and then said she'd call again in a few days. He just hung up because he knew that her nagging about this would be worse than her nagging for Jewish grandchildren. But it was obvious that she didn't understand just as much as Rachel hadn't. He'd watched his mother completely destroyed because his father couldn't get his shit together. He was a rock star and that's all he cared about and his kids and wife were abandoned because of it. And when he came back Puck's mother would just let him right back in and they would pretend to be a happy family for all of a minute before his father had somewhere more important to be. Puck played sports because he thought it would impress his father. And when that didn't work he picked up a guitar. But that didn't work either. His mother always said that his father was a better person before they got married, before he and Sarah were born. So marriage changed that bastard?

And then there was Quinn's family. He'd experienced a lot of it first hand when he and Quinn were together in high school. He saw Judy Fabray show up at regionals and tell her daughter that her father was a cheater. The same man that had kicked her out of her house for being a teenaged mother was a sinner himself but that didn't matter. That summer after Puck's daughter was born, while he and Quinn were trying to see what came next he watched as Quinn's mother basically destroyed herself with alcohol and who knows what other substances. He watched as the behavior of both her parents tore Quinn up inside (though she rarely showed it).

Granted both his and Quinn's father were assholes and he had vowed a long time ago not to be like either of them, he didn't see the point in risking his future with Rachel by marrying her. The phrase was 'if it isn't broken don't fix it' right? But Rachel left him anyway and he thought that maybe she was right that night. That breaking up with a girlfriend was easier than divorcing a wife. He wouldn't have to interact with her with their lawyers or split what little assets they had in half. She'd just take her stuff and go and they'd be done. So maybe this was for the best. Maybe everything was supposed to work out this way. Rachel was the unexpected surprise in his adult life. She was the chance run in during the holidays in Lima on Christmas Eve while everyone else was with family and friends he'd decided to just sit in a stupid movie because there really wasn't anything going on. He'd run into her and her dads and they hung out later that week and then a year later he driving his truck, the bed full of his shit, to New York and he's rarely been back since.

He sighed because as much as he knew that this was probably for the best, he missed her. He loved her. His phone rang and the loud music that invaded the quiet space knocked him from his thoughts. He picked up his phone from the table in front of him and groaned because his called ID showed that it was Quinn who was calling and he was pretty sure he knew where this conversation was going.

"Hello, Quinn," Puck said lifting the phone up to his ear.

Rachel didn't move but she watched as Finn moved towards her and then took the seat next to her without a question.

"I heard you were in town," he said simply.

"Quinn or my dads?"

"Will actually. I went to talk to him last week and he told me that you were running the club this week. Are you home for good?"

"Uh, no," Rachel said, "I go back on Sunday."

"That's good," Finn said and the two fell into a comfortable silence. They'd broken up the summer after senior year but after the awkwardness passed they became good friends, "Do you ever miss this place?"

"Sometimes. I'm not performing right now so it's nice to think about the glory days."

"We had a lot of good times here."

"We have. Too bad we can't be sixteen forever."

"You'd hate being sixteen forever," Finn said laughing.

"How do you figure?"

"Because you'd never have gotten out of here. You would have been stuck with me in this town."

"You make it sound like it's horrible."

"It's not, for me."

"It would be for me?"

"Rachel, you and I've been through a lot. But the one thing I was certain of was that you were going to go on and do something with yourself."

"But I'm not."

"Not yet. But you will. You just need to find that Rachel who drove everyone crazy in high school."

"I'm not sure how much of her is left."

"And what a good way to find out but the place where it all started," Finn said looking back up at the stage.

"When did you get so smart Finn Hudson?"

"I guess when they gave me a diploma from Ohio University. Those things give you automatic IQ points," Finn said with a smirk that reminded Rachel of the goofy boy she'd loved in high school, "Are you okay?"

"Yes," Rachel said surprised by the sudden change in topic, "Why do you ask?"

"I talked to Puck."

"Oh."

"This will all work itself out Rach, you know that right?"

Rachel just shrugged.

"He's just being an idiot," Finn said and Rachel knew that he was wrong, "He's going to regret this one day," Rachel secretly wished he was right.

"No, Q," Puck said into his phone, "I haven't tried calling her."

"Maybe you should," Quinn said sternly into the phone.

"She left me."

"If you could see me you'd see one of those exaggerated eye rolls you hate."

"I don't know what you think is going to happen."

"I really hate when you two are so madly in love with each other but you're both too damn stubborn to admit it."

"I love her Quinn. It's not admitting it that the issue."

"Then talk to her."

"We've talked about this subject several times until we were blue in the face."

"I don't know what you do with you two."

"Nothing Q," Puck said, "It'll be better for you that way. Look I've got to go. You need to let this go."

Puck heard a frustrated growl come from the other end of the phone before he hung up. He really wished that time would get moving so he wouldn't have to deal with the nagging ex-girlfriends best friend and a nagging mother. It was that or Rachel would show up at the door and everything could go back to normal.

Things are going to get interesting next chapter!