Yet another trigger warning.

The wave of dread hit as soon as Rachel opened her eyes in the morning to the grey, dismal winter light. That was unusual, even for her. It took at least a few moments for her to remember normally, and she practically lived for the glorious seconds first thing in the morning when nothing hurt. But she woke with the dead weight already settled inside her stomach and realised in an instant why it was there. Accompanying it was the gaping emptiness that should have cancelled the former out, but somehow, she could be hollow and hurt at the same time.

Right, Rachel told herself. Just get out of bed. Nothing horrible or scary about just stepping out of the bed. But even that was hard. She did not want to lie there feeling nothing but the aching emptiness, but getting out of bed required more energy than she had managed to obtain through the few hours sleep she had eventually managed. It wasn't helped by the thought that as soon as she moved, that was one step closer to facing the school who would all know by second period. And Kurt. Oh God, Kurt. He was going to find out through a rumour.

She rolled out of bed without focusing on her surroundings and did not realise anything was different until her feet hit a cool wooden floor rather than her plush carpet. Her head snapped up and she gazed around the room, momentarily thrown into a panic as her mind raced through tales of kidnap and hostages. She soon realised she was not in the house of a psychopath, but of Noah. If there was really that much distinction. Rachel could hear Puck's mom shouting up the stairs to his little sister. Apparently, she couldn't wear the Minnie Mouse dress because she had already worn it twice that week, and it was only Wednesday.

She had been surprisingly happy at allowing Rachel to stay over the previous night, so long as she slept in a different room to her son and they were in bed by eleven. Rachel knew she was holding out for the pair to rekindle the brief romance they had gone through the year before, but she also knew the woman's hopes were short lived. She had come to see Puck as more than a good friend, but in the way of an older brother. He was there for her when she needed someone, he protected her, but he wasn't boyfriend material. At least he used to protect her. Now he was willing to throw her to the pack of students who would strip her down to the last bone.

There was a small bag at the end of her bed, which Rachel quickly rummaged through to find the clothes she had selected from her house the night before. She had refused to speak to, or even look at Puck the entire time they were at her house, her annoyance only increased when he watched her pack to be sure she didn't bring anything with her she shouldn't. He'd searched her too, and she had panicked then, knowing he would find the sharpener blade in her dress pocket and the nail scissors in her shoe. He'd been thorough with her room too, selecting and removing anything she could use to hurt herself with.

He had not just left her. He'd sat down on the bed when she refused to move and tried to talk to her, about pointless things at first like who was fighting with who in Glee and whose pants Santana was getting in that week. Then he'd moved on to more serious things, like quizzing her on how the hell Karofsky had managed to find out in the first place, and verbally beating her up for not calling him when she had an urge like he'd told her to do. Rachel had not responded to any of it, and eventually Puck had given up and spent the rest of the evening deliberately trying to antagonise a reaction.

Rachel wanted so badly to do it. She needed it to give her the strength to face the day, but Puck would never understand and he would certainly never let her. He hated what she was doing to herself more than she did, and Rachel hated him for stopping her. He had promised to help her, and she had come to him last night pleading with him and he had turned her down. She wanted to scream at him that letting Karofsky tell the world was going to do the opposite of help, it was only going to send her spiralling further when the bullying increased and she no longer had her secret power to protect her. Without it, she may as well be dead.

But Puck was as stubborn as she was, and Rachel knew the way it was all planned out in his head. The rumours would get around to the rest of the Glee Club, and Mr Schue who would call her parents. Puck had never been one for snitching, but like he had said, if he allowed Karofsky to spill the beans, he wouldn't technically have to do anything.

There was a knock at her door just as Rachel was running a comb through her tangled curls and Puck walked in without waiting for her response. Immediately, Rachel felt anger surge through her. "You cannot just walk in here!" She cried, indignantly. "What if I had been in the process of changing?"

"But you weren't," Puck pointed out, unphased. Rachel glared at him.

"What do you want Puckerman," she said, angrily, wrenching the comb through a particularly tight knot and taking several strands of hair with it. He knew he was in the doghouse with her then. Rachel was the only person to get away with calling him Noah, which she usually used to her advantage as much as she could. If she called him by his full last name, it meant she was too upset with him for anything that was shared just between the who of them.

"I wanted to tell you that I don't care how much you hate me, I'm not leaving you alone today. Pee now because you're not going during the day. I'm taking you to your classes and meeting you right outside it on the bell if I can't go inside with you. I've got Mike, Artie and Sam watching you in the classes I'm not in and after school, you're coming either coming to Glee or I'm coming home with you. If anyone tries one thing with you, I'lltrash them."

Rachel turned to him with anger blazing in her eyes. She had never known Puck to be so interfering and so totally God damn irritating! She would not even be able to escape to the bathroom and take out the blade she had hidden there, the one thing she had been counting on to get her through the day. But at least she would avoid the taunts of the rest of the school. Noah might not be as feared as he once was, but he could still dish it out if provoked.

"Noah, please, if you want to help me, stop him from telling everyone," Rachel turned to face him for the first time since he had denied her the previous night. Puck averted his eyes away from her pleading ones. If he looked at her, he'd want to do what she was asking, because it was Berry, and he actually cared about her feelings. He'd talk about them with her, if that's what she really wanted, but he couldn't let her do that to herself anymore.

"I do want to help you, but to stop, not carry on. I should never have kept it a secret, but I don't snitch. It's too late anyway, we're late, he'll be there by now."

"What do you mean we're late?" cried Rachel, grabbing the clock off her bedside table to check it. It was 8.50. Puck rolled his eyes, trust Rachel to be completely distracted by the thought of being late for school. In his mind, the later the better. He'd be able to get her away from the hate of the students until class started and then what they could do to her was pretty limited.

Rachel flung the clock back onto the table and turned to Puck, opening her mouth to argue further, but before he could say a word, he raised his index finger in mid air. "Shhh," he hushed, and much to his surprise, she fell silent. It took Puck a few moments to think of what had made him do that, but then he remembered he had seen it on TV the night before, his little sister had been watching Doctor Who, or something equally nerdy. It was hard for him to believe they were related sometimes. Still, anything that had managed to shut up Rachel was nothing short of a miracle.

…

Twenty minutes later, Puck and Rachel walked into school just as the bell for first period rang. Puck was as good as his word and walked Rachel to her lesson before going to his own. First period was English, with Mike, and Noah definitely hadn't been lying about getting them to look after her. He didn't take his eyes away from her for the first fifteen minutes of the period. She could feel his eyes boring into her back so strongly that she wanted to throw something at him.

"Mike," she hissed as soon as she they were given an assignment. "There is absolutely no necessity to your constant stare. What is it you think is going to happen to me if you look towards the front of the classroom?" Mike flushed and turned away and Rachel felt an instant stab of guilt, despite having what she wanted. At least no one seemed to know yet.

Without thinking about it, Rachel shot her hand in the air and the class tittered. "Yes Rachel?" Said her teacher, staring at her from his desk. "Have you spotted a mistake with the assignment?"

"No, I just wondered if I may use the bathroom." For a moment, he looked as if he were going to say no, after all, they hadn't even been in the lesson for a half hour, but then he sighed and nodded, having been teaching long enough to know never to stop a girl from going to the bathroom. They would almost always start spouting girl troubles and that was a topic every male in the room wished to avoid.

Mike looked like he wanted to stop her too, but there was little he could do about it as she left her seat and hurried out of the door. As soon as she was out of the classroom, Rachel practically ran down the corridor with no plans to go back to class. She couldn't stand being confined in those walls with Mike's stare and the class' titters and sniggers. She had heard the two Cheerios that sat to the left of her muttering about her choice of clothes, and the hockey player on her other side not bothering to keep his voice down as he told the boy beside him that she'd look so much better if only she lost that 'puppy fat'.

Thirty seconds later, as she rounded the corner that led towards the girls' bathroom, Rachel wished she had stayed in the classroom. Karofsky was leaning casually against the lockers, as if he hung there everyday just waiting for her. She froze mid step. She couldn't move forward, but if she ran backwards, he would hear her. She thought about shouting for help, but he was several feet away from her. The only thing he was doing wrong was cutting class.

Before she could decide what to do, Karofsky turned around, his beady dark eyes fixed on her as his mouth inched up in a sneer. In four quick strides, he was right in front of her, but he didn't stop walking. He backed her against the wall and thrust out a hand to hold her in place. That was the part she should have screamed, but her voice seemed to have abandoned her. She couldn't even gasp as she stared into his leering face.

"Here's the deal hobbit," he said, murmured. "I won't spread your dirty little secret-" he pressed his other hand against her stomach, hard enough to make her eyes water in pain, "-if you do something for me in return." Rachel swallowed, hard. Why hadn't she stayed in the classroom.

"What do you want?" Her voice came out as a whisper and as much as she wanted to take her eyes off his face, they were drawn there, as if turning away would invite him to hurt her further.

"Well Bilbo, I've always wondered if you would have to bend down if you know what I mean." Rachel gasped and lashed out at him, shoving against his chest, but if anything, her shove just made him more determined. He trust his own hands forwards and Rachel cried out as his hand moved against her stomach.

Acting on instinct, Rachel lifted her knee hard and fast into his crotch and he let go of her immediately with a yell of agony. She watched him crumple in front of her, bent over double with pain and felt a stab of satisfaction. It was nothing on what he had caused her over the years, but it felt good all the same. But Rachel didn't have time to bask in her victory for long as seconds later, Karofsky looked up at her, his face contorted with fury.

She ran just as the bell signalling the end of the first period rang through the halls. It stopped after a few moments, but the sound seemed to echo in Rachel's head as students began to mill around the corridor, barely giving Rachel a second glance as she tore past them. Several times, she collided with a pissed off looking student and didn't even stammer out an apology before taking off again. That was until she banged into someone with such a force that she was thrown to the ground, the tears already pouring down her face.

I've done this before. In a game of Bulldog. I don't even remember it, all I know is one moment I was hurtling towards someone and thinking 'I'd better move or I'm gonna bang into them' and the next second, I was lying on the floor with a totally different person next to me. Apparently, I flew into her as I fell. I don't remember this. I didn't even hit my head so I don't know what that's all about.

I know Karofsky's gay and everything, the stuff he's doing to Rachel is more about having power and control than he wants to do, as it almost always is with things like this. This story is set in season 2 by the way, and what is going on with Puck and Shelby? Just ew. Although it could create hilarious rewrites of 'Stacy's Mom'.

Please review :)