Lately, I don't think you of you at all
Or wonder what you're up to or how you're getting on
I never think of calling you or how things could have been
Or wonder where you sleep at night or whose arms you wake in

I'm living alone, living alone; I don't need you anymore
Lately

{Helio Sequence – Lately}

Puck lies awake at night, waiting for a phone call, wondering what Rachel is doing right now. It's been almost a full week since he left; almost eighteen months since they first moved here. Time keeps moving, even if they stopped.

Finn kicks his lazy ass over to the NYPD headquarters to enquire about an application because he'd like to change his career past and really branch out to find all of his talents and abilities. He comes back with a bunch forms and a 'you better be ready'.

He feels small, for once in his life.

It's been a week since he last heard anything from Rachel, and it will be longer until he sees her again.

Rachel stares up at her apartment, trying to figure out which is the twenty-third one. Jesse's fingers are hovering above her arm, afraid to touch.

"I'll miss it," she tells him quietly.

"I know."

"Alright then, if we're going to do this, we should do it before- Um, before my roommate gets home." He doesn't make any comment about Noah, which she's thankful for. "I'll pack my clothes, if you could just get the things like my laptop and study books. I'm so behind . . ." Rachel stares at her knuckles as she walks inside, as if they're the most important thing in the world.

Her hands aren't. She - her future - was right now. Noah couldn't mess with that, Rachel just wouldn't allow it.

Every breath she sucks in seems to carry weight, like the air particles have increased a thousand times in gravity, but just not on Earth. The clothes are first to go, then the toiletries, the sheets and pillows and then, lastly, the posters on her wall. Some were from Broadway, productions she had dreamt of being in, and some were pictures of New York; of her in New York. She was still in New York, and even he couldn't take that from her.

"You ready, Rach?" Jesse calls out. Rachel wheels her suitcase to the door, carrying a pillow stuffed with her folded sheets, and she follows Jesse to the elevator wordlessly, locking the door on her way out.

The cab ride to his place – to their place, she supposes – isn't that long. It's short and quick, with bare pain that hurts only for a while. Like ripping off a bandaid.

In fact, Noah himself was like a bandaid. He healed her for a while, made things good in New York, but after a while, the bandaid had to come off, because it was all mangy and ruined.

(They themselves – Noah and Rachel – were the mangy and ruined part.)

Jesse holds her hand the whole way, and Rachel thinks this is how it's supposed to be. She's ridding herself of the nuisance and distractions in her life. She's edging on Broadway, with the perfect boyfriend in the most amazing city. She was building herself for – no, she was already built for – fame.

So the days go on. Each day, this feeling in her chest grows, until it aches. She doesn't know what it is.

Puck arrives home two weeks after he first set foot out the door, yammering onto Finn and juggling all his junk (car keys, wallet, etc . . .)

The house smells like dust and loneliness. He opens the curtains, calling out her name. She doesn't answer, so he drops his bag on the bed and investigates her room.

Stripped bare of everything 'Rachel'.

He doesn't think he's mad anymore, but spends the night drinking beer and watching a baseball game rather than trying to find her.

Jesse was linked arm in arm with his cast mates. Rachel watches him skip down Broadway, the fading sound of laughter and cheering dying away. This was it. This was his big break.

(The terrible, horrible, unbelievable part of her almost hoped he wouldn't make it.)

It's her second night with Jesse, and it's his first night as a star. She had been there, watched him. He was, almost impossibly, more brilliant than he had been back in high school. And there had been emotion, now. Emotions she knew that he conjured up by thinking of her.

She is reminded of Noah, their own celebrations. Drunk on the rooftop, singing songs by Queen.

Oh.

Her heart aches for that same peace of mind, that same simple beauty in such a terrible yet wonderful world. It's a needy, clingy feeling that she isn't used to. She hadn't thought about Noah in weeks, and things had been good. She had Jesse St James, and he was beautiful. He was everything. They were perfect equals as they had been in high school.

But that was Jesse playing Melchior, arm in arm with a girl called Rose Martriench, who played Wendla. And this was a broken Rachel Berry, confidence crushed, standing on a New York curb, waiting for something to mean anything.

She's running as the rain hits her skin hard, heavy droplets that splash against the cement and soak her favourite flats. She'd like to say she doesn't know where she is going, where this road is taking her. But she knows. She knows, and it sends relief down her spine.

When Noah opens his door, she's shuddering and flinging her arms around him.

"Please," she whispers. "Please don't hate me."

He doesn't, but can't find the words to tell her. Is it wrong that he wants her to feel guilty?

They stay like that for a while, arms around each other in the doorway, until a young girl walks past and starts laughing. He shuts the door behind them, keeping an arm around her to keep her warm.

"Rach . . . You're soaked. The fuck are you doing running about in the street when it's practically hailing?"

"I- Jesse . . ." she whispers, staring at the ground.

"What did he do?" he growls, staring her straight in the eyes. "If he- If he's not treating you right, Rach, you can't . . . You . . ."

"He didn't do anything. I shouldn't be here . . . I miss you," she whispers. "And I'm not good enough for this world, Noah, it's too big. It's just too big."

He watches the tears slide down her face before he can gather any thoughts.

"He's on Broadway, huh?" he murmurs, taking her hands and pulling her towards him. She nods.

"It's all I ever wanted," she sobs into his shirt. She leaves a mixture of tears and snot on his shirt, and would be embarrassed if she didn't feel so safe. "And he just got it. Just like that. Just snatched it away from me."

"Yeah," he replies, resting his chin on her head. He knew what it was like, to have someone like Jesse steal something from him. "I know the feeling. He snatches a lot of good things away."

Her big brown eyes look up at him sadly. "I left. He didn't snatch me up."

Puck shakes his head, because he's sure that if the douche hadn't come along, this wouldn't be happening right now. "Can we be friends again? Officially?"

"Officially . . ." she mumbles. "That sounds nice."

He leans down on one knee, grins up at her and hands her the little connecter (whatever those things are called that attach to the lid) on his bottle of coke. "Will you, Rachel Berry, be my friend?"

"You're such a child," she laughs, choking on the last, remaining tears. "Of course I will." The band slides over her finger effortlessly, and falls right off again. He picks it up, places it in her palm and shrugs.

"You want me to sleep on the couch?"

She shakes her head. "I don't want to be alone."

He could take those words so wrongly. He could, so easily, kiss her right now. "Okay," he says after a long pause, heading into his room. "Okay."

His clock reads two in the morning, so she figures he was just about to sleep anyway. He takes off his shirt and dives under the sheets, placing his hands under his head. Rachel digs through his draws, picking up an old Aerosmith t-shirt and shrugging it over her head. Peeling the wet clothes off from underneath, she digs through her old draws in her old room and finds a few pairs of socks and underwear that she left behind.

When she gets into his bed in his boxers and his t-shirt, grinning is inevitable. "You look too good in my clothes, Rach."

She smiles too, and although it's only small, it's a smile at least. When he scoots over so their noses are almost touching, she realizes this might not have been the best idea.

Because his breath on her neck, his legs against hers, was too much. Especially with a broken heart.

"Don't kill me," he says. Her eyebrows are raised, her mouth open to speak, when he brushes his lips against hers. When her eyes flutter open, he's watching her. She doesn't even blink when his hands rest on her hips, when his thigh touches hers.

"One night," he breathes. Her brain, which is preoccupied with the warmth of his body and the look in his eyes, doesn't catch onto what he says, what he means, until a good two minutes later.

She looks appalled. "But Jesse-!"

"But Jesse is an ass," he interrupts. "And I miss you."

Those three words are enough to get her to say yes. Pulling her shirt over her head, she rests her forehead against his. "Okay," she whispers, biting down on her lip gently. "Okay."

His kisses are gentle, she supposes, because he's unsure. She's unsure too. But she knows how he can be; one week in sophomore year brings back memories.

"Why did you go, Rach?" he asks quietly between kisses along her neck.

"Because I'm meant to be with Jesse."

He pauses to give her a bitter look, before placing one knee on either side of her to kiss her again. She rolls over so she's hovering over him, biting down on his lip gently. "Just one night," she warns, although it was hardly meaningful. Neither particularly cared about time and days and whether the rest of the world was even alive.

His belt is undone and her skirt is off in one swift moment. She has to give him credit. She's finding it harder and harder to breathe . . . Is it normal for a heartbeat to go so fast? She doesn't know. Any clear thinking went out the window with the first kiss.

"Are you holding back on me?" she says. Her voice is a cross between a whisper and a laugh. They're sitting up now, and maybe it's just because his body against hers is making her weak, but she can't remember how they got to this position.

He doesn't know when Rachel became good at turning guys on, but that holding back on me thing? Made the kisses urgent. Like he needs her. He's needed sex before, but not an actual girl. But Rachel in particular, her body flush against his, he needs this. Not from anyone else. Just her, right now.

Her fingers fumble with the buttons of his dark blue shirt. Her incoherent mind has a second to admire his chest, before she realises that her bra is now on the floor. Her breathing quickens as her kisses her chest, her neck, her collarbone.

"Just . . . Just hurry up," she laughs, grazing her nails lightly over his back. He arches at the feeling.

"I'm gonna do this right," he says quietly, his eyes flickering to her bright brown ones. "Full Noah Puckerman experience."

She bites her lip to stop from laughing. "I'm not supposed to laugh! This is supposed to be sexy."

"I'm sexy."

"Yeah . . ." she murmurs.

She doesn't remember a lot after that. Just his hands and this warmth in her body that had never been there before, not with Jesse.

She would believe this is wrong, if she wasn't about to scream his name.

I don't get lost in daydreams
I never lay awake at night staring in my bed
And i don't think about your face or anything you've said
And i don't think twice when someone says your name

Or twist my mind in circles wondering which of us to blame
I'm living alone living alone i don't need you anymore
Living alone living alone i don't need you anymore
I never walk alone and think of all the empty word

{Lately - Helio Sequence}