A/n: Kay, so it may have been the shortest hiatus ever, but it's off it now. Thanks so much to everyone who left all those amazing reviews and personal messages and whatnot. Also thanks to cheapen, who beta'd this for me.

I know you're lying to me
Cause your palms start to sweat and your knees are getting heavy
Eyes closed, you're lying to me
When your heart starts to race and your feet are getting ready
You're fumbling for the phone on the wall
There's nobody left to call, cause there's no one out there
It's hard to believe that no one could see
The writing on the wall

{Amy Meredith – Lying}

When he's lying next to her, breathing slightly heavier than usual, she takes a deep breath.

"Don't say it," Puck mumbles, his fingers trailing down her body as if walking. He isn't watching her, just watching his hands as though he was acting out a difficult task. She's watching him not watching her, and maybe this is their own brand of comfortable awkwardness.

"Don't say what?" she asks. It comes out in a breathy tone, and she notices how his eyes flutter shut for a second.

"Just don't say it. Whatever you're thinking, don't say it."

There's a silence while they both think, and he's still watching his hands and her hips. "But what if it's true?" Rachel murmurs. "

"Don't talk. Just stay." He still hasn't looked her in the eyes.

"Why won't you look at me?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean," Rachel tells him, annoyed. She's surprised she isn't embarrassed, or angry, or regretful, or regretful . . . No, she couldn't feel even an ounce of regret. She wonders why that is . . . When did she become so unashamed? Did her conscience get thrown out the window, along with all of her innocence? Because she's sure that must be long gone. "You won't look me in the eye."

Puck's eyes flicker up to meet hers before gazing beyond her, out the window.

"What's wrong with you?" Rachel shrieks.

Puck frowns before flopping his arm over his eyes. But then he hates the thought that if he looks away long enough, she'll walk. And he doesn't want her going anywhere. So, inhaling, he stares at the ceiling and begins to count the specks in the paint. "You'll be hightailing your little ass out of here as soon as his name comes up on caller ID, or as soon you realise that you've 'done the wrong thing' or something stupid like that."

Rachel pauses before speaking. "Do you think I did the wrong thing?" He hates that her voice is all small, and she's edging away from him, afraid of his answer.

"I don't think we – like, you and me – was wrong. I think that you've still got Jesse St James on your arm is a shame, though. Always has been, always will be."

Rachel gives him a look before mumbling away excuses as to why she's currently scrambling for her jeans and pulling them on. He watches her, pulling her jacket over her shoulders, and wonders why it seems like last night never happened.

"Call me, then . . ." he shouts out the window sarcastically as she jumps into her car.

He doesn't know if he's pissed or shocked.

"Is that you, Rach?" Jesse calls from his (their) room. She bites the inside of her cheek as she places her bag on the floor.

Oh, those feelings flood back. The regret and the guilt pour into her life until she thinks she might drown in it. "Yeah, it's just me, Jesse." No, that was all wrong. Her voice didn't even sound like her.

It's too hot.

She hears footsteps. "Rach . . ."

Oh God.

"Hey, so I was thinking-"

Dear God, dear God, dear God. No, no, no. Holy shit.

"-that we could go see a film?"

Oh, oh, oh . . .

"Sounds great to me," she smiles. It all comes too naturally. Maybe she was made to act, to be famous.

To lie.

"Tonight. It'll be great. We can see whatever you want to see." She replies with an "I need a shower" before hurrying off towards the bathroom.

Rachel stares at the cold, tiled, walls for a long time. She's planned out her life on her bathroom walls, wherever house they might have been in. She trails her fingers around, doodles pictures, maps out hard decisions. A cross between the water and a drawing pad that no one will ever see once the steam and water have cleared seems to calm her.

When she thinks she has a decision (own up to everything and beg, cry and plead for forgiveness) she turns the taps off. It's time to face the unknown.

When he kisses her wet cheek as she crosses the hall, she doesn't even remember having a plan.

"I love you, Rachel."

Yes, she knows, that's the problem.

"Wait- Where were you last night?"

Rachel will figure it out, she know she will. So instead, she wraps her arms around his waist. "Luanna's. I didn't want to disturb your well-earned celebrations." Add a grin, and she swears she could be telling the truth right now.

God, it can't be this easy, can it?

The day has been perfect.

Yes, it can.

Puck hasn't heard from Rachel in a week, since 'the night' - or whatever Miss Double Life wants to call it. He goes jogging and watches WWE and eats Chinese and works and saves up his money and goes to the gym and watches baseball and . . . Well, it's all just one big cycle.

One day, when he's running early getting to work, he stops by the old coffee house and grabs a mocha de la fancy (or something like that). Claire winks at him all suggestively and sweetly and Puck just nods at her as he hands over a ten. He can't go back there.

He has to bite his tongue from asking if Rachel has emerged from the St James love nest at all in the past seven days and actually done something except lie. And in case you're wondering, hell yes he's pissed.

As he's walking out the door, he hears Luanna walking around and behind the counter. "Did you hear, Claire? Rachel's gone and dumped her studyin'. Good on her, I reckon. She'd be nowhere if she kept going on like she was going on. That girl's got more talent than the whole of this street put together. If she doesn't make it, I swear I'll write a letter to Buddha or God or someone and complain."

Puck stares at the pavement and counts the cracks every metre or so. Someone told him that if you tap your left – or right, he didn't remember – foot thirty times, you'd know exactly what to do. It was all that mind-tricking illusion stuff that Puck never really got. It was probably Finn, which was why it sounded so stupid.

By the seventy-fourth crack, he's pulled out his phone and left a pathetic message. "Hey, Rach . . . Call me back, would you? It's been a whole- You know, it's been months. See you round." He decides to be sneaky and cool about it in case St Douche the Eighth – King of Dicks (he totally thought that one up on the spot) was checking out her messages and watching her every move and making sure she didn't have a life. That's the kind of thing [Puck thinks] he'd do.

He gets home and seriously considers going to a bar, picking up a random, slutty girl and heading to her home for the night, but what's the point?

Instead, Puck taps his left foot thirty times. But he doesn't feel any more decided, so he taps his right. But then, still no change, so he taps them each sixty times – more taps equals more wisdom, right? Still nada. So then he gives thirty taps to both feet at the same time. That's when he gets really frustrated.

Puck spends the rest of the night slightly drunk and harassing Finn's voicemail.

Puck is jogging another two weeks or so later, and he's totally forgotten all about Rachel Berry. All he remembers is her whiny voice and incredible shortness and those stupid, wet, pleading eyes. Yes, Rachel Berry is just a distant memory of kissing and singing. He's never met someone more annoying.

(This feels like high school all over again.)

Puck's getting pretty toned and fit now. He's totally regaining his babe-attracting, badass status. (Not like he ever lost it, though. This is Puck we're talking about.) Chicks have been coming up to him all the time – especially in bars – and slipping him their numbers written in lipstick on slightly-dirty napkins. He's pretty much as hot as he was all those years ago, back when he was a dumb ass of a Sophomore. Puck's not a dumb ass now, though. No, now he's mature and grown up and still fucking hot.

When Puck reaches the brown, brick building down the street, he barely has to peer inside to know Rachel's there. The place is alive and warm and earthy, and he can smell the coffee and the bagels through the door. Claire's there too, with that young, blond manager with a nice smile and hot body but engaged to some Upper Eastside rich guy.

He keeps running. She'll start talking to him when she wants to – and maybe by then, he won't want to listen.

Actually, he turns around and walks inside. Rachel doesn't spot him at first; she's too busy serving some tall guy in a Fedora. Some sleazy, tall guy in a Fedora, Puck happens to notice.

"Can I get some fuckin' service 'round here? God, this place has gone down hill."

Rachel turns with a hand on her hip, her eyebrow raised and her face incredulous. "I cannot believe- Oh."

Fedora-boy turns around, which makes Puck kind of stumble backwards, just a step. (He's, like, mega tall, okay? Taller than Finn. Really, really tall.) "Look, bro, if you got a problem, you can talk to me."

Puck snorts and gives Rachel a look. "Relax, buddy, I was making a joke at my friend here. Learn some sarcasm when you hear it, before you start threatening the public. That shit can get you in jail, you know."

Rachel rolls her eyes, mumbles an apology to Huge-Fedora-Wearing-Boy and runs a hand through her hair as he nods, smiles and almost hits his head on the doorframe on his way out. "What are you doing here, Noah? We're very busy."

He never forgot her, not really.

Puck looks around them with an eyebrow raised, searching for the crowds of people that clearly weren't there. "You don't look so busy to me. Rach, I left you a message, like, a fortnight ago and you never replied. Why are you avoiding me? Don't they usually talk about this stuff in your movies?"

"What, as opposed to your movies, where all they do is shoot each other?" Rachel grumbles, not bothering to hide her obvious frustration with him. "Besides, Noah, we aren't a movie. If we were a movie-"

"You'd be the right guy, and I'd be the best friend . . ." he hums, grinning. She doesn't look amused, at all. "What? Sarah liked Hannah Montana, okay? She used to make me sit down and watch it with her before going on and on about Nick and Miley and which hair colour suited the bitch better."

"Firstly, please don't insult her. She's been iconic among so many young children today, and-"

"You're really gonna' go there?"

"Secondly, what are you doing here?"

"Waiting for you."

Rachel thinks there's a double meaning in those words, but she doesn't point it out. "I'm working."

Claire looks up at them, half suspicious and half flirtatious. Her cheeks go red when she realises Puck is looking at her looking at him, so she turns around quickly and heads back into the storeroom. "Can you please let her know that I'm, like, not interested?"

"You have your own mouth," Rachel frowns, scrubbing a spot on the bench a little harder than necessary. "Besides, I thought you would've enjoyed the attention. She's a girl, and you're a boy, and it's about time you got a proper girlfriend, Noah. Unless you'd like to sleep around and never settle down. You can be the boy you always were in high school. You'd never have to grow up or face your mistakes." She's still scrubbing at the bench like it's Broadway competition.

Puck ignores her insult that might not have actually been an insult (he has a feeling it was) and places his hands on the table like in those old good-cop bad-cop films. He's been watching a lot of them lately. "You're a girl."

"Yes, I am."

"Rachel . . ."

"Not now, Noah."

"You sound like my mother."

"Did you annoy your mother this much?" Rachel asks, but there's a hint of a smile on her cheeks.

"Hey, Blondie!" Puck yells, waving over Rachel's manager. "Has Rachel had her lunch break yet?"

The manager – whose nametag says Rosie – strolls over. She'd be a babe, if it weren't for the taken-by-a-guy-worth-twenty-times-more-than-Puck's-whole-apartment-block-put-together thing. "No, she hasn't actually. Who are you?"

"Noah Puckerman, undercover detective. I'm gonna have to take her outside and question her. It seems to me she's been smuggling things in from Tokyo, Japan. The Japanese president, Fung Shooi Moo Moo-"

"Oh, shut up, Noah," Rachel sighs, dropping her apron on the counter and following him outside. "I'll be back in a half hour, Rosie. Bye, Claire." Claire nods and smiles fakely, mustering up a real psycho, jealous look in her eye.

"I hope you know that Japan doesn't actually have a president as such. They have an Emperor, as their government is-"

Puck shuts her up with a kiss, pushing her against the bricks of the café.

"Stop!" she shrieks after a minute. "What if someone sees us? What if Jesse wants to come and see his girlfriend at work, and finds me making out with my old roommate?"

"I'll say get in line, buddy, 'cause I've been waiting three weeks."

Rachel takes a fistful of his shirt, looking up at him with those pleading eyes. "Please, Noah, don't do this."

"I miss you."

Rachel looks past Puck, staring at the department store across the road. "I know." It's all she says.

"Come on, Rachel, this isn't fair."

"I can't choose, Noah. This is harder than it looks, okay? You just don't get it . . ."

"Don't get it? I don't get it? Of course I get it, Rachel. For like, seven months, I had to choose between keeping my best friend and or getting the girl and my kid. Do you think that's an easy choice?"

"That was high school. Everything is different now," Rachel murmurs.

"So, let me get this straight. You're worried about your high school boyfriend finding out that you slept with your roommate, but the fact that I got a chick pregnant, and ended up losing not one, but almost three people? Do you know how close Quinn was to letting go of Beth? Pretty damn fuckin' close, Rachel. My problems are real life too."

"No, that's not what I said!"

"Yeah, it is. Look, I don't have time to discuss how fucked up my life is. I'll see you later."

Rachel watches him go, torn between going back to work and following him. But Claire sticks her head out the door and says she needs help with measurements or something (of course she does) so Rachel heads back inside.

It's almost eleven when Puck gets a text. If he was being honest, he'd say that he was doing nothing but slowly dying of boredom. No, really, he was eyeing the kitchen knife as if it was the Messiah. But you know, he'd never been the emotional type to wallow away in pity of his shitty life, so he did what all men did. Turned on the TV, watched a game and ignored the rest of the world.

Puck, I'm so sorry. I don't know if it's any consolation, but Jesse has gone to a new premiere tonight, and he won't be back until Monday . . . That's three days. Three days of total, utter isolation. But I'm just letting you know.

Okay, so Rachel never really got the whole texts-make-language-shorter-because-humans-are-a-bunch-of-lazy-asses thing. But even if she practically wrote him a letter, it was a damn sexy letter, in a Rachel Berry kind of way. Was she . . . Offering phone sex?

He shakes his head of those (excellent) thoughts before replying. Who needs phone sex when you have an empty apartment and the lonely girlfriend of St Douche the Eighth?

Touché, babe. B there in 10.

I woke up again last night. You smell of him
Do we need to call a doctor?
I don't know where you've been
Was it worth it? Was it worth it?

But you're obsessed with the sex girl
Should I confess that you never got the best from me

{Amy Meredith – Lying}