Disclaimer: I do not own the Glee world.

Hi everybody! Sorry you've been left waiting so long. I've had a crazy couple of weeks involving; job applications, assignments, broken laptops and interviews. But, I'm here now, so yay!

Bucketful's of love to all my reviewers/alerters/fav stories. You picked me up a lot the last few days.

Anyway, on with the story!

Chapter 9: Rachel Doesn't Care

From the moment Monday morning dawned, things in the Berry household got a hell of a lot busier. The Berrys had all got used to having a lie in after being awoken by Evie's cries so it came as somewhat of a shock to have to prepare themselves for work or school after a disturbed night's sleep.

Puck apologised constantly (he was staying in their house, eating their food and using their hot water so he considered it was kind of necessary) while feeding Evie as the others ate their breakfast somewhat bleary-eyed. Hiram Berry reassured Puck that they had all been getting too cosy in their previous lifestyle and a young baby was giving them a well needed shake up.

Puck had accidentally revealed to Berry (Rachel Berry, just to be clear) his diabolical Math lesson attendance record ('Two years, Noah! No wonder you're failing!') and she showed him one of her old textbooks, instructing him to make use of his free time and start working through it.

He honestly intended to ignore her directions (because, quite frankly, she wasn't his fucking mother) but once she and her fathers had left, it took him approximately seven minutes to realise that he was bored. He'd left his Xbox, video games and numerous DVDs at home and there was nothing interesting to watch on the TV; he'd checked, three times.

He wasted a little time by getting himself and Evie properly dressed for the day (following Kurt's stupid dress guide) and he would've considered taking her for a walk if it wasn't raining outside. He read Evie a couple of baby books that Berry had dug out from somewhere (one about fish and the other about elephants). She'd told him that while Evie couldn't actually understand the words, she'd find the tone of his voice familiar and comforting. (If he didn't know that Berry was reading a book about how to raise a baby for some bedtime reading, he'd be completely freaked out about her knowledge of newborns.)

He apparently had such a soothing voice that he sent Evie to sleep, so he placed her into the Moses basket in 'their' room. And then the boredom he'd been fighting became inescapable.

He realised that not doing something simply because Berry had told him to do it was pretty childish; especially considering this was his and Evie's future he was messing with.

He worked steadily through the math work during the day, taking a nap after lunch to catch up on the sleep he'd lost because of Evie during the night. At quarter past three he drove over to McKinley and quickly handed his girl over to Berry in the parking lot before heading off to work.

He got back to the Berry's about half eight and was more than pleased to discover that she'd left him a hot dinner in the oven. She was a bloody good cook.

As he happily stuffed his face with the lasagne, she informed him of the conversation she'd had with Mr Schue about Quinn's departure. He only half listened because he was pretty exhausted after his hours at the garage but his ears pricked up when she told him that glee club weren't going to be seriously practicing for the rest of the year – only a casual meeting on Thursday afternoons to experiment with new songs.

"You don't really have to come to that rehearsal though." She said, serving him a slice of apple pie that he hadn't asked for but was definitely not going to turn down. "It would give you an extra hour to work at the garage and we both know you need all the hours you can get."

"Nah, it's all right." He said around a mouthful of pie (which was fucking delicious). "It'll be good to have something else to do. I was going kinda stir crazy today and it's only Monday."

"Did you look at the textbook?"

"I got through the first four chapters," he admitted and tried to resist the pull of the grin she flashed him. He shouldn't care that she was pleased with him but for some reason it felt good that she was strangely proud of him.

"Oh, what a good start, Noah. Your GPA will be on the rise in no time."

He shrugged and took the last bite of his dessert. "You got any more pie?"

"No, that was the last piece."

"What the hell? You and your dads ate nearly a whole freaking pie?"

"Actually Mike and Matt joined us for dinner tonight. They wanted to practice looking after Evie before next week and it didn't take much persuasion to make them stay for food."

"Oh and how were they?" he asked, taking a sip of water. "Should I be worried about my daughter's safety whenever it's their turn to watch her?"

"No, they were fine." Berry assured him. "Mike had a little trouble with the diaper at first but he got it in the end."

"Cool. Well, thanks for dinner." He mumbled. "It was good." (Huge understatement.)

"You're very welcome, Noah. Tomorrow it's Cajun chicken!"

And so the next couple of days continued in much the same way. Puck would spend most of his day doing school work (unfortunately Berry had broadened this to include other subjects, not just Math). He'd hand Evie over to her after school and a couple of glee kids would come back with her to practice before Operation Babywatch (Berry came up with the name and all it did was reminded Puck of Baywatch. He'd never watched the show but he'd seen pictures and, in his opinion, female lifeguards? Fuck, yeah.) started in a few days. After work he'd come back to a hot dinner and he and Berry would go over his school work, which was kinda weird considering she was a sophomore and he was a junior, but he reasoned that it just showed how behind he was in his school work.

Things could be a lot worse, he thought as he ate his cherry cobbler and tried to understand what Berry was telling him about trigonometry.

"So, this is Evie?" Mr. Schuester asked at the beginning of glee's Thursday afternoon practice.

Rachel had asked Mr. Schue if it was okay for Evie to be present during the next few weeks while Noah raised some money for child care and the Spanish teacher had offered no objection.

"This is her," Noah agreed, from where Rachel could see he was keeping a close eye on his daughter in Tina's arms.

"Did you want to hold her, Mr. Schue?" Tina asked, carrying the baby towards him.

"Ah, sure," he agreed, carefully taking the baby from her.

There was a rather drawn out moment of silence as everyone remembered that if Mrs. Schuester's crazy plan had gone ahead then Mr. Schue would be Evie's father. That knowledge was clearly not lost on Mr. Schue who cleared his throat loudly before saying in a somewhat uneven voice, "She's great, Puck. Congratulations."

Noah took Evie back and put her in the car seat as the practice began in earnest.

Rachel was very impressed that Evie only had to be tended to once during the session and she told her so after practice was finished.

"You really like listening to us singing, don't you?" she asked Evie as the others packed up their things. Noah had bolted as soon as practice had finished in order to get to work.

"She probably just likes listening to you," Finn said beside her and Rachel turned in surprise, not knowing he was there. "Cos, y'know she'd have heard you more than anyone else when she was in Quinn."

"Oh, well, yes, I suppose that's true." She replied, blushing. "But I'm sure she likes hearing everyone else as well."

Finn shrugged and gave her a small smile. "Maybe. Hey, listen, I know some of the others have had a bit of a practice with Evie this week and I was wondering if I could come over today. I'm not really used to dealing with babies so I could use a bit of help."

Rachel grinned as excitement flooded her stomach. "Of course, Finn. I think that would be a splendid idea. You can stay for dinner if you like, my fathers and Noah won't be home until late and Evie and I would be very glad of your company."

"Cool. I'll just swing by home to drop off my stuff and tell my mom where I'll be and then I'll come over."

Rachel told Finn that she was looking forward to it and then he helped carry Evie to her car. She bid him farewell and then dreamily took her place behind the wheel.

When she arrived home she made sure that the place looked spotless before Finn arrived.

Rachel found the next few hours highly enjoyable: she helped Finn change Evie and they both laughed over how gross it was, she taught him how to burp Evie after she'd been fed, they cooked dinner together, sang to Evie as they gave her a bath before putting her down to sleep in the living room with them. She couldn't help but imagine herself and Finn in the future with a child of their own. He was really very sweet with Evie and was incredibly careful in all his actions. She knew that if Finn had ended up being Evie's Dad then he would've done a very good job.

There were an awkward couple of minutes of silence as they watched Evie sleep. Rachel didn't want Finn to go but now that Evie was asleep, there wasn't really a reason for him to stay.

"I've brought some homework with me," Finn quietly blurted out and Rachel wondered whether he'd been thinking along the same lines as she had.

"You're more than welcome to stay here and do it," Rachel whispered enthusiastically. "The two of us working together will create a positive learning environment that should be conducive to us producing good homework."

Finn blinked and then nodded. "Cool."

Rachel cleared the coffee table for them to work on and Rachel raced upstairs to grab some of her homework (and double check her appearance) before sitting down next to Finn on the sofa.

It took Rachel a few minutes to realise that doing her homework with Finn sitting a couple of inches to her right was not creating a positive learning environment and it certainly wasn't conducive to her learning; she had read the same line of her Shakespeare notes twelve times without comprehending the words (and that wasn't even because of the difficult language used in the play). Every time that Finn turned the page of his textbook his arm would brush against hers and her heart would skip a beat.

She wasn't sure if he was actually doing any work either; because all he seemed to be doing was turning the pages and, turning them at such a speed that was too fast for him to be doing any purposeful reading.

Rachel glanced at his face before looking away when he glanced at her too.

"What work are you doing?" he whispered so as not to wake Evie.

"Shakespeare," she replied shrugging. "We're studying his play Romeo and Juliet. Do you know anything about it?"

Finn frowned. "I've heard of it but…no, I don't really know what it's about."

Rachel tried to hide her horror that Finn hadn't heard of one of the most romantic pieces of literature ever and forced a smile onto her face. "It's a tragic love story," she explained. "Romeo and Juliet are from two families who hate each other but they fall in love. It's one of Shakespeare's most famous plays."

"Oh, sounds cool." Finn replied but Rachel didn't think he sounded convinced.

She wasn't about to let him be so dismissive of one of her favourite pieces of literature and held her copy of the play towards him. "Here, you can read the synops- er, the summary if you like."

"Um, okay," he said and placed his hand on her copy; his fingers over hers. Rachel looked up into his eyes and found she suddenly couldn't breathe. She had made physical contact with Finn numerous times during glee practices and on a few other occasions too but something here felt different. She wasn't sure if it was because they'd spent the evening acting like a grown-up couple or perhaps it was the mention of Romeo and Juliet but the feel of his skin on hers was sending her senses into overdrive.

He could feel it too; she could tell by the way he was staring at her, their hands still enclosed over the play. The moment seemed to last for hours but it could only be a few seconds before Rachel made up her mind. She'd address Finn's lack of Shakespearian knowledge at a later date and so let the play drop to the floor as she leaned forward and pressed her lips against Finn's.

He responded immediately, threading his hand through her hair to pull her face closer. Rachel grinned against his lips and moved her body to close the gap between them.

It struck her that she hadn't been kissed like this since she and Noah had embarked on their failed relationship nearly six months ago. She mentally kicked herself for thinking about Noah when she was finally kissing Finn again and brushed the other boy from her mind.

His hand was stroking the visible skin of her thigh, leaving a trail of Goosebumps while her fingers toyed with the hair at the back of his neck. Rachel believed that she could quite honestly stay like this for days and never get bored. Actually, she couldn't be sure how long had already passed since she had first touched her lips to Finn's – her awareness of the passage of time always seemed to become flawed when she was left alone with the quarterback.

The sound of someone loudly clearing their throat snapped Rachel from her kiss induced haze and she pulled away from Finn so fast the she nearly fell off the couch. She looked around to see who had interrupted them, hoping with all her might that it wasn't her fathers.

"Noah!" she sighed in relief, seeing the Mohawked boy standing behind the couch. "I'm sorry, Finn and I didn't hear you come in."

"Clearly," Noah replied and Rachel could tell from his tone and his facial expression that something was wrong.

"Hey, man," Finn said jumping up to greet his friend. "I was just getting in a bit of practice for looking after Evie."

Noah glanced at Finn and nodded at him before moving over to check on his sleeping daughter.

Finn could obviously tell that something wasn't right because he stepped towards Rachel and placed a hand on her arm. "I think it'd be best if I took off now. I'll see you at school tomorrow?"

Rachel was a little disappointed that he was leaving but she knew it was probably for the best. "Of course, Finn, I'll see you tomorrow."

Finn made a move that looked like he was going to hug her or kiss her cheek but in the end he just nodded and smiled. "Catch you later, dude." He called to Noah but there was no response.

Once Finn had closed the front door Rachel tentatively approached Noah who was still staring at his daughter.

"You're home early," she commented lightly and he looked up at her in surprise.

"It's eight o'clock, Berry. That's not exactly early."

Now it was Rachel's turn to look surprised. It was eight o'clock! She'd been making out with Finn for a lot longer than she thought she'd had. "Oh, yes, sorry." He was staring at her and it was making her feel a little uncomfortable. "Um, Finn and I made dinner – it's in the oven if you want some."

He turned back to look at Evie. "No thanks, I'm not hungry."

"Oh, okay." Was he mad at her? She didn't like not knowing something. "Are you okay, Noah? You don't seem quite yourself tonight. Did something go wrong at the garage?"

"Nope, work was fine." Rachel waited for him to say something else but her wait was in vain so she moved onto a new topic.

"You'll be pleased to hear that you don't have to worry about Finn looking after Evie; he was a most attentive carer tonight."

"Oh, yeah? Enjoy playing house with Hudson, did you?" he snapped and Rachel jumped at his tone.

"We weren't playing house," she insisted although a small part of her knew that was a complete lie, at least on her side (she couldn't be sure about Finn's thoughts that evening). "I don't know why you're so upset. You didn't mind when Matt and Mike came over, or any of the others."

"Well they didn't have their tongue stuck down your throat when they were supposed to be taking care of my daughter!"

Rachel gaped at him in surprise, heat rushing to her cheeks. "Noah!" she spluttered. "While I regret that you had to walk in on Finn and I engaging in a somewhat passionate moment, I would like to stress that Evie was comfortably asleep at that moment and should she have needed our attention her cries would most certainly have interrupted us."

"You didn't hear me come in the door," Noah pointed out, "and I wasn't exactly quiet."

"We would have heard Evie if she started crying, Noah." She stressed.

"Whatever, Berry. In future I'd appreciate it if you didn't use my daughter as some sort of pawn to help you seduce Hudson. That's gotta be some form of child abuse."

Rachel was mad. Actually, she was beyond mad, she was furious. She picked up the nearest object (which happened to be her copy of Romeo and Juliet) and threw it at his head. She got some small satisfaction from seeing the corner of the play hit him to the left of his ridiculous Mohawk.

"Ow! What the fuck, Berry! You're an utter psychopath! That could've hit Evie!" The aforementioned little girl promptly opened her mouth and started screaming but she was completely drowned out by Rachel's yells.

"How dare you tell me how to act in my own house, Noah Puckerman! Never mind the fact that I've gone out of my way to ensure the best for you and your daughter; I made sure Quinn (and therefore Evie) had a place to stay and were well looked after during the latter stages of the pregnancy; I helped Quinn through her ridiculously long labour; I stole from school; I gave you and Evie a place to stay; I helped get you a job; I convinced the other glee kids to look after Evie so you could go to lessons and I've been cooking you dinner and helping you with your school work all week! I've done all that for you and your daughter and now you have the nerve to insinuate that I'd use Evie for seductional purposes and get angry at me for engaging in some form of a life outside of you two?"

He was glaring heatedly at her. "That's not what I meant." He said through clenched teeth.

"I don't care what you meant, Noah! I don't care about you anymore. I'm still going to help Evie, but you? You can do whatever the hell you like from now on."

"Fine," he spat.

She picked up her notebook and made to leave the room but he tossed her play back at her. "Here, don't forget your piece of romantic shit." He sneered.

She snatched the play off the floor and stomped up the stairs to her room, too angry to even realise that Noah knew that Romeo and Juliet was a romance.

A/N: Oh, Noah…silly boy. Yes, there is some Finchel but bear in mind what it states in the summary of this story before you curse me!

I hope that was kind of worth the wait. Next chapter shouldn't be up in toooo long.

To all my fellow abstainers; Lent's nearly over! YAY! Only a few more days before we can indulge again :)

Oh, one thing I wanted to check; I was going to say Puck was 'knackered' at one point but that felt like a really British thing to say. Do you use knackered in America/Canada? Or is it more like when I was in LA a couple of years ago and I told a taxi driver that the weather in the UK was 'rubbish'. She found it surreal because she'd only ever heard 'rubbish' in the movies! Hmmm, language. Gotta love it!

Your reviews seriously light up my day so I really appreciate it when people take the time to let me know what they think!

Lots of love,

Lil Drop of Magic

xXxXxXx

PS I know we're all majorly excited about Glee being back on TV soon but PLEASE do not put any kind of spoiler in your reviews. In fact, I think it's best that you pretend that we're not getting any new episodes when you're reviewing my fic because you might write something that you don't think is a spoiler but actually is. So, no mention of the back 9 in your reviews sil vous plait!