Disclaimer: I do not own the 'Glee' world.

A/N Happy belated Easter, guys!

Okay, so this was a much longer wait. There's no particular excuse; I just wasn't in the mood to write (and I wasn't when I was writing this, to be honest. I hope it doesn't show!) But love is in the air in the UK right now and I thought it was about time I got on with this!

Mega-thanks for all those who reviewed etc. I had a fabulous time in NYC. Seriously, it was AMAZING! Saw three things on Broadway and watched them filming 'New Years Eve' in Times' Square; we got to see the ball drop and everything! (Although didn't get to see Lea, which is fair enough because I would've exploded in excitement!)

Anyway, on with the fic.

Chapter 15 : Finding a Solution

"Okay, is someone going to tell us why we're all here already?" Santana snapped at the assembled glee club. "There's a waiter over there who needs to know what he's missing out on."

Puck saw Berry roll her eyes at the Latina but she started speaking nonetheless. "Very well. Thank you all for meeting us here this morning at such short notice. What Noah and I have to tell you isn't easy for us to say but we thought you should hear it from us first."

"Oh my God, you're knocked up!" Santana sneered. "Puckerman you dog!"

Mercedes shook her head slightly. "As if. She's going out with Finn remember."

"Didn't matter last time," Kurt said quietly, but loud enough for everyone to hear.

Puck had erupted into silent laughter at the outraged and embarrassed look on Berry's face.

"Um, Rachel and I aren't together anymore," Finn put in awkwardly.

"What?" half a dozen people yelled.

"Since when?"

"So she is pregnant."

"Puckerman strikes again."

"I'm not pregnant!" Berry screeched, blushing furiously as half the people in the diner looked in their direction. "And my relationship with Finn is none of your business," she added in a more reasonable tone.

Puck had finally managed to recover from the hilarity and decided that maybe he'd better input something into the conversation. This was both his and Berry's mess after all. "The school know about Evie."

The mirth dropped from all of their faces. "Don't worry, your involvement in Operation Babywatch was withheld from Figgins but, suffice to say, we're not going to be bringing Evie into school anymore." Berry said and then, at the request of the others, explained what had happened yesterday afternoon.

"You're both suspended?" Mike asked in disbelief when Berry had finished.

"We were fucking lucky not to be expelled," Puck admitted. Thank fuck Figgins hadn't given in to Sue Sylvester's demands.

"I can't believe you refused to tell them about the rest of us looking after Evie. My mom would've grounded me forever if I'd gotten suspended," Tina admitted.

The others echoed their thanks and Brittany hailed them as 'awesome secret keepers'.

"But where the hell are you going to get three thousand dollars from?" Santana asked bluntly.

"Truth be told, we need more than three thousand," Berry explained. "When Noah gives back the baby equipment he'll need to buy some out of his own pocket otherwise Evie won't have anywhere to sleep, we can't have her in the car as well as many other things she'll be lacking."

The mood amongst the teenagers was rather sombre as they realised that the suspension was the least of his and Berry's problems.

"Yeah, so if any of you have any good money making ideas, Berry and I would be very grateful if you could clue us in."

"Your cupcakes were a big hit earlier on in the year. Why don't you make more of them?" suggested Artie. The group smiled at the memory of Puck's 'special' cupcakes.

"No," Berry said forcefully. "Nothing illegal. That's how we got into this mess in the first place."

The group were quiet as they struggled to think of a way for them to make a lot of money in only two weeks – without telling people that the proceeds would be going to charity.

("Come on, Berry, I'm practically a charity case as it is!" "No, Noah,")

Puck looked at his watch and realised that he was going to be late for work. Luckily Burt was feeling better than he was yesterday – Puck needed to earn every dollar he could!

He bid the group and his sleeping daughter goodbye, telling Berry he'd see her later on.

As he drove to work he reflected again how glad he was that he was still staying at the Berrys' house. Things would've been an absolute nightmare if he'd moved back home because he'd always known that his mom wasn't ready for him to bring Evie back. But he'd stayed with Berry for about two months and he could barely look her dads in the eye after he'd helped get their daughter suspended (no matter how much she insisted it was entirely her own fault).

Telling his mom had been a pretty shitty conversation but he reminded her of their discussion that morning when she'd told him she wasn't capable of helping to look after Evie yet.

So now he and Berry just had to raise all this money, find some day care for Evie for when they went back to school and pass their finals in just over two weeks. Fucking hell…

Rachel Berry wasn't the type of girl to mope about and whine about her problems – she was a more proactive sort of person. So after she had left the rest of New Directions and arrived home she had quickly started researching ways of making money (even if her research was often interrupted by her need to look after Evie) and by the time she heard Noah arrive back from work she had a number of possibilities. However, she doubted that they'd raise anywhere near three thousand dollars, even if they did all of them.

There was a knock at her bedroom door and Rachel gave permission to enter. Noah came into her room and Rachel was surprised to see Kurt follow after him with a pale pink box in his arms. "A clothing update for Evie," Kurt explained seeing the questioning look on Rachel's face. "And, I've come to save both of your skins!" He looked very excited.

"He thinks he's found a way for us to make the money but he wanted to tell us both together." Puck explained, collapsing back on her bed, looking exhausted.

Rachel tried to keep herself from getting excited – she really didn't want to put her possessions up on eBay or sell her hair.

Kurt placed the box carefully to the side and then turned to address his tired/desperate audience. "I used to have a grandmother who lived in Illinois and every year she'd take me to a singing competition that was held in Chicago. I haven't been since she died a few years ago. I didn't mention it before because I wasn't sure that it was still being held but I checked online and it is! You're just in time too – it starts on Friday."

Rachel blinked a couple of times. "Hold on a minute; as much as I love to showcase my singing talent, the important thing here is that we are able to make some money…"

"The prize for coming first is ten thousand dollars." Kurt said, grinning. Rachel's mouth fell open.

"Fuck me sideways," Noah breathed, also staring at the other boy in surprise.

Ten thousand dollars. It was three times the amount they needed. Of course, it wouldn't be handed to them on a plate – Rachel or Noah would have to win first but they were both more than capable singers and with two of them in the competition they'd have twice the chance of winning.

"Is there a particular genre or style of music that we'd need to pick songs from?" Rachel queried rapidly. "How do we enter? What's the judging system? Is there a runners-up prize? Can Noah and I both enter separately? Is there an entrance fee?"

"Shit, Berry, take a breath before you blow a fuse," Noah said, his eyes wide at the stream of questions pouring from her mouth.

"How have I never heard of this competition?" she cried at Kurt, finally pausing to give him time to answer.

Kurt smiled daintily and brushed some hair from his forehead. "Perhaps I should tell you more about the origins of the event." He looked pointedly at the bed and Rachel sat down after she'd wandered about the room drilling off her questions. "The first competition took place in 1951 – "

"1951?" Rachel exclaimed in surprise and then apologised as Kurt was looking quite scandalised that he'd been interrupted.

"Yes, 1951. A couple, Rita and Gerald Barker founded it. The date had some sort of significant meaning to them, I can't really remember why. Anyway, the first event was a somewhat low-key affair just a bit of entertainment held amongst friends but they all enjoyed it so much that they decided to do the competition again the next year and the year after that and the year after that and this year will mark the sixtieth year of the event. Over time it gained popularity within the community and further field. The entrants came from towns and states that were farther away and the prize money increased as local businesses contributed and benefits were held throughout the Chicago area over the year and apparently Mr and Mrs Barker do a lot of charitable work too."

"What? They're still alive?" Noah asked and Rachel elbowed him in the ribs to make him stop talking. He glared at her but she just put a finger to her lips and turned back.

"As far as I know they're still alive and kicking," Kurt shrugged. "They were when I went with my grandmother and there was nothing on the website to indicate that they were dead."

"They must be pretty fucking old," Noah mumbled and Rachel was about to inflict pain upon him again but he held up his hands in surrender, "Chillax, Berry. I'll shut up."

"The competition take place over three days and there are two singing rounds on each day. The auditions take place on Friday morning and only 18 entrants get to go through to the first round. The audience vote for who they want to go through to the next round and the three acts who have the least votes don't progress to the next stage until eventually there are only three left in the final round."

Rachel felt slightly uneasy at the prospect of having an audience decide of the winner; she was used to qualified judges determining who was to be triumphant. What did the general public know of vocal talent?

"Over the years there have been various themes to the competition," Rachel dismissed her thoughts and focused on Kurt, anxious not to miss a single detail about what could be their salvation, "and due to this being the 60th time the competition has taken place Mr and Mrs Barker have decreed that each round must feature a song from each decade the event has been held in. The first round has to have songs from the noughties, the second from the nineties and so on until you're singing from the fifties in the final round."

Song possibilities whizzed through Rachel's brain, trying to catalogue the decade in which they'd originated. Through her song-fuzzy brain she could see that Kurt was biting his lip slightly and Rachel knew that he wouldn't be purposely causing harm to his looks so he must be doing it unconsciously and her suspicions grew.

"What are you telling us?" she demanded. The hopes of them raising money that she'd been trying to supress began to diminish. She should've known that all this was too good to be true.

Kurt sighed but there was a slight glint in his eye. "You and Puck won't be able to enter separately."

"Shit." Noah swore and Rachel had to admit that it was a shame. "You'll have to do it for both of us, Berry. You've got a helluva better chance of winning this thing than I have. Besides, this sort of thing's like crack to you anyway."

"No, you don't understand," Kurt said before Rachel could make a response. "It's a competition for couples. You two will have to become a couple again."

Rachel let out a nervous laugh. "You're joking, right? Please tell me that you're joking."

Kurt shook his head. "The competition has always been for people involved in a romantic relationship. It used to be for just engaged or married heterosexual couples but that was deemed too discriminatory in the seventies so now you don't have to be straight or in a particularly long standing relationship to be eligible to enter."

"But we're not a couple," Noah pointed out.

"Says who? If you two say that you're involved then who are the event organisers to argue against you – as long as you put in a convincing performance of liking each other of course."

Rachel bit her lip. She supposed that technically Kurt was right in that it would be difficult for anyone to prove that she and Noah weren't a couple if they embraced their 'roles' as boyfriend and girlfriend. It wasn't the idea of pretending to be Noah's girlfriend that was particularly off-putting; she was sure that they could perform their roles well seeing as they had been an item (however briefly) at one point. She hadn't thought of him in a romantic frame of mind for a while but there was no denying that he was an attractive man.

No, it was more that she'd feel guilty for lying to everyone involved in the competition. The lines between doing what was right and what was necessary were very blurred – just like they had been when they'd taken the school supplies for Evie. Rachel didn't think they'd be doing anything illegal by becoming a fake couple but they had to be carrying out some form of fraud.

"What d'you think, B?" Noah was watching her closely but she couldn't tell from his expression what he thought about this new slant on the competition.

"If we do this and we don't win then we're worse off than where we are now seeing as we'd have lost time to earn some money and we'll have to pay for transport and a couple of night's accommodation."

"Second place gets three grand and third gets seven hundred and fifty dollars." Kurt informed them, "So as long as you get in the top three then you'll ensure you get some money from this."

"I suppose that's not so bad." Rachel considered and then asked Noah about the more pressing issue. "What of the lie about us being in a relationship? Does it bother you?"

He grinned. "Hey, Berry, d'you wanna be my girl?"

Despite herself, Rachel felt her cheeks warming. "Noah, it's not the same and you know it…" she paused but he didn't seem like he was going to take his offer back. This competition really was their best shot at paying the school back without having to beg their parents (something both of them had been vehemently against). She sighed "… but, I suppose, for appearances' sakes, yes, Noah, I'll 'be your girl'."

Her new boyfriend grinned at her. "Awesome!" He held up a hand and she laughed slightly as she hit it with her own.

"Um, guys, you might want to work on the affection levels because that was, quite frankly, pathetic," Kurt pointed out.

"Dude, we just didn't want to embarrass you with an epic, hot-Jew make-out session." Noah explained and Rachel felt her cheeks warming again.

To change the topic of conversation slightly she stood up and moved towards Kurt. "Thanks for telling us about the competition, Kurt." She gave him a quick hug.

"Yeah, we would've been totally screwed if it weren't for you," Noah agreed. "If there's anything we can do for you, just let us know."

"I want in," Kurt replied instantly.

There was a pause.

"I know you said there can be gay couples in this thing," Noah said, "but a threesome? I don't think they'd buy that."

Kurt rolled his eyes. "No, I don't want to sing with you, I just want to come to Chicago too. I'll help you get prepared and sort your costumes for you and you're going to need someone to look after Evie, anyway."

"Won't your Dad mind you missing a day off school?" Rachel enquired. She knew that having Kurt with them would help immensely but she didn't want him to get in trouble with his father for them.

"I can handle my Dad," Kurt answered.

"Er, speaking of which, I need to get the time off work…" Noah pointed out.

Kurt raised a perfectly manicured hand. "I'll take care of it."

Noah grinned. "Thanks, dude." Kurt shrugged.

"Okay," Rachel breathed. "Okay, so it seems like we're actually going to be doing this. First things first; let's find some music!"

The following days passed in a blur of songs, melodies, harmonies, dance routines, disagreements and outfit suggestions.

"The trick is to find a song that makes you stand out from the rest of the couples," Kurt explained, "but that suits both of your voices and is a song the audience will still relate to and like. You don't want to be too obscure. You also want to try and cover a range of different styles to show how diverse you can be."

Puck and Rachel didn't quite have the same music tastes and they often bickered over the song choices. ("No, Noah. I don't care how sexually appealing you think you are – we are not doing 'I'm Too Sexy' for the nineties round." "I swear to God, Berry, if you even mention 'Abba' again I will legitimately suffocate myself with one of your cushions.")

They messaged their friends in glee club requesting their favourite songs from the different decades and Kurt researched the popular songs of those decades on the internet, looking for a perfect song that they might have missed in their search.

Finally, in the late hours of Sunday evening, Rachel and Puck had managed to come up with two songs for each round that they both agreed on.

During the day on Monday and Tuesday Puck worked full time with Burt to make up the hours that he was going to be taking off later in the week. Rachel spent her time arranging the music, caring for Evie and squeezing in the odd hour of studying for her finals. When Puck got home from work they worked on the songs together until they were both utterly exhausted.

They told their parents that they were entering a singing competition in Chicago to pay back the school – they just failed to mention that they would have to pretend to be involved in a romantic relationship. Puck and Rachel both felt guilty for the lie of omission but they desperately needed this money and were determined that nothing would stop them from achieving their goal of getting through to the final round of the competition. Rachel's dads in fact said that they were proud of her for putting her talent to use and finding a solution to the problems that she had created. She tried not to let her discomfort at her deceit show. She doubted that they would be so thrilled if they knew she was lying in order to take part in the competition…

Wednesday was a mixture of rehearsing and studying as they didn't want to lose their voices from over-practicing and, also, they needed to make sure that they passed those all-important end of year exams.

On Wednesday evening they gathered together the rest of New Directions and informed the club why they had requested the different music tracks from them.

"So you're entering it together?" Matt asked. "I suppose that makes sense; there's strength in numbers, after all." A few others nodded and Puck noticed Kurt grinning like a Cheshire cat out of the corner of his eye. Little fucker. He was sure that Kurt was enjoying that he and Berry had to put on their 'couple' thing for Chicago.

"Well, actually, performing together is a stipulation for the competition." Berry explained to the group.

"Stipu – what?" wondered Finn.

"Noah and I…we…" words, perhaps for the first time, seemed to fail Berry as she looked into Finn's eyes and Puck realised that having her ex-boyfriend here might make this a little awkward. Ah, screw it.

"Berry and I are going out." He stated simply.

"For the sake of the competition," Berry quickly added. "Only couples can enter the competition."

There were a variety of reactions to this explanation; Finn was looking hurt (the pussy), Brittany was looking blissfully ignorant as per usual, Santana looked somewhere between angry and amused and the rest of them looked like they thought this was hilarious.

"So you have to convince everyone in Chicago that you're together?" Mercedes clarified and they both nodded, causing most of the room to erupt into laughter.

"What the fuck's so funny?" Puck growled. "Berry and I've been out before."

"Yeah, and that was the most farcical relationship in McKinley history." Santana spat. "It only lasted, like, a week and you were both doing it to make other people jealous."

Puck frowned. Actually, he'd been in the relationship to make his mom/God happy and if it had made Quinn a tiny bit jealous then that had been an added bonus. Berry though? He knew Berry had done it to make Finn jealous and for some reason that acknowledgement always stung slightly.

"Yes, well, we're only pretending this time, anyway." Berry retorted, "As long as the audience believe that we're together then that's all that matters – they decide who wins."

"You two don't look like you're boyfriend and girlfriend." It seemed that Brittany had finally caught on to what they were talking about. "You're not even touching each other."

Puck and Berry glanced at each other. "But we're not pretending this fucking second." Puck defended.

"But you should start practising," Kurt suggested. "You'll need to keep up the pretence for possibly three days. You never know when someone will be watching the way you act towards each other. The more familiar you are around each other the better."

Puck was suddenly aware that Berry had moved closer to him and she reached out for his hand and he let her take it. Her small hand was warm against his cold one. There were some snorts of laughter and a catcall from Artie.

"How vulgar," Santana sniped, rolling her eyes.

"It's weird trying to do this stuff in front of all of you," Berry protested. "And it's not fair to do this in front of Finn."

"I don't care," Finn said stiffly. Puck thought it looked like he was going to snap in half, he was standing that tensely. "You're only pretending, after all."

"Yeah, and if you can pretend in front of us then you'll have no problem faking it in front of a bunch of strangers." Tina added.

Berry cleared her throat. "Anyway, the reason that Noah and I asked you here was so that we could perform our song selections for you. We have two for each round and we'd appreciate your opinion on which one we should chose should we get through the competition and any other advice you can give us."

"You guys have to keep in role the whole time though, even in the gaps between songs." Kurt said. "You need to practice this."

Berry sighed. "I suppose you're right. Noah?"

He shrugged. "Practice makes perfect." He frowned. That so sounded like something that she would say.

She bit her lip and then quickly kissed him on the cheek before getting into her starting position for the first song. He quickly moved too, so that he wouldn't look like some sort of idiot and willed himself to get into role.

The songs went by, each one earning applause from the gleeks, and they discussed the pros and cons of the various songs, gradually picking a preferred one for each decade.

Getting 'into role' however, was much harder than Puck initially thought it would be. He was so aware of the group watching his every move whenever he made contact with Berry and he had to fight the urge to laugh when he had to sing into her eyes because he could just tell that that's what the rest of them wanted to do. Having Finn there really didn't help either. Puck knew that his best friend wasn't finding their performances comfortable viewing but he really needed that money, whether it pissed his best friend off or not.

"So, what do you all think?" Berry asked once all the songs had been sung and discussed.

"Vocally, the songs sound good, really good…" Artie began.

"I just don't buy it between you." Mike said, frowning. "There's no emotion between you two and these songs are, like, all about love."

"But is it because you know us and you're aware we're pretending?" Berry demanded.

Mike shrugged. "I don't know."

"I think you just need more practice," Tina suggested.

"We've got less than two fucking days!" Puck pointed out.

"Then you're going to have to stay in character as much as possible," Kurt replied.

"You didn't even kiss. People in love are supposed to kiss." Brittany stated petulantly, as though she'd been denied something.

"She makes a good point," Santana shrugged. "You're teenagers and you're supposed to be in love. Everyone should think that you're at it like rabbits – that's what they'd expect of you. You know, 'young love' and all that bullshit. You should be hot towards each other but you're stone cold. It's like you don't think the other one's fuck-worthy."

Puck and Berry made stuttering remarks that each thought the other was attractive and Brittany shouted. "Kiss already! Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!"

The others took up the chant (except for Finn) and Berry opened her mouth to respond, closed it again, stamped her foot slightly, then grabbed Puck's head and brought their lips together.

Puck was only vaguely aware of the group cheering and whistling. He was much more concerned with the lips moving so softly against his own. It had been months since he'd last made out with a girl and he was eager to make the most of this opportunity. He pushed aside the weird thoughts that he was kissing Berry, one of his best friends, and let himself feel instead of think; his blood pumping around his body, the smooth skin of her cheek as he brushed his hand against it, the tingling that raced down his spine as her fingers traced the back of his head, the rapid beat of her pulse as he brought the hand against her neck, the silky strands of her hair sliding through his fingers. It was all so familiar, even though it had been just over six months since he'd last kissed her.

They pulled apart and it was like the sound had suddenly been put back to full volume. The gleeks (again, except Finn, of course) were laughing and cheering and he couldn't resist a grin of his own. Even Berry was smiling shyly and he was suddenly reminded just how hot Rachel Berry could be and how awesome making it with her was. It wasn't the worst thing in the world to rediscover, especially when he would be being her boyfriend for another four days.

He slung an arm around her waist and brought the blushing Berry closer against him. "Chicago, here we come!"

A/N So, obviously, this whole competition is something completely made up, but, meh, it seemed like a fun idea. I hope I explained it all right. If you have any questions I'll answer them next time round.

I do have songs in mind that they could use in the competition (if they get through the auditions of course!) but if you have any in particular that you think would be good then please let me know. I've changed my mind on the songs a few times so if I see something better than what I've got then I'll be happy to change it!

Anyway, I hope you liked the chapter! Hopefully I'll get into a writing mood again (Who knows, maybe Will and Kate will inspire me! Lol!).

Lots of love,

Lil Drop of Magic

xXxXx