Disclaimer: I do not own Glee or any of these characters. More's the pity

A/N: This is a sequel to my first P/R fic Slowdance: A waltz in conversation. Enjoy.

So his main problem right now? Rachel's like, never free. Ever. She has music or dance or theatre classes pretty much every day of the week, and when she's not at those she's either rehearsing or doing tons of homework or trying to keep up with her myspace schedule. So he got her to say yes to going on a date, he just can't get her to actually go on it. And to be honest, it's pissing him off.

He's about ready to give up on the idea altogether after a week of suggesting days and times and getting shot down (told politely that unfortunately she was unavailable then, but she'd like to do it another time). He's starting to think maybe she's chickening out. But then on Tuesday morning before first period he's shoving some stuff in his locker and she shows up next to him, like, out of nowhere, and he'd ask her when the hell she went to ninja school but she's looking up at him kind of shyly but also like she's excited about something, so he decides to save that question for another time.

It's kinda nice as well, her being here. She never normally comes up to him in the hallway, he's always approaching her, except in glee, when sometimes he kinda wishes she'd leave him alone. It's like she thinks that now he has like, feelings for her, or whatever, he's gonna start caring about other stuff, like choral arrangements or choreography or going to math? Hell no.

But she's not talking about any of that crap right now, she's just saying hello and asking him how he is this morning, so so far so good. She's looking pretty good as well, for her anyways. He likes it when she wears her hair down like that, kind of curly and all over her shoulders and stuff, kinda makes her face look softer, or something. Whatever, he's not been listening to anything she's saying until he realises he's heard the words "...cancelled...Friday...free...interested?" Hell yes he's interested. He tell her so in like emphatic (offensive apparently) terms, and suddenly he finds himself with a date on Friday night. He doesn't know what they're doing, he kinda missed that bit, but whatever it is, there's totally gonna be making out, and there ain't nothing wrong with that. His day is totally gonna rock now.

There's no making out. Not even a little bit. They go to the drive-in, and he thinks, hell yeah, coz no one goes to the drive-in to actually watch the movie, everybody knows that.

Something he's starting to learn about Rachel Berry, she totally does not play by the accepted rules of the teenage dating code. When he mentions it to her she looks at him like he's gone insane and tells him to watch the movie. So he does. And it doesn't totally blow, he guesses. He wouldn't watch it again or anything, but it's not a musical, and that's an upside. But it's not worth not making out for.

So yeah, when Robert Redford's wandering around the park at the end and it gets all emotional because Jane Fonda forgives his ass for something that Puck doesn't really understand Rachel gets this really happy smile on her face and leans into him some more, kind of snuggling underneath his arm that's draped across the back of the front seat. That's kinda nice.

And she doesn't just talk non-stop like he'd expected her to, which, again, upside. But all that means is that they don't really say all that much to each other. He never really realised how much of their interaction depended on her yapping constantly and him calling her on it, and without that he kinda thinks they don't really have anything to talk about. So it's all just a bit awkward and stunted. They watch the movie, they eat their popcorn, he drives her home, and none of it is like he thought it would be. Granted mostly he thought it was gonna be a lot of making out and a little bit of winding her up. But she's not giving him anything to work with, so he's kind of just stuck.

When they pull into her driveway and he kills the engine they sit there for a minute, again not talking. She's looking out the window and biting her lip and he's sure she wants to say something, but she's just not, and what's with that? Since when does Rachel not just blurt out every single last thing that was on her mind every second that it's on it. He doesn't know what's going on but it's starting to piss him off. In fact, yeah, it's starting to piss him off. Screw this.

"What's with you?" Ok, that came out a bit more aggressive than he meant, and she looks kind of scared now, so he feels bad. He makes a conscious effort to soften his face a bit and lays his arm out across the back of the front seat, not quite touching her, but hanging his hand there so that it seems a bit more intimate than just them sat in his truck in their driveway. "I just meant, you don't seem like yourself tonight, and it's kind of messing with my mojo. Are you like, sick, or something?"

She starts smiling and he thinks maybe he's cracked it, except then she's giggling and he starts to think what the fuck? Because he's trying to be all concerned and shit and she's just laughing in his face.

"What the fuck Rachel?"

"I'm sorry" She says, but she says it between giggles and he's not really convinced at all that she is. "I'm sorry, I'm not sick."

"So why have you been acting like you don't have kick-ass vocal cords all night? And why are you still laughing?" He knows that last bit comes out a bit whiny, he knows. But damn it, he's not used to chicks just laughing at him, except Santana, and usually she's not doing it because she thinks he did something funny, mainly when he's done something that pisses her off but she doesn't want him to know. Other people don't just laugh at him. He's a scary guy. Except, apparently, to this 2ft ball of crazy sitting next to him in his truck laughing her fucking ass off at something he doesn't understand.

"Mojo?" She manages to spit out between giggles and then throws her head back in a proper, full on belly laugh. Well fuck. He thinks. That's just not cool.

"Fuck off." He tells her before slumping back in his seat and crossing his arms over his chest. There's nothing wrong with mojo. It used to be a totally awesome word before that stupid fake spy movie got hold of it and ruined it. It was still totally awesome when Puck used it, because he was awesome, and if she didn't understand that then she could just fuck right off. He'd find someone that dug his personal brand of badass.

"Whatever Rachel, look it's probably past your bedtime or whatever, so why don't you just take your sweet little ass inside and get yourself some beauty sleep."

She's still chuckling to herself as she hops out of the cab, turning to close the door behind her.

"Rachel," He stops her before she starts to leave and she leans her head through the open window to wait for what he has to say. It's a move that's so casual it's entirely unlike anything he imagines she might do that it kind of throws him for a second. "Seriously man, what was with you tonight? It's like you weren't even there or something."

She's studying her hands again. In the history of their ridiculous relationship her studying her hands has usually lead to nothing that he can describe as good, so he's kind of getting a bit worried when she looks back up at him.

"Honestly?" She asks timidly, and he rolls his eyes, because haven't they had this exact conversation before, and who the hell asks people questions that they don't want truthful answers for? She must take his eyeroll as confirmation because she starts sucking a breath in like she does every time she has to say something she doesn't want to.

"I was-" and then she rolls her eyes, which is like, a total fucking revelation and he doesn't even have time to get to grips with it because she keeps on going, "I was trying to be cooler, I guess. Or something."

He looks confused. He is confused. Since when has Rachel Berry been concerned with being cool? Since when has she been concerned with anything other than getting what she wants? He doesn't get it.

"I don't get it."

And there she is, once again, studying her hands. Only this time when she speaks she doesn't look up, so this must be a pretty difficult thing for her to say.

"You said- when you proposed that we go on a proper date the other week you indicated that- well, basically you said that my, tendency to be verbose and slightly highly strung was something that maybe, well, wasn't exactly attractive to you, and was maybe a factor in whether or not you'd end up wanting to be with me in a general sense."

"I said that? I don't remember saying that."

"You said that you wanted to see whether or not you could actually put up with all my crazy when we're not just making out."

"Yeah, that sounds more like me."

"So I suppose what I was trying to do was show you that I can be, what's that thing you say? Chill, if I needed to be. That I'm not really difficult to put up with."

She looked so down on herself that he almost laughs. But then he decides that that's probably not a good idea. Thought what he actually does is probably not the best idea either.

"Rachel," he says it firmly, and she looks up at him anxiously, "You're an idiot." He tells her with a smile. She looks offended, but he doesn't really care, because she obviously is an idiot and needs to be told so. She straightens up and starts moves to start walking up the driveway, but he's faster than her and he's out of the truck and round at her side before she's even got halfway. He takes her by the shoulders and walks her backwards until she comes into contact with the cab door.

She's refusing to look at him, which he thinks is pretty childish, so he flicks her on the nose like he used to do to his sister, because if nothing else it always got him a reaction. Didn't fail to do so here either. She looked up at him in outrage and opened her mouth to launch a full scale attack, but he just laid a finger across her lips (Goddamn they were soft) and shushed her a little, which totally pissed her off even more. But she was standing there, and she was quiet, so he'd gotten what he'd wanted. He was starting to get pretty good at that, he thinks.

"You're a complete idiot." He tells her again, for emphasis, but also coz it's kind of funny to watch her fume. "Rachel tonight blew. It really did. And not just because I didn't get any play. It blew because we were supposed to be going on a date, only you weren't there."

He doesn't know how it's happened, but his hands have found their way from her shoulders down her arms to her wrists, and have a slight grasp there, thumbs just kind of grazing her hips as he talks to her. He never realizes it when he's doing it, but he's figuring out that whenever he's around her, he always just has to touch her a little, his body just kind of gravitates toward hers. He wonders if she notices.

"Look, I know I rag on you a lot because you talk all the time and you're basically psychotic. But doesn't the fact that I asked you out anyway tell you something?"

She kinks her eyebrows at him and leans back fully against the truck.

"Apparently it tells me that I'm an idiot."

She's acting mad, but she's kind of grinning underneath it, he can tell by that smirk in her eyes. He like, invented that smirk. So he tweaks her nose again, just for kicks.

"No, Crazyface," Her mouth opens in protest but he cuts her off before she has the time, "It should tell you that I like you. I like you, and your running mouth and your deficient mental state, and all that stuff. You're a pain in my ass most of the time, but I pretty much dig all of it. I thought you got that."

His hands are fully on her hips now, her hands resting on his forearms, and he has no idea when that happened, his body is totally ninja-ing his mind! Awesome. So he takes advantage of that and squeezes a little bit, thumbs pushing into her hip-bone. Damn, her body is just, damn.

"So all this, tonight, with you trying to be different, kind of defeats the purpose. Coz the point of this, I thought anyways, was to see if this could work. Just you and me, without all the other crap. And if you're not being like, completely yourself, then we're never gonna be able to figure that out are we?" He squeezes again, just to kind of hammer his point home. He's hoping she gets it.

"So, I'm kind of an idiot?" She squints up at him through her lashes and he can't help but laugh and press a kiss to her forehead.

"Yeah, you kind of are. And you wasted like the only free night you've ever had. So if this thing never gets off the ground, I'm blaming you."

She laughs and rests her head back against the truck. "Thank you Noah, that's very reassuring."

"You're welcome babe."

They just stand there for a while, smiling at each other, which, yeah is kind of gay, but she's got a totally hot smile, and he kind of doesn't hate that they're being honestly just with each other for once. But then the porch light flicks on and curtains move in her living room and clearly their time is up. She smiles at him apologetically and moves to go inside.

"So, this never happened ok?"

She looks pretty confused, so he thinks he probably didn't say it exactly like he meant to.

"I mean, this date. Didn't happen. We haven't had our first date yet. That'll come some other time. Cool?"

She gets this kind of quiet smile on her face, that he knows he could get used to if he could make her do it more, and she nods a little before turning and walking back into her house. He just stands there smiling at her house for a bit before he realizes how entirely a pussy kind of thing that is to do and rolls his eyes at himself as he gets into his truck. Doesn't stop him from smiling pretty much the whole way home, or giving him mom a peck on the cheek when he gets there before heading up to bed.