Disclaimer: I don't own Glee.

"Come with me." Puck wrapped his arms around Rachel's waist and pulled her towards him.

"You live in Chicago. I can't move that far away." Rachel shook her head. "My parents need me here. I can't just pack up and move."

"Why not?" Puck asked. "When is the last time you did something for yourself? You have spent your entire life giving to everyone…"

"I can't just leave."

"You always wanted to sing. Come to Chicago. You can do that there." He pleaded. "Come on, Rachel. I just got you. I can't lose you yet."

"You're not losing me, Noah." She shook her head. "Look, I care about you but I have responsibilities here. My parents need me."

"I need you."

She smiled sadly. "No you don't. You'll go back to Chicago and you'll meet a new girl. She'll make you happy and you won't remember me back here in Apple Tree."

"So you won't even think about coming with me?" He asked.

"I did think about it. I thought about it a lot. I don't belong in Chicago. I belong here."

"This is a mistake."

"Maybe." She nodded and kissed his cheek. "But it's a mistake I have to make."

Puck left after that. She watched is go and it took everything she had not to run after him and tell him to take her with him. She checked the clock later that night and realized that he would have landed in Chicago hours ago. She busied herself with cleaning because if she thought about Noah she was going to break down. She was sure she had made the right choice. She had to stay here. She had to take care of her parents. But why had she wanted to say yes so badly. It was right on the tip of her tongue when he had asked her to go with him. She had pushed the urge away and forced herself to be practical. She couldn't move to another state with a man she had only just started to be romantic with.

/

"I talked to that Puckerman boy." Rachel's dad made conversation the next morning.

"You did?" Rachel replied, her eyes wide, staring at her father from across the kitchen table. "I can only assume it didn't go well. You've never liked Noah."

"It went very well, actually." Robert corrected. "We talked about his Aunt a lot. He really misses her." He looked up at Rachel. "We talked about you as well."

Rachel pursed her lips and moved to start cleaning up their breakfast mess. "I have to leave soon."

"It's not a good idea, Rachel." Robert sighed.

"Look, he asked me to move to Chicago with him." She stopped moving and slumped back into the chair. "And as much as I wanted to say yes… I declined. I couldn't leave you and Mom." She shook her head. "So you don't have to worry about it. I know that moving to Chicago would be a bad idea."

"I was talking about staying." He told her. "Rachel, you have no reason to say no."

Rachel refused to look at her father. "I can't… move to Chicago. I can't move with Noah."

"I have watched how you sacrificed for this family. You wanted to be on Broadway, Rachel. You were going to be a star and you gave all of that up when your mom got sick." He paused for a second. "I just sat on the sidelines and watched as you made the biggest mistake of your life. You almost married the most boring man on the face of the earth."

Rachel cracked a smile. "Finn was not that boring." She rolled her eyes.

Robert's eyes shined at his daughter's laughter but then he turned serious. "I have never seen you be so happy before, Bunny. You've walked around for the last few years, being this shell of yourself for Finn. But now, you're happy. You smile and laugh and you're Rachel again. Noah does that. He makes you Rachel. You can't give that up because of your silly parents."

"Are you telling me I should go to Chicago?" Rachel asked.

"I'm telling you that you have to go to Chicago." Robert smiled.

/

Rachel wasn't surprised when she heard Noah knocking on the side door of her house that night. He was leaving tomorrow afternoon and she had left him a voicemail asking for him to come over before he left. She pulled the door open and he slipped in silently. The air around them was still heavy and awkward but she was hoping to remedy that.

"Thanks for coming." She smiled softly at him and she moved across the room, trying to put some distance between them so she could think straight. "I… wanted to talk if that was okay with you."

"I guess." He sighed. She could tell he was still upset and it made her heart ache.

"I wanted to make sure that you knew my conditions." She told him coolly.

"Conditions? What are you talking about?" He asked.

"If I do this, if I move to Chicago… if we do this, I want to make sure that you know exactly what you're getting. I don't want you waking up one morning and regretting this so I'm telling you what I want… from us and this relationship." She half-whispered. "I need space, Noah. I hate being cramped. Sometimes I'm going to yell and sometimes I'm going to infuriate you. I don't bake. I can cook gourmet foods but I can't bake some cookies to save my life." She smiled softly.

"Rachel." Puck took a step forward but then stopped. She wasn't finished. Not even close.

"I want a family." She told him. "I'm not saying we have to start right away but I want a big family."

"Fuck, Rach, we can have ten kids if you want." He was pretty sure her laugh was the sweetest sound he had ever heard.

"I was thinking three would be quite enough." She grinned. "Sometimes my career will come first." She reminded him. "If I move to Chicago, I want to sing again. I want to at least try."

"Sounds reasonable." He slowly started to walk toward her.

"I won't be stuck in a miserable relationship again." She said. "So if either of us are feeling like that, then I want us to tell each other."

"You tell me when I'm being an asshole and I tell you when you're going bat-shit crazy. Look…" He hesitated. "I know this is going to be hard. We're going to fight and we're going to drive each other crazy but that's our thing. We'll have to work on us every day but I don't mind because I want you. I want you, Rachel, every day, forever. I want all of you." He had reached her by now and her eyes watched him closely. "All of you."

She let out a watery laugh and stepped forward, closing the space between them. Hesitantly, she leaned up and kissed him. He kissed her back, his hand tangling in her hair while the other rested on the small of her back, pulling her closer to him.

He tore himself a way from her reluctantly. "Three kids, huh?" He smirked and she nodded. "What do you say to us going upstairs and starting on the first one?"

She laughed again, a full belly laugh that had him clutching her closer just to make sure this was real. "I say we start right here. On the kitchen counter." She bit into her lip and he chuckled.

Yes, this was definitely real.

The End

A/N: Thanks for everyone that stuck with this. Sorry for the delay. Thanks for all the reviews.