Disclaimer: I don't own Glee or these adorable little characters.

Puck and Kurt's First Day of School

At nearly twenty four years old Sally Cistern was the youngest teacher at Lewis Merryweather Elementary. Teaching young children had always been her dream; from her earliest days in college she had always imagined going to work helping bright eyed, eager children learn their numbers and ABC's. And during her teaching apprenticeship in Dayton the wonderful children she helped everyday only reinforced her belief that teaching was her calling. When she was hired as a kindergarten teacher at Merryweather Elementary she had arrived well ahead of any of the other faculty members, straightening the students' desks and laying out freshly sharpened pencils for all her eager learners. When the first parents trickled in, some carrying inconsolable children, others inconsolable themselves at the thought of being away from their children so long, she went through her well-rehearsed speech, insuring parents that she would take care of their children, sending them on their way to color or play with the many toys she'd bought out of her own pocket while she greeted the late-comers. Everything was going smoothly, and her excitement for the coming year was heightened by the fact that she seemed to inherit the sweetest, most genial kindergarteners in the world. She sighed contentedly, knowing she would always remember the first five minutes of her first teaching position.

Unfortunately she would remember them forever not because they were joyful but because in those first five minutes she had yet to meet Noah Puckerman.

Noah looked no different from the other children; his curly hair framed the soft features of his face, which still harbored the customary baby fat on his cheeks, and his brown eyes were bright and attentive. All of this was canceled out, however, by the tantrum he was throwing. He was dragged kicking and screaming to the door of the classroom by his heavily pregnant mother. Miss Cistern had anticipated the students' anger and unwillingness to separate from their parents, and she was somewhat excited to use the soothing techniques she'd learned in her Child Psychology classes. Needless to say the minute Esther Puckerman dropped off her son Miss Cistern realized her soothing techniques would be useless. Esther had barely let go of Noah's hand when she was out the door, shouting about being late for work and telling Noah to be good. The mischievous five year old looked at the young woman leaning down to comfort him in what she'd assumed was a crying fit at being separated from his mother. Realizing she was leaning in to hug him, Noah shoved her with all his might, sending the unprepared teacher toppling backwards onto her butt.

Stunned at his behavior, Mrs. Cistern reprimanded him. "Now, Noah, that wasn't very nice. Aren't you going to apologize?"

"You can't tell me what to do, you're not my mommy!" Noah screamed back. He kicked her on the shin while she was still on her back and ran out of the classroom. She found him fifteen minutes later on the playground beating up a fourth grader for not sharing his marbles. After sitting him in time-out and letting him go under the strict promise that he behave, he ran to the nearest paint set and shoved both hands in the deepest cans, turning around to paint Miss Cistern's new outfit with bright shades of red and yellow. She screamed in terror.

Noah continued to ravage the classroom despite Miss Cistern's best efforts to control him. He ruined her entire binder of master copies of worksheets for the year. He pushed little Brittany Pierce out of her sleeping bag during naptime and claimed it as his own. He found the lesson plan and flushed it down the toilet. He dug up the flowers in front of the classroom and put the worms he found in tiny Tina Cohen-Chang's hair. He kept pushing wheelchair bound Artie Abrams out the door, laughing as the helpless boy rolled into the empty playground. He dumped milk on poor Matt Chang because he wouldn't give him his cookie during snack time. He tore the pictures he liked out of the new books Miss Cistern had just bought, hoping to save them to hang up in his room later. He drew on the whiteboard in permanent marker. He screamed at the top of his lungs during storytime because he thought it was too quiet. And he was stopped mere seconds before jamming the tail of the class pet rat, which he had colored with yellow marker, into an outlet, saying it was a Pikachu and he wanted to see it shoot electricity.

Miss Cistern was frazzled. She was tired from chasing Noah around all day, not to mention punishing him while simultaneously dealing with the sad and unhappy children he seemed to leave in his wake. Sally Cistern was at the end of her rope, and it was still the first day of school.

The only relief she had from Noah that first day was when he was trying his best to befriend little Kurt Hummel. Kurt had arrived clutching the hand of his mother, his big doe eyes brimming with unshed tears at the thought of going a whole day without her. He hid shyly behind his mother's dress and only when Miss Cistern coaxed him out with a shiny, new, unplayed with Barbie was he able to leave his mother's side. He pressed a kiss to his mother's cheek and she did her best to maintain her composure as she wished Kurt a good first day. Kurt went directly from holding his mother's hand to holding Miss Cistern's, accompanying her as she greeted the new students, the Barbie doll tucked carefully into his back pocket. Throughout the day he could constantly be found at her side, and if he wasn't with her he was most likely playing dress-up with Brittany or drawing with Artie and Tina. It was during one of these times, when Kurt was playing with his new friends, that Noah noticed him.

Noah approached Kurt cautiously. He knew Kurt wasn't like his other friends, like his best bud Finn Hudson, who was held back for another year in preschool, or his annoying playmate from his Saturday Hebrew School, Rachel Berry. No, Kurt was different, and Noah didn't care if he was; all he cared about was being friends with the cool kid who wasn't afraid to play with Barbies or wear girl's shoes.

He got a piece of paper and took a seat next to Kurt, deciding he wanted to color because, well, that's what Kurt was doing. "Hi!" Noah shouted. Kurt nearly jumped out of his seat, but seeing it was Noah who sat next to him he ignored the troublesome boy. Tina and Artie looked a little afraid to be so near to the boy who tortured them throughout the day, and each moved a little further down the table, leaving Kurt alone with Noah. Noah didn't notice them, and only looked over at Kurt's drawing. He folded his arms on the table and leaned over, admiring the way he could draw such straight lines without a ruler.

"You draw good," Noah said, making sure to smile brightly at the boy. Again Kurt ignored him.

Noah tried again. "I like your shoes," Noah said, motioning down to the pair of plastic heels Kurt had put on during dress-up and had yet to take off. Still, Kurt refused to talk to Noah. Instead he got up from the table and took his drawing over to Miss Cistern, who praised Kurt's artistry, making the small boy blush. Noah "Hmmphed" in frustration. No one had ever ignored him before. He didn't like it.

It was only when he was busy trying to get Kurt to notice him that Miss Cistern realized he was on his best behavior. He would follow Kurt around, leaving the classroom safe for those few minutes he was distracted by Kurt. But then Kurt would ignore him, and Noah would get frustrated at Kurt and go cause some trouble, only to tire of that and return to Kurt again. Miss Cistern decided it was in the best interests of the class as a whole to make Kurt and Noah friends.

The next day, after all the children had arrived, Miss Cistern made sure to formally introduce Kurt and Noah. Kurt was still in the habit of holding her hand and she grabbed Noah before he could set off to cause whatever mayhem he was planning with the full tub of glue he'd gotten his hands on, and set them down to play together. She faced them towards each other, and wrapped her arms around their backs as she introduced the two boys.

"Kurt," she began, rubbing Kurt's back in order to ease him closer to Noah without him noticing, "this is Noah." Kurt looked down at his shoes, wanting nothing more than to go play with Brittany at the dress-up chest because she was wearing a pink daisy hat with a yellow raincoat and it hurt his eyes to look at such a poorly matched costume. Noah, meanwhile, smiled shyly at Kurt, swaying embarrassingly as he squeezed his hands anxiously. He wanted nothing more than to befriend Kurt and now here he was, being introduced by a woman he'd assumed was his enemy only yesterday. "And Noah, this is Kurt. I think it would be really great if you two played together today. How does that sound?"

"D'ya wanna play dinosaurs?" Noah asked excitedly. Kurt shook his head, still staring down at his shoes. Unmoved by Kurt's reluctance, Noah asked again, "You wanna finger paint?"

"I don't want to get messy," Kurt replied timidly. Miss Cistern still had her arms wrapped around the boys, and Kurt wished she would take him away from the boy who was mean to all his friends yesterday.

"We could play Lego's," Noah suggested. Kurt shook his head again. He wasn't really into building things.

"Miss Cistern," Kurt whispered, his little lisp hardening the 's' sound in her name, "can I go draw with Tina?" Though he tried his best to make it quiet Noah heard their exchange.

"Of course, Kurt," Miss Cistern smiled. "But wouldn't you like Noah to join you?"

"No. I don't like him. He's mean," Kurt said softly. He finally looked up into Noah's eyes, hoping he hadn't offended the little boy.

Noah's eyes filled with tears faster than any of them had expected. He cried and pushed Miss Cistern's arm away from him, once again running out the open classroom door. Getting her teacher's aide to watch the children Miss Cistern ran outside looking for Noah. She found him curled up in the corner of one of the racquetball courts, sobbing softly as he pulled the grass from the cracks in the cement.

It had been so easy to forget he was only five years old yesterday, what with all the chaos he'd caused, but seeing him so vulnerable now made her remember he was still only a child, and though he'd been a handful before all he needed now was someone to comfort him.

"Noah," she said as she softly approached him, "what's wrong, sweetie?" She gently rubbed his back, hoping to soothe his tears.

"Kurt…d-doesn't…like m-me," he said between sniffles. "I just w-want…to be…his f-friend," he said, wiping his nose on the back of his hand. Miss Cistern leaned down and wrapped her arms around the saddened boy, and Noah, feeling the comfort so similar to the one expressed by his mother when he was sad, decided Miss Cistern wasn't so bad after all and buried his head in her shoulder and cried some more.

"Noah." They both heard the soft voice coming from behind them. Turning to look Miss Cistern and Noah found Kurt had followed them out into the racquetball court. He had his hands behind his back and cautiously stepped forward. "I'm sorry," he said, coming in front of Miss Cistern and looking Noah in his teary eyes. "We can be friends."

"Really?" Noah asked. He wiped his eyes and nose messily, still cradled in Miss Cistern's arms.

"Yes," Kurt said shyly. "You just have to be nice to my other friends, too."

"But it's funny when I do stuff to them," Noah said calmly.

"It makes them feel bad," Kurt explained. Noah understood; he'd made them feel like he felt just now.

"I'm sorry," Noah said, looking up to Miss Cistern apologetically. "I'll be better. I promise."

"Oh, Noah," Miss Cistern said, completely relieved by Noah's promise. Even if he didn't live up to it she had a feeling he would be better than he was yesterday, thanks to Kurt.

"Do you wanna play dinosaurs now?" Noah asked.

"Can Barbie play, too?" Kurt asked, retrieving the pocketed Barbie doll Miss Cistern had presented to him yesterday.

Noah nodded his head excitedly. He jumped from Miss Cistern's arms and grabbed Kurt's hand, leading him back to the classroom, talking the whole way about a dinosaur toy he had named Puckasaurus the day before and how he'd hidden it behind the Play-doh so no one could find it and how he wanted Kurt to be the first one to play with it. Miss Cistern walked behind them, smiling to herself. Maybe this teaching thing would be easy after all.

A/N: This has been sitting in my oneshot folder for awhile. I don't know why I never published it. Probably because I wanted to go further with the story line, but what the hell, here you go.

Thanks for reading and reviewing!