Title: Our Arms Wide
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Puck/Rachel
Disclaimer: If I owned Glee, part of Mark Salling's contract would be that he had to make out with me at least seven times a day. Alas, it isn't so.
Author's Note: The title is inspired by the Dave Matthew's Band song "You and Me Together"

The only thing Rachel hears as the slushie slams into her face is the sound of the icy cold drink dripping onto the floor. The humiliation drowns out everything else, and she can hear her heart pounding in her ears. Then, as her eyes flutter open, through cherry stained eyelashes she watches as her assailant is thrown roughly up against the lockers. Suddenly, the real world stops moving in slow motion and all too quickly Noah Puckerman's fist connects with Zeke Montague's face. She steps forward in an attempt to stop Noah from making an even bigger fool of himself, but her foot connects with the slushie drippings.

And, as it has been proved time and time again, when it comes down to Rachel Berry vs. Slushie, the former never comes out on top. (Except for once, when a boy she didn't know had the capacity to be sweet had been kind enough to bring her a grape slushie as an apology.)

Needless to say, she slips. Falls. Her butt and hands connect painfully with the floor and she gives off a low, keening noise of pain. This grabs Noah's attention, and he stops threatening Montague long enough to spare his (secret) girlfriend a glance. Immediately, his attention is focused on her. Well, immediately in the "with one last punch to Zeke's throat" sense of the word.

His hands grip her upper arms, bringing her gently to her feet. He uses his thumbs to smooth the slushie away from her face. He asks her "Are you okay?" without using the actual words, instead pressing an open mouth kiss to her forehead, licking gently at the cherry remnants there and relishing in the giggle she emits.

Taking her hand, he guides her into the girl's bathroom (cos he's so not taking a fucking chick into the dude's room…even if that girl is his secret girlfriend), and hauls the folding chair that's always in there up to the sink. She washed his hair, once upon a time. He figures it's time to return the favor.

The restroom is empty, but outside the heavy swinging door the hallways of McKinley High are buzzing about the events from moments before.

So much for a secret.

(Surprisingly, Puck doesn't mind so much.)

000

February 14th is a dark day for New Directions. From the beginning, practically, no good comes from it. Rachel wakes up at four am to the sound of someone banging on her front door. She panics momentarily, before coming to her senses and realizing that if someone were attempting to burglarize her home, they'd hardly knock before hand. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she journeys downstairs, passing by her fathers as they stumble out of their room.

When she looks through the peep hole, she sees nothing. She can, however, hear the heartbreaking sounds of Noah's crying. Fearing the worst, she unlocks and throws open the door. His large figure sinks into her waiting arms almost immediately, and not too long after her shoulder is wet with his tears.

She pets his hair, running her fingers over the shaved portion of his scalp, and murmurs nonsense in an attempt to soothe him.

When it seems that he has calmed down enough to speak, she asks him what's wrong.

The answer is not something she expects.

Quinn, in a futile attempt to reconcile with her parents, had shown up on their doorstep last night to speak with them. Her father had yet to return from his squash game at the country club, so her mother was the only one home when the doorbell rang. Always far more levelheaded than her husband, Laura Fabray had invited her daughter in for a cup of hot cocoa and engaged her in strained conversations about school and the baby.

It had all been going fairly well…until the man of the house returned.

His daughter's presence was not welcomed. He had stormed upstairs, yelling and ranting about the abomination that she had become, about the shame she had brought upon the family. Quinn, desperate to feel her father's love once more, had chased after him and grabbed onto his arm.

He shook her off.

She had lost her footing, falling backwards down the stairs and landing in an unconscious pile on the floor.

There was screaming. The flash of ambulance lights. The steady beeping of a hospital room. And the worst news Puck had ever heard in his life.

The baby was gone.

(Rachel's heart breaks. Both for the boy on her doorstep, and for the small human that all of them had grown to love.)

000

A tear drips down her face as Rachel stares at the ever flickering candles, burned down nearly to the candle sticks. The potroast has long gone cold, the green beans are beginning to gray, and one place setting remains untouched.

This is their six month anniversary. Something he knows she planned for weeks.

She knows that Puck has been on a downward spiral since the loss of his daughter. She also knows that lately, his attitude towards her has been growing steadily worse.

But it isn't until she goes to his house, using the key he had given her, and sees him and another girl kissing furiously on the couch, that she knows it is the last straw.

She doesn't make a scene. Just places the tupperware container filled with food from their dinner on the counter, and sets the key on top.

The engraved R glimmers from the TV light. Puck doesn't even look up until the front door clicks shut noisily.

The glint of the silver key catches his eye, and with a spinning, sinking feeling, he knows he fucked up.

(Rachel doesn't return his calls. Her fathers change the locks on the house so he can no longer use his key. All the flowers he leaves on her doorstep wind up in the trash.

The worst part, he thinks, is that nobody at school tries to beat him up. It's like they all saw it coming anyway.)

000

"Berry, please-"

Her fingers curl around the edge of her locker, and Rachel looks up at Noah, unafraid to meet his eyes. His large hands cup her face, and he presses his forehead to hers. "Please, baby," he whispers, and she hears him choke. One of his tears falls onto her nose. He's gasping, painfully, needing her by his side again.

She ducks her head, closes the locker, and walks away.

(This continues for a few weeks. It's like heartbreak everytime.)

000

Puck falls out of touch with his friends. Rachel lives her life the way she did before she fell in love.

And everyone is miserable.

000

Throughout the hallways, there is talk of a major party being thrown down at Brittany's house. Her parents, who are full blown Dutch (like, actually European. Which is something Puck doesn't understand. If you're gonna move to America from Europe, why the fuck would you pick Lima?), don't care if people drink as long as nobody drives. And fuck, their house is big enough to fit everyone inside it.

He doesn't know if he's going to go until he hears Rachel shyly accept an invitation from the short stop on the baseball team. His gaze is riveted on her, watching as dark hair cascades over her shoulder and a blush darkens her cheeks as Rick Johnson gives her a chaste kiss on the cheek. She meets his eyes.

And smiles sadly.

That, right there, is when he realizes how badly he hurt her. Because if she's still in love with him after all the shit he put her through, she must have loved him an awful lot when they were still together.

(There's a sense of relief that comes with this revelation. Because fuck if he's not hopelessly in love with her, too.)

000

There's blood on his knuckles. His lip is busted up, and the cut above his eyebrow won't stop fucking bleeding.

But it's worth it, because Rachel's sitting on his leg, tending to his wounds. Rachel's lips are pressing against his forehead. Rachel's hand tangled in a tight grip with his own.

Let's rewind.

Brittany's party, as it is, turns out to be a legitimate throwdown. Her home is spaced far enough away from her neighbors that there are no noise complaints, and the house has like seventy million rooms so there's always something new to do everytime Puck turns around.

As for Rachel, she shows up on the arm of a boy whose name she doesn't know. He is kind, and sweet, and attentative. When he offers that they find somewhere quieter to talk, she really should know better. But, she has the buzz of Smirnoff Ice in her veins and isn't thinking clearly. Which is why she accepts the invitation from this strange boy.

And which is why she finds herself pressed between him and a hallway wall ten minutes later. Tears run down her face as he presses hot, wet kisses against her mouth, one hand in a vice grip around her neck and the other holding her hands up above her head. She is struggling, desperately trying to cry for help as his weight presses further and further into her body, making it difficult to breathe. He's muttering foul obscenities in her ear, and it's only when he makes the mistake of moving his hand from her throat to her breast that she is able to find a savior.

She screams. Belts one out at the top of her lungs, loud enough to startle her attacker before he gets pissed off again.

But before he can really lay into her, he's being thrown into the opposite wall. Rachel slides to the ground, coughing and gagging on air, and through blurred vision she watches an enraged Noah Puckerman beat the living shit out of Rick Johnson.

(The last thought she has before unconsciousness swirls around her is that Noah would be so proud of her for swearing.)

000

The firs thing she sees when she wakes up is Noah's head pillowed on her belly. She moans when she moves, the pain in her throat searing through her body. His head snaps up in turn, and she gasps painfully at how awful he looks.

He, however, doesn't seem to notice, because suddenly, he's crawling into the bed (when did she get into a bed?) with her and clinging to her as closely as he can, muttering apologies and I love you's and something about how he can't afford to lose anybody else. When he draws back to look her in the eyes, there is something so vividly emotional and scared in them that all she can do is whisper "Okay," and tend to his wounds.

He holds her hand all night.

000

Reconciliation is a slow process. Noah's never been one for grand romantic gestures, especially not with his badass status hanging on so precariously. They are unable to ignore each other now, though, thanks to Noah's fierce protection of her having been renewed. At school, it is merely his arm slung over her shoulder, him helping her with her books, playing the guitar for her during Glee, and carrying her lunch tray for her.

However in the privacy of their homes, he pulls out all the stops.

He cooks her dinner one night, an unidentifiable mush that tastes surprisingly amazing. He watches RENT with her (and if anybody asks him why it's because of all the lesbians). He lets her put up, like, a hundred MySpace videos of the two of them singing duets.

She comes home on her birthday a month later to find tulips all over her room. He stands by her bed, holding a bouquet of pink tulips and scowling. Her smile quirks up on the ends, and she asks him what's wrong.

"I just feel like kind of a douchewad," he whines, gesturing with the flowers in his hand. "Dude, I don't fucking do shit like this. I'm not god damn Edmund Calling."

"Who?"

"That vampire guy."

It takes a few minutes to click for Rachel. "Edward Cullen, you mean?"

He gives her a withering look, and cocks his hip out, a sign of impatience purely his own. "Does it really matter?"

She lets her gaze drift around the room, noting the care he took to make her feel special. She takes a few steps forward, feeling tulip petals crush under her feet, and she loops her arms around his neck. Pulling him down, she hugs him tightly, and whispers in his ear.

"I don't want 'Edmund Calling.' I just want you."

(His arms wrap around her so tightly she can barely breathe. In a good way.)

000

This shit's getting fucking ridiculous.

Rachel has tenuously forgiven him for all the mistakes he made with her in the time following the death of his baby. They spend nights together in the bed of his truck, eating pizza and looking at the sky. They fall asleep in each other's arms more often than not, and he's even fucking told her how in love with her he is.

A feeling, by the way, that she reciprocates.

But she still won't kiss him.

Which is probably the worst part of it all, since he knows the last time she was kissed was from the jackass at Britt's house. All he wants to do is kiss her so hard that she forgets about all the bad shit that's happened to the two of them. And he wants to be the last person to kiss her.

He's sulking about this in the back of his truck, studiously avoiding going to math (just because Rachel's a part of his life now doesn't mean he's gonna break all his bad habits), when she comes flying out the double doors of the school. He cocks an eyebrow at the beaming smile on her face, and his feet barely have time to hit the ground before she's catapulting into his arms with a squeal.

"It's happened," she breathes into his ear, pulling away from him with a grin. He smiles at her happiness, but can't help wondering what the fuck is going on.

So, he asks.

"What the fuck's happening?"

She scowls at him, the way she always does when he curses. "Language, Noah." And then the bouncing is back. "Well, I was on the phone with my dad when he told me that someone had called the house, asking for me. It turns out that someone from a record company stumbled across my MySpace page, watched a few videos…and wants us to set up a meeting with him!" She laughs, hugging him tightly to her in excitement.

He wants to feel happy for her so badly. But there's a sinking feeling in his gut that won't go away, one that's telling him that he has to let her go for sure, now. If she's leaving for bigger and better things there's no way he can hold her back.

"That's…that's great Rach," he says tiredly, pressing a kiss to the side of her head. She withdraws with a frown, gazing up at him with those impossibly big brown eyes.

"Why don't you sound happy?"

He groans. "Babe, I am happy for you. It's just-"

"Not just for me!" she interrupts, removing her arms from around him so she can flail them wildly. Seriously, one day the girl's gonna have a seizure and he's not even gonna know the difference. "You should be happy for yourself, too!"

He frowns at her. "Wha?"

Rachel's eyes roll so hard he's surprised they don't fall out of her head. "Noah, when I said us I meant you and me. We're the ones who have the meeting! They want us both!" She throws her arms around him again, but this time he's too stunned to react. She pulls away long enough to say, "With me on lead vocals, naturally," before burying her smile against his neck.

It takes a few minutes to sink in. But when it does…

"Holy SHIT!" he whoops, swinging her around. Happiness like nothing he's ever felt before is filling him so much he feels like he's gotta take a crap, but with Rachel in his arms and the whole world ahead of him, he doesn't really give a fuck about how sappy this moment is.

She laughs, a full force Rachel laugh, and presses her mouth against his.

They only stop making out in the bed of his truck when Mr. Schuester walks by and nearly pees his pants at the sight of the two of them.

(It's so worth all the detentions.)