NOTES BEFORE WE START: Wow. I'm sorry. It's been almost a year since I updated this? That's insanity. It feels like it's only been a few months. Part of this was written at the end of June 2010 in preparation for what SHOULD HAVE BEEN a July 4th update. Sentences here and there were added in the months following and the bulk of the latter part of the chapter was written at the end of April 2011. So...um...I guess persistence pays off? You may disagree once you read the chapter since it is different in style and tone than the previous ones. It is also noticeably less wacky. No matter how "serious" this fic gets, I refuse to accept it as a drama. It will never come down to that.

Oh yeah. Also, because all the planning took place during and shortly after Season 1, Matt Rutherford is present (and as of now, there are no plans for Blaine or Sam) and the couplings might seem a tad odd in light of Season 2. That's just how the pieces fell. Thanks for reading.

Until We Say I Do

"Fireworks: The Big Bang"

By Leila Winters

Updated: 4.26.11

-.-

"Look, Rach, I'm not saying it's wrong to make how you feel known...lord knows with Artie I understand your dilemma with the douche/sweetheart dichotomy and I sympathize—I do—but..." Tina paused in the middle of peeling a potato and exchanged a glance with Mercedes, who was cracking shells off hard-boiled eggs. The mocha diva gave her the "incoming train wreck" look. "...maybe you should stop trying so hard. You can't force him into an engagement."

Rachel sent the cleaver clean through the section of watermelon with a loud, definitive thwack. The other women jumped. Punctuated with swift slices of the knife, she made neat little triangles with chilling precision. "I know you mean well..." THWACK. "...but you don't know Noah like I do." THWACK. "Subtlety is beyond him." THWACK. "It's best to be direct."

Mercedes looked to Quinn, obviously out of place in a corner of the kitchen, frosting star-shaped cookies. "Why don't you just ask him then?"

She let out an exasperated sigh. "Some traditions are worth preserving. And like Scarlett before me, there is nothing as romantic as being swept off your feet by your very own roguish Rhett Butler."

"Rhett left Scarlett."

Rachel glared heatedly at Quinn. On the surface, they were friendly towards one another, but they never quite got over the residual animosity left over from high school where cliques still mattered. So if the occasional barb appeared, everyone else just stayed out of it.

Quinn's lips twitched. "Have you thought maybe Puck's reticence to formally propose might just mean he's not that into you?"

Everything stopped.

"Maybe he's just killing time with you." The blonde didn't look mocking. She looked deadly serious.

Rachel brought the knife down hard. It stuck in the wooden cutting board. "It must be so hard knowing you could have had Noah at any time until he began dating me. Ours is a love that will endure the test of time."

The former...and unfortunately, current cheerleader...rolled her eyes. "For once, I'm not trying to antagonize you."

The starlet threw the chopped bits of watermelon into a bowl with some malice. "I find that very hard to believe. You won. You got Finn. Give it up. It's over. I'm not with Noah as a desperate last-ditch effort to get attention. We are very happy together." Putting on a brave face, she turned to Quinn. "You got the boy. But so did I."

With a trademark Rachel Berry huff, she rinsed her hands and stormed off into her bedroom.

The kitchen was silent for several beats.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Mercedes threw down a peeled egg. "You're supposed to be an adult."

"Rachel Berry doesn't know when to quit. She never did."

Mercedes stepped closer and pointed an accusatory finger. "In case you haven't noticed, this is their apartment and you're only here because you're a friend by association. Without Finn, we wouldn't be putting up with you. How's it feel to be the unpopular girl in the room?"

"I texted Puck," Tina offered.

The blonde tightened her lips and smoothed out her skirt. "I'm just saying it might all be in her head. It wouldn't be the first time." She started moving to the door. "I'll see if the guys need anything."

-.-

"Hey, does this look done to you?" Finn flipped a charred rib on the grill.

"Another twenty seconds and it'll be perfection." Puck doused another tray of meats with sauce and handed them to Finn. "So what do you guys think I should do?"

"About Rachel?" Kurt rubbed another layer of sunscreen onto his arm, keeping his dusty pink knit parasol upright between his shoulder and chin. "Pray. Divine intervention's the only hope you have of stopping Rachel Berry when she sets her mind on something."

Times like these, Kurt really enjoyed exercising his flexible gender identity. Had he not wanted to spy on the boys' conversation regarding the singing Jewess, he would have been in the kitchen trading fashion tips and quaint anecdotes with the ladies. As it was, he joined the strange world of heterosexual males and they didn't bat an eyelash at his presence in the slightest. He said a silent thanks to Tanaka and Schue for forcing him to be "one of the guys" all those years ago when he really just wanted to play with glitter and cut out pictures of Zac Efron from Teen USA and Entertainment Weekly.

"You could also try getting political and telling her you won't consider ever getting married until her dads are afforded the same rights as the straights. Or you know, whatever you call yourselves."

"Have you thought about being honest with her?" Finn offered. "I thought Rachel was the type to appreciate that kind of thing."

"Honesty? Hell yeah." Puck added two slabs of steak to the metal rack. "But you obviously don't know Rachel very well if you think she wouldn't shove it in my face everyday that I failed to orchestrate a proper romantic gesture for the next milestone of her life." At the resulting blank stares, he hurriedly averted his gaze. "Or some shit like that. Fuck you, cocksuckers." Quickly, "No offense, Kurt."

Kurt fluttered a few fingers in Noah Puckerman's direction in lieu of a dry witticism.

"Sorry, am I missing the gay jokes already? Puckerman started early." A tall, lanky figure approached the boys.

"CHANG!" Noah and Finn chorused together like a frat parody of a Cheers entrance.

As they exchanged bro-shakes, Matt Rutherford and two very familiar former McKinley High cheerleaders arrived.

Noah, playing host, greeted them warmly. "Awesome you guys made it out here. How're things back home?"

As though of one unit, the three rolled their eyes and extolled tales of the drudgery of small-town community college. In a word, their bougie existence could be described as "ass."

Puck pulled Matt aside to ask a burning question away from curious ears. "How did you manage to pull THAT off?" he murmured under his breath, eying Brittany and Santana's joined hands with raised eyebrows.

Matt chuckled good-naturedly. "It was actually shockingly easy. I had tickets for P!nk."

"I'm jealous of your dopey ass. That's a first, Rutherford. There ain't going to be a second."

Puck's phone gave a Mario Bros. PING!, signaling an incoming text message.

TEXT MESSAGE FROM SCARYAZNGOTH(6)

fyi puck – q shot her mouth off at rachel and now shes locked herself in her bedroom

Dammit. And here he thought he could get away with a quiet evening with friends.

He excused himself to pay a little homage to his lady love and nearly ran into Quinn as she was coming out of the building.

His hands went to her shoulders. "Hey. What the fuck, man? I thought we weren't going to be playing sabotage games after high school."

The blonde beauty rolled her eyes. "Overprotective much? Face it, Puckerman. You're not over me. I just doused her with a little truth, so maybe you'll be off the hook like you've been wanting."

He shoved a warning finger in her face. "When I want your help, I'll goddamn ask for it. Otherwise, stay out of my shit unless you want me having a sit-down with my buddy Finn to air some dirty laundry."

She sneered despite the wary shift in her weight. It was really unfortunate because she was ethereally beautiful if she could just keep the snooty looks off her face. "You'd lose him, too."

"Yeah well..." he gave her arm a little pat. "Guess who's more important? Good seein' ya, Q." Flashing her a smile, he moved past her and into the apartment building whistling.

-.-

Mercedes hurried over to Puck when he arrived.

"She still pouting by herself?" he asked dryly.

Mercedes shoved him towards the bedroom. "You take care of the princess. We'll just bring down some of the food to the boys."

With that, Mercedes and Tina made themselves scarce with armloads of goodies.

This is what his life was reduced to: damage control.

He knocked on the bedroom door that he usually shared with her, except for the all-nighter papers that happened on occasion, in which case, they slept in their own beds. Rachel's idea of maintaining separate living spaces was genius. You can love someone very, very much but still not want to see them every second of every day.

"Hey, babe...everything all right in there? Fabray totally almost spilled juice all over herself and we narrowly missed a total meltdown. You should come outta there and force PDAs down everyone's throat. I'm not super into it, but I'm totally willing to make that sacrifice for you."

There was silence on the other end and Puck was worried for a second that Rachel Berry may have overdramatically drowned out the world with her Bose headphones blasting Streisand and missed his wickedly awesome speech. Just when he was about to knock again, the door opened.

He took one look at her post-crying face and wanted to push Quinn Fabray into the mud to ruin her perfect white dress. His eyebrows knit sternly together. "Now, young lady, what have I said about locked doors in my house?"

The corner of the little Jewess' mouth quirked upwards.

Opening his arms up to her, she willingly went to him and was folded into his embrace. He kissed the top of her funny head.

"Noah..." she started hesitantly. "You don't regret choosing me, do you?"

"When you're doing your 'A History of Musicals' marathons or acting all Rachel Berry crazy, sometimes."

She fixed him with an unamused stare.

"Hey. We've been over this. Not even if she stripped naked and told me she was leaving him would I leave you to be with her. I don't care if Brittany, Santana, and Quinn wanted me to be in a week-long four-way orgy, I'd say no." Squeezing her cheeks between the palms of his hands, he continued, "because my little Jewy diva is all I can handle at the moment."

Pulling his hands from her face, she threw him a pointed look. "You know, Noah...the more I let you speak, the less impressed I am at your overtures."

Clutching her hand, he attempted to lead the way back to sanity. "I should be seen but not heard, loud and clear, babe."

But Rachel Berry was not yet ready to go. She dug her heels in stubbornly, wheeling Noah around to face her.

"Geezus, what is it now, woman?"

"You know she's always been my weak point. She always had everything I wanted."

"Should I be worried?" he asked in all seriousness. They both knew what he was talking about.

She smiled, flattening her hands against his lovely chest. "Of course not. Like you, I found something better. It's just that when I'm around her, I feel like an awkward teenager again—the one with no friends and a gym full of enemies. She knows just the right thing to say to destroy my years of building an immunity to petty high school politics."

He kissed her lightly, their arms going around one another. "Second best is what we excel at."

"Hm..." she said, snuggling into his chest. "Feels nice. What's the situation, by the way? Does everyone know you're here to avert a crisis or do they just assume you're trying to get me with my clothes off?"

Leading her by the hand into the kitchen to finish up snack preparations, he smirked, "It can't be both?"

"Well," she started, "you are a notorious multi-tasker."

-.-

The barbeque was surprisingly pleasant. Quinn stayed faithfully by Finn's side or caught up with her former cheerleading cohorts. Artie almost choked on a hotdog after Puck told an inappropriate joke and Finn worried about how to perform the Heimlich Maneuver on a person in a wheelchair. Kurt refused to eat anything a fly or bee had touched and compulsively kept vigil over the food, making sure containers, foil, and saran wrap were secure at all times.

Mike Chang was tearing into another rib when Rachel sat herself down on the bench next to him.

"Oh Michael," she chirped, "when am I going to get you together with a nice, outgoing young lady?"

The man shrugged a shoulder, sucking sauce off a thumb. "I don't mind going Lone Ranger. I don't really need a whole lot to keep me happy."

"The Lone Ranger had a sidekick."

"Oh." Tactfully changing tracks, he steered the conversation away from his relationship status. "So, no progress on the Puck front?"

She buried her face in her hands. "Michael, it's absolute AGONY. I know he loves me. It's just a matter of getting him to admit it and make an honest woman of me."

He let out a loud bark of laughter. "Oh yeah. Maybe that's why you and I would never work out. I forget how intense being around you is."

"Not funny!" she cried, poking him sharply in the arm.

"A little bit funny," he quipped. "You know, I'm totally the wrong person to be saying this, but it might not be a bad idea to just lay low for a bit. Give him some breathing room."

"Why?" she eyed him suspiciously. "Do you know something I don't?"

"No, no, not at all. Just um," he coughed, thinking of the ring his friend had dragged him along to buy. "Your expectations of a grand gesture might subconsciously be putting him under a lot of pressure."

"I appreciate the candor because I know it comes from an exceedingly good place, but this is NOAH we're talking about. He's a bit obtuse when it comes to romance. I just want to push him in the right direction."

"Well, just remember," he began, smiling resignedly at the determined starlet. "It's you two. Nobody can make either of you do anything you don't want to."

She gave him a watery smile, touched. She had always liked Mike Chang. Time and again, he had proved himself in possession of a sensitive, kind spirit—one she felt, deserving of a love for the ages. She kissed his cheek warmly.

"You're just too good to be wasted on singlehood. We'll find you someone beautiful to be your Tonto. "

"She better like chili cheese fries."

-.-

They'd cleaned up and snuck everybody onto the roof at sunset with beers, blankets, and bug spray. Dinner had been followed by an ultimate Super Soaker battle. Rachel had specifically told Noah "no water guns" but seemingly out of thin air, Super Soakers materialized and the boys chased each other in their mock war games.

...or Noah, Finn, Matt, Mike, and Santana jumped around hedges, circling trees, while Brittany wheeled a water rifle-toting Artie around, picking opponents off with precision. Kurt was happy not to be "one of the boys" and watched the childish antics with amusement with the other water-averse ladies.

Now they were waiting for the fireworks to begin. Not that the boys hadn't come fully armed with explosives, but that was for later. The able-bodied males teamed up to get Artie and his chair on the rooftop, which caused a bit of alarm for Tina (considering everyone'd been drinking), who watched in fascination and horror. Artie, for his part, was a real trooper, held on for dear life, and felt privileged to have some serious jock friends.

Brittany and Santana huddled against Matt, still a little damp from their water fight. Quinn leaned her pretty head against Finn's side. Tina perched on Artie's lap, feeding him grapes and slapping his hands away from her bra clasps. Mike decided he wasn't a huge fan of heights, so went about ignoring their vantage point of the street below by concentrating on the bag of Fiery Buffalo Doritos he'd brought up. Mercedes and Kurt snuggled under a blanket together to ward off mosquitoes. Plus, it was nice to feel coupled off in a sea of other couples.

Puck wrapped a blanket around Rachel's shoulders and used the ends to pull her closer. He was mostly dry, which Rachel attributed to his body's natural tendency to make like a furnace and heat.

"We did good, babe," he declared proudly. "Totally pulled off a successful barbeque reunion."

Rachel pressed herself against that frontal chest area she loved so very much. "Don't think I've forgiven you yet for barring me from planning events and sing-offs for such an auspicious day."

"Well," he said, making sure she was snug to ward off a mosquito invasion, "next party that's your idea, you get to pull out all the stops you want." He could feel her grinning into his t-shirt.

"You know, Noah...I think I'm booze-addled enough to suggest that next year, we spend the fourth of July just the two of us. That way, we can make love under a spectacular canopy of fireworks overhead. Have I mentioned how much I love fireworks?"

He was a bit distracted thinking about "next year," so he missed the odd tone in her voice. "Probably, but I probably wasn't listening."

"Fireworks are like man's way of trying to be closer to God by creating his or her own star."

They made out a little bit until Mike threw a chip at them to get them to stop. Alcohol just helped the PDAs flow easier.

Rachel was glowing. She looked up at her man, her expression partially hidden by the darkness. "You know, Noah..." (red flag), "I've always found fireworks hold a certain amount of enchantment in the moment. Larger than life, completely uncontained, and full of explosive vibrancy."

As if on cue (it would take some convincing to have him declare that Rachel Berry wasn't a witch), the first bursts of light erupted into the night sky to a chorus of oohs and aahs.

They enjoyed them for a moment.

He should have known.

Whisper-shouting into his ear over the din, she informed him, "The evening was so wonderfully perfect, darling. I can only think of one thing that would make this night even better."

It took him a moment to get her meaning. Then it was like OH.

Pink and purple hearts illuminated the night sky, he'd had a couple beers, what the hell.

He got down on one knee.

She couldn't believe it. She was sure Grace Kelly would have fainted at the precisely executed romantic gesture. She thought her heart might burst into a spray of rose petals and covered her mouth with her hands in a proper display of shock and delight.

Kurt noticed first and eventually, the assembled party stared in wide-eyed anticipation, the fireworks suddenly a lot less interesting.

"Babe..."

She waited for him to say more.

And then wondered when he was going to produce a ring.

And then wondered why he was taking so long to look at her.

Fiddling with her trainers, he peered up at her, an entirely too innocent look on his face.

"Your shoe was untied."

A beat.

Mike threw another chip at Puck's head. "Asshole."

Everyone went back to studying the fireworks with renewed intense fascination.

Rachel bit back the tears, but her disappointment was written all over her face. Puck felt like a bit of an ass. Getting up and hugging her close, he felt her sniffle.

"You are a delightful diva, getting emotional over fireworks. You must be a train wreck at weddings."

Okay. So maybe he didn't feel that bad.

She chuckled through the tears. He was really, really, dense sometimes, but even if it drove her crazy, she liked his oblivious side.

TBC

-.-

END NOTE: Thanks for reading! And yes, I know...this chapter sort of negates the "this is a drabble fic" declarative I made in the beginning of the story. You'll all just have to suffer alongside me as I wade through the sludgy mire of my brain. Happy trails. I'll endeavor to make the next chapter more cracky.