LET'S GET TOGETHER

They had just gotten back from the funeral and the wake, and Rachel was now convincing her fathers that she was stable enough to handle the rest of the night alone. “Actually not alone. Noah’s here.” Which honestly? Could be worse than being alone but she’d be damned if she let her concerned parents know that. Hiram and Leroy Berry absolutely insisted on babysitting Sofia today, and they were a huge help to the both of them, but that didn’t make them unable to fry Rachel’s every last one nerves.

Finally, they had left and Rachel was able to appreciate to fully appreciate the clean kitchen. The rest of the house however, was still full of her and Puck’s moving boxes. She hated this. Making this house her own wasn’t right, and she sensed that Puck felt the same way, seeing as his boxes were collecting the same amount of dust as hers. She couldn’t remember the last time she was alone like this. Puck made some comment about changing and she made some comment about him being allergic to nice clothes and bottom line was that he was now upstairs changing.

It wouldn’t be long until Sofia woke up from her slumber and they were thrust back into chaos, but right now Rachel was soaking in the peace and quiet “IF YOU WANT BLOOD YOU GOT IT!” Her brown orbs shot open, full of fury and rage as the lead singer of AC/DC’s voice essentially tore through Rachel’s nerves. Puckerman. The roaring wasn’t at a volume high enough to wake Sofia up in her one-way soundproofed nursery, but it was definitely loud enough to tear Rachel out of whatever serenity she had managed to achieve. What was wrong with him? He didn’t cry, he drank. He didn’t weep, he played video games. He didn’t mourn, he played trash metal or whatever it was call. Rachel herself cried all she could today, also making a rule not to do so in front of Puck, and now she was ready for screaming.

After humming the second verse, Puck said fuck it and hit the switch on his boombox. The thing was old, and dusty, but it still worked as well as it did when he was in 7th grade. With a smile, he skipped to the track stuck in his head all day and began to sing along and play imaginary drums to the baseline. “IF YOU WANT BLOOD, YOU GOT IT! BLOOD ON THE STREETS, BLOOD ON THE ROCKS--” 

Obnoxiously small wrists banged on the wood of his door, and he quirked his eyebrow. Rachel was already lonely? They had literally just gotten home! Ignoring her, Puck shucked off his stuffy dress pants. Admittedly, Puck had been kind of thoughtful toward her for the past few days, trying to spend time with her despite how much she grated on her nerves, making sure she wasn’t alone too long, making sure that he argued with her for some sense of normalcy and some time to not think about Quinn. She probably didn’t notice (it figured), but Puck had been trying his (honest) hardest. Even with Sofia, he made sure to take his fair load in baby-watching abilities. Growing up a baby-sitter, Puck didn’t really need any guidance on how to take care of a child, but if he was even more honest, he hadn’t paid much attention when Sarah was born, so he still made quite a few rookie mistakes. Like: never let the baby have metal forks, never let the baby play with an open bottle of water, don’t forget to burp the baby or she’ll throw up on Rachel, never feed the baby potato chips.

Turning toward the door, after Rachel seemed to not be going away, Puck moved to open it, when Rachel burst through the wooden barrier. Never one to be body-shy, Puck just crossed his arms over his chest and raised his other eyebrow further in greeting. Her face was an angry pink, and she had obviously poised herself up enough to come and scream at him that she looked a little bit lost when she didn’t. Instead, she stared at him.

God. This was the second time today that she was too wrapped up in her own feelings to think of anyone but himself. Puck was hurting just as much as she was, but he was doing double the work trying to keep it together for the sake of them both. And Sofia. The mere thought of the beautiful, innocent, unassuming now parentless little baby could send her into another fit of hysterics. She managed effortlessly not to give him her signature “shut it, Puckerman” side glance when he tried to assure her their friends wouldn’t have wanted them to be upset, because god he was really trying here. 

Rachel did however, do a double take when she heard something of a hiss escape his mouth. Crap. She was literally digging her claws into him. She’d imagine doing just that on many, many occasions. Such as the time Puck thought it’d be funny to flip her over into an empty trash can him and the boys were throwing frisbees into, or the surplus occasions that he’d pinch her ass the second someone took a group photo. The brunette imagined there’d be venom behind her actions, and retaliation right after. However, she was subconsciously digging her nails into him for comfort, and Puck was actually letting her.

The actress instinctively scrunched her nose as Puck forced her too look at him, an action that brought into perspective how terrible she must’ve looked right now. She nodded in agreement, more for the sake of him than herself, as her smooth skin rubbed against his calloused hands. Suddenly, Rachel found herself in the familiar spot where his chest muscles met. “Well if I keep it up at this rate, she’ll be getting exactly what she wants.” She mumbled into his v-neck, a trace of laughter in her voice, as she instinctively traced comforting circles across Puck’s back with her tiny hands.

Rachel’s eyes widened as her hands froze. What was she doing? These were certainly exceptional circumstances, but this was the longest the two had made physical contact without it resulting in Quinn having to play the mediator. Her heart stung at the thought of the blonde as she pulled away again, suddenly very self-conscious about how effortlessly comfortable she had just become with Puck. “Okay? But this is insane right?” Rachel began, still choking back tears as she paced around the room. “But this is what they must’ve wanted when they made us godparents. There was no way Quinn and Santana would do this without thinking. I thought they just made me godmother because I threatened to Gone Girl myself if they didn’t. But they know how we are….” Like crying, once Rachel started talking she couldn’t stop. If she did that left room for thinking about Quinn. “It can’t possibly work. On the other hand who does Sofia have? Are we really her best bet?” She already know the answer to that question. They were. Poor Sofia.

Puck thought for one quiet, shallow moment that the tension would begin to dissipate with Rachel’s choked laugh, but as soon as he’d begun to relax into the odd circumstances, Rachel pulled away, stony and independent once more.

Thinking back on it, Puck could definitely see what Jesse saw in Rachel, that strong structure, the large heart she had, as the girl cried for her recently deceased friends. Admittedly, Puck was underreacting, if he thought about it honestly. His best friend of many years was now dead, her child left in the care of someone as incompetent as himself and his other dead best friends’ self-centered BFF. If it wasn’t happening to him, he was sure that he would find a large amount of irony in the situation.

“A little insane, yeah,” he murmured, rubbing a large palm over the heated skin of the back of his neck, his mohawk just a little longer than usual. Puck leaned back against one of the far walls. “I dunno, San doesn’t really think anything through--” he started, watching Rachel’s back as she paced, “--but it’s hard to imagine that Q didn’t but no thought in this.” Puck grimaced at his misuse of grammar, hoping that Berry wouldn’t catch it in her hysterics. He had sincerely begun to try and fix his horrible Lima accent and terrifyingly inaccurate grammar since they’d left Ohio, people only judging him more when he couldn’t speak professionally within the force. Puck was a trained fire-fighter for God’s sake, he should know how to avoid saying “ain’t” all of the time.

Trying not to overthink all of his actions, he punched out a quick, “Would’ya stop walkin’ around so much? Y’er makin’ me sea-sick.” The nausea wasn’t coming from Rachel’s pacing, he argued against himself, but Puck wasn’t willing to admit that he was starting to feel a little gross from the whole situation in general. The crescents on his arms burned.

“She doesn’t have anybody if we don’t do somethin’ for her, and I ain’t lettin’ my baby girl go into the hands of Judy. She’s a nice lady, really-- even kind of hot if you put a bag over her head -- but she really messed up Q, and I’m not lettin’ that happen to Sof.” Puck slowly took a few steps toward Rachel, genuinely feeling a bit weird at trying to comfort her, and laid a hand on her shoulder. “We’re what she’s got, and we’re gonna have to do, even if we don’t get along.”

Thankfully, for the sake of Rachel’s pride, Puck was apparently having the same exact instinctual reaction that she did. The tiny brunette allowed Puck to help in keeping her body from going limp, her mind too completely consumed with wrenching pain that it couldn’t bother to think of focusing energy anywhere other than her heartbreak. She couldn’t help but appreciate the fact that the firefighter was now acting as a shield, protecting her from the burning gaze of everyone in the room as she watched her breakdown completely in his arms.

Rachel was positive that her temporary protector’s shift was becoming more and more covered in mascara and salty tears, but such casualties no longer mattered now that her best friend was no longer in the world. The Broadway star’s entire hierarchy of living was destroyed with the loss of Quinn and Santana. She felt a surprising ping of satisfaction as she listened to Puck cuss out one of the men in the room, an action that would normally warrant some sort of side remark from her. Rachel had a feeling no one hated those officers more than she and Puck did.

All movement of oxygen in her body halted the second she heard Puck mention their goddaughter. Sofia. How could she be so caught up in Quinn that she forgot about the most important little girl in the world. She began shaking at the thought of loosing her baby girl too, thankful as all hell for the tight grip Puck was holding her in. Her face was buried in Puck’s chest, so she couldn’t see what was going on, which was probably for the best. The pained looks on everyone’s face were enough to make her feel sick to her stomach. The actress heard the man’s words as if they were a foreign language. There had to be some mistake.

Before she could protest, or even respond, Rachel was guided into the spare bedroom by Puck. It was clearly a good move on his part, because any sort of sentence she tried to form would more than likely come out as a blubbering mess. “Alright?!” Rachel sobbed into his chest incredulously, preparing to list off all of the reasons everything was far from alright, before deciding against it and wrapping her arms around him even tighter. She stayed like that for a few moments, struggling immensely before pulling away, standing on her own for the first time since she heard the news, and taking in her surroundings.

Bad move. Rachel was now hyper aware of her surroundings, and of the fact that everything about them ‘Quinn and Santana’ to her. The color scheme was obviously Quinn’s doing, while the lounge-like feel could be attributed to Santana’s taste. The room even managed to smell like them. It was like they were in there with her, except they weren’t. And never would be again. Reeling from the thought, Rachel grabbed Puck’s upper forearm, physical separation from him proved to be unsuccessful at the moment. Her other hand went up to her hip as she leaned forward, to prevent her from completely doubling over. “Oh my god….” She gasped as she fought for air. “I can’t do this. I think I’m going to be sick.” Rachel clearly wasn’t, only because the pain she felt surpassed the feeling of sickness by miles. “We can’t do this. I don’t know the…..” More tears. Miniature hyperventilations. “I don’t know the… first thing about raising…” Rachel cut herself off, bringing her hand to her forehead as she looked to the ceiling to push back the momentum of her tears. She was unaware that she was now digging her nails into Puck’s arm.

Wincing, Puck let Rachel move freely from his arms. Maybe alright hadn’t been a good choice of words, he thought as he swallowed. His chest felt tight, the pressure on his rib cage reminding him of how he felt after a particularly difficult work out. “As alright as it’s gonna be, okay.” Puck sighed, running a hand through his mohawk, wanting nothing more than to grip and pull at the strands there, “We...we just gotta think about this for a minute.” Hoping that Rachel ignored the wetness to his own tone, gravel building in his throat with each passing moment, he continued, “They wouldn’t want you bein’ all upset.”

The words sounded false, even to his own ears, but before he could say much more, Rachel’s talented, warm hands reached for him again. Instead of shrugging her off or trying to cop a feel under her shirt like he would normally do, Puck slipped his own hand to Rachel’s arm, doing his best to be strong for them both. Rachel’s emotional state made him uncomfortable-- he couldn’t lie about that -- but there was no way he could be anything less than what he considered helpful. By that, he meant that he would not push Rachel away or grab her wrists as her fingernails made crescent slices into his bicep. A small hiss escaped him nonetheless.

Recovering, Puck pulled Rachel close once more, large hands cupping her smooth jaw. “Hey, hey-- look at me -- at me, okay? We’re...uh, we’re gonna figure this out,” he promised, knowing damn well that the little girl who was currently in their care needed them now that she no longer had two of the best women Puck had ever met in her life.

Despite his better judgement, Puck slid his arms around Rachel, not caring that her sticky, dark mascara would ruin his white v-neck and bleed through the cotton. Berry must have known that Puck wasn’t good with words-- right? She knew that he couldn’t spit poetry like she could, make the situation better.

For the first time in her high strung life, Rachel actually felt something other than disgust upon being touched by Noah Puckerman. Relief. The unsettling sense of comfort crashed over the tiny brunette the second his hand touched her shoulder. He wasn’t messing around with her, preparing to pick her up and toss her somewhere he and Santana found hilarious, he was sharing in same hysterical confusion that was plaguing her. In another first, Rachel was bit her tongue while Puck used brute force on the other man, because this time it was to their advantage. “I- I have no clue.” Rachel stammered as she took his queue in rushing towards the house, her breath and words collaborating in an unnerving waver. Rachel rushed across the front steps she was so used to bouncing up, some would say overly excited to see her best friend tell her so she could tell her just about every detail of her day. Today the short trudge up the walkway seemed to take years, as it did when you were traveling towards the grave unknown. Shaky hands met the doorknob but Rachel pushed on it with such might that she practically stumbled into the house.

“Hello! Mrs. Fabray! Kurt!” Rachel’s anguished voice rang through the large home, bordering on mansion. As the normally composed Mrs. Fabray came even more into focus, mascara streaked across usually rosy cheeks, Rachel’s stomach dropped lower than she had previously believed possible. Without a word being exchanged between Rachel and her best friend’s mother, the other woman rushed her way to Rachel, all but collapsing in her arms. “My Quinn…. oh….. Rachel… my Quinn.” Bile rose in the back of the actress’s throat as her worst fear began to come to fruition. Weakly atting a manicured hand on the back Mrs. Fabray’s blonde head her knees instinctively bent to accommodate the woman who was now sitting on the ground and weeping. Brown orbs snapped up to meet Finn’s gaze, her words temporarily caught in her throat, stuck between fury and sorrow. “Someone tell me what’s going on!” She snapped at her friend, unaware to the fact that she was now fisting Mrs. Fabray’s shirt material. The room watched as Finn opened his mouth and began to hesitantly speak, before he was cut off by the man in the suit. What was the meaning of this imbecile? “We- we were supposed to isolate you and Mr. Puckerman until you were formally briefed but….” After gathering that he was not dealing with your run of the mill “loved ones” the lawyer was now a ball of nerves. No one in the foyer looked like they were moving without some sort of explanation

While the man was appearing to choke on his own tongue, Rachel brought Mrs. Fabray’s head to her chest and turned around to made eye contact with Puck. She was pleading with him, but for what she did not know. “There’s been an accident involving Ms. Fabray and Ms. Lopez. They were driving home this morning, and I deeply regret to inform you that they did not make it.” The words sent the grieving mother in Rachel’s embrace into another fit of hysterics. Make it? Make what?! The Broadway star began to hyperventilate at the mere thought that this man was suggesting her best friends had died. Fortunately Kurt had been tearfully watching the scene unfold and came over to take the grieving woman into his own arms. Physically crumbling as much as she was emotionally, Rachel was now completely on the floor too. “No…. no…. no….” she gasped, searching around the room for some sort of glitch in this reality, any sort of sign that she was just in a terrible nightmare. It had to be a dream, there was no other explanation Rachel would accept. She’d wake up, blow the producers away at her auditions, and then celebrate tonight with Quinn and Santana. Paul had been waiting in the doorway, and was now making his way over to Rachel to comfort her. That was not what she needed right now. Paul didn’t know how she was, how could he? She backed up against the wall as sobs tore through her chest. Tiny hands reached towards Puck as if he were her only lifeline.

Puck stood frozen as everyone and everything moved quickly around him. For once, he had no sarcastic response, no joke to lighten the mood in an inappropriate way, no words at all, it seemed. Seeing Mrs. Fabray clutch at Rachel like the world was crashing down on her shoulders made him want to turn and leave the room, but he found he couldn’t do much of anything. 

Santana was dead.

The words sounded still, nearly as lifeless as his best friend apparently was. Chest heavy, he opened his mouth to talk when the twiggy officer in front of him began talking again, “We are making arrangements, at the moment, and if we can do anything, anything at all, please--”

“Shut the fuck up,” Puck seethed, jaw tight. Knowing full well that there were too many cops in the room to actually show the aggression he wanted to without getting arrested himself, he clutched his hands tightly at his side. “Unless you can-- can fix this, shut the fuck up.” Seeing the usually well-composed Rachel Berry crash and crumble underneath the weight of the news herself, Puck felt the urge to protect and comfort her as well. Despite being in front of Kurt and Finn, even Quinn’s family and a few detectives, Puck took the few short steps he needed to in order to press Rachel against the wall, covering her with his chest. He would later deny the affection if the Hudson-Hummel duo brought it up, but Puck knew how devastated Rachel must have felt in that moment-- she was always so much more emotional that Puck was. The odd thought made Puck wanted to smile through the anger and sadness he felt. Those darker feelings seemed to be numb at the moment though, the need to protect much more prominent in his mind. 

Turning his head, Puck glared daggers at the officer trying to come closer to Rachel-- P...Pete? Patrick? He sneered, clutching Rachel tighter to him. A quiet thought whispered through him despite his mood, “What...what about Sofia?” Swallowing thickly, Puck searched Mrs. Fabray’s face, then the detective and officers. Kurt was giving him that, ‘Uhm, Noah, you’re an idiot’ look, so he must have been missing something fairly important. “She’s alright isn’t she--” he tensed, but the twiggy man held up a palm.

“The Fabray-Lopez daughter is perfectly fine,” he was quick to assure. Puck hated this guy, hated him. In another time, he was sure he would have thrown the man into a dumpster, maybe punched him in the face for his ‘I’m too good for you’ looks he’d been casting toward their group the entire time they’d been here. “As...as her godfather, and you, Miss Berry, her godmother, you are...” he paused to grimace, “technically her guardians at this moment.”

Inhaling deeply, Puck tried to stay calm. At least for the girl in his arms, he promised himself. He wanted to punch a wall-- he wanted to drive his old ford off of a cliff like he’d thought about when he was 17-- he wanted to cry. But, he thought, biting his tongue, he knew that if he started crying now, he was not likely to stop. Puck swallowed thickly. “I...” 

He didn’t want to discuss this in front of these people. Kurt and Finn gave him pitied looks, and Puck knew that after this, he was going to have so many video game sessions with Finn in order to get his mind off of...of his best friends death. The weight of the words didn’t seem to register in his mind quite yet. “C’mon, Rach.” Closing his arms around Rachel like a protective sheath, he dragged her into the spare bedroom that he’d stayed in so many times before, the atmosphere instantly calmer now that there were no longer crying moms, police officers, and blaring red and blue lights streaming in through the windows. 

Today was the day. 25 years 9 months 2 weeks and 4 hours of Rachel Berry’s life was spent preparing for this. The role of a lifetime. Funny Girl was coming back to Broadway and the part was hers. Thing was, this time she wasn’t the only one who knew it. All the broadway circuit had been buzzing about these past few weeks was that she was a shoo-in for the part of Fanny Brice. Her friends had even joked about why they were even holding auditions if the part was already half hers, but Rachel was quick to tell them she wasn’t about to jeopardize the integrity of this production. Everyone knew the real reasons the auditions were being held was because their little ingenue would never pass up on the very moment she’d worked for with every fiber of her being since before anyone could remember. 

The warm heat of the spotlight kissed Rachel’s tanned skin as she ran over her lines. It was purely out of second nature, she’d had this entire musical memorized since she was eight. There were only five short minutes until the producers would walk through those double doors straight ahead and changed her life. Time couldn’t go by faster. Rachel reached into her back pocket for her phone, checking to see if she had any new messages, particularly from her best friend Quinn. Nothing. The broadway star couldn’t remember the last time Quinn had forgotten to send her a ‘break a leg!’ text. Actually…. wait. That was a lie. She could remember. That asshole Noah Puckerman had gotten in a bar fight, and her best friend had to go with Santana to convince the other guy not to press chargers. Like she could forget that, one of the many reasons she couldn’t stand the guy. What kind of firefighter got into bar fights? Santana and Quinn actually tried to get the two to date, meanwhile they could barely stand being in the same friend group without jumping down each other’s throats. Rachel though Puck was a neanderthal- rude, crass, inappropriate, reackless- and she’d heard him tell Santana that Rachel made him want to set himself on fire once when he didn’t know he was on speakerphone. God, she dodged a bullet with that one. Rachel was about to put her phone away when she felt it vibrate, Kurt’s contact flashing up on the screen. What was he doing? Calling her at a time like this?! “What is it, Kurt?! I’m abo-” A strangled sob cut off Rachel’s high pitched near screeching. “You have to come now. It’s Quinn.”

No man or woman had ever traveled faster than Rachel Berry did to the Fabray-Lopez residence. New York traffic? Forget about it. The star had made herself known with Manhattan PD since the moment she arrived, and actually even managed to make some lifelong friends over the years. Even though none of her friends were telling her any specifics of what was going on, she was able to call in a favor and get Paul to turn on the sirens and haul ass to the suburb outside of the city where Quinn and Santana lived. The cop car had barely made a full stop before the tiny brunette shot out of it and onto the front lawn. Golden brown orbs frantically scanned the front yard of house, trying to grasp what was going on. The only thing she knew was that it had to be huge, like ‘call Rachel out of the audition of her life’ huge, and the thought alone had her shaking like a drenched Chihuahua. Her eyes locked on a bleak looking man in a suit and carrying a briefcase she hadn’t seen since the early 90′s who had positioned himself in the middle of the walkway between the road and Quinn’s front door. There were two burly men on the either side of him, plain clothed cops, but Rachel had no way of knowing that. What was going on? Confusion and worry was now accompanied by panic as Rachel desperately tried to asses the situation. “Who are you?” The brunette projected across the front hard as her hand slid into her purse and pulled out her taser, prompting Paul to rush out of his cop car. Less worried about Rachel’s actual safety (only she would pull out a weapon while her cop friend was right behind her watching) and more worried she’d use it and the captain would kill the guys for giving the neurotic actress a taser. The officer quickly told her not to worry as he took it out of her hand. Rachel barely noticed however, because in that moment she caught a glimpse of what had to be the backs of Mrs. Fabray’s and Kurt’s head in the front kitchen window. She needed to go to them, to find out what was happening. “Excuse me!” The brunette barked as she attempted to side step the businessman that was continuing to make his way towards her. One of the plain clothed cops had taken Paul to the side to explain the situation, but she look no notice of any of that. “You can’t go in there yet Ms. Berry, we have to wait for Mr. Puckerman. Look there he-” The horrific noise of burning rubber cut the man off mid sentence. The other men, including Paul, turned their attention to the car that had just screeched to a halt, half on the grass. Rachel’s eyes however, hadn’t left the Fabray-Lopez front door. Taking the distraction Puck provided and running with it, the actress tried to side step the Lawyer and officers again. He held his hands up in the air, a feeble attempt to stop the tiny hurricane that consisted of confused, angry, and worried Berry. “I said, excuse me!” Rachel repeated herself, shoving the man, rendering Paul and the other men temporarily speechless. The plain clothed cops finally realized it was their job to actually do something, and one particularly unlucky officer was now trying to restrain the broadway star trying to claw her way inside that house to her friends. What was happening? Why couldn’t she go in? Her hysteria was building. “Don’t fucking touch me!” Rachel swore for only the fourth time in her life. Where was Paul? Why was he just standing there?! She heard a car door slam in the midst of the chaos. 

Hazily, Puck knew that it must have been late in the evening, the darkness surrounding his bedroom, the open curtains not shedding any light on his four walls. Still, that did not stop his head from pounding-- did not stop the soreness of his throat after being around smoke for the last few days. The phone ringing, which Puck realized had been the source of his awakening in the first place, did not cease for long after it went silent. The obnoxious sound started again and Puck fished underneath his pillow to find it. When his fingers finally closed around the metal-plastic mold, he thumbed for the “answer” button on the glass panel before him, his bleary eyes unable to read who was calling him this late on his day off. “’Ello?” 

The person on the other line seemed to pause at the rough tone to his voice, but the quiet did not continue long before Finn’s voice filtered through the speakers. “Puck-- you need to get to Santana’s-- right now-- please, I--.” For a few long moments, Puck tried to be patient with his friend who was repeatedly moving into and out of static, proving further that Finn was just leaning in and away from the microphone. “Something’s wrong--”

Dread filled the pit of his stomach, the wetness in Finn’s tone making his muscles clench in trepidation. “What’s wrong? What happened--” Finding an unknown strength within him, Puck rolled out of his messy bed, teeth grinding in a way that made his jaw sore. Finn was not one to get emotional over nothing, the big goof never really understanding when something was truly upsetting. “--is Santana okay?”

Puck dressed himself as Finn continued to fidget and talk to others across the line distractedly. In a burst of anger, he growled out, “Finn.” Mumbling apologies, Puck could hear Kurt talking in similar tones in the background. Kurt was involved. The dread worsened, his rib cage almost painfully tight. “I’m on my way.”

Shoving his phone into his jean pockets, his discarded the belt, shoving on his old running shoes and darted out into the hallway and down the stairs to the parking lot. Puck considered for a minute that it would be faster to take his bike, being able to weave in and out of traffic, but he decided against it, knowing damn well how dangerous it was to ride when he was ‘emotionally compromised’ as Berry would say. He had to stop himself from rolling his eyes at the thought of her, turning the key in his ignition; if Kurt was there, then Rachel was already notified, he was sure. Traffic did nothing to calm his nerves, and when Puck pressed play on his Guns N’ Roses, he found it just made him more agitated. A tired rage trembled through him, fingers gripping the steering wheel in a way that he was sure was cutting off the blood to his long fingers.

When the house he spent so much time in finally came into view, his anxiety dropped out into full-on fear, the large quantity of cop cars and multiple ambulances making his legs shake as he threw the car into park. The one day he wasn’t on-duty, he thought. Jogging to the scene, Puck saw Rachel’s back, tight and perfect posture, just outside of the door. Anger split him when he saw a cop put his hands on her. They might not have gotten along, but she was still his girl, and nobody touched his girls. “Berry?” He questioned, putting a worried hand on her shoulder, her eyes wildfire, which he was sure reflected in his own dark eyes. “What the fuck is going on? Let us in--” 

Puck assumed that the “Mr. Puckerman,” from the guys’ mouth was supposed to calming in some way, but it only enraged him further. With a harsh, well-tuned shoulder check, the man moved to the side in a blind surprise, and Puck pushed Rachel forward and through the doorway as the police officer righted himself. “Do you know what’s happening?” He croaked, dragging them toward Mrs. Fabray, that beautiful head of blonde hair noticeable from any distance. He almost wished it was Quinn instead. His stomach tightened.