Wishlist fic 8/12: my eyes when I couldn't see (Glee, NC-17) for demented_mei
Title: my eyes when I couldn't see
Author: JaqofSpades
Fandom: Glee
Characters/pairing: Tina Cohen Chang, Rachel Berry/Noah Puckerman.
Prompt/er: demented_mei asked for “Tina's Dreamscape-Verse. While recovering from the knock to her head in the mall fountain, Tina starts having strange--and oddly erotic--dreams about a certain Puckleberrylicious couple happening in that weird world where everyone swapped bodies.”
Rating: NC17
Wordcount: 2999
Summary: A few hours in Rachel's body, and Tina is seeing the world with fresh eyes. Even when she's asleep.
Author's note: I know you expected crack!fic. And I did try. But it doesn't come naturally to me, and it kind of transformed into angst. And porn. And my big girl editor boots were in the wash so it's probably about 2000 words longer than it needs to be. Sorry :(
*
She had pretty much decided it was some sort of delusion. Scrambled neurotransmitters perhaps - one hard knock to the cerebellum, and hello wackiness. But she keeps remembering strange little details about being Rachel, and it's insanity, of course, but … also surprisingly believable.
Disturbingly so, Tina thinks as she watches Puck and Rachel glare at each other. She wouldn't have noticed their hostility last week, before she'd hallucinated herself into Rachel's life. She certainly wouldn't have been wondering if it was for real.
She can't stop thinking about the way Puck-who-was-really-Blaine had brushed his hand over hers during Glee that afternoon. She had overlooked it at first, overcome with the strangeness of being Rachel, but now she remembers the sting of Mr Schue's disregard, and how that simple touch of hands had made it easier to bear.
When their eyes met in the hall afterwards, the entire world vanished for one crystalline moment as Rachel mouthed "thank you". Tina had still been processing that intriguing flood of emotion when Puck shrugged off her thanks with a smile so warm and genuine it left Rachel biting her lip.
Later, she would be downright ashamed of how shocked she was. He was Mike's friend, after all. But … two years in Glee, and Tina was still checking for the slushie whenever Puck swaggered up. She would grind her teeth as he sat in the back of the choir room and goof off, the usual jock bullshit made even more objectionable by lashings of raw sexual innuendo. Tina did her best not to pay him any attention (God forbid he should see her blush), but she could always feel him, lurking back there.
So could Rachel, Tina had discovered. But for her, there's no instinctive recoil - the looming bulk of him makes Rachel feel safe, and strong. He heats her blood and sets every one of her senses on fire.
Quite apart from his classical profile and delicious body, Noah appreciates her talent, Rachel had reminded herself. (He's always Noah in her head, even when she's angry and calls him Puck to his face, Tina discovered.) Noah sees who she is, and how she is, and likes her anyway. He even likes her clothes - and it's not just because he wants to get into her panties, she had thought with a secret grin.
Maybe it was that naughty thought that did it. The indrawn breath, or the cat-that-got-the-cream smile. Might even have been something simpler, like the way her eyes had followed him all the way down the hall, or the quickening of her pulse when he picked up his guitar to sing.
Something had to be responsible for the dreams.
The fierce wind shakes the bleachers, and she should be shivering, but she's bundled deep inside his letterman jacket, warm as toast. The bourbon from Puck's hipflask might be helping a little, she concedes, but it's just as likely to be his fingers, stroking along the crease of her knee. Backwards, forwards. Backwards, forwards ... almost idly, but she suspects he knows what it does to her. He probably knows just how hard it is to ignore the warm bulk of him, so comforting and familiar, so good at making her forget her problems. She's come here to talk, she reminds herself, and it's just Puck's way, to always be touching her. It's the back of her knee, innocent enough, even if she's finding it a little hard to breath, even if she's willing his fingers to climb higher, even if they're slipping around to stroke a little higher on her thigh ...
Tina had woken with a start that first night, puzzled by what she was seeing. She forgave herself - things were fuzzy in that time between sleeping and waking - but the heat of it comes back to haunt her a few hours later, when they catch her eye at school.
For the first time, she notices how Puck always greets Rachel with a hip bump, or a tug on her hair, or an arm slung over her shoulder. Given the chance, he'll box her up against her locker, his entire body inclined towards her smaller one, blocking everyone else from view. When they have a class together, he likes to sit behind her, and it's not until Tina glances down underneath the desks that she discovers why. His long legs stretch right underneath Rachel's seat, and her feet are nestled between his, looking very much at home.
She's engaged to marry his best friend - of course they're close, Tina rationalises. Not like this, a tiny little voice whispers, and her suspicions are surely what make the dreams spiral out of control. It's her subconscious, acting out, or maybe her libido, wanting in. Nothing to do with Puck and Rachel in real life, she starts to pray.
Glee. Back row, far right, about as far from Finn as she can possibly get. Noah's thigh is burning into hers, and he isn't even bothering to hide how much he is amused by Finn's angry stare. She should move away - she's mad at him, too. He had just shrugged last night when she asked where Finn was, and told her that maybe she should be concentrating on the guy who actually remembered when her ballet class finished.
She had swatted him with her shoe bag, but climbed into his truck anyway, and hadn't said a word when he turned towards the lake instead of home. It had been cold, the water, but Noah's brawny frame is like a furnace, and that's all she can think of, now, as he sits closer than is truly sensible, those thickly muscled thighs and his ripped abdomen and the hard swell of his pecs ...
"Ms Cohen-Chang!"
Tina is still enjoying Rachel's lustful perusal of Puck's admittedly amazing body when she's startled into wakefulness. She lifts her head to find her entire English class looking at her, waiting for ... something. She stares wildly towards the board, and nothing comes to mind, except for the fact her favourite TV character was once caught in exactly the same bind.
"Life's a bitch, and then you die?" she offers, praying Ms Alexander isn't a closet Veronica Mars fan.
"Interesting interpretation. I suppose Romeo and Juliet could be reframed that way," the witch sniffs, and turns away in search of fresh blood.
They're on the football field, late at night. He has a joint between his fingers, taking six puffs to each one of Rachel's sedate pulls.
"Bastard. Better off without him anyway," Noah is rambling, as Rachel lays in the crook of his arm, one hand stroking his chest.
"You are, Puck. So much better off. You're a better man than your father will ever be."
"Nah. Just like him," he grunts, and abruptly lifts her to sprawl full length on top of him, noses together.
"I wanna fuck you. You know that, right?"
Rachel shivers before she answers him, and even in her dream, Tina can hear the temptation in her voice.
"Yes. But I'm with Finn," she says quietly.
"'S'my point. I wanna fuck you, even though I know you're with Finn. 'M not a good guy."
Rachel hides her head in the side of his neck and mumbles against his throat.
"You're not with anyone. I'm the one who is ...."
"Cheatin'? Nah. You don't let me do anything ... much," Puck says as his hands trail up over her thighs, then slide under her skirt to skim over the twin globes of her backside ...
Tina wakes up thrashing, knowing where this is going, and not wanting to see it. She is disappointed with Rachel, yes, but it's Puck who has shocked her the most. She's used to the bully, and the flirt, and even his recent half-hearted attempts at doing the right thing in Glee.
But her eyes are open, now, and she can see the self-hate under all that posturing. See the doubt in his eyes and the pain in his heart. And she's enraged that Rachel can't.
"Are you doing it to make a point? Marrying him to tell me I'm not good enough? Why?"
Rachel retreats a little, pushing herself back up against the headboard and tugging the covers up over her knees. She was a fool to think he wouldn't come tonight, a fool to be wearing nothing more than her favourite silk nightdress.
He won't hurt her, she knows that. But if he touches her ... she's going to have to stop him. And she's not sure she can.
"You really ready for that?" he asks, flopping across the bottom of her bed. "One guy, for the rest of your life? No one but Finn - ever?"
She nods, but can't manage to say anything.
"Liar," he says rudely, as he reaches out to stroke her foot, entombed in the blankets. Her mouth opens on a denial, but his hands are sliding upwards, past her knees now, and she's trying to remember how to breathe.
"Liar," he repeats, and his hands have reached her hips, settling over her fingers as they clutch at the blankets folded there, callused fingertips sliding along each sensitive digit, stroking them into life. She shudders at the feeling, and has to look away - from his smirk, and those knowing brown eyes. From the way her hands tremble, and the defiant jut of her own nipples under cream silk. Her body is begging for his touch, and he's angry, and hurting, and not likely to say no.
"Li-ar," he sings into her ear, just as his hands find the fullness of her breasts, cupping them lovingly for a moment before he starts to play, teasing little swipes of his fingers followed by rapid little circles with his thumbs. Rachel gasps, but she doesn't completely lose it until he pushes her breasts up and out of the bodice to drag blunt fingernails backwards and forwards across the greedy little nubs.
She crawls into his lap, heedless of her short nightdress and lack of underwear, and gives herself over completely to pleasure of his hands. Within minutes, it's her hands unzipping him, and rolling the condom on, and not even bothering to push his jeans off before she sinks down onto him...
Tina tosses and turns as the scene unfolds, forcing herself awake for a moment, but then tumbling straight back down into slumber. She's breathing hard, and dread is building, but something else, too. Something wet, and slick, and urgent. It couldn't, she can't ...
Oh God, it's only a dream, Tina thinks desperately as her body starts to convulse, her mind still full of Rachel and Puck and how good it is between them, even though it's bad, and wrong, and happening completely in her imagination.
It's a fantasy, like any other, she soothes her conscience. No way can it be real - Rachel is better than that, and Puck wouldn't do that to Finn (again). But ... she shivers at the memory of Puck's anger, and how for a few explosive minutes it had turned him back into that familiar, predatory jerkoff. That guy, she recognised, she realises with a sinking heart.
And when Rachel refuses to look at him the next morning, concentrating instead on winding the ridiculous scarf a little higher to hide the purpling bruise on her collarbone, Tina thinks "oh shit."
She sleepwalks through the rest of the day, convinced of just one thing. Rachel is addicted to Puck, and Puck is in love with Rachel. That's not going to end well for anyone.
Unless things change.
*
She sucks at being a catalyst.
Tina tries to confront Rachel, but her attempt at "so, you're screwing around with your fiance's best friend" turns into "you'll miss Puck."
Rachel simply looks at her, and her smile is fifty different kinds of fake when she responds.
"I'll miss everybody from Glee! You'll have to come up to New York and visit us, Tina!"
The much-delayed wedding is still on, Rachel is bound for NYADA, and Finn is happy to shelter in her spotlight, the happy couple works hard to convince everyone.
Puck has vanished in the days since graduation, and the rumour is that he's already left for LA without saying goodbye. He was lucky to graduate at all, half the town seemed to think. Better off gone, the gossips are crowing.
Rachel shuts down any time anyone mentions his name, so short of another dream, Tina has no way of knowing what's going on between them.
And then Finn announces he's off to join the Army, and corrals them all into meeting at the railway station to farewell Rachel, who has no idea she had been booked on the train to New York. Alone.
Tina can't help but think it's a better solution, but it's not the way to do it. And when Puck shows up, his own fake smile in place, Tina's heart aches for him. Rachel hadn't chosen him - hadn't chosen at all - but here he was, nonetheless. Wishing her well.
Tina wants to drag her off that train and shake her.
It's already moving, though, and this can't be the end of their story, it can't, she thinks frantically. Finn is making a spectacle of himself jogging alongside the train, but Rachel is looking beyond him, to where Noah is standing, hands in his pockets. Her eyes are pleading, begging for forgiveness, but his face remains stony.
Rachel's jaw firms then, and she's nearly out of sight when Tina hears Puck curse, then give a wordless shout.
He holds his hands over his heart, and mouths "I love you," as the train pulls away, and Rachel's eyes fill with tears.
Afterwards, Tina slips her hand into Puck's as they move towards the exit, then reaches up to kiss him on the cheek. "Don't give up," she whispers, before speeding up to catch the others, leaving him alone on the nearly empty platform. He looks perplexed when she glances back, so she just shrugs and smiles. It's not like it's something she could ever explain.
*
Midterms are kicking her ass this year, but she's not a freshman anymore, so she figures she owes it to herself to make the effort. She's on her third go round with the French feminists when her head drops to the desk in frustration, and her eyes drift closed moments later.
He's here. At last. Rachel wants to sing with the glory of it, the fact that he's here, under her hands, and hers. Three years in New York, two serious boyfriends, half a dozen lovers, and she's only seen him twice in that whole time. Hanukkah, last year, when they'd actually talked, and now.
When he's whispering the contents of every single dirty text in her ear, and promising to fulfil every thrilling scenario they've shared in dozens of late-night phonecalls. She's up for that, really she is, but ... she's not going to fall into that trap again. Sex can wait. There's something she wants to ask him.
"Noah?"
"Yeah Rach?"
"Stay."
"Oh baby - hell yes. All night. All week, if you'll have me."
"No. Here in New York. All the time. There's plenty of work here for you, your course will let you transfer ... stay. Move in with me. Be my boyfriend."
He blinks a little, and Tina moans in her sleep, hurt by the surprise he's clearly feeling, the idea that someone might want him for more than a night or two. But at last - at long, long last - Rachel's eyes are open too, and she rushes in to explain.
"I love you. I always did, but ... I didn't think it could be us. We're so alike, cut from the very same cloth - it terrified me, Noah. So I told myself it was just sex."
He looks away, jaw clenching, and Rachel needs to move in front of him to get him to look at her again.
"I was lying to myself. And there aren't enough apologies in the world to express how badly I feel about that. And the way I treated you and Finn. But ... I was always lying, Noah. I always loved you."
He whirls away to escape her, but the words come bursting out like a long-banked flood.
"You think I don't know that? You think that didn't make it hurt twice as bad, Rach? The one girl who actually loves me, and she doesn't want a bar of me? Just uses me for sex, like all the rest? Fuck that."
His hand is on the doorknob when her panicked voice calls him back.
"So don't move in. You don't even have to date me if you don't want to. But … come to New York. You love it here. And we owe it to ourselves to see...” Rachel falters a little, then holds up her head defiantly. “I'm yours, Noah. Always was." She shrugs a little, then speaks quietly, as if to herself. "Guess it's my turn to wait, now."
He lasts five minutes before he pulls her into his arms, desperate to taste the truth of her words. She meets the hungry kiss with one that refuses to be derailed, soft and slow and almost reverent, apology and promise rolled into one.
“No waiting,” he says gruffly, and Rachel nods mutely, too relieved for words.
More than five hundred miles away, Tina swims towards wakefulness as her dream dissolves. She sighs with satisfaction as the last moments linger, then smiles, content. She still doesn't understand what happened, that day in the mall, but can accept the reality of it now.
Sometimes she wonders if it was a mission from God (she hopes not, because if it was - she probably failed), or a karmic voyage designed to teach her one of the higher lessons. (Big fat F for that, too.) Or maybe it was a brain injury, or a swelling on her frontal lobe, or just … one of those things. It didn't change anything, she knows.
Puckleberry was there all along, for those who had the eyes to see.
fin
Author: JaqofSpades
Fandom: Glee
Characters/pairing: Tina Cohen Chang, Rachel Berry/Noah Puckerman.
Prompt/er: demented_mei asked for “Tina's Dreamscape-Verse. While recovering from the knock to her head in the mall fountain, Tina starts having strange--and oddly erotic--dreams about a certain Puckleberrylicious couple happening in that weird world where everyone swapped bodies.”
Rating: NC17
Wordcount: 2999
Summary: A few hours in Rachel's body, and Tina is seeing the world with fresh eyes. Even when she's asleep.
Author's note: I know you expected crack!fic. And I did try. But it doesn't come naturally to me, and it kind of transformed into angst. And porn. And my big girl editor boots were in the wash so it's probably about 2000 words longer than it needs to be. Sorry :(
*
She had pretty much decided it was some sort of delusion. Scrambled neurotransmitters perhaps - one hard knock to the cerebellum, and hello wackiness. But she keeps remembering strange little details about being Rachel, and it's insanity, of course, but … also surprisingly believable.
Disturbingly so, Tina thinks as she watches Puck and Rachel glare at each other. She wouldn't have noticed their hostility last week, before she'd hallucinated herself into Rachel's life. She certainly wouldn't have been wondering if it was for real.
She can't stop thinking about the way Puck-who-was-really-Blaine had brushed his hand over hers during Glee that afternoon. She had overlooked it at first, overcome with the strangeness of being Rachel, but now she remembers the sting of Mr Schue's disregard, and how that simple touch of hands had made it easier to bear.
When their eyes met in the hall afterwards, the entire world vanished for one crystalline moment as Rachel mouthed "thank you". Tina had still been processing that intriguing flood of emotion when Puck shrugged off her thanks with a smile so warm and genuine it left Rachel biting her lip.
Later, she would be downright ashamed of how shocked she was. He was Mike's friend, after all. But … two years in Glee, and Tina was still checking for the slushie whenever Puck swaggered up. She would grind her teeth as he sat in the back of the choir room and goof off, the usual jock bullshit made even more objectionable by lashings of raw sexual innuendo. Tina did her best not to pay him any attention (God forbid he should see her blush), but she could always feel him, lurking back there.
So could Rachel, Tina had discovered. But for her, there's no instinctive recoil - the looming bulk of him makes Rachel feel safe, and strong. He heats her blood and sets every one of her senses on fire.
Quite apart from his classical profile and delicious body, Noah appreciates her talent, Rachel had reminded herself. (He's always Noah in her head, even when she's angry and calls him Puck to his face, Tina discovered.) Noah sees who she is, and how she is, and likes her anyway. He even likes her clothes - and it's not just because he wants to get into her panties, she had thought with a secret grin.
Maybe it was that naughty thought that did it. The indrawn breath, or the cat-that-got-the-cream smile. Might even have been something simpler, like the way her eyes had followed him all the way down the hall, or the quickening of her pulse when he picked up his guitar to sing.
Something had to be responsible for the dreams.
The fierce wind shakes the bleachers, and she should be shivering, but she's bundled deep inside his letterman jacket, warm as toast. The bourbon from Puck's hipflask might be helping a little, she concedes, but it's just as likely to be his fingers, stroking along the crease of her knee. Backwards, forwards. Backwards, forwards ... almost idly, but she suspects he knows what it does to her. He probably knows just how hard it is to ignore the warm bulk of him, so comforting and familiar, so good at making her forget her problems. She's come here to talk, she reminds herself, and it's just Puck's way, to always be touching her. It's the back of her knee, innocent enough, even if she's finding it a little hard to breath, even if she's willing his fingers to climb higher, even if they're slipping around to stroke a little higher on her thigh ...
Tina had woken with a start that first night, puzzled by what she was seeing. She forgave herself - things were fuzzy in that time between sleeping and waking - but the heat of it comes back to haunt her a few hours later, when they catch her eye at school.
For the first time, she notices how Puck always greets Rachel with a hip bump, or a tug on her hair, or an arm slung over her shoulder. Given the chance, he'll box her up against her locker, his entire body inclined towards her smaller one, blocking everyone else from view. When they have a class together, he likes to sit behind her, and it's not until Tina glances down underneath the desks that she discovers why. His long legs stretch right underneath Rachel's seat, and her feet are nestled between his, looking very much at home.
She's engaged to marry his best friend - of course they're close, Tina rationalises. Not like this, a tiny little voice whispers, and her suspicions are surely what make the dreams spiral out of control. It's her subconscious, acting out, or maybe her libido, wanting in. Nothing to do with Puck and Rachel in real life, she starts to pray.
Glee. Back row, far right, about as far from Finn as she can possibly get. Noah's thigh is burning into hers, and he isn't even bothering to hide how much he is amused by Finn's angry stare. She should move away - she's mad at him, too. He had just shrugged last night when she asked where Finn was, and told her that maybe she should be concentrating on the guy who actually remembered when her ballet class finished.
She had swatted him with her shoe bag, but climbed into his truck anyway, and hadn't said a word when he turned towards the lake instead of home. It had been cold, the water, but Noah's brawny frame is like a furnace, and that's all she can think of, now, as he sits closer than is truly sensible, those thickly muscled thighs and his ripped abdomen and the hard swell of his pecs ...
"Ms Cohen-Chang!"
Tina is still enjoying Rachel's lustful perusal of Puck's admittedly amazing body when she's startled into wakefulness. She lifts her head to find her entire English class looking at her, waiting for ... something. She stares wildly towards the board, and nothing comes to mind, except for the fact her favourite TV character was once caught in exactly the same bind.
"Life's a bitch, and then you die?" she offers, praying Ms Alexander isn't a closet Veronica Mars fan.
"Interesting interpretation. I suppose Romeo and Juliet could be reframed that way," the witch sniffs, and turns away in search of fresh blood.
They're on the football field, late at night. He has a joint between his fingers, taking six puffs to each one of Rachel's sedate pulls.
"Bastard. Better off without him anyway," Noah is rambling, as Rachel lays in the crook of his arm, one hand stroking his chest.
"You are, Puck. So much better off. You're a better man than your father will ever be."
"Nah. Just like him," he grunts, and abruptly lifts her to sprawl full length on top of him, noses together.
"I wanna fuck you. You know that, right?"
Rachel shivers before she answers him, and even in her dream, Tina can hear the temptation in her voice.
"Yes. But I'm with Finn," she says quietly.
"'S'my point. I wanna fuck you, even though I know you're with Finn. 'M not a good guy."
Rachel hides her head in the side of his neck and mumbles against his throat.
"You're not with anyone. I'm the one who is ...."
"Cheatin'? Nah. You don't let me do anything ... much," Puck says as his hands trail up over her thighs, then slide under her skirt to skim over the twin globes of her backside ...
Tina wakes up thrashing, knowing where this is going, and not wanting to see it. She is disappointed with Rachel, yes, but it's Puck who has shocked her the most. She's used to the bully, and the flirt, and even his recent half-hearted attempts at doing the right thing in Glee.
But her eyes are open, now, and she can see the self-hate under all that posturing. See the doubt in his eyes and the pain in his heart. And she's enraged that Rachel can't.
"Are you doing it to make a point? Marrying him to tell me I'm not good enough? Why?"
Rachel retreats a little, pushing herself back up against the headboard and tugging the covers up over her knees. She was a fool to think he wouldn't come tonight, a fool to be wearing nothing more than her favourite silk nightdress.
He won't hurt her, she knows that. But if he touches her ... she's going to have to stop him. And she's not sure she can.
"You really ready for that?" he asks, flopping across the bottom of her bed. "One guy, for the rest of your life? No one but Finn - ever?"
She nods, but can't manage to say anything.
"Liar," he says rudely, as he reaches out to stroke her foot, entombed in the blankets. Her mouth opens on a denial, but his hands are sliding upwards, past her knees now, and she's trying to remember how to breathe.
"Liar," he repeats, and his hands have reached her hips, settling over her fingers as they clutch at the blankets folded there, callused fingertips sliding along each sensitive digit, stroking them into life. She shudders at the feeling, and has to look away - from his smirk, and those knowing brown eyes. From the way her hands tremble, and the defiant jut of her own nipples under cream silk. Her body is begging for his touch, and he's angry, and hurting, and not likely to say no.
"Li-ar," he sings into her ear, just as his hands find the fullness of her breasts, cupping them lovingly for a moment before he starts to play, teasing little swipes of his fingers followed by rapid little circles with his thumbs. Rachel gasps, but she doesn't completely lose it until he pushes her breasts up and out of the bodice to drag blunt fingernails backwards and forwards across the greedy little nubs.
She crawls into his lap, heedless of her short nightdress and lack of underwear, and gives herself over completely to pleasure of his hands. Within minutes, it's her hands unzipping him, and rolling the condom on, and not even bothering to push his jeans off before she sinks down onto him...
Tina tosses and turns as the scene unfolds, forcing herself awake for a moment, but then tumbling straight back down into slumber. She's breathing hard, and dread is building, but something else, too. Something wet, and slick, and urgent. It couldn't, she can't ...
Oh God, it's only a dream, Tina thinks desperately as her body starts to convulse, her mind still full of Rachel and Puck and how good it is between them, even though it's bad, and wrong, and happening completely in her imagination.
It's a fantasy, like any other, she soothes her conscience. No way can it be real - Rachel is better than that, and Puck wouldn't do that to Finn (again). But ... she shivers at the memory of Puck's anger, and how for a few explosive minutes it had turned him back into that familiar, predatory jerkoff. That guy, she recognised, she realises with a sinking heart.
And when Rachel refuses to look at him the next morning, concentrating instead on winding the ridiculous scarf a little higher to hide the purpling bruise on her collarbone, Tina thinks "oh shit."
She sleepwalks through the rest of the day, convinced of just one thing. Rachel is addicted to Puck, and Puck is in love with Rachel. That's not going to end well for anyone.
Unless things change.
*
She sucks at being a catalyst.
Tina tries to confront Rachel, but her attempt at "so, you're screwing around with your fiance's best friend" turns into "you'll miss Puck."
Rachel simply looks at her, and her smile is fifty different kinds of fake when she responds.
"I'll miss everybody from Glee! You'll have to come up to New York and visit us, Tina!"
The much-delayed wedding is still on, Rachel is bound for NYADA, and Finn is happy to shelter in her spotlight, the happy couple works hard to convince everyone.
Puck has vanished in the days since graduation, and the rumour is that he's already left for LA without saying goodbye. He was lucky to graduate at all, half the town seemed to think. Better off gone, the gossips are crowing.
Rachel shuts down any time anyone mentions his name, so short of another dream, Tina has no way of knowing what's going on between them.
And then Finn announces he's off to join the Army, and corrals them all into meeting at the railway station to farewell Rachel, who has no idea she had been booked on the train to New York. Alone.
Tina can't help but think it's a better solution, but it's not the way to do it. And when Puck shows up, his own fake smile in place, Tina's heart aches for him. Rachel hadn't chosen him - hadn't chosen at all - but here he was, nonetheless. Wishing her well.
Tina wants to drag her off that train and shake her.
It's already moving, though, and this can't be the end of their story, it can't, she thinks frantically. Finn is making a spectacle of himself jogging alongside the train, but Rachel is looking beyond him, to where Noah is standing, hands in his pockets. Her eyes are pleading, begging for forgiveness, but his face remains stony.
Rachel's jaw firms then, and she's nearly out of sight when Tina hears Puck curse, then give a wordless shout.
He holds his hands over his heart, and mouths "I love you," as the train pulls away, and Rachel's eyes fill with tears.
Afterwards, Tina slips her hand into Puck's as they move towards the exit, then reaches up to kiss him on the cheek. "Don't give up," she whispers, before speeding up to catch the others, leaving him alone on the nearly empty platform. He looks perplexed when she glances back, so she just shrugs and smiles. It's not like it's something she could ever explain.
*
Midterms are kicking her ass this year, but she's not a freshman anymore, so she figures she owes it to herself to make the effort. She's on her third go round with the French feminists when her head drops to the desk in frustration, and her eyes drift closed moments later.
He's here. At last. Rachel wants to sing with the glory of it, the fact that he's here, under her hands, and hers. Three years in New York, two serious boyfriends, half a dozen lovers, and she's only seen him twice in that whole time. Hanukkah, last year, when they'd actually talked, and now.
When he's whispering the contents of every single dirty text in her ear, and promising to fulfil every thrilling scenario they've shared in dozens of late-night phonecalls. She's up for that, really she is, but ... she's not going to fall into that trap again. Sex can wait. There's something she wants to ask him.
"Noah?"
"Yeah Rach?"
"Stay."
"Oh baby - hell yes. All night. All week, if you'll have me."
"No. Here in New York. All the time. There's plenty of work here for you, your course will let you transfer ... stay. Move in with me. Be my boyfriend."
He blinks a little, and Tina moans in her sleep, hurt by the surprise he's clearly feeling, the idea that someone might want him for more than a night or two. But at last - at long, long last - Rachel's eyes are open too, and she rushes in to explain.
"I love you. I always did, but ... I didn't think it could be us. We're so alike, cut from the very same cloth - it terrified me, Noah. So I told myself it was just sex."
He looks away, jaw clenching, and Rachel needs to move in front of him to get him to look at her again.
"I was lying to myself. And there aren't enough apologies in the world to express how badly I feel about that. And the way I treated you and Finn. But ... I was always lying, Noah. I always loved you."
He whirls away to escape her, but the words come bursting out like a long-banked flood.
"You think I don't know that? You think that didn't make it hurt twice as bad, Rach? The one girl who actually loves me, and she doesn't want a bar of me? Just uses me for sex, like all the rest? Fuck that."
His hand is on the doorknob when her panicked voice calls him back.
"So don't move in. You don't even have to date me if you don't want to. But … come to New York. You love it here. And we owe it to ourselves to see...” Rachel falters a little, then holds up her head defiantly. “I'm yours, Noah. Always was." She shrugs a little, then speaks quietly, as if to herself. "Guess it's my turn to wait, now."
He lasts five minutes before he pulls her into his arms, desperate to taste the truth of her words. She meets the hungry kiss with one that refuses to be derailed, soft and slow and almost reverent, apology and promise rolled into one.
“No waiting,” he says gruffly, and Rachel nods mutely, too relieved for words.
More than five hundred miles away, Tina swims towards wakefulness as her dream dissolves. She sighs with satisfaction as the last moments linger, then smiles, content. She still doesn't understand what happened, that day in the mall, but can accept the reality of it now.
Sometimes she wonders if it was a mission from God (she hopes not, because if it was - she probably failed), or a karmic voyage designed to teach her one of the higher lessons. (Big fat F for that, too.) Or maybe it was a brain injury, or a swelling on her frontal lobe, or just … one of those things. It didn't change anything, she knows.
Puckleberry was there all along, for those who had the eyes to see.
fin