Another prompt fill
I thought this was actually going to be drabble length. ... And then I finished it and it was at 9 pages and I'm not entirely sure why or how it got so long.
This is for the prompt of the picture of a cat in a tree and it says, "I don't care how cute fireman be, no more sticking me in trees." I can't resist fireman prompts. I can't resist fireman Puck.
So... here goes.
Honestly, despite what Santana says (loudly, and to every single member of their high school Glee Club that they still keep in touch with every time they run into someone she hasn’t told with that evil laugh of hers), the first time it happens is purely accidental.
It’s not like she’s expecting the undeniably attractive, muscular and largely unchanged except maybe better looking form of Noah Puckerman dressed in yellow fire fighter pants, with a tight fitted, possibly made for him FDNY tee shirt to match to appear on her doorstep to rescue her cat from the tree where it is stubbornly refusing to come down.
She didn’t know he was even in New York, let alone fire fighting and rescuing cats from trees so their Broadway star owners don’t have to risk life and limb to get them down.
She hasn’t seen him, in fact, since Matt and Quinn’s wedding the year before, and previous to that, the last time she saw him was when they sat on his porch at the end of summer following the end of high school, and said their goodbyes to the relationship they weren’t exactly having, but weren’t exactly not having, either. (It’s less complicated than it sounds, she swears.)
She knows she’s staring, as he stands there with that smirk she could never forget that turns her stomach inside out and upside down, his arms so prominent from the tightness of his shirt, and she almost wonders why he’s not naked already, except then she remembers why he’s here.
And it’s not exactly for her.
Honestly. It figures that the cat Finn and Brittany bought her for a housewarming gift would be lacking major brain cells. As hard as she tries to love the thing, (named Cat, for obvious reasons), it’s definitely… not a bright creature. Hence it currently stuck up a tree, trying to figure out how to get it down.
She just didn’t realise when Santana called the fire brigade to get them to help her, that one of their members may need to fan flames that the mere sight of him causes inside Rachel’s body.
As he reaches out to give her a hug, all familiar and warm and tight and perfect, smelling the same way he did that night he kissed her goodbye and didn’t make any promises of anything neither of them would believe anyway, she feels her body go up in flames, and she wonders if it’ll ever feel this way with any man who isn’t Noah Puckerman.
And all she can think as he lets her go is that when they said their goodbyes in that hotel room the day after Matt and Quinn’s wedding, after making jokes about all the sins they committed during and after the church wedding they’d attended, maybe they should have talked a little bit more about the important things. Like the fact that he’s living in New York, and apparently very near to her, considering his unit is the one that answers calls from her apartment building.
She wonders how she just watched him get dressed and let him leave, and how eight months feels like forever since she last saw him.
It means something, even if she doesn’t entirely want it to.
--
He hands her Cat, and smirks. “Stay outta trouble, you two.” He says with a wink and a nod, and as he presses a kiss to her forehead there’s so many things she wants to say, but she just can’t find the words, and she knows she’s absolutely ridiculous.
Rachel Berry speechless? Who’d believe that?
She just watches him climb into the fire truck, say something to his buddies that involves hand slaps, and oh god if it’s something completely derogatory like, “oh, I used to bang her on a regular basis” she’s going to find out where he lives and… smother him with a pillow, or something.
She hates him a little bit more when the threat takes a lot longer to come to mind than it should, because it’s too busy conjuring up ideas of him in bed with her and all the amazing things he can do.
--
The second time he comes to her aid is only maybe a little bit on purpose. Okay. So she sort of left her kitchen door open and coaxed the cat towards the luscious green patch of lawn that she is immensely proud to call her own, considering this is New York.
It’s been two weeks. She just can’t get him out of her mind.
And all she has to do is open her kitchen door on a sunny New York day, once she’s dressed in a low cut top and the well worn light blue jeans that she’s had since high school and have always had an effect on him, especially with the holes he wouldn’t let her patch up because he liked sliding his fingers in them just to touch her in some way, all made up, and her cat was out there roaming and sniffing and chasing butterflies and air and all other things she secretly wonders if Brittany does in her free time.
(She wouldn’t voice that out loud, of course, but they’ve all always said Brittany is distracted by the lightest of breezes.)
And sure enough, five minutes later she hears frantic, loud meowing, and sees Cat right up at the top of the tree.
“San? Any chance you’re available right now to supervise the removal of Cat from the tree in the backyard? I’d climb up the ladder, but if I fall to my death, I don’t want to rot away to nothing before someone finds me.”
Santana’s laughing, because she’s a bitch, and she knows that there’s no way in hell Rachel would even contemplate climbing up a ladder to rescue a cat she’s pretty ambivalent about, anyway.
(Honestly. Who in their right minds buys cats as housewarming gifts for New York apartments? Really? Only Finn and Brittany, Rachel’s pretty sure. Not so much about practicality, those two.)
Santana is now cackling. “You just want me to tell you to keep the ladder inside and call the super hot douchebag fireman we went to high school with. Rachel, if you want to get laid, just call the precinct and ask for his number, you whore!”
Rachel rolls her eyes. She really does not appreciate the judgey tone in her best friends voice.
“I don’t want to… just… I… Just shut up, okay?” She says, because she hates how well her best friend knows her.
“And for your information, once again, I do not appreciate being called a whore, when clearly it’s you, with the sexual history of a … hooker.” She says, and smiles proudly at her come back. They’re rare.
“Just call Puck, open the door wearing lingerie and it’s not like he’s going to turn you down. He’s probably had half the women in the city do the same.”
She absolutely does not want to think about that possibility. The burning in her throat and the fast blinks she has to do just to prevent tears tells her that as over her feelings as she thought she may have been, that all that was left was undeniable, irresistible attractive, it’s just not that simple, or that true.
She’s not sure she wants him with anyone else, ever.
She hangs up on her best friend, and dials the number for the local brigade. It hangs on her refrigerator, with all the other emergency numbers she may need. She’s a girl living alone in a big scary city, okay? She’s always going to be prepared. She made Santana one, too, when she came out here.
A man picks up and she tries not to be disappointed that it’s not the voice that makes her heart do funny things. (Like fall sort of in love with him from the moment it begins the opening lines to Sweet Caroline when she’s sixteen and can’t stop it from happening.)
She explains her predicament as the man laughs and promises someone will be there soon to help her. She smiles, picks up a script, and goes to sit on the lawn to wait.
She tries to convince herself not to hope, when there’s only a slim chance it’ll be Puck that appears on her doorstep.
She knows she’s utterly ridiculous. She knows where he works. She knows he must live close by. If she wanted, she could probably have his information with a few key strokes on the Internet or a phone call to Finn.
She just doesn’t want to be that pathetic, desperate girl chasing dreams she should’ve let go of when she boarded a plane for New York and he went somewhere down South for college, or when they said goodbye in the doorway of a hotel room after the wedding of two of their best friends that really should have been the ending of everything, not something that she still thinks about late at night when she lies in bed horribly alone.
She hears the bell ring, and opens the door. His eyes drop immediately to her chest, and she beams a bright smile. She can’t believe this visit is what makes her day.
“You’d think your cat would learn the first time, Rach. Seriously, with all your books and shit, you could train it a little better. Like, to avoid tall trees.”
She rolls her eyes as he ruffles her hair in that way she’s always hated, and heads through her house towards her backyard.
“What can I say? It was a purchase by Finn and Brittany. Wasn’t exactly going to be an Einstein cat.” He laughs and agrees that that has to be true.
He sets up his ladder and starts climbing. She stands there, watching the way his muscles move underneath his tee shirt, longing to just… run her fingers over them, down his back… and then he’s handing the cat to her while she’s still gawking at him like some creepy pervert.
She blinks a few times and wants to slap the amused smile off his face.
She turns around, bends down and picks up the script she’d left lying on the grass, puts her glasses back on.
She notices the way his fingers twitch as if they want to move to touch the holes near the back pocket of her well worn jeans, but he’s obviously learnt some self restraint.
She loves knowing that there’s a part of him still obviously attracted to her, too.
Of all the things she’s always wanted to be, alone has never come close to making the list.
She offers him a glass of water for “all his hard work” and hopes the line doesn’t come across as hopeless as it sounds to her.
He just smirks, leans against her kitchen counter as he looks around her apartment drinking water like some… model.
There’s photos all over her fridge, photos from college of her and Santana and older ones, too. There’s one he runs his fingers over with a half smile on his face, and she cranes her neck around to see which one he’s looking at.
“I’ve always liked that photo.” He says softly, and she smiles, because it’s always been her favourite. It’s buried in her bedside drawer, too. She has a few copies of it, in fact, because she never wants to be without it.
Them asleep, tangled together in a hammock on some random beach vacation Glee Club took together senior year, when everyone got to see that yes, in fact, Puck and Rachel were in some sort of relationship.
She loves how comfortable they look together, wrapped up in each others arms, both with slight smiles on their faces, holding hands and pretty much joined in almost every way.
She doesn’t remember who took that photo, but she’s loved them for it since they gave it to her.
“Me too.” She offers, and he looks at her with a smile.
His pager interrupts whatever moment they’re having, right when she thinks it’s going to be something, that they’re going to talk about feelings and all the other words that are currently stuck in her throat waiting to escape.
He swears and tells her he has to go. He kisses her on the cheek and it doesn’t feel enough.
She can still feel his lips on her cheek an hour later when all the words she should’ve said come rushing to her as she sits at her kitchen counter wondering what to make for dinner.
She wonders if distance hadn’t been such a problem, if their dreams hadn’t momentarily been different, if they’d be like Matt and Quinn now. Married and living happily together with brown haired Jewish babies Santana used to say they’d one day have together. “Mohawks and loud mouths, it’d be trouble all around.” She’d decided, and Rachel had dreamed about it long after it became obvious those dreams weren’t coming true any time in the near future, if ever.
And then she wonders if his self restraint in the backyard today and in the kitchen comes from having someone else in his life, someone who’s erased memories of high thread count cotton sheets in fancy hotel rooms after weddings where he’s known as the one who stole Quinn Fabray’s virtue with a few wine coolers and whispered promises.
She’s Rachel Berry. She sits in her kitchen eating Ben and Jerry’s and obsesses about this life that Puck may or may not be having, with girls who are decidedly not her, and no where near as talented and probably not even Jewish.
Three days later, Santana calls her Mopey McMoperson so many times Rachel decides she needs to do something about it.
So as Cat claws her half to death, realising that tree climbing is not something she should be doing, Santana throws cat treats up in the tree that Cat has no choice but to chase after.
(Definitely a Finn trait, they both agree.)
And Santana calls the fire department once again, and Rachel’s pretty sure she must be the joke of the entire station. They probably have a picture of her and her house up on the bulletin board near the phone saying, “DO NOT RESPOND.” If she wasn’t half in love with Noah, she’d probably be utterly humiliated at this point in time.
But she needs to know if she’s the only one hoping for a future she never quite forgot that came from a relationship they never quite had.
She’s sitting on her kitchen bench with disinfectant wipes to clean up the scratches left by her determined cat, who is undoubtedly sick of this entire situation, but too stupid to avoid shiny things, or food, that seem to wind up with her sitting in the top of a tree with no way down.
Except a handsome fireman with a complicated romantic history with her owner.
Santana laughs her bitchy laugh and swears in Spanish, and that’s how she knows that once again, Puck is at her doorstep, come to rescue her cat from tree top peril.
“I’m beginning to think you’re just turned on by me in my uniform, Berry.” He says as he takes the now familiar route through her kitchen and out into her backyard.
This time, however, he’s clean and in jeans and his FDNY tee shirt, as he climbs the ladder in a matter of seconds and is handing her the cat all too quickly.
“Did you just finish your shift?” She asks, curiously staring at the faded blue jeans he’s wearing, worn a little at the knee.
He nods. “You’re my last call. Figured I could do it on my way home. Saves the truck having to come out with the big ladders.”
“Oh I’m sorry I’m such an inconvenience to your time, Noah Puckerman.” She says bitterly, and tries not to show the fact that his words are actually hurting her in very painful ways.
“You know that’s not true. It’s no problem for me at all.” He’s frustrated.
“You can go now. You’ve done your job. You can go home to your blonde non-Jewish girlfriend who probably has fake boobs and can’t sing and is probably some skeezy waitress at Hooters because she couldn’t aspire to be anything smarter. I won’t bother you again.” She says, and storms inside her house as he lets out a laugh.
She tries not to think about the fact that she knows she sounded insane.
She just gets angry at the fact that he had the nerve to laugh at her while destroying every hope she ever had for the potential of them to be together again one day, properly this time.
He doesn’t come into her room. He doesn’t follow her at all. She hears him talking to her cat for a bit, and then hears the closing of her front door about five minutes later when he obviously realises that she’s trying to die of embarrassment in private and isn’t going to come back out.
Probably back to the blonde girlfriend who doesn’t realise that if it ends, he’s that one person your heart just can’t forget, no matter how many years it’s been between meetings.
--
She’s sweaty and hot and ready to just collapse in the shower and wash the hard work of the day off at home a day later when she leaves her rehearsal and steps into fading sunlight to begin to walk to the subway, stretching sore muscles.
She stops short at the sight of the fire truck just outside the entrance to the theatre.
He’s leaning against it, biceps on display, obviously waiting for her.
He reaches for her hand to pull her closer before she can pull herself away. She knows her cheeks are flaming red as she hears her loud accusations in her ears from the day before and wants to just die some more.
“You really think I’d downgrade to some blonde bimbo who probably couldn’t string a sentence together after I’d had you, B?” He asks, and she’s not sure what that means, but she thinks it might be good.
“God, you walked into Quinn and Matt’s wedding wearing that yellow dress and we spent that night together, how the fuck could I want someone else when I’ve had the fucking best?”
He’s holding her hand, rubbing his thumb over it as he looks her in the eyes.
“That picture on your fridge just kinda reminded me about how we used to feel about each other. Fuck, I pretty much loved you. Think that’s why I ended up in New York. Kinda wanted to see what’d happen if we lived in the same place a while.”
She wants to rip her hand away and pinch herself to make sure this isn’t some dream conjured up from her overactive imagination, but she’s afraid to let go of his hand in case she never gets to feel his touch again.
“Really?” She asks, and he nods in return.
She’s smiling big.
“You really didn’t have to force your stupid cat into that tree, Rach. You coulda just called me. I even fuckin’ wrote my number down like a douche on the hotel receipt you got.”
“No you didn’t.” She says, and she’s pretty confused.
“Yes I did.” He informs her, and all she can see is eight months of potentially wasted time.
She frantically searches her purse for the pieces of paper she can’t make herself throw away.
She finds the hotel bill for that one night that meant more to them than they thought it would when it was initiated over expensive cocktails while people more religious than they sat around saying prayers for the life long happiness of Matt and Quinn. She unfolds the paper and turns it over.
There’s an address and a phone number in scrawl she’ll always recognise.
“Obviously those two daddies of yours were too busy making sure you could sing and dance instead of teaching you to look at both sides of the paper.” He says, and he’s laughing, but she’s really un-amused.
She hits him because she can, and eight months is a hell of a lot of wasted time.
“Noah Puckerman I look like an idiot to your fire fighting buddies, standing there with scratches because my cat was forced into a tree for the third time. It’s not funny!” She’s practically shrieking at him. He’s still laughing.
“Think about it this way, Noah. That’s eight months of wasted time you could’ve had me in your bed.”
He stops laughing.
“Guess we’ve got a lot of time to make up for, then.” He says.
“Might wanna put your cat back in your tree. I get off in half an hour, and you’re gonna be my last call for at least the next two days.”
She definitely likes that idea.
This is for the prompt of the picture of a cat in a tree and it says, "I don't care how cute fireman be, no more sticking me in trees." I can't resist fireman prompts. I can't resist fireman Puck.
So... here goes.
Honestly, despite what Santana says (loudly, and to every single member of their high school Glee Club that they still keep in touch with every time they run into someone she hasn’t told with that evil laugh of hers), the first time it happens is purely accidental.
It’s not like she’s expecting the undeniably attractive, muscular and largely unchanged except maybe better looking form of Noah Puckerman dressed in yellow fire fighter pants, with a tight fitted, possibly made for him FDNY tee shirt to match to appear on her doorstep to rescue her cat from the tree where it is stubbornly refusing to come down.
She didn’t know he was even in New York, let alone fire fighting and rescuing cats from trees so their Broadway star owners don’t have to risk life and limb to get them down.
She hasn’t seen him, in fact, since Matt and Quinn’s wedding the year before, and previous to that, the last time she saw him was when they sat on his porch at the end of summer following the end of high school, and said their goodbyes to the relationship they weren’t exactly having, but weren’t exactly not having, either. (It’s less complicated than it sounds, she swears.)
She knows she’s staring, as he stands there with that smirk she could never forget that turns her stomach inside out and upside down, his arms so prominent from the tightness of his shirt, and she almost wonders why he’s not naked already, except then she remembers why he’s here.
And it’s not exactly for her.
Honestly. It figures that the cat Finn and Brittany bought her for a housewarming gift would be lacking major brain cells. As hard as she tries to love the thing, (named Cat, for obvious reasons), it’s definitely… not a bright creature. Hence it currently stuck up a tree, trying to figure out how to get it down.
She just didn’t realise when Santana called the fire brigade to get them to help her, that one of their members may need to fan flames that the mere sight of him causes inside Rachel’s body.
As he reaches out to give her a hug, all familiar and warm and tight and perfect, smelling the same way he did that night he kissed her goodbye and didn’t make any promises of anything neither of them would believe anyway, she feels her body go up in flames, and she wonders if it’ll ever feel this way with any man who isn’t Noah Puckerman.
And all she can think as he lets her go is that when they said their goodbyes in that hotel room the day after Matt and Quinn’s wedding, after making jokes about all the sins they committed during and after the church wedding they’d attended, maybe they should have talked a little bit more about the important things. Like the fact that he’s living in New York, and apparently very near to her, considering his unit is the one that answers calls from her apartment building.
She wonders how she just watched him get dressed and let him leave, and how eight months feels like forever since she last saw him.
It means something, even if she doesn’t entirely want it to.
--
He hands her Cat, and smirks. “Stay outta trouble, you two.” He says with a wink and a nod, and as he presses a kiss to her forehead there’s so many things she wants to say, but she just can’t find the words, and she knows she’s absolutely ridiculous.
Rachel Berry speechless? Who’d believe that?
She just watches him climb into the fire truck, say something to his buddies that involves hand slaps, and oh god if it’s something completely derogatory like, “oh, I used to bang her on a regular basis” she’s going to find out where he lives and… smother him with a pillow, or something.
She hates him a little bit more when the threat takes a lot longer to come to mind than it should, because it’s too busy conjuring up ideas of him in bed with her and all the amazing things he can do.
--
The second time he comes to her aid is only maybe a little bit on purpose. Okay. So she sort of left her kitchen door open and coaxed the cat towards the luscious green patch of lawn that she is immensely proud to call her own, considering this is New York.
It’s been two weeks. She just can’t get him out of her mind.
And all she has to do is open her kitchen door on a sunny New York day, once she’s dressed in a low cut top and the well worn light blue jeans that she’s had since high school and have always had an effect on him, especially with the holes he wouldn’t let her patch up because he liked sliding his fingers in them just to touch her in some way, all made up, and her cat was out there roaming and sniffing and chasing butterflies and air and all other things she secretly wonders if Brittany does in her free time.
(She wouldn’t voice that out loud, of course, but they’ve all always said Brittany is distracted by the lightest of breezes.)
And sure enough, five minutes later she hears frantic, loud meowing, and sees Cat right up at the top of the tree.
“San? Any chance you’re available right now to supervise the removal of Cat from the tree in the backyard? I’d climb up the ladder, but if I fall to my death, I don’t want to rot away to nothing before someone finds me.”
Santana’s laughing, because she’s a bitch, and she knows that there’s no way in hell Rachel would even contemplate climbing up a ladder to rescue a cat she’s pretty ambivalent about, anyway.
(Honestly. Who in their right minds buys cats as housewarming gifts for New York apartments? Really? Only Finn and Brittany, Rachel’s pretty sure. Not so much about practicality, those two.)
Santana is now cackling. “You just want me to tell you to keep the ladder inside and call the super hot douchebag fireman we went to high school with. Rachel, if you want to get laid, just call the precinct and ask for his number, you whore!”
Rachel rolls her eyes. She really does not appreciate the judgey tone in her best friends voice.
“I don’t want to… just… I… Just shut up, okay?” She says, because she hates how well her best friend knows her.
“And for your information, once again, I do not appreciate being called a whore, when clearly it’s you, with the sexual history of a … hooker.” She says, and smiles proudly at her come back. They’re rare.
“Just call Puck, open the door wearing lingerie and it’s not like he’s going to turn you down. He’s probably had half the women in the city do the same.”
She absolutely does not want to think about that possibility. The burning in her throat and the fast blinks she has to do just to prevent tears tells her that as over her feelings as she thought she may have been, that all that was left was undeniable, irresistible attractive, it’s just not that simple, or that true.
She’s not sure she wants him with anyone else, ever.
She hangs up on her best friend, and dials the number for the local brigade. It hangs on her refrigerator, with all the other emergency numbers she may need. She’s a girl living alone in a big scary city, okay? She’s always going to be prepared. She made Santana one, too, when she came out here.
A man picks up and she tries not to be disappointed that it’s not the voice that makes her heart do funny things. (Like fall sort of in love with him from the moment it begins the opening lines to Sweet Caroline when she’s sixteen and can’t stop it from happening.)
She explains her predicament as the man laughs and promises someone will be there soon to help her. She smiles, picks up a script, and goes to sit on the lawn to wait.
She tries to convince herself not to hope, when there’s only a slim chance it’ll be Puck that appears on her doorstep.
She knows she’s utterly ridiculous. She knows where he works. She knows he must live close by. If she wanted, she could probably have his information with a few key strokes on the Internet or a phone call to Finn.
She just doesn’t want to be that pathetic, desperate girl chasing dreams she should’ve let go of when she boarded a plane for New York and he went somewhere down South for college, or when they said goodbye in the doorway of a hotel room after the wedding of two of their best friends that really should have been the ending of everything, not something that she still thinks about late at night when she lies in bed horribly alone.
She hears the bell ring, and opens the door. His eyes drop immediately to her chest, and she beams a bright smile. She can’t believe this visit is what makes her day.
“You’d think your cat would learn the first time, Rach. Seriously, with all your books and shit, you could train it a little better. Like, to avoid tall trees.”
She rolls her eyes as he ruffles her hair in that way she’s always hated, and heads through her house towards her backyard.
“What can I say? It was a purchase by Finn and Brittany. Wasn’t exactly going to be an Einstein cat.” He laughs and agrees that that has to be true.
He sets up his ladder and starts climbing. She stands there, watching the way his muscles move underneath his tee shirt, longing to just… run her fingers over them, down his back… and then he’s handing the cat to her while she’s still gawking at him like some creepy pervert.
She blinks a few times and wants to slap the amused smile off his face.
She turns around, bends down and picks up the script she’d left lying on the grass, puts her glasses back on.
She notices the way his fingers twitch as if they want to move to touch the holes near the back pocket of her well worn jeans, but he’s obviously learnt some self restraint.
She loves knowing that there’s a part of him still obviously attracted to her, too.
Of all the things she’s always wanted to be, alone has never come close to making the list.
She offers him a glass of water for “all his hard work” and hopes the line doesn’t come across as hopeless as it sounds to her.
He just smirks, leans against her kitchen counter as he looks around her apartment drinking water like some… model.
There’s photos all over her fridge, photos from college of her and Santana and older ones, too. There’s one he runs his fingers over with a half smile on his face, and she cranes her neck around to see which one he’s looking at.
“I’ve always liked that photo.” He says softly, and she smiles, because it’s always been her favourite. It’s buried in her bedside drawer, too. She has a few copies of it, in fact, because she never wants to be without it.
Them asleep, tangled together in a hammock on some random beach vacation Glee Club took together senior year, when everyone got to see that yes, in fact, Puck and Rachel were in some sort of relationship.
She loves how comfortable they look together, wrapped up in each others arms, both with slight smiles on their faces, holding hands and pretty much joined in almost every way.
She doesn’t remember who took that photo, but she’s loved them for it since they gave it to her.
“Me too.” She offers, and he looks at her with a smile.
His pager interrupts whatever moment they’re having, right when she thinks it’s going to be something, that they’re going to talk about feelings and all the other words that are currently stuck in her throat waiting to escape.
He swears and tells her he has to go. He kisses her on the cheek and it doesn’t feel enough.
She can still feel his lips on her cheek an hour later when all the words she should’ve said come rushing to her as she sits at her kitchen counter wondering what to make for dinner.
She wonders if distance hadn’t been such a problem, if their dreams hadn’t momentarily been different, if they’d be like Matt and Quinn now. Married and living happily together with brown haired Jewish babies Santana used to say they’d one day have together. “Mohawks and loud mouths, it’d be trouble all around.” She’d decided, and Rachel had dreamed about it long after it became obvious those dreams weren’t coming true any time in the near future, if ever.
And then she wonders if his self restraint in the backyard today and in the kitchen comes from having someone else in his life, someone who’s erased memories of high thread count cotton sheets in fancy hotel rooms after weddings where he’s known as the one who stole Quinn Fabray’s virtue with a few wine coolers and whispered promises.
She’s Rachel Berry. She sits in her kitchen eating Ben and Jerry’s and obsesses about this life that Puck may or may not be having, with girls who are decidedly not her, and no where near as talented and probably not even Jewish.
Three days later, Santana calls her Mopey McMoperson so many times Rachel decides she needs to do something about it.
So as Cat claws her half to death, realising that tree climbing is not something she should be doing, Santana throws cat treats up in the tree that Cat has no choice but to chase after.
(Definitely a Finn trait, they both agree.)
And Santana calls the fire department once again, and Rachel’s pretty sure she must be the joke of the entire station. They probably have a picture of her and her house up on the bulletin board near the phone saying, “DO NOT RESPOND.” If she wasn’t half in love with Noah, she’d probably be utterly humiliated at this point in time.
But she needs to know if she’s the only one hoping for a future she never quite forgot that came from a relationship they never quite had.
She’s sitting on her kitchen bench with disinfectant wipes to clean up the scratches left by her determined cat, who is undoubtedly sick of this entire situation, but too stupid to avoid shiny things, or food, that seem to wind up with her sitting in the top of a tree with no way down.
Except a handsome fireman with a complicated romantic history with her owner.
Santana laughs her bitchy laugh and swears in Spanish, and that’s how she knows that once again, Puck is at her doorstep, come to rescue her cat from tree top peril.
“I’m beginning to think you’re just turned on by me in my uniform, Berry.” He says as he takes the now familiar route through her kitchen and out into her backyard.
This time, however, he’s clean and in jeans and his FDNY tee shirt, as he climbs the ladder in a matter of seconds and is handing her the cat all too quickly.
“Did you just finish your shift?” She asks, curiously staring at the faded blue jeans he’s wearing, worn a little at the knee.
He nods. “You’re my last call. Figured I could do it on my way home. Saves the truck having to come out with the big ladders.”
“Oh I’m sorry I’m such an inconvenience to your time, Noah Puckerman.” She says bitterly, and tries not to show the fact that his words are actually hurting her in very painful ways.
“You know that’s not true. It’s no problem for me at all.” He’s frustrated.
“You can go now. You’ve done your job. You can go home to your blonde non-Jewish girlfriend who probably has fake boobs and can’t sing and is probably some skeezy waitress at Hooters because she couldn’t aspire to be anything smarter. I won’t bother you again.” She says, and storms inside her house as he lets out a laugh.
She tries not to think about the fact that she knows she sounded insane.
She just gets angry at the fact that he had the nerve to laugh at her while destroying every hope she ever had for the potential of them to be together again one day, properly this time.
He doesn’t come into her room. He doesn’t follow her at all. She hears him talking to her cat for a bit, and then hears the closing of her front door about five minutes later when he obviously realises that she’s trying to die of embarrassment in private and isn’t going to come back out.
Probably back to the blonde girlfriend who doesn’t realise that if it ends, he’s that one person your heart just can’t forget, no matter how many years it’s been between meetings.
--
She’s sweaty and hot and ready to just collapse in the shower and wash the hard work of the day off at home a day later when she leaves her rehearsal and steps into fading sunlight to begin to walk to the subway, stretching sore muscles.
She stops short at the sight of the fire truck just outside the entrance to the theatre.
He’s leaning against it, biceps on display, obviously waiting for her.
He reaches for her hand to pull her closer before she can pull herself away. She knows her cheeks are flaming red as she hears her loud accusations in her ears from the day before and wants to just die some more.
“You really think I’d downgrade to some blonde bimbo who probably couldn’t string a sentence together after I’d had you, B?” He asks, and she’s not sure what that means, but she thinks it might be good.
“God, you walked into Quinn and Matt’s wedding wearing that yellow dress and we spent that night together, how the fuck could I want someone else when I’ve had the fucking best?”
He’s holding her hand, rubbing his thumb over it as he looks her in the eyes.
“That picture on your fridge just kinda reminded me about how we used to feel about each other. Fuck, I pretty much loved you. Think that’s why I ended up in New York. Kinda wanted to see what’d happen if we lived in the same place a while.”
She wants to rip her hand away and pinch herself to make sure this isn’t some dream conjured up from her overactive imagination, but she’s afraid to let go of his hand in case she never gets to feel his touch again.
“Really?” She asks, and he nods in return.
She’s smiling big.
“You really didn’t have to force your stupid cat into that tree, Rach. You coulda just called me. I even fuckin’ wrote my number down like a douche on the hotel receipt you got.”
“No you didn’t.” She says, and she’s pretty confused.
“Yes I did.” He informs her, and all she can see is eight months of potentially wasted time.
She frantically searches her purse for the pieces of paper she can’t make herself throw away.
She finds the hotel bill for that one night that meant more to them than they thought it would when it was initiated over expensive cocktails while people more religious than they sat around saying prayers for the life long happiness of Matt and Quinn. She unfolds the paper and turns it over.
There’s an address and a phone number in scrawl she’ll always recognise.
“Obviously those two daddies of yours were too busy making sure you could sing and dance instead of teaching you to look at both sides of the paper.” He says, and he’s laughing, but she’s really un-amused.
She hits him because she can, and eight months is a hell of a lot of wasted time.
“Noah Puckerman I look like an idiot to your fire fighting buddies, standing there with scratches because my cat was forced into a tree for the third time. It’s not funny!” She’s practically shrieking at him. He’s still laughing.
“Think about it this way, Noah. That’s eight months of wasted time you could’ve had me in your bed.”
He stops laughing.
“Guess we’ve got a lot of time to make up for, then.” He says.
“Might wanna put your cat back in your tree. I get off in half an hour, and you’re gonna be my last call for at least the next two days.”
She definitely likes that idea.