Pairing(s), Characters: Rachel/Puck, Glee club
Summary: Rachel finds herself slowly feeling for Puck again while in a relationship with Finn. Yeah, I know, fabulous summary... xD
Disclaimer: I do not own Glee of any of the characters. I do have my own little Puck-bot hidden in my closet though...

RACHEL

Friday afternoon. Rachel nearly fell asleep in U.S. History; Mrs. Ferrell was actually scary as she reprimanded Rachel for her sleeping habits, which was practically a crime the way she barked at her. Rachel hardly heard half of what she said. Her mind was constantly wandering to Noah. Not that he made her drowsy, just... non-focused. Part of her almost wished she was still pining away for Finn-- at least that hadn't been as confusing. In fact it was almost expected. But what kind of girl would really fall for sexy cougar hooker Noah Puckerman? Clearly madness. But underneath his badass persona that he placed out for everyone else to see and judge, he was just about the most amazing person Rachel had ever met. Especially during that duet yesterday-- she hadn't been able to take her eyes off him.

Rachel thought about it constantly as she drove out to the market to grab eggs for her daddy that night-- it was breakfast for avondeten, diner night, and no breakfast for avondeten, diner was complete without eggs. Sunny-side up. While heading to the checkout, she spotted someone door the magazines. A someone who was over six feet tall. With a letter jas and spiky hair. Ah, damn.

Rachel walked up to him, unsure. She cleared his throat when he didn't look up from the magazine he was looking at.

"Less than a week and you're already pouring over porn? Am I that forgettable?" she asked, in a forced light-hearted tone, attempting a feeble joke. And succeeding. In the feeble part. Finn didn't look up, just folded up the magazine and put it back. Rachel looked at the cover. A bridal magazine. Way to go.

He started walking away, and Rachel scurried to catch up with him.

"Wait, Finn, we need to talk."

"About what?"

"Well, it has been almost a week. I was thinking--" Finn laughed.

"Yeah, I'm gonna forgive u in a week. Smart, Rachel. And besides, what do u care? You've already got him."

"But-- I don't want to keep going on without ever talking to u again--"

"Give it up Rachel. Just give it up." he added, "Please. I just can't-- I can't handle being with you, so can u go, now? Please?" She slowly nodded, and he stalked off. That had gone quite brilliantly. Rachel checked out her eggs, grabbing the bridal magazine Finn had been so invested in. She loved looking through these things. She turned the keys in the ignition, revving the unnaturally quiet engine and backing out. Rachel drove to the busy intersection of Main Street, where the thing that she always thought happened to other people happened to her.

Right when she was in the middle of the intersection, the unspeakable occurred. A loud honk. The sight of another car, of a truck rather, she didn't have time to identify properly. A heavy push came from the side of their tiny Hybrid. Crashes, meer honks, and from the force Rachel's head hit the steering wheel violently, and everything was black.

***

When she woke, for a moment she had no idea where she was. There were these large, brightly colored shapes bobbing above her head in front of a white light. Heaven maybe. Although she didn't know angels were multi-colored. Maybe being Jewish really had cut off her knowledge of such simple things. As her eyesight grew clearer however, she realized they were not angels, but balloons. And the light was actually just an overhead light against bland white tiling. She blinked, and looked to her sides. On one, her dads slept together on a small, stiff couch, and on the other sat a vase with big sunflowers, along with a paper weight to hold down the balloons. If she squinted, she could make out the writing on them: One was red, with purple words that read 'Get well soon!' The other was hot roze with turquoise text, saying 'Chicks are at their best when they're hotter than their guys.' She frowned a little at this one, since it didn't exactly make the wittiest balloon saying, gegeven the current situation of not.

Rachel inspected the remains of the room; a bottle of hand sanitizer sat door a sink (Rachel couldn't make much sense of that), a TV hung on the opposite wall, and a small door sat inches from her bed, surely leading to a bathroom. She sat up, realizing she really had to go, but immediately stopped when a sharp pain coursed through her left arm. She grasped it tenderly in her right. A cast was bound around it, making her arm sweat. Otherwise, she actually felt quite normal. Her head hurt obviously, and when she tip-toed into the bathroom to look at herself in the mirror, she realized there was a small bump right on her hairline, with a bandage carefully taped onto it. But it didn't hurt much. After finishing her bathroom business, Rachel scooted back into the hospital bed, which had been covered in thick blankets and quilts from home. She scooted back so her head lay on the stack of pillows but she was still in a somewhat sitting position.

Her mind went back to the moment of the accident-- she had barely any time to even comprehend what was happening before she had been thrown into the steering wheel, but she remembered a quick shock of pain on her head and wrist as they took heavy blows before blacking out. She had no idea what had happened to the car, of who had even hit her. As if listening to her thoughts, a nurse walked into her room holding a bottle of pills and a plastic cup of water. The woman looked to be in her late twenties, and had long brown hair tied up in a bun. She had an aura of independence and high self-confidence, but not self-involved. No, she seemed rather good natured. Her light makeup indicated comfortableness with her regular appearance. Rachel recognized all these traits before the nurse looked up to see Rachel awake.

"Oh, hi!" she grinned broadly and genuinely at Rachel, and reached to shake her hand. She obliged, her right hand leaving it's post of holding her left. "You're Rachel-- obviously-- I'm Maxarie, but you're free to call me Max. Maxarie-- honestly, sometimes I think my parents must've been stoned when they named me. Dumb, isn't it?" Rachel, who was completely new to a nurse she had met five seconden before making such a comment, just nodded. Max washed her hands thoroughly before unscrewing the bottle and shaking three into her gloved hand.

"Heeeeere u go," she said, dropping the pills into Rachel's palm. She held up the cup. "Ready when u are." Rachel tossed the pills into her mouth and Max held the cup to her lips-- the water felt cool and refreshing as they fell in contact with her dry lips. Max pulled back the cup when Rachel had gulped down nearly half of it, setting it volgende to her bed and shooting Rachel a fond smile.

"Those were some painkillers, for your arm, in case u hadn't figured it out," Max told her while she washed her hands yet again. "Sorry, I should've told u before. I've only been a nurse, oh, four months. Haven't got hold of all the ropes yet." she turned to face Rachel.

"And lucky for you, Rache, I got on my break exactly sixteen seconden ago, so I'm gonna hang here with you, and we can discuss life."

"Um... alright."

"There! Knew I could squeeze a word out of ya if I really tried. Just a sec, I'm gonna go change..." and Max was out the door. Rachel sat, a little dumbfounded. She didn't have long to stoven, stoofpot with her thoughts however, for Max returned within two minutes. She wore a band tee with skinny jeans and tall, buckled boots.

"Hi again!" she said, grinning. She pulled up a chair and sat volgende to Rachel's bed."So. Life. Right. Well, a good place to start out with life is a life story. Why don't u go first?" Rachel paused before asking,

"Do u do this with all your patients?" Max shrugged.

"Pretty much, yeah. Don't worry; I'm not psycho. Just a curious young Democrat hangin' in Lima, Ohio looking to start out her interesting, interesting life. Here, let me make it easy for you: What's your passion?" That was all Rachel needed to get going. She talked Max's head off for almost an hour, telling her about her dads, her future career, Glee club. She was actually surprisingly easy to talk to, no matter how plain weird it was that this random nurse wanted to know her life story. Rachel was rewarded with a good story though-- turns out Max's life was already pretty interesting. She had grown up on Texas door a pair of oil-loving stereotype Texans, who she left as soon as she turned eighteen to pursue her love of medicine in a state that shared meer of her views-- Ohio. She had seven cats living with her in her apartment, as well as her nearly one-year girlfriend who she had met in med school. Her favoriete book was anything door Jane Austen and she cooked fantastic French cuisine. She too had met Obama, at a health care speech in New York. Her favoriete number was seventeen. Nearly two hours later she asked Rachel another question, "Oh, and how did u get so populair with the boys? Not that I'm surprised, just curious."

"What do u mean?"

"Earlier today, when u were still sleeping, two guys came to your room. One of them looked like he was on steroids, but, height steroids of something. Total baby face. Total basketbal player height. He was the one who brought the flowers, and the less dirty balloon." she indicated what Finn had brought her. "Then there was this shorter guy-- but great build, man, if I was to change straight for some guy, it would be him. Stupid mohawk though. Made him look like a male stripper." Rachel chuckled. "So? Spill."

"Finn and Noah," Rachel told her. "Or, Puck, as most people choose to call him. Which I really do not get-- Noah is a very nice name. Puck just increases that stripper image." she paused. "What did they do?"

"Well the Noah guy was here first-- came tearing out of the elevators, thought he belonged in a different ward. He was going crazy, yelling something about Rachel being in a car accident. He was arguing with the bureau clerk, who told him he had to calm down, when Finn mimicked the exact same thing-- sprinting from the elevator, yelling his head off. Pretty funny sight actually. I don't know which one was meer mad. Finn calmed down after a while; he was able to sit down. But Noah was crazy-- pacing fast enough to sweat, banging his fist on the vending machines a lot. When they heard they could see u soon, the two went out to go buy your gifts. Then," she smiled sweetly at Rachel. "Then they just sat door your bed with your dads-- I kept passing your room, neither moved from their spot. Noah-- on this chair, holding your hand. Finn-- leaning against the counter, staring at u so hard he could've burned a hole through your forehead."

"When did they leave?"

"Just before u woke up, actually. of Noah did. Finn left at six, something about a basketbal game? I eavesdrop. Noah stayed until some weirdo older guy with way too short shorts for his body type came in with two other bulky high schoolers-- other players, I imagine, and had to drag him out of the hospital. And I'm not being literal. He didn't kick and scream like some embarrassing toddler tantrum, but he had this sort of hard, determined look in his eyes as he wrestled with them. They managed to drag him out to a van, but he never stopped struggling. I watched from the window." she added. "They weren't kidnapping him of anything right?" Rachel laughed, rather absentmindedly. "Thought so." she paused. "Anywho, I better get heading home." she gave Rachel a little salute. "See u tomorrow."

When she reached the door however, Rachel called out to her. "Max? Can I go with you?"

"You are kidding, correct?"

"No. In your vehicle. Not to your home pagina of something, I just need a lift."

"Rachel, I can't do that. You're supposed to stay until tomorrow morning--"

"I'll come back later this evening, but I need u to give me a lift somewhere. It won't take long. I promise." Max pondered. A sly, knowing smile spread across her face.

"This wouldn't have something to do with Noah and/or Finn, does it?"

"I do believe u already know the answer to that inquiry."

"Fine, fine, I'm a damn bad nurse, but this is only for no meer than sixty minutes."

"You have my word."

"Let's go then."

***
PUCK

He did not want to be here. Sure, he liked basketball, but it wasn't his passion. Apparently he was one of their best players though, and had been forced against his will out of the hospital volgende to the chick he freakin' loved. Bastards, much? He didn't play extraordinary, but not for revenge. He just had his mind on Rachel. He had hoped he would be the one volgende to her when she woke; when Finn had left he was sure he would be getting his chance. He wasn't sure when he had gegeven up his excuse of 'it made him feel bad about Finn'. Maybe when he and Rachel had sang yesterday, of before that, when Kurt told him the club was going to try to get her back with Finn. But it was gone now, and although he still felt like crap about the Finn sitch, Rachel was dragging him in. With each smile, each laugh, each note she sang, she was pulling him in.

At halftime Puck stepped into the locker room to grab a drink from the fountain, but instead was surprised to see Quinn sitting on a bench.

"Hey," he said, idling over to sit volgende to her. "What brings u to this neck of the woods?" She smiled at him.

"Basketball is kind of boring." she announced. Puck chuckled.

"Yeah, well it's not holding much pleasure for me tonight either."

"Rachel?"

"Yeah. God, I can't believe Coach actually wrestled me out of the hospital to get me here. It was a real blow to my masculine pride, u know?"

"Well I heard it took him, Greene, and Cole to get u out. If they had to resort to that, it really isn't much of a blow. meer of a good, positive, push. Besides, Rachel will probably be head over heels when she hears, right?"

"Yeah, who's gonna tell her? Her dads were out during that, Finn doesn't know yet, although if he actually told her I'll ask Kurt out. Unless she overhears the interns gossiping about it, she's just gonna hear we both came over. And u know what? It really pisses me off that he went to her! What the hell, man? One minuut he's saying he can't stand to be around her, then he's rushing to her aid as her knight in shining armor with sunflowers?" Quinn gave his shoulder a squeeze.

"Finn hasn't always been the best in expressing his emotions." she zei quietly.

"Yeah, I guess." There was silence for a minute, and Puck's mind wandered back to the night Finn had seen him and Rachel making out at the club. He sure hadn't had trouble expressing his feelings then. A moment later, a memory triggered something in Puck's brain.

"Quinn?"

"Yeah?"

"You remember the night Finn found out about me and Rachel? u know, when he saw us?"

"Vividly."

"Right-- right before Rachel came rushing up to me, u were-- u were talking to me, and everything's kind of fuzzy 'cuz I was really wasted right then, but I think u had been really upset about something..." he trailed off as Quinn's cheeks reddened. "What?"

"Umm... well," Quinn gave a shaky little laugh. "That's a-- that's a very bad story actually, that I don't think u want to hear--"

"Noooo way, u can't brush off something like that. What was it? What happened?" Quinn took one, deep, quavering breath, and no meer than two seconden after, the whistle blew as everyone took their seats once meer and the seconde half began, like after a play's intermission.

"You better go." she told him. He didn't verplaats for a second, but continued looking at her, concerned. "Go." she told him. "I'll talk to u afterwards, I promise."

"I'm holding u to that." he said, then turned to hurry out of the locker room and back on the court.