Puckleberry Para || Seperation
The world was out to get her, or at least that’s how it felt to Rachel. Surviving cancer was supposed to be the highlight of her life, now she was wondering why she’d tried so hard at all. Her best friend hated her, for reasons that she couldn’t understand, her husband wouldn’t even touch her, so much for all the money they spent on IVF, all her friends Dani, Artie, Quinn, had deserted her in support of Santana. Nothing Rachel was doing seemed to work in her favor. She could throw herself a pity party, but she had two children who needed her to put on a good front and pretend that everything was okay. It was fucked up, but she would have done anything for the kids. They were all she had. A perfect day spent with Noa had come to a complete hault when Artie had gone after her, only to be followed by making the mistake of picking up Noah’s phone thinking it was her own, to find that it wasn’t, and that clearly the Nannie she’d so carefully hired had more than just her children’s best interest in mind.
Walking into Noah’s man cave, a place he seemed to hide out in more and more lately, she threw the phone into his lap. Unsure of whether she should cry or scream. Yes, they were separating, but they hadn’t seen attornies yet so the D word hadn’t even been spoken of. Or maybe it had and she hadn’t heard him. “Please tell me this is a sick joke” She said as calmly as she could, shutting the door so that the kids couldn’t hear yet another one of their fights. “If you’re sleeping with her, you better tell me right now, Noah because I’m not going to stick around and be your punching bag too! Its bad enough I’m everyone else's.” figuratively his punching bag of course, Noah would never lay a hand on her. “You better tell me right now what’s going on between you and her, right now.”
Looking down into his lap Puck grabbed his phone and unlocked it to see a couple texts from Adriana, the nanny. Clearly this looked bad and to be honest it wasn't the greatest situation to be in right now. Puck read through the recent text messages and luckily he'd deleted all the ones prior or things could have been a lot worse.
“She's just asking if I thought those pictures could make it into a magazine one day. It's no big deal.” He brushed it off. Pictures of your twenty something year old nanny in her bikini was hard to get around but Puck was attempting to do it. Puck locked his phone back, mentally kicking himself for not having a password on the stupid thing.
“Its no big deal? She sent you half naked photos, Noah. She sent her married boss, half-naked photos, its a very big deal.” Having a Nanny in general left Rachel unsettled, but the longer Adriana was their Nanny the more unsettled she became. The two had never exactly gotten along and she’d seen the way she’d stared at Noah. It gave her a sick feeling, a feeling that maybe more was going on that either one would openly admit to.
“I think its time we let her go and find someone a little more equipped for the job, Noa isn’t crazy about her anyway.” And by ‘i think’ she meant it was time. Anything to get rid of her. “This is incredibly inappropriate and who know’s what she’ll send you next….you have to let her go.” When had their marriage become so hot that she couldn’t trust him anymore? “Honestly, I have a right mind to call her up right now and tell her exactly where to go for this...I knew she wasn’t the right fit for this family.”
The texts were inappropriate, Puck knew that. But he wasn't going to admit to anything when technically he hadn't done anything wrong. At least in his mind. “Guess she just wants to be famous. I didn't request the pictures. I'm behind you if you want to fire her.” He agreed. Lately everyone had been against Rachel, so disagreeing with her now would only make things worse.
Puck grabbed the beer from the cup holder beside him taking a sip. “But I think is having a simple conversation with her could fix it.” Puck muttered sitting up in his chair. He paused the game he was currently watching to look at Rachel. It was still crazy to him that he was in this space with her right now. A few years back, he wouldn't have believed anyone who said their marriage would be in this condition right now. “Since you're down here maybe we should talk about...everything.”
“I don't think a conversation will fix all of this, she needs to know that she's the nanny, I don't care how famous we are, she is not part of this. Her job is to take care of the kids on the rare occurrence we can't.” For the first time in her life she didn't believe him, he'd never lied to her before but there was something in her gut telling her that he was keeping something from her. Their marriage wasn't okay, things weren't okay, and right now she doubted they ever would be again.
Sitting down across from him on the arm of one of the recliners she nodded in agreement “I figured we'd do what we did last time when we seperated. You take the apartment in the city and I'll stay here with the kids.” There wasn't any coming back from it this time, she knew she'd lost her husband “...and maybe this time we’ll talk to the lawyers to make it a legal seperation. It's obvious you don't want to be with me anymore, so why stick around and continue to be miserable.”
Puck shook his head. “I don't think lawyers are necessary right now. Let's take it one step at a time.” He finished off his beer looking over at Rachel. He wondered when it was, the exact moment when he stopped feeling complete love and started feeling a host of other feelings about his marriage.
“I guess that's okay, I can stay there for a while and we can just figure things out.” Puck was trying to deflect the conversation away from the texts with Adriana. To tell the truth, it had been over a month of the texts between the two. It was like his sweet little escape from reality.
“If we’re separating, we should do it right….” She knew deep down there wasn’t any coming back from this, so why delay it. She wasn’t about to out right ask for a divorce, but she also wasn’t going to make him any more uncomfortable then he obviously was. “We haven’t even touched each other in months.” A harsh reality for a couple who once couldn’t keep their hands off of one another.
Sighing, she nodded, running a hand through her hair. “That’s what we said last time, and here we are once again.” Was there someone else? She didn’t know for sure, but a part of her felt like there already was. A marriage that once had no secrets, had nothing but them now. “...I’m going to cancel our next round of IVF too, stop with the shots. No sense in trying for another baby, if we don’t know where our marriage stands.”
“I guess I agree on that.” Puck wanted another baby. But it probably wouldn't be smart with the state of their marriage to bring another child into all of this. They were already going to have to explain this to the two little ones they already had. Puck sighed, looking up at Rachel. Her expression seemed so defeated.
“Look, there's no right way of doing this. I don't want to talk to lawyers yet. We just need time apart and we can decide later what we want.” Puck didn't want to think about divorce. He and Rachel had been through so much it was hard to accept the fact that his feelings were starting to change.
“How did we get like this, Noah?” Feeling tears brimming up in her eyes, she wiped at them quickly, not bothering to make eye contact with him. She knew if she did, she’d sob. “We were so happy for so long...we loved each other, being away from each other was hell….now we’re lucky if we have a single conversation all day.”
When had they become that couple. “I thought having cancer would be the hardest thing our marriage would ever go through...now….I just don’t know” She sniffled “We were the couple that was supposed to be the odds...and now...I don’t know.”
Puck stood up from his chair walking over to Rachel, gently rubbing his thumb against her cheeks, wiping at her tears. “We spent so much time together when you were sick. We thought that, that was it but somehow, I dunno.” He shrugged.
“But just because we’re taking a break doesn't mean I don't love you. That would never change.” Puck let Rachel out of his grasp and sat back in his chair. Honestly right now he just had to accept that at the moment this was what was in the cards for them. He looked down into his lap. “I'm sorry Rach.”
“Somehow we became strangers...maybe it was my fault, I had the book tour, and the album...and the damn show.” the show was only the tip of the ice berg really, there had been a lot of problems before that, problems that they’d chosen to sweep under the rug and pretend weren’t there. Until they came back and bit them in the ass.
“After the season ends...after the reunion show, I’m going to break contract.” She’d lost so much because of the show, money meant nothing when you had no one to enjoy it with “..Even if this is the end of us...I don’t want it to ruin anymore then it already has...I don’t want it to hurt the kids...my dads….or Santana anymore then it already has.”
Puck knew Rachel always dreamed of being as star. And to him no one deserved it more. But she was so much more than some reality star, and she was above letting all this stupid game crap go to her head. In a sense he understood her. If the universe hands you even half your dream, you take it. He assumed this was Rachel doing just that.
But clearly when things start crumbling down around you, it's a clear sign that maybe something isn't meant to be. Puck just missed his the way his marriage was before the camera crew and all the crazy extra attention. But things had changed and this separation was going to slowly ease them into their new normal.