you belong with me

chapter 12

A lot of Puck and Rachel in this chapter. It's needed for the story. I promise a lot of Finchel will be coming up!

One could always tell when it was a Sunday morning in the Berry household. Hiram would always be in the kitchen cooking up some breakfast for the family while Leroy would be in the family room watching the morning news and reading the Sunday paper, complaining about something to do with the current economy. The Berry's were usually at their happiest on Sunday mornings, except for this particular one.

Rachel sat at the dining room table as Hiram cooked in the next room over. She let out a long sad sigh as she slowly drank from a glass of water. She couldn't clear her mind long enough to enjoy the usual Berry mornings.

"Something on your mind, darling?" Hiram asked as he put bread in the toaster.

Rachel looked towards her father and smiled. "No, I'm fine. Just didn't sleep that well, I guess."

"Oh, okay," he replied. "Maybe you should get to bed a little early tonight."

"I will, don't worry," Rachel said to him. She hated lying to her father, she really did, but trying to explain her boy problems to her dad didn't seem very ideal. She thought back to the events of the night before. Of course he would wait until things were finally working out with Puck to come back. That is, if he was actually serious about changing. Rachel wanted to be with Finn, of course she did, but she didn't think she could trust him that much again. Not yet at least.

"Rachel?" Hiram's voice interrupted her thoughts. "Will you tell your father that breakfast is ready?"

"Sure," Rachel replied and got up to walk towards the family room. She expected to see Leroy in his usual place, sitting in his armrest reading the paper, however, she found him sitting on the floor flipping through some old photographs. "What are you doing?" she asked him, sitting on the floor next to him.

Leroy looked up from his task for a moment before returning his attention to the photo album. "I'm looking for that one picture of you and your cousin Lilly playing in our backyard together when the two of you were little. Do you remember that picture? It was right around the time you first went to Bowman Park downtown."

Rachel barely recalled the picture, "Yeah, I think I remember it, but it's probably back a little further in this album." She flipped through a couple more pages in the book before stopping at a certain picture.

"Aww," Leroy said, noticing the same picture. "I remember that day like it was yesterday."

It was a picture of Rachel with Finn and Puck at her side on her 10th birthday. She remembered how happy the three of them were together, and she longed to have that feeling back again.

"That was so long ago, but it only seems like it was yesterday," Leroy commented, "Doesn't it?"

"Yeah," Rachel agreed, her eyes locked on the picture, particularly the part with her and Finn. Her mind flickered back to the reason why she came over in the first place. "Hey, breakfast is ready. We can look for the picture afterwards."

"Okay, Rachel," Leroy said, shutting the photo album.

Rachel lingered in her spot on the floor for a moment before joining her fathers in the dining room. Things were starting to get much more complicated.

Rachel rushed towards her cell phone as she heard it ringing later that afternoon. She read the name that appeared on the caller ID, Noah Puckerman.

"Hey, Puck, what's up?" she asked as she took a seat on the edge of her bed. Truthfully, she was thankful Puck was calling her. She hadn't heard from him in a while and in that moment she needed a little reassurance that at least one relationship of hers was going well.