These strange steps

30

When she wakes up the next day, on a pillow that smells like Quinn, it's already light out, and a glance at her alarm clock reveals that she's slept until about eight for the first time in years.

If that's not a sign of something, she honestly doesn't know; but it's reason enough to tuck Orphan Annie under her arm and head downstairs, where coffee has already brewed for her after Quinn showed her how to use the timer on her newfangled coffee maker in the last few days.

There's a half-open copy of the Times on the kitchen counter that serves as a practical reminder that someone not her was in her house, this weekend, because the crossword is filled in with pen and she traces the letters for a moment while taking her first few blissful sips of coffee.

Then, she feeds the cats, and heads out into the back yard with a yardstick, and starts measuring out her vegetable plot. It's way too late in the season for her to start growing anything really appetizing-and she shudders, because it's probably fucking asparagus season-but she can at least start working on the space she wants to use, a little.

An hour later, she's still standing here in just her coat and some Ugg slippers that Kurt got her for Christmas two years ago, and she's visualized the entire yard the way it needs to be; including a fantasy of a hammock between two of her apple trees, where they can sway-together or alone-in summer evenings and talk about their respective days...

... which reminds her that it's time to call Puck.

She needs to start working on having a day to talk about.

...

He shows up about three hours later, with a six pack of Coors and a guitar case, and says, "Custom just got in this morning, your timing's awesome."

"Can I see it?" she asks, even though he's bound to say yes, given that she paid for it.

He nudges her into the living room and then heads down to their studio space automatically; it's still pretty empty, but they've put in a few acoustic amplifiers and a mixing board that Puck bought off a friend he used to teach guitar lessons with, and a few microphones and other things that are wired into-well, hell, she doesn't know.

So many years of working in this industry, and this is still just pure wizardry to her; but Puck sits down on a stool and then shoves the second one her direction; it wheels to a halt in front of her, and she sits down and watches as he pops open the guitar case, before stroking his new axe.

Rachel laughs, at her own thoughts. "Does anyone actually call their guitar an axe?"

"Slash, maybe," Puck says, before picking it up and then looking at her for a second. "You can be my tuning fork, Miss Perfect Pitch."

She smiles at him, and he gets the string close to the E he wants and then lets her softly 'ahhh' until the first string is in tune. The rest, he tunes relatively, and then he lets his fingers dance across the strings for a moment, licking out a few blues riffs and then a small solo, and then he just looks at her again.

"What are we playing?"

She starts laughing after a moment, and shrugs helplessly, and he laughs as well and puts the guitar back down and reaches for the beer.

"All right, well, maybe we should talk about that shit first and then we can get back to messing around."

...

Two bottles and some idle chit chat about Puck's super and the cute girl that moved into the apartment down the hall later, and he looks at her and says, "Have you even been listening to music lately? Because your house has been real fucking silent for a long time now."