His Rainbow, Her Sunshine, Their Joy (Glee)
Title: His Rainbow, Her Sunshine, Their Joy
Pairing,Character(s): Quinn, Puck, Drizzle and her parents, A little Artie, Rachel and Finn
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,600
Spoilers: A Tidbit of Theatricality
Summary: Puck and Quinn's little girl gets a very special birthday gift.
A/N: From this prompt at the fluff meme: Quinn and Puck leave a tape of them singing with their daughter's adoptive parents. Somehow, she comes across it 15 years later.
Amongst the gift vouchers and necklaces, the photo frames, books and dvds that Beth Halliday receives for her 15th birthday, sits a small golden box. It’s not large or imposing, or decorated with ribbons and glitter, it isn’t flashy and expensive looking. It’s a delicately wrapped piece of Beth’s past, not that she knows this just from looking, all she knows from looking is that it’s unique. It’s the gift she’s most excited to open, and it’s been 15 years in the making.
Birthdays in the Halliday house always operate to a schedule, the party is for friends, the presents are opened after dinner. As Beth sits at her fathers feet, surrounded in brightly coloured packages, she reaches for the golden box and places it to the side, oblivious to her father tensing, her mother slipping her hand into his. Beth’s birthday haul is pretty good, her Mom keeps telling her how lucky she is, but Beth can’t stop thinking about the golden gift. Apparently, neither can her parents, who keep eyeing the box nervously, it quickly becomes clear who placed it on the table.
For the first time in her life, Beth peels the wrapping paper back from a present carefully, keeping the delicate paper in one piece and placing it to the side. The box itself is clumsily made, the wood is aged and there are glue stains all around the edges. Inside is a Cd case, a sticker proclaiming “An Artie Abrams Production” and a silver disc.
On the screen, a young girl with dark hair, around Beth’s age is fussing around with a piano stool and shouting orders to someone off screen.
“Finn, hurry up and bring the black cloth to put it over the piano!”
“Why do we need this again?”
“It’s for the mood Finn, we want this to be a touching and romantic video, not some trashy music video in a choir room”
“You mean like Run Joey Run?” a tall boy in a brown sweater enters the shot, almost tripping over the stool, Beth is too captivated to laugh.
“No, I…Just bring me the cloth please and where’s Noah?”
“I’m here Berry, quit having kittens,” the third voice is deeper and as Beth’s father slips into the camera’s view, guitar in hand, she feels the blood rushing to her head.
“Ok, Finn, Rachel, clear the set, let’s get this happening.” The voice behind the camera is softer than the other boys,’
“But Artie, I prepared a speech for Beth, and Finn wanted to tell her he made the box in woodshop-
“Rachel, with all due respect, I think this is Puck and Quinn’s time to shine.”
The small brunette crosses her arms and glares somewhere behind the camera before putting on a 1000 watt smile and waving at the lens, she stalks out of the shot, the taller boy following her, offering a shy smile and a clumsy wave of his own.
A boy Beth’s only seen in pictures, not much older than herself looks almost everywhere but the camera as he sits in front of the grand piano. At the whispered suggestion from behind the camera, Noah Puckerman looks into the lens, pale and overwhelmed.
“Um. Hi. I uh, don’t really know what to say here, this whole thing was one of crazy Berry’s ideas and she’s you know, crazy. But I guess if my Dad sent me something once in a while…What I’m saying is, I get it. This is weird. I’m Puck. Noah. I guess your, uh, parents have told you a bit about us and you and the whole, adoption thing. I hope they told you I wanted you, we both did, that we actually, you know, loved you. Future me probably still does, he probably thinks about you a lot. But you need parents, kid, not just two dumb teenagers. Alison and Dan, we met them the other day and they seem cool, hopefully they let you play video games and shit.”
“Noah!” a shout/whisper from off-screen, which Puck ignores.
“So, Berry said I should sing to you, because, what was it?”
“Right, despite my technical flaws, I connect emotionally or some shit. I dunno.”
As her father sits his guitar in his lap, Beth feels her dad place his hand on her shoulder; she doesn’t need to look at her parents to know they’re silently crying. Doesn’t need to feel the warm tears splashing on her own hands to know she is too,
The opening bars are familiar, an old lullaby her dad used to sing when she cried.
“Somewhere, over the rainbow,”
Beth sinks further into her Dad’s legs as the watches a 16 year old boy serenade the daughter he never knew, feels years of anger and sadness and confusion melt away as Noah sings, his voice breaking every now and then as his eyes grow damp and red.
When Noah finishes there is silence, his head drops and his hands fall from his guitar, shaking,
“Someone needs to hug the boy,” Beth’s mom whispers, always a softie.
The soft voice from behind the camera breaks the silence,
“Maybe we should take a break, unless you want to speak now Quinn?”
On the Halliday couch, Beth’s mom inhales sharply, on the floor Beth does the same.
The new voice on the video is quiet, but Beth hears it loud and clear,
“I can’t”
“Quinn,” interjects the tiny loud one, “This could be a very important part of your daughter’s life, I know when I heard my mother’s voice it awakened within me a whole new range of feelings and thoughts I’d never previously encountered.”
“Rachel, contrary to delusional belief, this is not about you. I thought I could do this, but I can’t, I want you to go now.”
“Well my speech was more of an introduction than a follow up but I suppose Artie could edit-
“No, Berry, go as in leave. I want you all to leave, and turn the camera off, Artie.”
The screen goes black. The Halliday family sit in silence for a few moments, before Beth runs to her room.
In the four minutes of alone time Beth gets, she thinks about her family. About her Dad taking her to baseball games; and her Mom giving her those two piano lessons before she quit, the skin-cancer scare her Mom went through, trips to the zoo and the time they went skiing in Canada. She knows she’s lucky, she’s known about the adoption situation since she was 9, her parents are honest with her, and she’s grateful for that. They’ve told her for years that they love her, that her biological parents do too, even if they’re not around. There are many things Beth Halliday knows, but logical thinking can’t combat the pain in Beth’s heart, knowing that Quinn Fabray couldn’t bring herself to say goodbye.
Her Dad almost falls onto her bed, he’s not a graceful man, and he puts his arms around her and holds her petite body to his side.
“You know all the things I want to say. They loved you, we love you, I know it was hard to watch but I think it was important, to see that they cared. I know they think about you all the time, Bethy, they didn’t need to meet you to know how incredible you are.”
Beth gives her Dad a watery smile, he goes to say more but her Mom’s voice carries through the hall,
“Beth, Dan! I think you’d better come watch this!”
The girl on the screen is beautiful, Beth’s seen her before, in pictures, but Quinn Fabray in motion is even prettier. Her eyes are red rimed and her cheeks are blushed and streaked with tears. She sits at the piano stool, apparently alone, until the boy from behind the camera speaks to her once more, gently, kindly.
“Quinn? Are you sure you want to do this?”
Quinn Fabray looks up and cocks an eyebrow at the camera,
“Of course, I don’t want her to think I hate her. She needs to know that I’m sorry, for before and for giving her up and for making her part Puckerman.” Both she and the boy laugh,
“I know your parents will look after you, I was very picky with the selections, decisions like that need to be made with care. I hope you do music, I should never have stopped playing the piano. I think you should read books, even if it’s not Tolstoy, you don’t need to be a genius like Artie here, but you should try to know things about the world. If you ever meet a woman named Sue Sylvester, hug her and then run away. She’s scary, but she taught me many things. I’m sorry your mother is a 16 year old pregnant Lima loser and your father calls himself Puckzilla, I hope you get the good bits of us, I promise you there are some. I…”
As Quinn starts to cry, (Beth had already started well before) the kind boy comes out from behind the camera in a wheelchair and puts his hand on Quinn’s.
“You can stop, if you need to,”
“She needs to know that I’m not…she needs to know how sorry I am.”
“She knows,”
“And that I do love her.”
“She knows that too Quinn, I promise.”
Beth Halliday, in front of her TV, 15 years after, nods her head absently.
On the screen, a heavily pregnant Quinn Fabray crumples in the arms of Artie Abrams and cries as he begins to hum.
It takes a moment before Quinn sniffles and a sad smile creeps onto her face, she begins to sing along.
“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy, when skies are grey
You never know dear, how much I love you
Please don’t take my sunshine away.”
Several pieces of Noah Puckerman and Quinn Fabray are passed onto their daughter, she has her mother’s eyes, hates math like her father, and after her 15th birthday she goes back to her Mom’s piano, determined to learn two songs in particular.