I Always Hoped
I Always Hoped
(This is the link to the story on ff.net if you prefer to read it on there.)
Being harassed by Jacob Ben Israel first thing in the morning on the first day back at school had put Puck in a foul mood. He was seriously regretting punching the stupid camera instead of Jacob’s face. Striding down the hallway of McKinley High, he smirked at the familiar smell of fear in the air as his fellow students nervously averted their gazes. A band geek nearby made the mistake of looking up from his music sheet and without any hesitation, Puck emptied his grape slushie into the boy’s face before continuing towards his locker.
“Noah Puckerman!”
The conversations around him quickly died down as everyone turned with confused expressions to identify the source of this peculiar sound. Puck winced at the use of his full name. Aside from his mom and his sister, Rachel was the only other person allowed to say his first name and that was because she was a hot Jew. If it had been anyone else, Puck would have been pissed off at their lack of respect (didn’t their parents ever teach them not to use offensive language in public?) but he recognised this voice.
Leaning against his locker, Puck crossed his arms defensively as the irate blonde stormed up to him. Even though she was no longer a Cheerio and had been sitting at the bottom of the social ladder for months now, her icy glare was still capable of sending people running. When she was satisfied that they had enough privacy, she focused her attention on Puck again who simply acknowledged her in silence. He was almost certain she had been avoiding him this summer - let’s face it, it’s damn near impossible not to run into someone at least twice a day in Lima - and if she wanted to talk to him now then she had to make the first move.
In an attempt to control her anger, Quinn started slowly counting to ten in her head but by the time she had reached six, she exploded at him. “Seriously, Puck, are you actually an idiot? This has to be the stupidest thing you have ever done!” she shrieked. Realising that everyone was staring at them again, Quinn dropped her voice to a whisper and hissed, “What on earth could have possibly possessed you to get a... a vasectomy?”
Furrowing his eyebrows in confusion, Puck was completely caught off-guard by her question. To be honest, he didn’t think that she would even find out about his summer surgery let alone care. Actually, how did she find out about it? When it dawned on him, Puck quickly capitalised on what he hoped was a way out of this conversation because Quinn would either end up walking away from him or forgetting the topic altogether as she yelled at him and then walked away.
“I never would have guessed that you were a fan of Jacob’s blog,” Puck commented, contrasting his innocent tone with the trademark smirk pulling at the corners of his lips. “Am I really so damn irresistible that you have to cyber-stalk me now?” He felt a sense of triumph when Quinn pursed her lips together and narrowed her eyes at him. “Or were you just checking on your ‘social reject’ status?”
She ignored his lame attempt at distracting her - after all, she had plenty of practice last year at tuning out the negative remarks - and sighed in frustration. “I know you, Puck, and I’m not going to fall for your crap. You can act like a jerk all you want but I’m not letting this go until you give me an explanation.” Quinn’s hazel-green eyes pleaded softly into Puck’s stubborn ones as she tried again. “Tell me that you at least thought this through properly before doing it. Did you consider your future? Don’t you want to have a family?”
“I had a family!” snapped Puck. “I had a beautiful baby girl and nobody can ever take her place.” Turning towards his locker, he threw his fist into the metal door, relieving some of the anger and hurt and pain that he had built up over the summer. “Last time I checked, I didn’t owe you anything, Quinn. You are not my girlfriend. You made that perfectly clear this summer when you refused to return any of my calls or messages after I told you that I loved you... in front of our daughter. And I was stupid enough to think it had actually meant something to you.”
Puck leaned against his locker, breathing heavily as he waited for Quinn’s reaction. The hallway had become silent but neither of them paid any attention to their audience. Quinn had dropped her gaze towards the floor so he couldn’t see her face but Puck swore that he had heard her sniffle and took a small, tentative step forward. Gently cupping her cheek with his hand, he could feel the tears that had fallen seconds before.
Placing her hand over his, Quinn removed it from her cheek but she didn’t let go. Instead, her gaze was fixated on their intertwined hands. “Just tell me,” she whispered in a voice thick with emotion. When she finally looked up at him, he could see that her eyes were filled with a sad anguish. “Why?”
“I was hurting,” Puck murmured softly. “I kept telling myself that we did the right thing by giving her up but it didn’t make me feel any better. I just... I miss her so much.” He shut his eyes tightly, willing himself not to cry in front of the entire school but when he felt Quinn squeeze his hand encouragingly, he continued. “When I didn’t hear from you after the first two weeks, I thought I had lost you as well and it killed me. I didn’t ever want to feel this pain again and there was enough money from the pool cleaning service so I-”
“I’m sorry.” Quinn brushed away her tears with the back of her free hand and struggled to keep her voice steady. “I know that this sounds like a lame excuse but I needed time to deal with everything. It was really important for me to fix things with my mom and...” She trailed off, taking a deep breath before she forced herself to meet his eyes. Despite the fact that he was trying to be understanding, Quinn could see that he was hurt. “Puck, I thought about you all summer but I needed to know for sure that even though... Beth was gone, our feelings for each other were still there - still real.”
“Do you know how many MILFs came onto me this summer?” Puck smirked. He softened it into a smile and chuckled lightly when Quinn arched an eyebrow at him. “What I meant was... you’re the only MILF I’ve been thinking about.”
The smiles on their faces only lasted a brief moment before Quinn’s expression crumpled and concern flooded Puck’s features. He didn’t get a chance to ask her what was wrong because she started rambling frantically straight away. Although there had been one or two times in the past when Quinn was close to breaking point, she had always managed to hold herself together. He had never seen her like this.
“This is my fault,” whispered Quinn, biting her lip to keep from crying again. “I should have told you that I needed space. I didn’t think about how it would look from your point of view. If you had known that I hadn’t given up on us then you wouldn’t have gotten that vasectomy and we would still have our second chance.” She stopped, breathless, and wrapped her arms around his waist, resting her head against his chest. Puck was still confused but he held her in his arms and patiently waited for her sobs to subside. “I always thought that if we could finally get it right between us then we could have another Beth, or maybe even a Jack Daniels. I always hoped that we would have a second chance.”
Puck felt as if his heart had been ripped out of his chest. There was a part of him that wanted to punch his locker over and over again until his hand was bloodied and broken while another part of him just wanted to get the hell out of here so he could cry by himself. For now though, he simply tightened his hold on Quinn as they thought about what could have been.
“Mommy, did you see how high I flew?”
Quinn smiled adoringly at the three year old girl running towards her. She leaned forward and lifted her daughter onto the park bench before taking out a tissue and dabbing at the sweat on her forehead. “Yes, I did, sweetie. You were so brave. I wish I could play with you on the swings,” she pouted as she rested a hand on her bump of seven months. “Are you tired now?”
The little girl shook her head, swinging her blonde ponytail, and grinned at her mother. “I missed you, Mommy.” Puck walked up to his two favourite girls and cleared his throat to get their attention, raising his eyebrows playfully at their daughter. “We missed you,” she corrected with a giggle as he sat down beside them and moved her onto his lap.
“I want to play too,” whined Quinn, looking longingly at the playground. She turned to face her husband who was watching her in amusement. “It’s not fair. I carried her for nine months and had to endure a very painful eighteen-hour birth yet you get to have all the fun.”
Puck chuckled and dropped his gaze towards their daughter. “Mommy’s upset. What should we do to cheer her up?” he asked, knowing what her answer was going to be before it left her lips.
The little girl scrunched up her face in concentration and then her hazel eyes lit up with excitement. “Daddy, you need to kiss Mommy,” she told him brightly. “She really likes it when you kiss her. It always makes her happy.”
“That is a brilliant idea, honey,” praised Puck as he smirked teasingly at his wife. “Let’s try it and see if it works.” He leaned in towards a blushing Quinn but just as their lips were about to meet, their daughter’s voice interrupted them.
“Daddy, look, ice-cream!” she squealed happily.
Laughing lightly at her husband’s disappointment, Quinn gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and then bent down to look at their little girl. “You can only have one ice-cream, okay?” Quinn told her firmly but she couldn’t stop her lips from breaking out into a smile at her daughter’s reply which consisted of an adorably enthusiastic nod.
“We can buy Mommy ice-cream,” she told her father happily. “Ice-cream makes her smile too. I saw her eat a big tub of it yesterday!”
“You told me I forgot to buy the ice-cream!” Puck shot her an accusing look and Quinn gave him a sheepish smile in return. “Come on, sweetie. Let’s go buy Mommy an extra-small ice-cream.” He smirked playfully at Quinn as he moved their daughter off of his lap and onto the ground.
“Hey!” Quinn protested, hitting her husband on the arm lightly. “I’m eating for two here. We Fabray girls like our ice-cream.” She found Puck’s lips on hers a second later and smiled into the kiss. When he pulled away from her, Quinn melted under the tender gaze of his hazel eyes. They had been together for eight years now but he still made her feel like the luckiest girl in the world every day. “I love you.”
Puck grinned happily at her and kissed her again. “I love you too, Quinn.” He stood up from his seat and crouched down to give their daughter a piggyback before they made their way over to the ice-cream van.
Quinn relaxed into the park bench, rubbing her baby bump as she blissfully watched her husband and daughter.
And then they blinked.
Finished