Wonderwall [9/10]
Title: Wonderwall [9/10]
Author: only_because3 or jeytonbrucasnaley
Pairing: Quinn/Puck/Rachel
Word Count: 2098
Rating: T
Summary: "Just because I got out of this rinky dink town doesn't mean my dreams magically came true."
Author's Note: Oh my god! Look! An update! Only took me a little over a year to upload again! Anyway, this chapter is pretty short and is mainly just setting up everything that's going to happen in the final chapter (which should be up before the year's over. And I know I said that last time but I actually have a solid idea as to where I definitely want to take this). If there are any of you still reading, enjoy!
--
She just wants to sleep. She’s tired of thinking and caring and every single movement she makes seems to be rejected by her body. There is nothing left in her stomach yet it threatens to leap from her throat. “Oh, my baby.” She peeks open an eye as her dad pushes stringy hair from her eyes. “You’re disappearing right in front of me.” His hand tenderly touches her shoulder, her arm, her hip, cups the back of her knee.
She brings her knees closer to her body, muscles feeling like they’re being pulled past their limit, and whines. “What am I doing?” Her father continues to pet her hair in the same way he used to when she was younger and she tries not to analyze the way he sighs.
“Do you remember the first time we went to Chicago,” he asks and she’s too tired to remember anything other than the last few months. “We saw quite a few shows… You fell in love with Chicago before you set foot in New York.”
“I haven’t been there since high school,” Rachel murmurs through gritted teeth.
Her father redistributes his weight. “Are you happy here?” It feels like her entire body is laying on broken glass as she rolls away from the man who raised her. “Rachel?” She shoves her face into the pillow, a scream tearing through her throat as she starts sobbing. She’s not even sure there are tears spilling from her cheeks (she’s cried so much already) but she cries harder when her dad tries to hold her, his arm wrapping around her waist. His hand brushes the skin of her stomach and she vomits onto the sheets.
--
She meets him in the middle of the supermarket where Carol worked when he was a kid. Caroline is on her knees in front of the cereal, fingers tapping against a box of Captain Crunch and a box of Fruity Pebbles. “How am I supposed to pick just one,” Caroline asks Noah, turning the boxes around to look at the games on the back and Rachel lets all the air escape her body.
He puts an arm around her shoulders when she’s close enough and when he presses his lips to her temple, she very quietly, very simply says, “I’m not going through with it.”
Caroline starts babbling about the pros of Fruity Pebbles as Noah’s arm slips down, the bag of chips in his other hand crunching loudly. “Did-” He stops himself, hands relaxing. He takes a deep breath. “What changed?” Caroline turns her attention to the Captain Crunch and Rachel can’t think of anything to say that won’t lead to a fight so she shrugs. “Quinn talk to you?”
“This doesn’t… that’s not why-”
“Don’t lie to me, Rachel.”
She sucks in a breath, takes a step back from him and squares her shoulders. “After careful consideration, I think that this is what’s best for all of us.”
He shakes his head. “That’s bullshit. You want that baby! I want that baby,” he yells, pointing at her stomach.
“I didn’t say that we didn’t. Want isn’t the problem here.” Caroline is looking between them now, hands clasped against her lap. “We shouldn’t-”
“What did she say to you? I know it was something she said something.” Caroline presses herself up against the cereal boxes.
“It doesn’t matter. Look at me.” Her greasy hair is pulled into a frizzy bun on top of her head and he notices for the first time just how much sharper her features have become, how dark the area around her eyes are. “Look at us.” He scratches at his jaw, he hasn’t shaved in days, glances down at the clothes he’s worn for nearly a week. “We’re miserable, Noah.”
“We don’t fucking have to be. We’ll be okay if Quinn would just-”
“Then go talk to her,” she says softly, rubbing the back of her neck. “Go ahead and grab both, Caroline.”
The little girl’s eyes light up and Rachel knows that she shouldn’t be encouraging the thought that Caroline could have anything she wanted. “Really?”
Rachel nods, licking her lips as she reaches out for Noah’s hand and he pulls her flush against him. It’s overwhelming but comforting and he whispers that he’s going to fix this. She laughs and pushes him away, sniffing. “I’m the one fixing this,” she says. Caroline’s tiny arms wrap around the two boxes of cereal, the boxes nearly as big as her. Try as she might to clasp her hands together, she can’t reach, the box of Captain Crunch falling to the floor.
--
“Where is our daughter,” Quinn asks when she opens the door to find Noah pacing in the hall. His head snaps to look at her and she shrinks back, fingers curling around the door. Puck has never hit her before, never even went as far as to raise a hand to her, but over the past 4 years she’s seen the look in his eyes; he wishes desperately that he could punch her. Quinn knows she can be a cunt, that it really is a testament to the man he is that he’s only used his voice against her.
“What the fuck did you say to Rachel?”
She squares her shoulders and blinks as Noah fills the doorframe. “I told her that she could have you.”
He punches the door frame and she refuses to flinch. “To fuck with her? I knew you were manip-”
“I did it to fix this god damn mess,” she practically screams.
A door down the hall opens, a man they’ve never seen before stepping out with his arms across his chest. “There a pro’lum or ya gonna can it?”
Quinn moves just enough to let him pass the threshold. He keeps trying to look her in the eye but she hangs her head and rubs the back of her neck. “I love you. I love her. I want you two to be happy so I gave her an out. I was going to leave and talk to you when she said she’d…” It’s suddenly hard for her to say now that it’s so overwhelmingly final. The appointment is made, 3 o’clock tomorrow afternoon, the final nail in the coffin.
Noah still doesn’t look like he trusts her and she can’t blame him. “You didn’t say anything else to her?”
Quinn shakes her head. “I was trying to leave.” She falls against the door, her head bouncing against the wood and she closes her eyes. “Is Caroline with her?”
“Yeah,” he croaks. He stands in the middle of the place they’ve begrudgingly called home for years now, looking just as disheveled and ruined as the first day they moved in. “She made us better.”
“We ruined her,” Quinn says, nodding even when Noah starts shaking his head. “We fucking sucked before her and we just… We dragged her down with us.”
Noah walks up to her, his hands gripping her hips in a way he hasn’t in what feels like so long. His thumbs push up her shirt and find her skin, rubbing circles against her bones. “She brought us up,” he asserts. “We could… We could finally do right, Quinn.”
She chokes out a bitter laugh, her hands wrapping around his wrists, nails digging into his skin. “Right? If anything we were doing was right, there wouldn’t be a problem.”
“Fuckin’ a, Quinn.” His arms drop back down to his sides, his shoulders still tense. “This could be our do over, don’t you see that? All the shit we wish we’d done. All the shit we wish we didn’t do. I could be the kind of dad I knew I should be.”
She presses the heel of her hands against her eyes when her vision starts to blur. “If we’re talking about righting wrongs, then Rachel shouldn’t have this baby. That’s pretty much where we fucked up, right?” His fists clench but he doesn’t yell at her for it because he knows it’s true. “For god’s sake Noah, do you really think this new baby will help make up for the shit we already put Caroline through? You should be wanting to fix things for her, not showing her she wasn’t good enough to try harder for.” Slipping past him, she shakes her head and goes to their bedroom, the one she has been fitfully sleeping in since her lovers left. Quinn slumps in the doorframe. She has never felt at home in this place and now just the sight of her room, with the ghosts of memories taunting her, makes her skin crawl. She wants out. “Aren’t you tired? I’m so tired.” She can feel him standing behind her and she wishes he’d touch her again. It’s going to have to last her a long time. “I don’t even know why you’re here. I’m not the one you need to be talking to.”
Hesitantly, his arms wrap around her waist. She hates that it feels a little easier to breathe. “The only thing I’ve ever been able to give you is our daughter,” she sighs. “Don’t be an idiot and stay with me when she can give you more.”
“So, what, I can prove you right?”
She closes her eyes as she lets her head fall to his chest. “Don’t put words in my mouth.” Quinn takes a big breath, laces her fingers with his where they sit low on her belly. “If you chose her, you are not your father. I will not think any less of you. I will love you just the same.”
“I promised her everything would work out.”
She blindly cups his cheek. “You should know better than making promises you can’t keep.”
His head turns in her hand and he kisses her palm.
--
“Hey, bug.” Caroline jumps off her bed when she sees her dad standing in the doorway, hugging herself to his legs before he picks her up. “Your mom is downstairs. Why don’t you go see her and get ready to go home?”
“Are you coming home too, Daddy?”
Rachel can feel him looking over at her but she stays focused on packing the suitcase in front of her. “Yeah,” he sighs. “I’m coming home too.” Caroline squeals and kicks to be put down. The second her feet hit the ground she starts to take off down the hall only to sharply turn back around. She runs up to Rachel’s bed and climbs up before launching herself at Rachel.
“Now you just need to come home too!” Caroline’s hands excitedly tap on Rachel’s back as they hug. “I love you, Aunt Rachel.”
The lump swells in her throat and she tries not to start shaking. “I love you too, sweetheart.” Noah closes the door when Caroline leaves and Rachel has every intention of not looking at him until she’s finished packing her suitcase. He walks closer to her, choking on her name before he falls to his knees. “Noah,” she breathes out as his arms wrap around her thighs.
“I’m sorry,” he cries, fingertips digging into her aching muscles.
She cradles his head in her arms and strokes the back of his neck as he tries to bring her even closer. Her t-shirt is soaked by the time he looks up at her. Immediately her hands travel to his face, wiping away tears that are replaced as quickly as they’re removed. “It’s okay.” He shakes his head as she nods hers. “It is, Noah. I promise.”
“I promised you everything would work out.” His hands push her shirt up as they move to her waist. She tenses. Her stomach is something she’s tried to ignore, both because the thought of what’s growing underneath and because she’s been sick for what feels like forever. But when Noah’s lips press against the skin just below her bellybutton, she tries to pull him closer.
There’s no space between them but it still doesn’t feel close enough.
“Everything is working out. Just not like…” She swallows hard, closing her eyes for a moment. Three deep breaths later, she cups Noah’s chin, forcing him to look up at her. “It’s okay. I love you.”
He repeats that it’s not okay until she drops to the ground. He buries his face in the crook of her neck and she kisses the skin in front of her, trying to convince herself she’s not crying either. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees her half packed suitcase. She bites down where shoulder and neck meet, closing her eyes.
Author: only_because3 or jeytonbrucasnaley
Pairing: Quinn/Puck/Rachel
Word Count: 2098
Rating: T
Summary: "Just because I got out of this rinky dink town doesn't mean my dreams magically came true."
Author's Note: Oh my god! Look! An update! Only took me a little over a year to upload again! Anyway, this chapter is pretty short and is mainly just setting up everything that's going to happen in the final chapter (which should be up before the year's over. And I know I said that last time but I actually have a solid idea as to where I definitely want to take this). If there are any of you still reading, enjoy!
--
She just wants to sleep. She’s tired of thinking and caring and every single movement she makes seems to be rejected by her body. There is nothing left in her stomach yet it threatens to leap from her throat. “Oh, my baby.” She peeks open an eye as her dad pushes stringy hair from her eyes. “You’re disappearing right in front of me.” His hand tenderly touches her shoulder, her arm, her hip, cups the back of her knee.
She brings her knees closer to her body, muscles feeling like they’re being pulled past their limit, and whines. “What am I doing?” Her father continues to pet her hair in the same way he used to when she was younger and she tries not to analyze the way he sighs.
“Do you remember the first time we went to Chicago,” he asks and she’s too tired to remember anything other than the last few months. “We saw quite a few shows… You fell in love with Chicago before you set foot in New York.”
“I haven’t been there since high school,” Rachel murmurs through gritted teeth.
Her father redistributes his weight. “Are you happy here?” It feels like her entire body is laying on broken glass as she rolls away from the man who raised her. “Rachel?” She shoves her face into the pillow, a scream tearing through her throat as she starts sobbing. She’s not even sure there are tears spilling from her cheeks (she’s cried so much already) but she cries harder when her dad tries to hold her, his arm wrapping around her waist. His hand brushes the skin of her stomach and she vomits onto the sheets.
--
She meets him in the middle of the supermarket where Carol worked when he was a kid. Caroline is on her knees in front of the cereal, fingers tapping against a box of Captain Crunch and a box of Fruity Pebbles. “How am I supposed to pick just one,” Caroline asks Noah, turning the boxes around to look at the games on the back and Rachel lets all the air escape her body.
He puts an arm around her shoulders when she’s close enough and when he presses his lips to her temple, she very quietly, very simply says, “I’m not going through with it.”
Caroline starts babbling about the pros of Fruity Pebbles as Noah’s arm slips down, the bag of chips in his other hand crunching loudly. “Did-” He stops himself, hands relaxing. He takes a deep breath. “What changed?” Caroline turns her attention to the Captain Crunch and Rachel can’t think of anything to say that won’t lead to a fight so she shrugs. “Quinn talk to you?”
“This doesn’t… that’s not why-”
“Don’t lie to me, Rachel.”
She sucks in a breath, takes a step back from him and squares her shoulders. “After careful consideration, I think that this is what’s best for all of us.”
He shakes his head. “That’s bullshit. You want that baby! I want that baby,” he yells, pointing at her stomach.
“I didn’t say that we didn’t. Want isn’t the problem here.” Caroline is looking between them now, hands clasped against her lap. “We shouldn’t-”
“What did she say to you? I know it was something she said something.” Caroline presses herself up against the cereal boxes.
“It doesn’t matter. Look at me.” Her greasy hair is pulled into a frizzy bun on top of her head and he notices for the first time just how much sharper her features have become, how dark the area around her eyes are. “Look at us.” He scratches at his jaw, he hasn’t shaved in days, glances down at the clothes he’s worn for nearly a week. “We’re miserable, Noah.”
“We don’t fucking have to be. We’ll be okay if Quinn would just-”
“Then go talk to her,” she says softly, rubbing the back of her neck. “Go ahead and grab both, Caroline.”
The little girl’s eyes light up and Rachel knows that she shouldn’t be encouraging the thought that Caroline could have anything she wanted. “Really?”
Rachel nods, licking her lips as she reaches out for Noah’s hand and he pulls her flush against him. It’s overwhelming but comforting and he whispers that he’s going to fix this. She laughs and pushes him away, sniffing. “I’m the one fixing this,” she says. Caroline’s tiny arms wrap around the two boxes of cereal, the boxes nearly as big as her. Try as she might to clasp her hands together, she can’t reach, the box of Captain Crunch falling to the floor.
--
“Where is our daughter,” Quinn asks when she opens the door to find Noah pacing in the hall. His head snaps to look at her and she shrinks back, fingers curling around the door. Puck has never hit her before, never even went as far as to raise a hand to her, but over the past 4 years she’s seen the look in his eyes; he wishes desperately that he could punch her. Quinn knows she can be a cunt, that it really is a testament to the man he is that he’s only used his voice against her.
“What the fuck did you say to Rachel?”
She squares her shoulders and blinks as Noah fills the doorframe. “I told her that she could have you.”
He punches the door frame and she refuses to flinch. “To fuck with her? I knew you were manip-”
“I did it to fix this god damn mess,” she practically screams.
A door down the hall opens, a man they’ve never seen before stepping out with his arms across his chest. “There a pro’lum or ya gonna can it?”
Quinn moves just enough to let him pass the threshold. He keeps trying to look her in the eye but she hangs her head and rubs the back of her neck. “I love you. I love her. I want you two to be happy so I gave her an out. I was going to leave and talk to you when she said she’d…” It’s suddenly hard for her to say now that it’s so overwhelmingly final. The appointment is made, 3 o’clock tomorrow afternoon, the final nail in the coffin.
Noah still doesn’t look like he trusts her and she can’t blame him. “You didn’t say anything else to her?”
Quinn shakes her head. “I was trying to leave.” She falls against the door, her head bouncing against the wood and she closes her eyes. “Is Caroline with her?”
“Yeah,” he croaks. He stands in the middle of the place they’ve begrudgingly called home for years now, looking just as disheveled and ruined as the first day they moved in. “She made us better.”
“We ruined her,” Quinn says, nodding even when Noah starts shaking his head. “We fucking sucked before her and we just… We dragged her down with us.”
Noah walks up to her, his hands gripping her hips in a way he hasn’t in what feels like so long. His thumbs push up her shirt and find her skin, rubbing circles against her bones. “She brought us up,” he asserts. “We could… We could finally do right, Quinn.”
She chokes out a bitter laugh, her hands wrapping around his wrists, nails digging into his skin. “Right? If anything we were doing was right, there wouldn’t be a problem.”
“Fuckin’ a, Quinn.” His arms drop back down to his sides, his shoulders still tense. “This could be our do over, don’t you see that? All the shit we wish we’d done. All the shit we wish we didn’t do. I could be the kind of dad I knew I should be.”
She presses the heel of her hands against her eyes when her vision starts to blur. “If we’re talking about righting wrongs, then Rachel shouldn’t have this baby. That’s pretty much where we fucked up, right?” His fists clench but he doesn’t yell at her for it because he knows it’s true. “For god’s sake Noah, do you really think this new baby will help make up for the shit we already put Caroline through? You should be wanting to fix things for her, not showing her she wasn’t good enough to try harder for.” Slipping past him, she shakes her head and goes to their bedroom, the one she has been fitfully sleeping in since her lovers left. Quinn slumps in the doorframe. She has never felt at home in this place and now just the sight of her room, with the ghosts of memories taunting her, makes her skin crawl. She wants out. “Aren’t you tired? I’m so tired.” She can feel him standing behind her and she wishes he’d touch her again. It’s going to have to last her a long time. “I don’t even know why you’re here. I’m not the one you need to be talking to.”
Hesitantly, his arms wrap around her waist. She hates that it feels a little easier to breathe. “The only thing I’ve ever been able to give you is our daughter,” she sighs. “Don’t be an idiot and stay with me when she can give you more.”
“So, what, I can prove you right?”
She closes her eyes as she lets her head fall to his chest. “Don’t put words in my mouth.” Quinn takes a big breath, laces her fingers with his where they sit low on her belly. “If you chose her, you are not your father. I will not think any less of you. I will love you just the same.”
“I promised her everything would work out.”
She blindly cups his cheek. “You should know better than making promises you can’t keep.”
His head turns in her hand and he kisses her palm.
--
“Hey, bug.” Caroline jumps off her bed when she sees her dad standing in the doorway, hugging herself to his legs before he picks her up. “Your mom is downstairs. Why don’t you go see her and get ready to go home?”
“Are you coming home too, Daddy?”
Rachel can feel him looking over at her but she stays focused on packing the suitcase in front of her. “Yeah,” he sighs. “I’m coming home too.” Caroline squeals and kicks to be put down. The second her feet hit the ground she starts to take off down the hall only to sharply turn back around. She runs up to Rachel’s bed and climbs up before launching herself at Rachel.
“Now you just need to come home too!” Caroline’s hands excitedly tap on Rachel’s back as they hug. “I love you, Aunt Rachel.”
The lump swells in her throat and she tries not to start shaking. “I love you too, sweetheart.” Noah closes the door when Caroline leaves and Rachel has every intention of not looking at him until she’s finished packing her suitcase. He walks closer to her, choking on her name before he falls to his knees. “Noah,” she breathes out as his arms wrap around her thighs.
“I’m sorry,” he cries, fingertips digging into her aching muscles.
She cradles his head in her arms and strokes the back of his neck as he tries to bring her even closer. Her t-shirt is soaked by the time he looks up at her. Immediately her hands travel to his face, wiping away tears that are replaced as quickly as they’re removed. “It’s okay.” He shakes his head as she nods hers. “It is, Noah. I promise.”
“I promised you everything would work out.” His hands push her shirt up as they move to her waist. She tenses. Her stomach is something she’s tried to ignore, both because the thought of what’s growing underneath and because she’s been sick for what feels like forever. But when Noah’s lips press against the skin just below her bellybutton, she tries to pull him closer.
There’s no space between them but it still doesn’t feel close enough.
“Everything is working out. Just not like…” She swallows hard, closing her eyes for a moment. Three deep breaths later, she cups Noah’s chin, forcing him to look up at her. “It’s okay. I love you.”
He repeats that it’s not okay until she drops to the ground. He buries his face in the crook of her neck and she kisses the skin in front of her, trying to convince herself she’s not crying either. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees her half packed suitcase. She bites down where shoulder and neck meet, closing her eyes.