An Accident of Paradise, Chpt. 29
Fandom: Glee
Chapter: 29
Author's Note: This is a big damn chapter (like...9,000 words long), but every time I tried to split it up, it felt even mroe awkward than it is now. It's all dealing with one central overarching issue, so splitting it up just wasn't working. So... have a chapter! That's longer than most stories out there. SORRY, PEEPS.
Quinn barely made it onto her flight back to Ohio, bolting through security in the Chicago airport at record speed and once more blessing Cheerios’ practice wind sprints as she darted through the crowd to her terminal, running horribly late after getting caught up arguing good-naturedly with Rachel outside of the security checkpoint. It was only when she heard the first boarding call for her flight-from a gate a ten minute walk away from security-that they realized how long they had been bantering flirtatiously in the middle of an airport, and Rachel had glanced at her watch, horrified, before shoving Quinn’s bags into her hands and manhandling her into the security line.
“I’ll see you in two weeks!” she shouted, jumping up slightly to see Quinn over the shoulders of the family who kindly let the hassled blonde in front of them in security. She waved wildly, a bright smile painting her features, and Quinn couldn’t suppress the urge to roll her eyes when she looked back after clearing the metal detectors to see Rachel still bouncing up and down and waving.
Rachel pointed at her watch and motioned theatrically for Quinn to run; Quinn frowned when she looked at her own watch and, with a harried wave to Rachel and a muttered string of curses she would never admit to knowing, gathered her bags and shoes into her arms and started sprinting barefoot as the third boarding call rang out for her flight.
She was flushed and breathing heavily when she made it to her seat, gaining a disapproving glare from the man across the aisle from her and a good-natured smile from the flight attendant. With a sigh, Quinn jammed her overnight bag into the compartment above her seat and dropped down into the chair gratefully to finally put her shoes back on.
The flight back to Ohio went far quicker than the one three days earlier, and the overbearing weight of exhaustion and trauma and grief was absent from her shoulders as she strolled towards the baggage claim, headphones in and eyes locked on her phone as she tapped out snarky responses to the text messages Rachel and Santana and Finn had left her during the short flight.
“Fabray.”
The low rumble of her name caught her attention, and Quinn slammed to a halt when she looked up to see Puck leaning against a column at the baggage claim, arms crossed over his chest and sunglasses propped atop his mohawk cockily. For a split second, the tiny part of her that had so easily fallen into bed with him warred with the overwhelming majority of her that was coming to terms with being in love with Rachel, and she admitted to herself that Noah Puckerman was, on occasion, unfairly attractive.
“Puck,” she said quietly, yanking her headphones out of her ears. “What are you-”
“I talked to Rachel’s dad,” he interrupted. “Asked if I could come get you.”
“Oh,” she said faintly. She nodded, as if it made perfect sense. “Why?”
He pushed away from the column, moving to stand in front of her. His eyes flicked down from hers to the fading bruise and almost-healed cut gracing her cheekbone, and his jaw tightened. Coarse fingertips, roughened from years of weightlifting and guitar playing, appeared in front of her and traced over the injury, barely a breath away from her skin.
Quinn held stock still, fighting the instinct to flinch even then, and didn’t dare breathe; for the first time in months, she ventured a look into his eyes. Steeling herself for a pounding wave of fabricated memories of a child who wasn’t born, she was surprised when she saw not Sarah Noelle Puckerman, but just Puck, with unbridled frustration in his eyes and his jaw clenched tightly.
He dropped his hand down to his side, shoving it into his pocket; his eyes stayed locked with hers and she couldn’t make herself look away.
“I need to tell you something,” he said. “I guess I didn’t get it until Santana told me what happened with your dad or whatever. But I figured it out now, and I want to tell you.”
“Okay,” she said slowly. She wished suddenly that they were anywhere but in an airport, somewhere quiet and private, because she felt like she was having far too many emotional moments in airports that week.
“I loved you,” he said. It came out heavy, the words pushing into her and disrupting her balance; she instinctively curled her toes inside her shoes and physically braced her body, as if expecting a barrage of heavy wind to come and knock her over. “I told you when we hooked up that it wasn’t just another thing for me, and it wasn’t. I think I hated you for a while, for not believing me, but whatever. That’s over. Finn was always the better guy, I wasn’t, that’s just how it is. But he’s my boy, my best friend, and if I couldn’t have you then I was okay with you being with him.”
He yanked his sunglasses off of his head, rubbing one hand over his mohawk. Quinn stared at him, watching as his throat worked, and she wondered if he was trying not to cry.
“After-” He paused, swallowing visibly, and coughed loudly. “After Karofsky and the hospital and all that, I still loved you. What happened to us was shit, such shit, but I thought that maybe we had one good thing coming out of it, that we could put things back in place together. And we were both patching things up with Finn, so I figured that even if you and me didn’t work out, you’d have him.
“But then you… then you went and hooked up with Rachel.” His jaw clenched once more, and Quinn finally moved, her chin dropping slightly and shoulders slumping. “And I was so pissed, you know? Because it should’ve been me. You should’ve let me take care of you, even if you never had before, no matter how much I asked. I wanted to be that guy, I didn’t want to be my dad, but you never gave me the chance. First it was Finn, and then I thought you’d give me a chance after him ,but instead you went to her. And I was so ticked off and I wanted to hate you both.”
Quinn swallowed, chest tightening as she remembered the anguished look in his eyes when he slammed out of the choir room the day they told everyone, the fury as he glared at her and Rachel, the absolutely broken set to his shoulders when Finn had bodily dragged him out of his father’s apartment. Months ago she’d wished that she could stop doing things that hurt Finn Hudson, and she felt a swell of guilt pressing over her at the realization that she should’ve been just as worried about doing things that hurt Noah Puckerman.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
He shook his head, holding his hands up defensively. “Don’t,” he muttered. He took a deep breath, rubbing his hands over his hair again. “That’s not all I wanted to say,” he ground out. He took another deep breath. “I was really pissed, you know? That you chose her over me, that you were so convinced that she was what you needed. But I was angry enough that I thought that maybe I could get over you. I’ve been hung up on you since the seventh grade, and as ticked off as I was that you went all Ellen on the world with Rachel freaking Berry, I also thought that that would let me get over you.
“Then Santana called me on Saturday, and sometime between fucking up that bastard’s car and lighting his mailbox on fire, I figured it out.” He smiled, thin and humorless, and looked her dead in the eyes.
“I’m never going to get over you,” he said simply. “I’ve loved you for a long time, and I guess I probably always will. And you… you’re never going to love me, are you? You loved Finn, and you love Rachel, but I won’t ever be on that list.”
Quinn stared at him, wide-eyed and oblivious to the tear that was threatening to slip down her cheek. “Puck,” she choked out.
He shook his head. “I’m not trying to go all Jewish guilt trip on you or anything,” he said. “I’m a good Jew, but not that good.” He sighed heavily. “I just needed to say it. I love you, and I loved our daughter, and even if I find some smoking hot Jewish wife in the future, I think I’ll always love you.”
Quinn finally moved, her knees weak as she stumbled over to a row of plastic chairs and plopped down onto one of them. Her hands folded automatically into her lap, and she stared up at him incredulously. He looked like a completely different person than she’d even seen-he wasn’t the nymphomaniac jock who threw people into dumpsters, or the guitarist who enjoyed glee more than he’d ever admit, or even the boy with the sad eyes who kissed her and took her to bed and promised to always be there for their daughter. He seemed smaller and quieter and far more morose than she’d ever seen him, and she had not the first clue how to handle this version of him.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I’m so sorry.” She sniffed, wiping at her eyes frustratedly and forcing herself to look up at him. He avoided her eyes, guilt and frustration marring his features as he stared at a spot on the floor between their feet.
“I wanted to be with you,” she said, pushing the words out slowly. “Before-before we lost her. I really did. I wanted to keep her and I didn’t want to do it alone. I wanted to get the hell out of Lima, but I wanted to do it with you and her and us as a family.” A strangled sound escaped her throat, and one hand came up to cover her mouth as her shoulders started to shake. “I wanted that so badly, I can’t even tell you. But-but then they told me she was gone and it was over and I just-ever time I looked at you, all I could see was her. And I hated myself, so much, and I didn’t want to be a family without her.”
“It’s not your fault,” he mumbled. “You have to know that.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. Her hands trembled, and she shook her head when she thought she saw a shadowy bruise on his jaw, a creeping sense of déjà vu pushing at the edges of her consciousness and pulling her back toward the first time they had this same conversation. “I may or may not come to terms with that someday. But I just want you to know that I was falling in love with you. I never wanted to, I tried so hard not to, but I was, and I would have married you and we would have had a family with her. And I really think we could have been happy.”
“We would have,” he said solidly. “I’m not my dad.” He said it forcefully, so much so that his whole body seemed to vibrate, his hands fisting visibly in his pockets. Quinn looked up at him and smiled even though she was crying, and his eyes drifted down to her cheek once more.
“And neither of us are our parents,” he added. He rolled his eyes when she bit her lip and looked down at her knees. Sighing loudly, he dropped down onto a chair next to her, long legs splayed out. He knocked one knee against hers childishly. “You’re not like them,” he said. “You’re better than they ever were. You’ll be a hell of a mom one day.”
Even staring at her knees, she could practically hear the smirk in his voice when he added, “And a totally smoking hot one, too. Hall of fame. Madonna’s got nothing on you.”
She laughed in spite of herself, reaching out blindly to swat at his leg, and the quiet chuckle she was rewarded with went miles towards loosening the tightness in her chest.
Long moments passed, and he finally pushed himself to his feet, holding out a hand to help her up. “We cool?” he asked.
She looked up at him, her mind slowly turning over the exchange they had just had, her conversation with Rachel on the sidewalks of Chicago, the acceptance her mother had offered, the altercation with her father, and finally, she nodded and accepted his hand. “Yeah,” she said, standing. “We’re good.”
“Cool,” he said. He nodded approvingly. “Now that we’ve got all that crap out of the way,” he said, grabbing her bags and swinging them over one shoulder easily. “You need to know that, since we’re like friends and all now, and you’re totally getting it on with a chick, that makes us bros. And you know what that means?”
“We’re not getting it on,” she mumbled, flushing brightly.
“Right,” he said. He rolled his eyes cheekily as he backed out of the doors of the airport, pushing his sunglasses onto his nose. “Whatever you want to call it. The point is, me and you? We’re bros. So that means you’re going to have to start hanging out with me and Finn more, and drinking beer and playing video games and perving on underwear models with us.”
“Puck!” she said. “I’m not a lesbian.”
“Right,” he said again. He shook his head as he hopped up onto the running board of his truck and stared at her from over top of the roof. “It’s not like you’re sleeping with Rachel Berry or anything.”
“We’re not-”
“Of course not,” he said. He swung down into the truck and cranked the engine. “But you’re basically like a dude now, is the point. A dude with boobs who I totally don’t feel lame for staring at, but that’s not the point.” He put an arm up to block her swinging hand before it connected with the back of his head and smirked. “The real point is that this weekend, you’re totally chilling with me and Finn. I even bought another X-Box controller so you can play Halo with us!”
Beer, porn, and Halo over here.
Chapter: 29
Author's Note: This is a big damn chapter (like...9,000 words long), but every time I tried to split it up, it felt even mroe awkward than it is now. It's all dealing with one central overarching issue, so splitting it up just wasn't working. So... have a chapter! That's longer than most stories out there. SORRY, PEEPS.
Quinn barely made it onto her flight back to Ohio, bolting through security in the Chicago airport at record speed and once more blessing Cheerios’ practice wind sprints as she darted through the crowd to her terminal, running horribly late after getting caught up arguing good-naturedly with Rachel outside of the security checkpoint. It was only when she heard the first boarding call for her flight-from a gate a ten minute walk away from security-that they realized how long they had been bantering flirtatiously in the middle of an airport, and Rachel had glanced at her watch, horrified, before shoving Quinn’s bags into her hands and manhandling her into the security line.
“I’ll see you in two weeks!” she shouted, jumping up slightly to see Quinn over the shoulders of the family who kindly let the hassled blonde in front of them in security. She waved wildly, a bright smile painting her features, and Quinn couldn’t suppress the urge to roll her eyes when she looked back after clearing the metal detectors to see Rachel still bouncing up and down and waving.
Rachel pointed at her watch and motioned theatrically for Quinn to run; Quinn frowned when she looked at her own watch and, with a harried wave to Rachel and a muttered string of curses she would never admit to knowing, gathered her bags and shoes into her arms and started sprinting barefoot as the third boarding call rang out for her flight.
She was flushed and breathing heavily when she made it to her seat, gaining a disapproving glare from the man across the aisle from her and a good-natured smile from the flight attendant. With a sigh, Quinn jammed her overnight bag into the compartment above her seat and dropped down into the chair gratefully to finally put her shoes back on.
The flight back to Ohio went far quicker than the one three days earlier, and the overbearing weight of exhaustion and trauma and grief was absent from her shoulders as she strolled towards the baggage claim, headphones in and eyes locked on her phone as she tapped out snarky responses to the text messages Rachel and Santana and Finn had left her during the short flight.
“Fabray.”
The low rumble of her name caught her attention, and Quinn slammed to a halt when she looked up to see Puck leaning against a column at the baggage claim, arms crossed over his chest and sunglasses propped atop his mohawk cockily. For a split second, the tiny part of her that had so easily fallen into bed with him warred with the overwhelming majority of her that was coming to terms with being in love with Rachel, and she admitted to herself that Noah Puckerman was, on occasion, unfairly attractive.
“Puck,” she said quietly, yanking her headphones out of her ears. “What are you-”
“I talked to Rachel’s dad,” he interrupted. “Asked if I could come get you.”
“Oh,” she said faintly. She nodded, as if it made perfect sense. “Why?”
He pushed away from the column, moving to stand in front of her. His eyes flicked down from hers to the fading bruise and almost-healed cut gracing her cheekbone, and his jaw tightened. Coarse fingertips, roughened from years of weightlifting and guitar playing, appeared in front of her and traced over the injury, barely a breath away from her skin.
Quinn held stock still, fighting the instinct to flinch even then, and didn’t dare breathe; for the first time in months, she ventured a look into his eyes. Steeling herself for a pounding wave of fabricated memories of a child who wasn’t born, she was surprised when she saw not Sarah Noelle Puckerman, but just Puck, with unbridled frustration in his eyes and his jaw clenched tightly.
He dropped his hand down to his side, shoving it into his pocket; his eyes stayed locked with hers and she couldn’t make herself look away.
“I need to tell you something,” he said. “I guess I didn’t get it until Santana told me what happened with your dad or whatever. But I figured it out now, and I want to tell you.”
“Okay,” she said slowly. She wished suddenly that they were anywhere but in an airport, somewhere quiet and private, because she felt like she was having far too many emotional moments in airports that week.
“I loved you,” he said. It came out heavy, the words pushing into her and disrupting her balance; she instinctively curled her toes inside her shoes and physically braced her body, as if expecting a barrage of heavy wind to come and knock her over. “I told you when we hooked up that it wasn’t just another thing for me, and it wasn’t. I think I hated you for a while, for not believing me, but whatever. That’s over. Finn was always the better guy, I wasn’t, that’s just how it is. But he’s my boy, my best friend, and if I couldn’t have you then I was okay with you being with him.”
He yanked his sunglasses off of his head, rubbing one hand over his mohawk. Quinn stared at him, watching as his throat worked, and she wondered if he was trying not to cry.
“After-” He paused, swallowing visibly, and coughed loudly. “After Karofsky and the hospital and all that, I still loved you. What happened to us was shit, such shit, but I thought that maybe we had one good thing coming out of it, that we could put things back in place together. And we were both patching things up with Finn, so I figured that even if you and me didn’t work out, you’d have him.
“But then you… then you went and hooked up with Rachel.” His jaw clenched once more, and Quinn finally moved, her chin dropping slightly and shoulders slumping. “And I was so pissed, you know? Because it should’ve been me. You should’ve let me take care of you, even if you never had before, no matter how much I asked. I wanted to be that guy, I didn’t want to be my dad, but you never gave me the chance. First it was Finn, and then I thought you’d give me a chance after him ,but instead you went to her. And I was so ticked off and I wanted to hate you both.”
Quinn swallowed, chest tightening as she remembered the anguished look in his eyes when he slammed out of the choir room the day they told everyone, the fury as he glared at her and Rachel, the absolutely broken set to his shoulders when Finn had bodily dragged him out of his father’s apartment. Months ago she’d wished that she could stop doing things that hurt Finn Hudson, and she felt a swell of guilt pressing over her at the realization that she should’ve been just as worried about doing things that hurt Noah Puckerman.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
He shook his head, holding his hands up defensively. “Don’t,” he muttered. He took a deep breath, rubbing his hands over his hair again. “That’s not all I wanted to say,” he ground out. He took another deep breath. “I was really pissed, you know? That you chose her over me, that you were so convinced that she was what you needed. But I was angry enough that I thought that maybe I could get over you. I’ve been hung up on you since the seventh grade, and as ticked off as I was that you went all Ellen on the world with Rachel freaking Berry, I also thought that that would let me get over you.
“Then Santana called me on Saturday, and sometime between fucking up that bastard’s car and lighting his mailbox on fire, I figured it out.” He smiled, thin and humorless, and looked her dead in the eyes.
“I’m never going to get over you,” he said simply. “I’ve loved you for a long time, and I guess I probably always will. And you… you’re never going to love me, are you? You loved Finn, and you love Rachel, but I won’t ever be on that list.”
Quinn stared at him, wide-eyed and oblivious to the tear that was threatening to slip down her cheek. “Puck,” she choked out.
He shook his head. “I’m not trying to go all Jewish guilt trip on you or anything,” he said. “I’m a good Jew, but not that good.” He sighed heavily. “I just needed to say it. I love you, and I loved our daughter, and even if I find some smoking hot Jewish wife in the future, I think I’ll always love you.”
Quinn finally moved, her knees weak as she stumbled over to a row of plastic chairs and plopped down onto one of them. Her hands folded automatically into her lap, and she stared up at him incredulously. He looked like a completely different person than she’d even seen-he wasn’t the nymphomaniac jock who threw people into dumpsters, or the guitarist who enjoyed glee more than he’d ever admit, or even the boy with the sad eyes who kissed her and took her to bed and promised to always be there for their daughter. He seemed smaller and quieter and far more morose than she’d ever seen him, and she had not the first clue how to handle this version of him.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I’m so sorry.” She sniffed, wiping at her eyes frustratedly and forcing herself to look up at him. He avoided her eyes, guilt and frustration marring his features as he stared at a spot on the floor between their feet.
“I wanted to be with you,” she said, pushing the words out slowly. “Before-before we lost her. I really did. I wanted to keep her and I didn’t want to do it alone. I wanted to get the hell out of Lima, but I wanted to do it with you and her and us as a family.” A strangled sound escaped her throat, and one hand came up to cover her mouth as her shoulders started to shake. “I wanted that so badly, I can’t even tell you. But-but then they told me she was gone and it was over and I just-ever time I looked at you, all I could see was her. And I hated myself, so much, and I didn’t want to be a family without her.”
“It’s not your fault,” he mumbled. “You have to know that.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. Her hands trembled, and she shook her head when she thought she saw a shadowy bruise on his jaw, a creeping sense of déjà vu pushing at the edges of her consciousness and pulling her back toward the first time they had this same conversation. “I may or may not come to terms with that someday. But I just want you to know that I was falling in love with you. I never wanted to, I tried so hard not to, but I was, and I would have married you and we would have had a family with her. And I really think we could have been happy.”
“We would have,” he said solidly. “I’m not my dad.” He said it forcefully, so much so that his whole body seemed to vibrate, his hands fisting visibly in his pockets. Quinn looked up at him and smiled even though she was crying, and his eyes drifted down to her cheek once more.
“And neither of us are our parents,” he added. He rolled his eyes when she bit her lip and looked down at her knees. Sighing loudly, he dropped down onto a chair next to her, long legs splayed out. He knocked one knee against hers childishly. “You’re not like them,” he said. “You’re better than they ever were. You’ll be a hell of a mom one day.”
Even staring at her knees, she could practically hear the smirk in his voice when he added, “And a totally smoking hot one, too. Hall of fame. Madonna’s got nothing on you.”
She laughed in spite of herself, reaching out blindly to swat at his leg, and the quiet chuckle she was rewarded with went miles towards loosening the tightness in her chest.
Long moments passed, and he finally pushed himself to his feet, holding out a hand to help her up. “We cool?” he asked.
She looked up at him, her mind slowly turning over the exchange they had just had, her conversation with Rachel on the sidewalks of Chicago, the acceptance her mother had offered, the altercation with her father, and finally, she nodded and accepted his hand. “Yeah,” she said, standing. “We’re good.”
“Cool,” he said. He nodded approvingly. “Now that we’ve got all that crap out of the way,” he said, grabbing her bags and swinging them over one shoulder easily. “You need to know that, since we’re like friends and all now, and you’re totally getting it on with a chick, that makes us bros. And you know what that means?”
“We’re not getting it on,” she mumbled, flushing brightly.
“Right,” he said. He rolled his eyes cheekily as he backed out of the doors of the airport, pushing his sunglasses onto his nose. “Whatever you want to call it. The point is, me and you? We’re bros. So that means you’re going to have to start hanging out with me and Finn more, and drinking beer and playing video games and perving on underwear models with us.”
“Puck!” she said. “I’m not a lesbian.”
“Right,” he said again. He shook his head as he hopped up onto the running board of his truck and stared at her from over top of the roof. “It’s not like you’re sleeping with Rachel Berry or anything.”
“We’re not-”
“Of course not,” he said. He swung down into the truck and cranked the engine. “But you’re basically like a dude now, is the point. A dude with boobs who I totally don’t feel lame for staring at, but that’s not the point.” He put an arm up to block her swinging hand before it connected with the back of his head and smirked. “The real point is that this weekend, you’re totally chilling with me and Finn. I even bought another X-Box controller so you can play Halo with us!”
Beer, porn, and Halo over here.