(because happy is) what happens when all your dreams come true
Title: (because happy is) what happens when all your dreams come true
Rating: NC-17
Pairings/Characters: Puck/Quinn, Puck/Rachel
Warnings: spoilers for all aired episodes, couple of minor spoilers for the back nine.
Word count: ~9500
Author: domfangirl
Summary: Here's what happens when Puck gets everything he wants.
Author’s Notes: This idea sprang from a line in the song "Thank Goodness" from the musical Wicked, and is used as the title of this piece. (There are many parallels here between a guy torn between a bossy, beautiful blonde and a talented, overbearing brunette.) The angst is dedicated to andbless_mybaby just because I <3 her. Special thanks to the lovely and wonderful becca_radcgg, who betaed this piece of shit and it's better because of her awesomeness. (I only have a decent ending because she's brilliant.)
Noah Puckerman isn't noble, by any stretch of the imagination. Good Guy Syndrome's for suckers, and he's no sucker. He only lets Finn beat the holy hell out of him without hitting him back for two reasons: one, he knows he deserves it, and two, if it means he'll finally get Quinn, he's willing to suffer whatever it takes. So when she says she's going to do it on her own and he realizes Finn isn't the problem, he wonders what the hell he'd have to do to ever get what he wants.
Two days after that he finds out when Rachel Berry shows up at his house and asks him if he's prepared to offer Quinn a place to live. He exchanges glances with his mother, who stands in the doorway with him listening as Rachel explains that Finn's mother would actually allow Quinn to stay there as she has no other place to go, but in Finn's best interest, really, Quinn must go.
His mother nods once, and Puck grabs his jacket. He and Rachel drive in silence to the Hudson's, and Quinn climbs in his truck, her face tear-streaked, without protest. She sits in the middle between him and Rachel and he wishes he knew what to say to make things better.
Rachel's hand grazes Puck's letterman's jacket as she wraps her arm around Quinn's shoulders. He looks over as their heads press together, and Rachel whispers, "It will all work out."
Maybe it finally will.
*
He takes Quinn up to his room after introducing her and her baby bump to his mother and sister. She sits on the end of his bed like a zombie, and he can't help but miss the snooty little bitch who had made his life a living hell. This girl-this quiet, sad, unbelievably fragile looking girl is someone he can't handle.
Tentatively, he sits beside her. She reaches over and takes his hand, and he looks up at her, hope stirring low in his belly. He waits for her to speak because he still doesn't know what to say.
"Thank you," she whispers, and her green eyes shimmer under a layer of new tears.
He kisses her cheek softly. "You bet, babe."
*
It becomes surprisingly easy to play baby-daddy-to-be. He digs Quinn (always has), and having her around all the time is cool. She's kinder now, so she's not exactly the girl he’d had a hard-on for, but it's his kid in there, and he's gonna do whatever he's got to, to take care of them. (He gets a real part-time job as a stock boy at Target because no fast food place will have him after the peeing-in-the-fry-o-later incident at the Dairy Queen.)
Rachel comes over, like all the time, though. It's like, since Finn rejected her, she's globbed on to Quinn, and the weird thing is, Quinn seems to like it. It annoys Puck, but he gets used to her being there. Besides she's kinda funny sometimes, and she's always willing to help.
So when Quinn has a meltdown of epic proportions and he has no idea what to do to calm her down, Rachel is there, and things are better because of it.
A couple weeks pass, and one night they're sitting on the sofa watching TV. Rachel's been gone about ten minutes, and Puck jostles Quinn's foot with his own. "Why didn't you go live with Berry?" he asks, because he knows Rachel would have let her.
Quinn's eyes move from the television to his face and she shrugs. "My parents would freak if they knew I was living with two gay men."
Puck watches as she looks back at the Vampire show she's conned him into sitting through. "You know your parents are bastards, right?"
Her eyes swing back quickly to his face, and he has a few seconds to regret his true but insulting observation until she nods. "Yeah, I know, but they're my parents. The only ones I've got. If they're ever going to forgive me, I need to be careful."
"Living with the guy who knocked you up is better?" he questions.
She nods curtly, and doesn't invite further discussion. When he scoots down so that her feet are on his lap, she relaxes a bit. He starts massaging the ball of her foot and she makes a little sound of contentment that reminds him of how she got that baby inside her to begin with.
He sort of hates that all he can think about is being her boyfriend for real, and them being a real family when he knows she's only there because she had no other choice.
If anything, Puck's always been an optimist when it came to girls and separating them from their panties. And winning her over can't be that impossible. (After all, he's a stud, and this is known territory.)
*
He enlists Rachel's help, since she's there all the fucking time anyway. She starts slipping him information, little gifts he can pick up for Quinn, things that make him look like the most thoughtful guy around.
On a day that Quinn has a pedicure appointment (yeah, that’s what some of his Target money goes to, and it sucks), he and Rachel walk around the mall looking at maternity clothes. At first he thinks it's totally lame because no matter what they do to clothes to make them cute, they just look huge to him, and even though he knows Quinn's middle section is thick, she doesn't look fat to him, just round.
When he says as much to Rachel, she goes off about “primordial urges” and other bullshit he doesn’t understand (or want to, thank you very much) and how Quinn is attractive to him because she carries his spawn. (Yes, Rachel says spawn, and he cracks up because it's such a funny word.)
She holds a white dress with yellow flowers out, her arm extended up to give him the full effect and he can’t help but notice the way her boobs push against her tight little t-shirt.
“Noah?” she says and his eyes guiltily snap to her face and then back to the dress quickly when he sees the realization in her gaze.
“This one’s nice,” he says and he reaches out to finger the soft cotton material. He doesn’t know why he feels so guilty, it’s not like he’s a monk now just because he’s decided to show Quinn he can be true, even without incentive. Rachel has a nice rack. Small, but nice. And he can’t help that he knows how those breasts feel against his chest. He can’t help that he’s made out with Rachel and that at odd moments it all floods back into his brain stronger and more vivid than porn from the computer.
It’s stupid because he hardly got to second base with her (the one time he tried to touch them, she pushed his hands away, but not before he felt her nipple pucker up beneath his thumb), and he fucking knocked Quinn up, but damn. Rachel Berry’s hot, and if she weren’t around all the time, it wouldn’t be on his mind so much, he’s sure of it.
In fact, before Quinn moved in and Rachel became her best friend, he never thought about her ever.
(Except sometimes when he lay awake late at night and he needed something from the spank bank because that always made him sleepy. So what if making out with Rachel seemed to be the fantasy of choice more often than the one of having sex with Quinn. It didn’t mean anything. Rachel was a mystery, Quinn was known. He totally wanted to know Quinn again, ASAP.)
“I’ll get her this,” he says suddenly, turning and walking towards the cash registers.
Rachel follows him, but says nothing. It kinda freaks him out, her being quiet.
When they go to pick up Quinn, Rachel makes a big deal about how he picked out the dress and Quinn gets tears in her eyes and kisses him full on the mouth in the doorway of the beauty shop.
He thinks it’s weird that he feels embarrassed by it, but then he sees Rachel’s face, and it gets worse than that. So he just doesn’t think about anything at all except his baby momma in his arms, and everything he’s wanted for months finally falling into place.
*
Rachel couldn't really say how it had happened. The Rachel-Quinn-Noah thing was not the way she'd envisioned the result of her late night excursion to the Puckerman's when it had become glaringly obvious that Quinn could not stay at Finn's.
When she drove away from Noah's house that night, and went back to Finn's, only to have Finn hug her tight, thank her for her help, and then practically push her out the door, she had definitely been expecting something else.
Not that she and Finn would magically be together; she understood some time would have to pass, and he would have to heal. But she didn't think he'd just start ignoring her like he did Noah and Quinn.
When she confronted him about it, he'd only shrugged and then confessed that somehow her presence only reminded him more of the terrible situation, and later when she was alone, Rachel berated herself for not thinking through the avenue in which she revealed the paternity of Quinn's baby.
Making herself the catalyst had been horribly unwise. It had been the right thing, she didn't doubt that; she should just have finessed it better, if she really wanted Finn to be with her.
Which she totally did, didn't she?
The easy rhythm that she fell into with Quinn struck her as odd, but somehow a friendship had been forged out of their mutual loss. She loved Quinn now, and understood just what had happened, why the beautiful blonde cheerleader had lied to hold on to Finn, and why now she told the truth and slowly turned to Puck, her expression softening each day as his efforts to woo her succeeded.
No one ever need know that Rachel orchestrated the whole thing; all that mattered was that Noah took direction beautifully, and the day Quinn kisses him in front of her, she's shocked, literally to her very bones, by the jealousy that courses through her body.
She doesn't even let Noah drive her home, instead she calls her father on her cell phone and escapes their couply presence by saying she forgot about an item she was supposed to pick up for her parents.
Noah gives her a puzzled but quickly distracted glance, and Quinn just says, "See you tomorrow, Rach," as she wraps her arms around his neck.
She goes home and realizes this is the way life will be now, and she had best just make lemonade out of her lemons, because like it or not, Noah and Quinn are all she's got. And she'd rather have them than nothing.
Their friendship is more important, and longer lasting, than any stupid boyfriend ever could be, anyway. Right?
*
Not really, she finds. She still wants Finn, and whenever there's a goal in sight, she knows there is some way to achieve it. One day after Glee rehearsal, she tries again, but he just looks at her with sad eyes and tells her he has to go. She follows after him a few seconds later, determined to make him give her-them-a chance. When she sees Santana of all people waiting in the hall for him and then their hands join and they walk away together, she feels physically ill. It's worse than watching Noah with Quinn for sure, because at least they make sense. Finn and Santana? Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot, as Noah would say. (That's how he curses when his mother and sister are around.)
If she were going to pair Finn with anyone besides herself, it would have been Brittany.
She sits down on the piano bench in the choir room and cries. She can't help it, and she can't decide whom she hates the most: Finn for being so stupid, herself for ruining it all, or Noah and Quinn for being cheaters in the first place.
She's got her face in her hands when she hears, "Yo, what's the matter, Berry?"
Startled, she jumps to her feet and wipes at the tears as though more of them aren't falling, and she turns away from him. "What are you doing here?" she asks in deflection.
"Quinn forgot her sheet music. 'Course we got all the way home before she noticed, and then she's all like bawling about it, so I had to come back and get it," he explains. Rachel turns to face him as she feels like she's got control of her emotions. He walks over to where Quinn had been sitting during rehearsal, and sure enough, there's a pile of papers beneath the chair. He picks it up and then walks back towards her and the piano. "What's up with you?" he asks. He looks concerned, his forehead creased with a frown, but Rachel has her pride, and she doesn't want to lose it in front of him.
"Nothing," she says, forcing cheer into her voice. "Everything's fine."
He cocks his head slightly and stares at her. "You think I can't see the snot dripping there?"
Her hand reflexively covers her nose, but there's nothing wet on her upper lip. Glaring at him, she sees a smile flit over his face before he covers it with a cough. Rolling the sheet music into a cylinder, he holds it up to his eye like a periscope. "Fine, don't tell me," he says. "I gotta bail anyway, before baby momma calls me with some other freak out that doesn't matter at fucking all, but I gotta pretend like it's a big deal or face an even bigger fucking problem."
Lowering the paper so they are staring at each other, he waits, just half a beat. When she doesn't respond, he rolls his eyes, spins on his heel, and starts for the door.
Rachel can't say what possesses her to do it, but she stops him with the words, "What do I have to do to get Finn, Noah?"
He freezes, his shoulders stiffening, and very slowly he turns back toward her. The expression on his face would melt hearts of ice, and she knows before he says anything just how hopeless it is. "Berry, he's with Santana now. You won't get any of that until she's done with him, and that might be a while, because San? Well, she's getting back at me and Quinn right now. And Finn? He's, well, you know, a total fucking idiot, but he's also getting back at us." He walks a couple steps back towards her, and Rachel flinches away. The tears have started anew, and she can't do anything to hold them in, so she turns away.
His arms wrap around her, surprising her, but there's this amazing heat from his body, and he just surrounds her, his chest to her back, the fronts of his legs dipping slightly to cradle her backside. It's a full-body hug, but not sexual, which Rachel admits both shocks and disappoints her (just a little). He squeezes her tight and his lips press against the hair over her left ear. "He's a fucking douche, Rachel, and he doesn't deserve you, and if you ever go out with him, I will personally kick your ass."
For some reason that strikes her funny bone in just the right way, and she starts laughing. The expulsion of emotion sort of rockets through her, driving the breath from her lungs, and his arms loosen slowly, as though she were a little child just taking her first steps. His hands wrap around her upper arms, keeping her steady, and she sees that Quinn's music has hit the floor next to them.
"Thank you, Noah," she whispers.
He smacks her ass like he would any of the guys on the football field during a game. "Suck it up, Berry. You're better than all of it."
She doesn't turn around and watch him leave, but when she finally succumbs to the knowledge that she needs to get home, she scoops up Quinn's sheet music, pulls out her phone and texts Quinn, I'll give you your music tomorrow. Tell Noah I found it.
She hits send and wonders why she lied about something so silly.
*
Puck awakes in the middle of the night with a boner. This is not a mystery to him, as there's a chick in his bed, sleeping soundly, and he wants her. Her blonde hair is spread over his pillow and her breath is on his cheek. Her warmth is right there, all the time, and even though her belly seems to get bigger every day, he still thinks she's so beautiful.
He swings his legs off the bed and creeps out as quickly as he can to the bathroom, however, for the first time ever, because the reason he woke up was because he was having a seriously intense sex dream.
About Rachel Berry.
This one wasn't a tame she-climbs-in-his-window-and-he-has-a-vision-from-God kind of dream. It was all naked skin, and pointed pink nipples, and spread legs-and, oh, god, he muffles the sound in his throat with the knuckles of one hand pressed against his lips while his other hand makes short work of the erection in his shorts.
He drops down on the toilet, panting heavily.
This is so not good.
*
The next day at school, it's like he can't even look Rachel, or Quinn, in the face, and for the life of him he can't figure out why. He'd had no problem fucking Quinn and then hanging out with Finn the very next day and acting totally normal. This time he hasn't even done anything, and he feels like a total fucking pervert.
Maybe it's because Rachel has somehow become his friend (and he totally doesn't do girls-as-friends, unless they're friends-with-benefits) and she and Quinn giggle together over everything from the new Zac Efron movie to the pink baby booties he'd picked up the last time he'd been at the mall. (He hadn't even been tipped off by Rachel, he'd just seen something his daughter would look hella cute in at some point.)
He could feel Quinn watching him, all day, and when they got home, she confronted him in her passive-aggressive way that only made him feel like more of a douchebag. She angrily stomps upstairs some time after their battle of wits stagnates. She never actually accuses him of anything, and he doesn't cop to any wrong-doing, but his little sister just looks at him with big, sad eyes.
"Is Quinn going to take the baby away before we even get to meet her?" Rebekah asks, and Puck has a literal twinge in his chest, like his heart cramped up the way his legs sometimes do after a hard practice.
"No," he snaps, grabbing his jacket and slamming out of the house. He gets all the way to his truck, his key in the ignition, and his destination set in his mind before he realizes that he better calm the fuck down before he ruins everything.
This is what he wanted, right? Quinn, his. The baby, his, and everyone knows it. They're together (okay, not together-together, because until she gives it up to him again, it feels like she's still test driving him, and that's making him a little crazy), but it's never going to be more if he goes to Rachel Berry's.
And that's where he wants to go. He can see it now, the surprise on her face, the concern in her eyes. She'd whisk him up the stairs, right past her two gay dads, and he'd have his fingers inside her panties inside ten minutes.
It's been there, building between them for a while, really ever since they'd dated, but now that she's off-limits, she seems just that much more desirable.
She's a new version of what Quinn used to be. And he doesn't want a new Quinn, he tells himself with much more authority than he’s ever told himself anything before. He wants the old Quinn. The one in his house; the one in his bed. (The one who used to be with Finn, but really is nowhere to be found now.)
The one who's going to give birth to his daughter in two months.
He goes back into the house and gives his mother a look that keeps her from saying whatever rebuke sits on her tongue. She just nods at him, and it makes him feel like he's growing up. Coming back and dealing with the situation is what a man would do. (And he's a man-he’s not like his father.)
He opens the bedroom door carefully and sees Quinn curled up the bed, her arms wrapped around his pillow and tears on her face. Kneeling next to the bed so that their faces are close, he presses his lips to her forehead. He doesn't say the words I'm sorry because that's not his style, but he does palm her belly caressingly and whisper, "I'm just frustrated, Quinn. I want you, so bad, and I'm kinda going fucking nuts here."
It's true. Totally. He does want Quinn. Needs her. Like, a lot.
She sniffs and puts her hand over his on her belly. "Puck," she says, her voice very soft. "I don't...I'm not, well, I'm just not-“ She takes a deep breath, her eyes moving away from his. "I don't want you to see me-not like this."
He'd made a couple of thoughtless comments here and there, so he probably deserves that. But really, it doesn't gross him out. He's felt his kid in there, moving around and doing somersaults, and there had been nights where they both fell asleep like this, with their hands joined on her stomach. His fingers always itched to move lower, though, and how he managed to control himself still boggled his mind a bit.
He slides his hand under her cheek, tipping her face up towards his. Pressing his lips to hers, he kisses her soft and sweet, with hardly any pressure. He does everything the exact opposite of what he'd like to do (hard, fast, hungry, hungry, hungry) and when her lips part and she reaches for him, he still goes slow. Easing himself on to the bed next to her, he just kisses and kisses her until they're both breathless.
He moves his hand under her shirt, rubs his fingers over her belly, hooks his thumb inside the waistband of her maternity pants, and dips it in slightly. She quivers, and her hand grabs at his wrist, preventing any more movement. "Puck," she says, her voice sharp.
"I don't care," he murmurs.
"I do," she insists.
He blows out a frustrated breath and pulls his hand away. "Fine," he says, trying not to sound as pissed as he feels.
*
A week later he's paired with Rachel in their new number for Regionals. He's got the lead, and Schue's worked out some tricky choreography that has them rubbing up against each other way too much. He can see that it's having as much affect on Rachel as it does on him because she stops looking him in the eye, and she begs off when Quinn invites her over as usual.
It doesn't help that one day in the middle of practice, Schue makes them hold their position for way too long so he can work out how to incorporate Artie and his chair more fluidly into the sequence. He stands back from them, observing them all like a painting in some fucking museum, and Rachel shifts against Puck just right (or just wrong, however you look at it). He starts to get hard, and her eyes jerk to his, but instead of skittering away like they normally do, she stares at him. The longer that goes on, the harder he gets; she licks her lips and drops her gaze to his mouth, and he knows if they were alone right now, he'd be coming in a matter of minutes, either because he got her to put her hands in his pants, or even better, because her mouth would be around him, hot and sweet and wet.
Just the mental image is enough to take him right to the edge.
He practically knocks her to the floor when he bolts for the restroom a second later.
That night, in the dark, he's laying on his right side behind Quinn, who is in the same position. She reaches back and slides a hand down his hip, and then over his crotch. He's not asleep when it happens, but he's not thinking of her, and because he can't see her, it's almost like the lightning fast fantasy from earlier in the day, and he's instantly ready. Then she whispers, "We can do it like this," and she finds his hand and brings it to her hip. She helps him pull her pajama bottoms down, and he moves his fingers between her thighs. She's damp, though not terribly so, and he knows he won't last for shit, so he better do something to make it good for her.
It's awkward, and even when she's wet (her boobs are super sensitive, and she gasps quietly as he strokes her nipples), he has a hard time finding a good rhythm from behind her. Instinctually, something echoes in his brain so he pulls her back into him at the same time he slides himself forward, shoving her legs up and twisting her torso back so they're facing each other more, even though he can't see her.
He wants to kiss her mouth, but only finds the side of her neck, and then her hand slides along the back of his neck, and he's done, the soft rub of her fingers over the base of his mohawk causing him to arch and thrust clumsily until he grunts in both satisfaction and frustration. He's way better than this; he knows because she came the night he took her virginity.
He moves his hand back between her legs and finds her clit even as his softened cock slips from inside her. She convulses a moment later, and he feels a little bit better, but even as he lays there in the quiet after they've cleaned up (still in the dark) he doesn't feel triumphant, like he supposes he would.
He'd been with many a chick that had no identity; ones he'd fucked that he imagined to be someone else; sometimes they'd been girls from school whose last names he'd never known, and first names he was likely to forget before the condom came off; other times they were cougars who didn't want him to remember their names, at least not after they paid him in cash and sent him on his way; lots of times those girls and women had been Quinn in his mind, both before and after he'd actually had her.
It's utter bullshit that on a night when he finally gets her again, just like he wanted, he struggles to keep her in his mind, even as they lay drifting into sleep and he can feel their child tapping against his ribcage through her belly.
*
Rachel Berry prepares for Regionals by discovering that she has once again fallen in love with someone who will never reciprocate her feelings. Because of Quinn Fabray.
She can't help but wonder why she keeps making this same mistake, but she knows Noah Puckerman is not the same as Finn Hudson, and to compare the two of them is virtually a blasphemy. This is also when she realizes she never really loved Finn, and she cries because it hurts so much more now. Noah is who she wants, and sometimes she thinks he wants her too, not just in the traditional sense of those words. He likes talking to her too, and he's started asking her to bring movies over instead of just relying on whatever action flick he's got in his cabinet.
Just because they sit on the sofa Puck-Quinn-Rachel (Noah points out that it’s alphabetical if Rachel calls him by his “real name” and she argues that Noah is his real name and they go back and forth until Quinn tells them both to shut up) doesn't mean that it was always the three of them. They'd spent time alone too-innocently-when Quinn had things to do that Noah didn't want to do, or times when she had lunch with her mother and she didn't want Puck to accompany her.
When Rachel finds that the torture of his presence even in a friends-only capacity is something she's willing to endure, that's when she knows she loves him. The funny thing now is that she loves Quinn, too, but she has no recourse with Noah (no new babygate news to drop), and even if she did have something, she knows she wouldn't use it. She learns from her mistakes, generally speaking.
She thinks they sort of love each other, but they are not well suited. Noah is rough around the edges, and Quinn is all smooth perfection. The thing is Quinn has little patience to work with the rough diamond that her boyfriend is, and Rachel can see all the potential in the world in Noah. With the right motivation, he could be something really great, a singer-songwriter maybe, or at the very least a music teacher. He's quite talented on the guitar, and he knows how to play the piano too, though he rarely lets anyone in on that fact.
Rachel feared more than anything that in an effort to keep Quinn happy, he might sacrifice any dreams he had, and by the time he realized what he'd done, it would be too late to change the trajectory. These were things she sometimes tried to mention to Quinn, but that usually caused her to tense up and snap things back like, "He's my boyfriend, Rachel. I'll worry about that stuff."
"He's my friend, Quinn, and so are you. You have to think about your future-your baby's future."
"You think I don't think about that? My God, Rachel! I'm the one who's pregnant, I'm the one who decided to keep this baby. I'm the one that all of this rests on. Trust me when I say I think about it all the time!"
Rachel had shut up after that because she knew stress was bad for pregnant women.
Her cell phone rings just before 5am in the middle of April and she reaches for it blindly before sitting up to turn the bedside lamp on. She sees Noah's name on her caller ID and she wonders what in the world is going on. "Noah?" she asks worriedly as she looks at her clock and rubs the sleep from her eyes.
"Rach, Quinn's having the baby-only, it's like a total fucking crazy nightmare, because she has to have a C-section, and-“ Rachel hears a bunch of commotion, and something that sounds like a howl of pain. Then she can hear Quinn crying and Puck says distractedly, "It's okay, baby, it's okay."
"I'm on my way," she says, springing out of bed. What in the world she'll do when she gets there, she has no idea, but they need her, and that's all that matters.
*
Rachel sits in the designated waiting area while Noah’s mother and Quinn’s parents pace back and forth in the small space. By the time she got there, Quinn was already in surgery, and Noah had gone with her.
When he comes walking out, he looks exhausted, his face ashen in color, and his eyes full of something Rachel has never seen before. He walks straight into his mother’s waiting arms, and for the first time ever, seems like a child.
The doctor follows close behind and brings them up to speed: Quinn had gone into early labor, only by three weeks, but the complication of a ruptured uterus had caused the need for a C-section. Baby and mother are expected to make a full recovery, but the baby would have to be in the NICU for a few days, and Quinn would be going home a bit lighter.
At 16 years old, she’d had to have a partial hysterectomy.
Quinn’s mother gasps in much the same way Rachel would have if she’d had any air in her lungs with which to react. Instead, she stands there feeling particularly helpless (not to mention useless, why she’d come there she doesn’t know) as Mrs. Puckerman comforts her son and Mr. Fabray consoles his wife. Quinn can have visitors later, but for now she was going to be monitored in intensive care for several hours just to be safe. She’d lost a lot of blood, but luckily the blood bank had been well stocked, and, that’s when the doctor adds that if any of them want to give blood that would be appreciated.
Finally having something to grasp upon, she jumps to her feet and asks the doctor to show her where to go to donate. He describes the location downstairs on the first floor and directs her to the elevator.
“Berry?” Noah’s voice stops her as she pivots towards the doorway. He leaves his mother’s embrace to grab her, pressing her tightly against his big body. Her arms circle his waist and she squeezes him. “Don’t go,” he whispers.
“You need to go home and rest,” she says, pulling back. His mother moves to stand beside them, the worry on her face matching the inner turmoil Rachel feels. It isn’t her job, or her right, to try to ease his pain, no matter how much she’d like to. It’s just the stress and worry of everything that’s happened, and once he sleeps that off, it will be okay.
Well, Quinn may never be okay, per se, but she would recover, eventually. He just stares at her for a long, silent moment, and then he asks, “Can I come over later?”
“Sure,” she says brightly, still feeling horribly out of place. She imagines Noah’s mother much prefers her, a good Jewish girl, but she’s not the one who just had his baby, so no amount of approval counts here.
She smiles and makes eye contact with Mrs. Puckerman. “Come on, sweetheart, let’s go home,” his mother says, pulling him away. “You need to sleep.”
“I’ll see you later, Berry,” he says, and Rachel nods. She barely makes it to the blood bank before her shaky legs give out on her, and she’s afraid she’ll be rejected for looking too pale, but they take her right in and lay her on what looks like a dentist’s chair. She closes her eyes and feels the prick of the needle as tears start to fall on Quinn’s behalf.
The phlebotomist pats her hand (she knows why Rachel had come to give blood because in one burst of breath she’d told Quinn’s whole terrifying experience), and says softly, “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
She just lays there with her eyes closed, crying softly. She tells herself that she cries for her friend, because even Rachel Berry knows how ridiculous it would be to make this all about her right now.
*
It's almost 9:30 that evening before Noah shows up at her house. He comes so late, and without a call or text, that Rachel genuinely thinks he'd completely forgotten that he'd even asked to come by.
When he comes in, they hug again because he still looks traumatized. Her fathers say hello to him and he gives them the short version of the story: Quinn had gone into labor late the night before (his mother had thought they were just false contractions), but around midnight her water broke, so they'd gone to the ER. After five hours of hard labor, the baby's heartbeat dropped suddenly, and the doctor had said they needed to do a C-section.
In Rachel's bedroom a few minutes later, he finishes the story just for her: "So there's Quinn, in all this pain, and in the middle of it, she grabs me," he chuckles a little as he grabs a fistful of his shirt to demonstrate, "and says 'Call Rachel!' and I'm all, 'The fuck for? She's not a doctor!' and she's all, 'Everything's always better if Rachel's there.'" Which causes Rachel to cover her mouth with a hand, shocked to know Quinn feels that way about her. "So I called you, and it made her feel better for a second, just to know you were coming."
Rachel thinks back to the frantic phone call, and the utter confusion in his voice, even though the worst hadn't even happened yet. "But then-“ he shudders now, and presses a hand down on top of the mattress as he sits on her bed. "She started bleeding, it was shooting out of her,” he gestures like something is coming out of his crotch area, “and-“ he curses now and Rachel can't help it, she puts one of her hands on his. "It was the scariest fucking thing I've ever seen in my whole fucking life."
He takes another breath and then looks at her face. "But it's okay. They're okay now, so, well, we survived."
"You've seen her?" Rachel asks.
Nodding, he smiles a little, but it's still obvious how affected he is by the whole experience. "Yeah, I was just at the hospital, and she's good. Tired and sore, but good. And the baby-“ His eyes light up now, real joy infusing his features. "Fuck, Rach, wait till you see her. She's so pretty. My mom said she looks good because she didn't go through the birth canal-which, gross, but whatever. She's gorgeous. They said we can hold her tomorrow."
Rachel hangs on every word even though the longer he talks the more she finds her heart hurting. She doesn't know why the birth seems to have changed things. It's not like Noah is any less available than he was 24 hours ago, but he's a real father now, and there's some sense of gravity there that was missing before.
She smiles anyway, imagining that this performance may very well be the only award-worthy one she'll ever give. "Congratulations, by the way," she says, patting his hand. She sits back a bit, scooting away from him just a little, because she hadn't noticed how close they were until he stopped talking. "You're someone's daddy," she says, grinning goofily.
Noah's face flushes a little and he shakes his head in disbelief. "Poor little thing," he scoffs and then he does the strangest thing ever-he reaches his hands up and puts them on her shoulders, right at the base of her neck, as though he might try to crack it for her. Then his thumbs slide up so that they're just under her jaw. "We named her Rachel Caroline; we're gonna call her Caroline."
Rachel is so taken aback by this gesture that tears spring to her eyes. She feels dumbfounded, and unworthy, and a myriad of other emotions, but all of that recedes in a flash of heat when his right thumb brushes over her pulse point just so, and she feels her heart start tripping painfully in her chest. The new seriousness she sees in his expression causes his features to tighten just briefly, then he leans forward and presses his lips to hers, and stars explode behind her eyes.
His tongue is in her mouth, and his hands move under her hair, and she moves forward until she's suddenly straddling his lap, and they kiss-they kiss-like neither of them have ever kissed anyone ever before. A thousand times more intense than it had been between them months before, Rachel abruptly realizes that this is what it's like when there's more than just physical attraction between you and the person you're kissing.
She wants it all so badly in that moment, there is nothing else in her mind except Noah. Noah's hands, Noah's lips, Noah's taste on her tongue, his scent all around her, his warmth and strength right there encompassing her.
Noah, Noah, Noah.
*
Rachel, Rachel, Rachel.
It's like he's wanted this for so long, and dreamed about it for so long that he must be having another one right this moment because it couldn't actually be happening, he couldn't have actually started something, not when Quinn nearly bled to death in front of his eyes only 18 hours earlier.
Except that that's exactly why he's here, why he'd come, why secretly at the back of his mind, tucked into a place that he didn't even entirely reveal to himself all day, this had been his intention all along.
Fuck Rachel, fuck her fast and hard, and slow and sweet, be so close to her nothing can get between them, and feel her, and make her come all over him because, god it was all so fleeting and everything could change so fast. He's never really shown her everything he's wanted to, and he really can't show her (there will never be enough time), but he's got to, he's got to or he's going to fucking implode.
So he flips her onto her back and kisses her like he never will again (because he won't); he strips her clothes off (she lets him with absolutely no protest, not even a hint of shyness as he sees her white bra and pink panties--funny how he thought she'd match, and she totally doesn't and that makes him all the hotter for her); his hands touch her everywhere--as naked skin is revealed his fingers skate across it, and then his lips and his tongue, and he sucks at her nipples until her nails are embedded in the skin over his shoulders. His mouth moves over her belly and she gasps because she knows what's coming, and there's this half-hearted protest in her throat that he totally ignores as he spreads her thighs; one part of that very vivid dream he's had so many times is fulfilled as he moves his tongue into her, the sweet musky taste enough to make sweat break out across his entire body in an effort to not just grind himself against the edge of the mattress and come at the same moment she does.
Her fingers grip what little hair she can find at the top of his 'hawk, and he looks up as her chest heaves in the aftermath. He has the fleeting thought about her dads being just downstairs, and he has no idea how loud they've been, but he doesn't fucking care; they could come in and shoot him right through the heart, and he would die a happy man.
He just went down on Rachel Berry and it was as fucking awesome as he'd known it would be. He's harder than he's ever been in his life, but he knows they aren't having sex because he doesn't have anything with him. He also knows she'd only have to barely touch him for him to go off like a rocket.
Her eyes open sleepily and he moves back up so his face is right over hers. Leaning down, he kisses her mouth softly, and she arches up into him just right, just so he can feel how much she wants him, and he knows that he never felt this way with Quinn, even when he thought she really wanted him.
Even though now she loves him in some weird way, and they are what they are--mom and dad, and nothing that happens here changes that. Just like that, the reality of everything hits him and he snaps back emotionally from the place he'd been all day. Everything that had started late last night had taken him to a place of complete fucking chaos. "Oh, shit," he breathes, pulling back from Rachel.
It's not like he doesn't know what he did, it's just that it had been muffled by a driving force that he still doesn't exactly comprehend.
He pushes himself up, getting his knees under him, and he shakes his head as their eyes lock. "I don't know what--" but Rachel sits up too, all her nakedness totally undermining any moment of nobility he might have been having.
"Just this one time, Noah. A moment out of time. Nothing counts here, and it never happens again."
He just keeps shaking his head, and words spill out. "I can't-we-can’t. And I don't have anything with me anyway, and you'll hate us both tomorrow, and I can't-I need you too much, you can't ever hate me, and-“ his words come to a dead halt when she leans over and opens the drawer of her bedside table. She pulls out a condom and holds it up so he can see it easily.
"Part of my sweet 16 birthday gift from my fathers was a pack of condoms." She just looks at him and then she says, “And I could never hate you, even if I wanted to.”
Even though he's been a father for less than 24 hours, he can't help but think that's some fucked up shit-but fucked up shit he's very grateful for. Still, the entire situation gives him pause, in a far greater way than a similar one he'd been in about nine months earlier.
Rachel can’t hate him because she loves him. She’s not saying it, but that doesn’t mean he can’t hear it anyway.
He'd been thrilled to take Quinn's virginity-virtually stealing it right out from under Finn-but he just can't take Rachel's as lightly; and he’s certain she is. He sees too much when he looks at her, things that pop out at him and a whole story that he shouldn't be allowed to know when he can't really have it.
He wraps his hand around her neck and pulls her forehead to rest against his. Taking a deep breath, he whispers, "I want to, I want it-you-so much, but you don't want to do this. Not like this."
Because he's going back to Quinn, no matter what she says. He has to. That's the only way this can end.
Her small hand slips under his shirt, pushing up until she puts her palm over his left pec. She presses her fingers there for a long silent moment. "Do it, Noah," is all she says. She makes no declarations, doesn't ask him to be gentle. It's not a demand, it's an offering.
He suddenly realizes why Quinn loves Rachel so much. Because she just gives, and never takes.
It’s why he loves her too. Fuck.
So he has to do the right thing. He has to walk away.
This whole being-a-man shit sucks balls. He closes his eyes, sees his little girl in her incubator, and finds moral fiber he never knew he possessed.
“I can’t,” he whispers. He presses his lips to hers gently, and then he pulls the comforter around her, covering her up. “I’m sorry,” he says.
He means it more than any apology he’s ever uttered, and there haven’t been many.
He hears a sob escape her throat as he pulls her bedroom door shut. He runs down the stairs, two at a time, and waves to her dads as he bolts out the door.
Before he can change his mind.
*
Two days later, Rachel and the whole Glee Club go to the hospital. They have, under Rachel's careful direction of course, arranged a mash-up of "Baby of Mine/You Are My Sunshine," and so they sing it acapella for Quinn and Puck in Quinn's hospital room before the new parents take them to the NICU nursery so they can all peer at Caroline through the window.
Quinn walks very slowly, and Puck ends up finding a wheelchair to cart her around on because she's just too sore and weak to be on her feet for too long. His painstaking care of his "baby momma" makes Rachel's chest ache; he won't look at her, or at least every time she's looking at him, he's not looking at her, and as soon as his head turns and she thinks maybe he might look at her, she quickly averts her eyes because she doesn't know what might happen if they have any kind of interaction.
She'll probably just start crying, and make a fool of herself. She makes sure every time Quinn looks at her she plasters a giant smile across her face, but it helps having all the other kids there. They all have questions for Quinn, and so she and Puck tell the whole story of what happened again.
Quinn praises Puck's strength and support, talking at length about how he held her hand the whole time, and how scared she was and how she could never have gotten through it if it weren't for him. Noah actually looks embarrassed by all the positive words and brushes off the other boys' attempts to slap his back with 'you da man' sentiments.
The only thing that's good about the whole thing is that Quinn still needs a lot of rest so a nurse comes in and runs them out when they get too noisy. Rachel's never been so grateful for this group of people than she is as all of them make their way back outside. She manages to get to her car before she starts crying.
A few days after that, Noah returns to school. Quinn and Caroline are home now, but Quinn still has some healing to do before she'll be allowed back at school. Rachel knows she needs to have a long sit down talk with her friend, after all, everything Quinn had gone through had been even more traumatizing for her than it had been for Noah.
She doesn't think she can do it yet. She's not that good of an actress.
He catches her after Glee on Thursday, his hand snagging her wrist and his eyes asking for far more than his mouth does. "Hey, can I talk to you for a minute?"
She looks around, hoping for an escape route, but everyone else has magically disappeared. She doesn't think she can handle whatever is coming, even though she has no idea what he might say. Maybe he's changed his mind, and he wants her even though it will destroy everything. Maybe he just wants her so much, that he'll say, Fuck it all, because that's totally something he'd do and say. Maybe he's about to break Quinn's heart and all Rachel can think is as much as she wants that, she doesn't think she can live with it.
She nods, whispers, "Sure," and lets him pull her back into the choir room, over to the piano bench. They sit down, and before he even starts to speak, she knows he's not going to do any of those crazy things she just thought about. Something happened to him when Quinn gave birth. Something irreversible.
He takes a deep breath and wraps his fingers around her left hand, holding it loosely in his palm. "There is no competition," he says, his fingers strumming a slight pattern against her skin. "But if there was, Rach," he pauses, looks away from her face for the longest 30 seconds of Rachel's life, and then takes another deep breath before pronouncing, "but if there was, you would totally win. Everything."
Rachel stares at him, wondering how in the world he could have ever come to mean this much to her, in this way--in this wholly inappropriate way--and she aches, all the way to her soul. His fingers squeeze hers once more, then he releases her and eases away, getting off the bench. His eyes drill into hers, and she knows he's trying to say even more than he already has. Not that she needs anymore to be perfectly miserable in the delight that if it weren't for sweet little Caroline, she would finally get the boy of her dreams, and be completely happy.
She doesn't say anything in response. Not because she couldn't stand up and recite a monologue right now about how she feels about him, but somehow she understands that he knows anyway without the words.
It's ironic that all this started with her exposing the bad thing he'd done, and now it ends with him doing the right thing. She needs a sign of solidarity, a gesture that will show him that he's not alone in this resolve. She will do the right thing too, even though it rips her heart out.
As he finally breaks eye contact with her to turn and leave, she says, "Tell Quinn I'll come by this weekend."
He looks over his shoulder, nodding. "Will do, Berry." And with that he's gone.
*
Quinn Fabray gains and loses the entire world during her sophomore year of high school. She makes head cheerleader and loses her virginity to her boyfriend's best friend in August. In October she finds out she's pregnant and joins Glee Club. By December she's homeless, Finn dumps her, and she's suddenly living with Noah Puckerman when she's still not sure she wants him to be the father of her child (even though genetically he is no matter what). But they win Sectionals, so that's something.
In January, Rachel Berry becomes her best friend. By the end of February, she's certain Puck will be a good father, and he might even be a decent boyfriend. In March she has sex with him because she doesn't like the way he and Rachel are looking at each other. She trusts them both, but sees no point in tempting fate.
Puck whispers "I love you" to her belly every night before he goes to sleep, and the day in April that she has sweet little Caroline, Quinn feels happier than she ever has, even when the doctor tells her she will never be able to give birth again. The whole Glee Club, including Finn, comes to her hospital room and sings to her.
It's not until they're making their way to the nursery that she notices a weird tension between Rachel and Puck. They don't look at each other even once the entire time they're all together. She finds herself watching them more than paying attention to all her friends. Her stomach hurts, and not just because she has staples in it holding her guts in.
Before they leave the hospital she tells Puck that she loves him for the first time, and while he looks surprised he says it back.
Rachel comes over about a week later and paints Quinn's toenails while cooing over the baby. She makes Puck take Caroline away after she's breast fed and asks Quinn seriously, "Are you okay? Emotionally, I mean? If you're feeling angry about losing your uterus, no one would blame you."
Quinn laughs, because it's such a Rachel thing to say, and it's not like she misplaced her uterus, which is how that phrasing makes it sound. She assures her friend that she's okay.
None of this is what she planned, but she's okay with all of it. She's sure she imagined everything at the hospital, and tells herself not to feel jealous when Rachel allows Puck back in the room with the baby, and they stand together looking at her daughter while Rachel sings softly to her. She watches them from the bed and thinks about how they look like a family. Holding her arms out, she demands playfully, "Bring me my baby. I miss her!"
A while later, Puck's mother comes in to "break up the party." She insists that the three of them get out of the house because "Quinn's been cooped up too much!" She takes Caroline from Quinn's arms and shoos them all out of the house towards Puck's truck.
Quinn climbs inside carefully, and Puck helps her so that she doesn't pull anything. Once she's seated in the center, Rachel climbs in on her right and Puck circles around to get in on the driver's side. She has a flash of the night they'd come to rescue her from Finn's, so many months before. She'd been so miserable then, and now she feels happier than she thought possible.
She doesn't know where they're going, and it doesn't matter. She loops one of her arms through Puck's after he starts the car and the other through Rachel's. She squeezes them both and declares, "I'm so happy, you guys." She's with the people she loves. They don't say anything, but they don't have to; she knows how they feel.
Rating: NC-17
Pairings/Characters: Puck/Quinn, Puck/Rachel
Warnings: spoilers for all aired episodes, couple of minor spoilers for the back nine.
Word count: ~9500
Author: domfangirl
Summary: Here's what happens when Puck gets everything he wants.
Author’s Notes: This idea sprang from a line in the song "Thank Goodness" from the musical Wicked, and is used as the title of this piece. (There are many parallels here between a guy torn between a bossy, beautiful blonde and a talented, overbearing brunette.) The angst is dedicated to andbless_mybaby just because I <3 her. Special thanks to the lovely and wonderful becca_radcgg, who betaed this piece of shit and it's better because of her awesomeness. (I only have a decent ending because she's brilliant.)
Noah Puckerman isn't noble, by any stretch of the imagination. Good Guy Syndrome's for suckers, and he's no sucker. He only lets Finn beat the holy hell out of him without hitting him back for two reasons: one, he knows he deserves it, and two, if it means he'll finally get Quinn, he's willing to suffer whatever it takes. So when she says she's going to do it on her own and he realizes Finn isn't the problem, he wonders what the hell he'd have to do to ever get what he wants.
Two days after that he finds out when Rachel Berry shows up at his house and asks him if he's prepared to offer Quinn a place to live. He exchanges glances with his mother, who stands in the doorway with him listening as Rachel explains that Finn's mother would actually allow Quinn to stay there as she has no other place to go, but in Finn's best interest, really, Quinn must go.
His mother nods once, and Puck grabs his jacket. He and Rachel drive in silence to the Hudson's, and Quinn climbs in his truck, her face tear-streaked, without protest. She sits in the middle between him and Rachel and he wishes he knew what to say to make things better.
Rachel's hand grazes Puck's letterman's jacket as she wraps her arm around Quinn's shoulders. He looks over as their heads press together, and Rachel whispers, "It will all work out."
Maybe it finally will.
*
He takes Quinn up to his room after introducing her and her baby bump to his mother and sister. She sits on the end of his bed like a zombie, and he can't help but miss the snooty little bitch who had made his life a living hell. This girl-this quiet, sad, unbelievably fragile looking girl is someone he can't handle.
Tentatively, he sits beside her. She reaches over and takes his hand, and he looks up at her, hope stirring low in his belly. He waits for her to speak because he still doesn't know what to say.
"Thank you," she whispers, and her green eyes shimmer under a layer of new tears.
He kisses her cheek softly. "You bet, babe."
*
It becomes surprisingly easy to play baby-daddy-to-be. He digs Quinn (always has), and having her around all the time is cool. She's kinder now, so she's not exactly the girl he’d had a hard-on for, but it's his kid in there, and he's gonna do whatever he's got to, to take care of them. (He gets a real part-time job as a stock boy at Target because no fast food place will have him after the peeing-in-the-fry-o-later incident at the Dairy Queen.)
Rachel comes over, like all the time, though. It's like, since Finn rejected her, she's globbed on to Quinn, and the weird thing is, Quinn seems to like it. It annoys Puck, but he gets used to her being there. Besides she's kinda funny sometimes, and she's always willing to help.
So when Quinn has a meltdown of epic proportions and he has no idea what to do to calm her down, Rachel is there, and things are better because of it.
A couple weeks pass, and one night they're sitting on the sofa watching TV. Rachel's been gone about ten minutes, and Puck jostles Quinn's foot with his own. "Why didn't you go live with Berry?" he asks, because he knows Rachel would have let her.
Quinn's eyes move from the television to his face and she shrugs. "My parents would freak if they knew I was living with two gay men."
Puck watches as she looks back at the Vampire show she's conned him into sitting through. "You know your parents are bastards, right?"
Her eyes swing back quickly to his face, and he has a few seconds to regret his true but insulting observation until she nods. "Yeah, I know, but they're my parents. The only ones I've got. If they're ever going to forgive me, I need to be careful."
"Living with the guy who knocked you up is better?" he questions.
She nods curtly, and doesn't invite further discussion. When he scoots down so that her feet are on his lap, she relaxes a bit. He starts massaging the ball of her foot and she makes a little sound of contentment that reminds him of how she got that baby inside her to begin with.
He sort of hates that all he can think about is being her boyfriend for real, and them being a real family when he knows she's only there because she had no other choice.
If anything, Puck's always been an optimist when it came to girls and separating them from their panties. And winning her over can't be that impossible. (After all, he's a stud, and this is known territory.)
*
He enlists Rachel's help, since she's there all the fucking time anyway. She starts slipping him information, little gifts he can pick up for Quinn, things that make him look like the most thoughtful guy around.
On a day that Quinn has a pedicure appointment (yeah, that’s what some of his Target money goes to, and it sucks), he and Rachel walk around the mall looking at maternity clothes. At first he thinks it's totally lame because no matter what they do to clothes to make them cute, they just look huge to him, and even though he knows Quinn's middle section is thick, she doesn't look fat to him, just round.
When he says as much to Rachel, she goes off about “primordial urges” and other bullshit he doesn’t understand (or want to, thank you very much) and how Quinn is attractive to him because she carries his spawn. (Yes, Rachel says spawn, and he cracks up because it's such a funny word.)
She holds a white dress with yellow flowers out, her arm extended up to give him the full effect and he can’t help but notice the way her boobs push against her tight little t-shirt.
“Noah?” she says and his eyes guiltily snap to her face and then back to the dress quickly when he sees the realization in her gaze.
“This one’s nice,” he says and he reaches out to finger the soft cotton material. He doesn’t know why he feels so guilty, it’s not like he’s a monk now just because he’s decided to show Quinn he can be true, even without incentive. Rachel has a nice rack. Small, but nice. And he can’t help that he knows how those breasts feel against his chest. He can’t help that he’s made out with Rachel and that at odd moments it all floods back into his brain stronger and more vivid than porn from the computer.
It’s stupid because he hardly got to second base with her (the one time he tried to touch them, she pushed his hands away, but not before he felt her nipple pucker up beneath his thumb), and he fucking knocked Quinn up, but damn. Rachel Berry’s hot, and if she weren’t around all the time, it wouldn’t be on his mind so much, he’s sure of it.
In fact, before Quinn moved in and Rachel became her best friend, he never thought about her ever.
(Except sometimes when he lay awake late at night and he needed something from the spank bank because that always made him sleepy. So what if making out with Rachel seemed to be the fantasy of choice more often than the one of having sex with Quinn. It didn’t mean anything. Rachel was a mystery, Quinn was known. He totally wanted to know Quinn again, ASAP.)
“I’ll get her this,” he says suddenly, turning and walking towards the cash registers.
Rachel follows him, but says nothing. It kinda freaks him out, her being quiet.
When they go to pick up Quinn, Rachel makes a big deal about how he picked out the dress and Quinn gets tears in her eyes and kisses him full on the mouth in the doorway of the beauty shop.
He thinks it’s weird that he feels embarrassed by it, but then he sees Rachel’s face, and it gets worse than that. So he just doesn’t think about anything at all except his baby momma in his arms, and everything he’s wanted for months finally falling into place.
*
Rachel couldn't really say how it had happened. The Rachel-Quinn-Noah thing was not the way she'd envisioned the result of her late night excursion to the Puckerman's when it had become glaringly obvious that Quinn could not stay at Finn's.
When she drove away from Noah's house that night, and went back to Finn's, only to have Finn hug her tight, thank her for her help, and then practically push her out the door, she had definitely been expecting something else.
Not that she and Finn would magically be together; she understood some time would have to pass, and he would have to heal. But she didn't think he'd just start ignoring her like he did Noah and Quinn.
When she confronted him about it, he'd only shrugged and then confessed that somehow her presence only reminded him more of the terrible situation, and later when she was alone, Rachel berated herself for not thinking through the avenue in which she revealed the paternity of Quinn's baby.
Making herself the catalyst had been horribly unwise. It had been the right thing, she didn't doubt that; she should just have finessed it better, if she really wanted Finn to be with her.
Which she totally did, didn't she?
The easy rhythm that she fell into with Quinn struck her as odd, but somehow a friendship had been forged out of their mutual loss. She loved Quinn now, and understood just what had happened, why the beautiful blonde cheerleader had lied to hold on to Finn, and why now she told the truth and slowly turned to Puck, her expression softening each day as his efforts to woo her succeeded.
No one ever need know that Rachel orchestrated the whole thing; all that mattered was that Noah took direction beautifully, and the day Quinn kisses him in front of her, she's shocked, literally to her very bones, by the jealousy that courses through her body.
She doesn't even let Noah drive her home, instead she calls her father on her cell phone and escapes their couply presence by saying she forgot about an item she was supposed to pick up for her parents.
Noah gives her a puzzled but quickly distracted glance, and Quinn just says, "See you tomorrow, Rach," as she wraps her arms around his neck.
She goes home and realizes this is the way life will be now, and she had best just make lemonade out of her lemons, because like it or not, Noah and Quinn are all she's got. And she'd rather have them than nothing.
Their friendship is more important, and longer lasting, than any stupid boyfriend ever could be, anyway. Right?
*
Not really, she finds. She still wants Finn, and whenever there's a goal in sight, she knows there is some way to achieve it. One day after Glee rehearsal, she tries again, but he just looks at her with sad eyes and tells her he has to go. She follows after him a few seconds later, determined to make him give her-them-a chance. When she sees Santana of all people waiting in the hall for him and then their hands join and they walk away together, she feels physically ill. It's worse than watching Noah with Quinn for sure, because at least they make sense. Finn and Santana? Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot, as Noah would say. (That's how he curses when his mother and sister are around.)
If she were going to pair Finn with anyone besides herself, it would have been Brittany.
She sits down on the piano bench in the choir room and cries. She can't help it, and she can't decide whom she hates the most: Finn for being so stupid, herself for ruining it all, or Noah and Quinn for being cheaters in the first place.
She's got her face in her hands when she hears, "Yo, what's the matter, Berry?"
Startled, she jumps to her feet and wipes at the tears as though more of them aren't falling, and she turns away from him. "What are you doing here?" she asks in deflection.
"Quinn forgot her sheet music. 'Course we got all the way home before she noticed, and then she's all like bawling about it, so I had to come back and get it," he explains. Rachel turns to face him as she feels like she's got control of her emotions. He walks over to where Quinn had been sitting during rehearsal, and sure enough, there's a pile of papers beneath the chair. He picks it up and then walks back towards her and the piano. "What's up with you?" he asks. He looks concerned, his forehead creased with a frown, but Rachel has her pride, and she doesn't want to lose it in front of him.
"Nothing," she says, forcing cheer into her voice. "Everything's fine."
He cocks his head slightly and stares at her. "You think I can't see the snot dripping there?"
Her hand reflexively covers her nose, but there's nothing wet on her upper lip. Glaring at him, she sees a smile flit over his face before he covers it with a cough. Rolling the sheet music into a cylinder, he holds it up to his eye like a periscope. "Fine, don't tell me," he says. "I gotta bail anyway, before baby momma calls me with some other freak out that doesn't matter at fucking all, but I gotta pretend like it's a big deal or face an even bigger fucking problem."
Lowering the paper so they are staring at each other, he waits, just half a beat. When she doesn't respond, he rolls his eyes, spins on his heel, and starts for the door.
Rachel can't say what possesses her to do it, but she stops him with the words, "What do I have to do to get Finn, Noah?"
He freezes, his shoulders stiffening, and very slowly he turns back toward her. The expression on his face would melt hearts of ice, and she knows before he says anything just how hopeless it is. "Berry, he's with Santana now. You won't get any of that until she's done with him, and that might be a while, because San? Well, she's getting back at me and Quinn right now. And Finn? He's, well, you know, a total fucking idiot, but he's also getting back at us." He walks a couple steps back towards her, and Rachel flinches away. The tears have started anew, and she can't do anything to hold them in, so she turns away.
His arms wrap around her, surprising her, but there's this amazing heat from his body, and he just surrounds her, his chest to her back, the fronts of his legs dipping slightly to cradle her backside. It's a full-body hug, but not sexual, which Rachel admits both shocks and disappoints her (just a little). He squeezes her tight and his lips press against the hair over her left ear. "He's a fucking douche, Rachel, and he doesn't deserve you, and if you ever go out with him, I will personally kick your ass."
For some reason that strikes her funny bone in just the right way, and she starts laughing. The expulsion of emotion sort of rockets through her, driving the breath from her lungs, and his arms loosen slowly, as though she were a little child just taking her first steps. His hands wrap around her upper arms, keeping her steady, and she sees that Quinn's music has hit the floor next to them.
"Thank you, Noah," she whispers.
He smacks her ass like he would any of the guys on the football field during a game. "Suck it up, Berry. You're better than all of it."
She doesn't turn around and watch him leave, but when she finally succumbs to the knowledge that she needs to get home, she scoops up Quinn's sheet music, pulls out her phone and texts Quinn, I'll give you your music tomorrow. Tell Noah I found it.
She hits send and wonders why she lied about something so silly.
*
Puck awakes in the middle of the night with a boner. This is not a mystery to him, as there's a chick in his bed, sleeping soundly, and he wants her. Her blonde hair is spread over his pillow and her breath is on his cheek. Her warmth is right there, all the time, and even though her belly seems to get bigger every day, he still thinks she's so beautiful.
He swings his legs off the bed and creeps out as quickly as he can to the bathroom, however, for the first time ever, because the reason he woke up was because he was having a seriously intense sex dream.
About Rachel Berry.
This one wasn't a tame she-climbs-in-his-window-and-he-has-a-vision-from-God kind of dream. It was all naked skin, and pointed pink nipples, and spread legs-and, oh, god, he muffles the sound in his throat with the knuckles of one hand pressed against his lips while his other hand makes short work of the erection in his shorts.
He drops down on the toilet, panting heavily.
This is so not good.
*
The next day at school, it's like he can't even look Rachel, or Quinn, in the face, and for the life of him he can't figure out why. He'd had no problem fucking Quinn and then hanging out with Finn the very next day and acting totally normal. This time he hasn't even done anything, and he feels like a total fucking pervert.
Maybe it's because Rachel has somehow become his friend (and he totally doesn't do girls-as-friends, unless they're friends-with-benefits) and she and Quinn giggle together over everything from the new Zac Efron movie to the pink baby booties he'd picked up the last time he'd been at the mall. (He hadn't even been tipped off by Rachel, he'd just seen something his daughter would look hella cute in at some point.)
He could feel Quinn watching him, all day, and when they got home, she confronted him in her passive-aggressive way that only made him feel like more of a douchebag. She angrily stomps upstairs some time after their battle of wits stagnates. She never actually accuses him of anything, and he doesn't cop to any wrong-doing, but his little sister just looks at him with big, sad eyes.
"Is Quinn going to take the baby away before we even get to meet her?" Rebekah asks, and Puck has a literal twinge in his chest, like his heart cramped up the way his legs sometimes do after a hard practice.
"No," he snaps, grabbing his jacket and slamming out of the house. He gets all the way to his truck, his key in the ignition, and his destination set in his mind before he realizes that he better calm the fuck down before he ruins everything.
This is what he wanted, right? Quinn, his. The baby, his, and everyone knows it. They're together (okay, not together-together, because until she gives it up to him again, it feels like she's still test driving him, and that's making him a little crazy), but it's never going to be more if he goes to Rachel Berry's.
And that's where he wants to go. He can see it now, the surprise on her face, the concern in her eyes. She'd whisk him up the stairs, right past her two gay dads, and he'd have his fingers inside her panties inside ten minutes.
It's been there, building between them for a while, really ever since they'd dated, but now that she's off-limits, she seems just that much more desirable.
She's a new version of what Quinn used to be. And he doesn't want a new Quinn, he tells himself with much more authority than he’s ever told himself anything before. He wants the old Quinn. The one in his house; the one in his bed. (The one who used to be with Finn, but really is nowhere to be found now.)
The one who's going to give birth to his daughter in two months.
He goes back into the house and gives his mother a look that keeps her from saying whatever rebuke sits on her tongue. She just nods at him, and it makes him feel like he's growing up. Coming back and dealing with the situation is what a man would do. (And he's a man-he’s not like his father.)
He opens the bedroom door carefully and sees Quinn curled up the bed, her arms wrapped around his pillow and tears on her face. Kneeling next to the bed so that their faces are close, he presses his lips to her forehead. He doesn't say the words I'm sorry because that's not his style, but he does palm her belly caressingly and whisper, "I'm just frustrated, Quinn. I want you, so bad, and I'm kinda going fucking nuts here."
It's true. Totally. He does want Quinn. Needs her. Like, a lot.
She sniffs and puts her hand over his on her belly. "Puck," she says, her voice very soft. "I don't...I'm not, well, I'm just not-“ She takes a deep breath, her eyes moving away from his. "I don't want you to see me-not like this."
He'd made a couple of thoughtless comments here and there, so he probably deserves that. But really, it doesn't gross him out. He's felt his kid in there, moving around and doing somersaults, and there had been nights where they both fell asleep like this, with their hands joined on her stomach. His fingers always itched to move lower, though, and how he managed to control himself still boggled his mind a bit.
He slides his hand under her cheek, tipping her face up towards his. Pressing his lips to hers, he kisses her soft and sweet, with hardly any pressure. He does everything the exact opposite of what he'd like to do (hard, fast, hungry, hungry, hungry) and when her lips part and she reaches for him, he still goes slow. Easing himself on to the bed next to her, he just kisses and kisses her until they're both breathless.
He moves his hand under her shirt, rubs his fingers over her belly, hooks his thumb inside the waistband of her maternity pants, and dips it in slightly. She quivers, and her hand grabs at his wrist, preventing any more movement. "Puck," she says, her voice sharp.
"I don't care," he murmurs.
"I do," she insists.
He blows out a frustrated breath and pulls his hand away. "Fine," he says, trying not to sound as pissed as he feels.
*
A week later he's paired with Rachel in their new number for Regionals. He's got the lead, and Schue's worked out some tricky choreography that has them rubbing up against each other way too much. He can see that it's having as much affect on Rachel as it does on him because she stops looking him in the eye, and she begs off when Quinn invites her over as usual.
It doesn't help that one day in the middle of practice, Schue makes them hold their position for way too long so he can work out how to incorporate Artie and his chair more fluidly into the sequence. He stands back from them, observing them all like a painting in some fucking museum, and Rachel shifts against Puck just right (or just wrong, however you look at it). He starts to get hard, and her eyes jerk to his, but instead of skittering away like they normally do, she stares at him. The longer that goes on, the harder he gets; she licks her lips and drops her gaze to his mouth, and he knows if they were alone right now, he'd be coming in a matter of minutes, either because he got her to put her hands in his pants, or even better, because her mouth would be around him, hot and sweet and wet.
Just the mental image is enough to take him right to the edge.
He practically knocks her to the floor when he bolts for the restroom a second later.
That night, in the dark, he's laying on his right side behind Quinn, who is in the same position. She reaches back and slides a hand down his hip, and then over his crotch. He's not asleep when it happens, but he's not thinking of her, and because he can't see her, it's almost like the lightning fast fantasy from earlier in the day, and he's instantly ready. Then she whispers, "We can do it like this," and she finds his hand and brings it to her hip. She helps him pull her pajama bottoms down, and he moves his fingers between her thighs. She's damp, though not terribly so, and he knows he won't last for shit, so he better do something to make it good for her.
It's awkward, and even when she's wet (her boobs are super sensitive, and she gasps quietly as he strokes her nipples), he has a hard time finding a good rhythm from behind her. Instinctually, something echoes in his brain so he pulls her back into him at the same time he slides himself forward, shoving her legs up and twisting her torso back so they're facing each other more, even though he can't see her.
He wants to kiss her mouth, but only finds the side of her neck, and then her hand slides along the back of his neck, and he's done, the soft rub of her fingers over the base of his mohawk causing him to arch and thrust clumsily until he grunts in both satisfaction and frustration. He's way better than this; he knows because she came the night he took her virginity.
He moves his hand back between her legs and finds her clit even as his softened cock slips from inside her. She convulses a moment later, and he feels a little bit better, but even as he lays there in the quiet after they've cleaned up (still in the dark) he doesn't feel triumphant, like he supposes he would.
He'd been with many a chick that had no identity; ones he'd fucked that he imagined to be someone else; sometimes they'd been girls from school whose last names he'd never known, and first names he was likely to forget before the condom came off; other times they were cougars who didn't want him to remember their names, at least not after they paid him in cash and sent him on his way; lots of times those girls and women had been Quinn in his mind, both before and after he'd actually had her.
It's utter bullshit that on a night when he finally gets her again, just like he wanted, he struggles to keep her in his mind, even as they lay drifting into sleep and he can feel their child tapping against his ribcage through her belly.
*
Rachel Berry prepares for Regionals by discovering that she has once again fallen in love with someone who will never reciprocate her feelings. Because of Quinn Fabray.
She can't help but wonder why she keeps making this same mistake, but she knows Noah Puckerman is not the same as Finn Hudson, and to compare the two of them is virtually a blasphemy. This is also when she realizes she never really loved Finn, and she cries because it hurts so much more now. Noah is who she wants, and sometimes she thinks he wants her too, not just in the traditional sense of those words. He likes talking to her too, and he's started asking her to bring movies over instead of just relying on whatever action flick he's got in his cabinet.
Just because they sit on the sofa Puck-Quinn-Rachel (Noah points out that it’s alphabetical if Rachel calls him by his “real name” and she argues that Noah is his real name and they go back and forth until Quinn tells them both to shut up) doesn't mean that it was always the three of them. They'd spent time alone too-innocently-when Quinn had things to do that Noah didn't want to do, or times when she had lunch with her mother and she didn't want Puck to accompany her.
When Rachel finds that the torture of his presence even in a friends-only capacity is something she's willing to endure, that's when she knows she loves him. The funny thing now is that she loves Quinn, too, but she has no recourse with Noah (no new babygate news to drop), and even if she did have something, she knows she wouldn't use it. She learns from her mistakes, generally speaking.
She thinks they sort of love each other, but they are not well suited. Noah is rough around the edges, and Quinn is all smooth perfection. The thing is Quinn has little patience to work with the rough diamond that her boyfriend is, and Rachel can see all the potential in the world in Noah. With the right motivation, he could be something really great, a singer-songwriter maybe, or at the very least a music teacher. He's quite talented on the guitar, and he knows how to play the piano too, though he rarely lets anyone in on that fact.
Rachel feared more than anything that in an effort to keep Quinn happy, he might sacrifice any dreams he had, and by the time he realized what he'd done, it would be too late to change the trajectory. These were things she sometimes tried to mention to Quinn, but that usually caused her to tense up and snap things back like, "He's my boyfriend, Rachel. I'll worry about that stuff."
"He's my friend, Quinn, and so are you. You have to think about your future-your baby's future."
"You think I don't think about that? My God, Rachel! I'm the one who's pregnant, I'm the one who decided to keep this baby. I'm the one that all of this rests on. Trust me when I say I think about it all the time!"
Rachel had shut up after that because she knew stress was bad for pregnant women.
Her cell phone rings just before 5am in the middle of April and she reaches for it blindly before sitting up to turn the bedside lamp on. She sees Noah's name on her caller ID and she wonders what in the world is going on. "Noah?" she asks worriedly as she looks at her clock and rubs the sleep from her eyes.
"Rach, Quinn's having the baby-only, it's like a total fucking crazy nightmare, because she has to have a C-section, and-“ Rachel hears a bunch of commotion, and something that sounds like a howl of pain. Then she can hear Quinn crying and Puck says distractedly, "It's okay, baby, it's okay."
"I'm on my way," she says, springing out of bed. What in the world she'll do when she gets there, she has no idea, but they need her, and that's all that matters.
*
Rachel sits in the designated waiting area while Noah’s mother and Quinn’s parents pace back and forth in the small space. By the time she got there, Quinn was already in surgery, and Noah had gone with her.
When he comes walking out, he looks exhausted, his face ashen in color, and his eyes full of something Rachel has never seen before. He walks straight into his mother’s waiting arms, and for the first time ever, seems like a child.
The doctor follows close behind and brings them up to speed: Quinn had gone into early labor, only by three weeks, but the complication of a ruptured uterus had caused the need for a C-section. Baby and mother are expected to make a full recovery, but the baby would have to be in the NICU for a few days, and Quinn would be going home a bit lighter.
At 16 years old, she’d had to have a partial hysterectomy.
Quinn’s mother gasps in much the same way Rachel would have if she’d had any air in her lungs with which to react. Instead, she stands there feeling particularly helpless (not to mention useless, why she’d come there she doesn’t know) as Mrs. Puckerman comforts her son and Mr. Fabray consoles his wife. Quinn can have visitors later, but for now she was going to be monitored in intensive care for several hours just to be safe. She’d lost a lot of blood, but luckily the blood bank had been well stocked, and, that’s when the doctor adds that if any of them want to give blood that would be appreciated.
Finally having something to grasp upon, she jumps to her feet and asks the doctor to show her where to go to donate. He describes the location downstairs on the first floor and directs her to the elevator.
“Berry?” Noah’s voice stops her as she pivots towards the doorway. He leaves his mother’s embrace to grab her, pressing her tightly against his big body. Her arms circle his waist and she squeezes him. “Don’t go,” he whispers.
“You need to go home and rest,” she says, pulling back. His mother moves to stand beside them, the worry on her face matching the inner turmoil Rachel feels. It isn’t her job, or her right, to try to ease his pain, no matter how much she’d like to. It’s just the stress and worry of everything that’s happened, and once he sleeps that off, it will be okay.
Well, Quinn may never be okay, per se, but she would recover, eventually. He just stares at her for a long, silent moment, and then he asks, “Can I come over later?”
“Sure,” she says brightly, still feeling horribly out of place. She imagines Noah’s mother much prefers her, a good Jewish girl, but she’s not the one who just had his baby, so no amount of approval counts here.
She smiles and makes eye contact with Mrs. Puckerman. “Come on, sweetheart, let’s go home,” his mother says, pulling him away. “You need to sleep.”
“I’ll see you later, Berry,” he says, and Rachel nods. She barely makes it to the blood bank before her shaky legs give out on her, and she’s afraid she’ll be rejected for looking too pale, but they take her right in and lay her on what looks like a dentist’s chair. She closes her eyes and feels the prick of the needle as tears start to fall on Quinn’s behalf.
The phlebotomist pats her hand (she knows why Rachel had come to give blood because in one burst of breath she’d told Quinn’s whole terrifying experience), and says softly, “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
She just lays there with her eyes closed, crying softly. She tells herself that she cries for her friend, because even Rachel Berry knows how ridiculous it would be to make this all about her right now.
*
It's almost 9:30 that evening before Noah shows up at her house. He comes so late, and without a call or text, that Rachel genuinely thinks he'd completely forgotten that he'd even asked to come by.
When he comes in, they hug again because he still looks traumatized. Her fathers say hello to him and he gives them the short version of the story: Quinn had gone into labor late the night before (his mother had thought they were just false contractions), but around midnight her water broke, so they'd gone to the ER. After five hours of hard labor, the baby's heartbeat dropped suddenly, and the doctor had said they needed to do a C-section.
In Rachel's bedroom a few minutes later, he finishes the story just for her: "So there's Quinn, in all this pain, and in the middle of it, she grabs me," he chuckles a little as he grabs a fistful of his shirt to demonstrate, "and says 'Call Rachel!' and I'm all, 'The fuck for? She's not a doctor!' and she's all, 'Everything's always better if Rachel's there.'" Which causes Rachel to cover her mouth with a hand, shocked to know Quinn feels that way about her. "So I called you, and it made her feel better for a second, just to know you were coming."
Rachel thinks back to the frantic phone call, and the utter confusion in his voice, even though the worst hadn't even happened yet. "But then-“ he shudders now, and presses a hand down on top of the mattress as he sits on her bed. "She started bleeding, it was shooting out of her,” he gestures like something is coming out of his crotch area, “and-“ he curses now and Rachel can't help it, she puts one of her hands on his. "It was the scariest fucking thing I've ever seen in my whole fucking life."
He takes another breath and then looks at her face. "But it's okay. They're okay now, so, well, we survived."
"You've seen her?" Rachel asks.
Nodding, he smiles a little, but it's still obvious how affected he is by the whole experience. "Yeah, I was just at the hospital, and she's good. Tired and sore, but good. And the baby-“ His eyes light up now, real joy infusing his features. "Fuck, Rach, wait till you see her. She's so pretty. My mom said she looks good because she didn't go through the birth canal-which, gross, but whatever. She's gorgeous. They said we can hold her tomorrow."
Rachel hangs on every word even though the longer he talks the more she finds her heart hurting. She doesn't know why the birth seems to have changed things. It's not like Noah is any less available than he was 24 hours ago, but he's a real father now, and there's some sense of gravity there that was missing before.
She smiles anyway, imagining that this performance may very well be the only award-worthy one she'll ever give. "Congratulations, by the way," she says, patting his hand. She sits back a bit, scooting away from him just a little, because she hadn't noticed how close they were until he stopped talking. "You're someone's daddy," she says, grinning goofily.
Noah's face flushes a little and he shakes his head in disbelief. "Poor little thing," he scoffs and then he does the strangest thing ever-he reaches his hands up and puts them on her shoulders, right at the base of her neck, as though he might try to crack it for her. Then his thumbs slide up so that they're just under her jaw. "We named her Rachel Caroline; we're gonna call her Caroline."
Rachel is so taken aback by this gesture that tears spring to her eyes. She feels dumbfounded, and unworthy, and a myriad of other emotions, but all of that recedes in a flash of heat when his right thumb brushes over her pulse point just so, and she feels her heart start tripping painfully in her chest. The new seriousness she sees in his expression causes his features to tighten just briefly, then he leans forward and presses his lips to hers, and stars explode behind her eyes.
His tongue is in her mouth, and his hands move under her hair, and she moves forward until she's suddenly straddling his lap, and they kiss-they kiss-like neither of them have ever kissed anyone ever before. A thousand times more intense than it had been between them months before, Rachel abruptly realizes that this is what it's like when there's more than just physical attraction between you and the person you're kissing.
She wants it all so badly in that moment, there is nothing else in her mind except Noah. Noah's hands, Noah's lips, Noah's taste on her tongue, his scent all around her, his warmth and strength right there encompassing her.
Noah, Noah, Noah.
*
Rachel, Rachel, Rachel.
It's like he's wanted this for so long, and dreamed about it for so long that he must be having another one right this moment because it couldn't actually be happening, he couldn't have actually started something, not when Quinn nearly bled to death in front of his eyes only 18 hours earlier.
Except that that's exactly why he's here, why he'd come, why secretly at the back of his mind, tucked into a place that he didn't even entirely reveal to himself all day, this had been his intention all along.
Fuck Rachel, fuck her fast and hard, and slow and sweet, be so close to her nothing can get between them, and feel her, and make her come all over him because, god it was all so fleeting and everything could change so fast. He's never really shown her everything he's wanted to, and he really can't show her (there will never be enough time), but he's got to, he's got to or he's going to fucking implode.
So he flips her onto her back and kisses her like he never will again (because he won't); he strips her clothes off (she lets him with absolutely no protest, not even a hint of shyness as he sees her white bra and pink panties--funny how he thought she'd match, and she totally doesn't and that makes him all the hotter for her); his hands touch her everywhere--as naked skin is revealed his fingers skate across it, and then his lips and his tongue, and he sucks at her nipples until her nails are embedded in the skin over his shoulders. His mouth moves over her belly and she gasps because she knows what's coming, and there's this half-hearted protest in her throat that he totally ignores as he spreads her thighs; one part of that very vivid dream he's had so many times is fulfilled as he moves his tongue into her, the sweet musky taste enough to make sweat break out across his entire body in an effort to not just grind himself against the edge of the mattress and come at the same moment she does.
Her fingers grip what little hair she can find at the top of his 'hawk, and he looks up as her chest heaves in the aftermath. He has the fleeting thought about her dads being just downstairs, and he has no idea how loud they've been, but he doesn't fucking care; they could come in and shoot him right through the heart, and he would die a happy man.
He just went down on Rachel Berry and it was as fucking awesome as he'd known it would be. He's harder than he's ever been in his life, but he knows they aren't having sex because he doesn't have anything with him. He also knows she'd only have to barely touch him for him to go off like a rocket.
Her eyes open sleepily and he moves back up so his face is right over hers. Leaning down, he kisses her mouth softly, and she arches up into him just right, just so he can feel how much she wants him, and he knows that he never felt this way with Quinn, even when he thought she really wanted him.
Even though now she loves him in some weird way, and they are what they are--mom and dad, and nothing that happens here changes that. Just like that, the reality of everything hits him and he snaps back emotionally from the place he'd been all day. Everything that had started late last night had taken him to a place of complete fucking chaos. "Oh, shit," he breathes, pulling back from Rachel.
It's not like he doesn't know what he did, it's just that it had been muffled by a driving force that he still doesn't exactly comprehend.
He pushes himself up, getting his knees under him, and he shakes his head as their eyes lock. "I don't know what--" but Rachel sits up too, all her nakedness totally undermining any moment of nobility he might have been having.
"Just this one time, Noah. A moment out of time. Nothing counts here, and it never happens again."
He just keeps shaking his head, and words spill out. "I can't-we-can’t. And I don't have anything with me anyway, and you'll hate us both tomorrow, and I can't-I need you too much, you can't ever hate me, and-“ his words come to a dead halt when she leans over and opens the drawer of her bedside table. She pulls out a condom and holds it up so he can see it easily.
"Part of my sweet 16 birthday gift from my fathers was a pack of condoms." She just looks at him and then she says, “And I could never hate you, even if I wanted to.”
Even though he's been a father for less than 24 hours, he can't help but think that's some fucked up shit-but fucked up shit he's very grateful for. Still, the entire situation gives him pause, in a far greater way than a similar one he'd been in about nine months earlier.
Rachel can’t hate him because she loves him. She’s not saying it, but that doesn’t mean he can’t hear it anyway.
He'd been thrilled to take Quinn's virginity-virtually stealing it right out from under Finn-but he just can't take Rachel's as lightly; and he’s certain she is. He sees too much when he looks at her, things that pop out at him and a whole story that he shouldn't be allowed to know when he can't really have it.
He wraps his hand around her neck and pulls her forehead to rest against his. Taking a deep breath, he whispers, "I want to, I want it-you-so much, but you don't want to do this. Not like this."
Because he's going back to Quinn, no matter what she says. He has to. That's the only way this can end.
Her small hand slips under his shirt, pushing up until she puts her palm over his left pec. She presses her fingers there for a long silent moment. "Do it, Noah," is all she says. She makes no declarations, doesn't ask him to be gentle. It's not a demand, it's an offering.
He suddenly realizes why Quinn loves Rachel so much. Because she just gives, and never takes.
It’s why he loves her too. Fuck.
So he has to do the right thing. He has to walk away.
This whole being-a-man shit sucks balls. He closes his eyes, sees his little girl in her incubator, and finds moral fiber he never knew he possessed.
“I can’t,” he whispers. He presses his lips to hers gently, and then he pulls the comforter around her, covering her up. “I’m sorry,” he says.
He means it more than any apology he’s ever uttered, and there haven’t been many.
He hears a sob escape her throat as he pulls her bedroom door shut. He runs down the stairs, two at a time, and waves to her dads as he bolts out the door.
Before he can change his mind.
*
Two days later, Rachel and the whole Glee Club go to the hospital. They have, under Rachel's careful direction of course, arranged a mash-up of "Baby of Mine/You Are My Sunshine," and so they sing it acapella for Quinn and Puck in Quinn's hospital room before the new parents take them to the NICU nursery so they can all peer at Caroline through the window.
Quinn walks very slowly, and Puck ends up finding a wheelchair to cart her around on because she's just too sore and weak to be on her feet for too long. His painstaking care of his "baby momma" makes Rachel's chest ache; he won't look at her, or at least every time she's looking at him, he's not looking at her, and as soon as his head turns and she thinks maybe he might look at her, she quickly averts her eyes because she doesn't know what might happen if they have any kind of interaction.
She'll probably just start crying, and make a fool of herself. She makes sure every time Quinn looks at her she plasters a giant smile across her face, but it helps having all the other kids there. They all have questions for Quinn, and so she and Puck tell the whole story of what happened again.
Quinn praises Puck's strength and support, talking at length about how he held her hand the whole time, and how scared she was and how she could never have gotten through it if it weren't for him. Noah actually looks embarrassed by all the positive words and brushes off the other boys' attempts to slap his back with 'you da man' sentiments.
The only thing that's good about the whole thing is that Quinn still needs a lot of rest so a nurse comes in and runs them out when they get too noisy. Rachel's never been so grateful for this group of people than she is as all of them make their way back outside. She manages to get to her car before she starts crying.
A few days after that, Noah returns to school. Quinn and Caroline are home now, but Quinn still has some healing to do before she'll be allowed back at school. Rachel knows she needs to have a long sit down talk with her friend, after all, everything Quinn had gone through had been even more traumatizing for her than it had been for Noah.
She doesn't think she can do it yet. She's not that good of an actress.
He catches her after Glee on Thursday, his hand snagging her wrist and his eyes asking for far more than his mouth does. "Hey, can I talk to you for a minute?"
She looks around, hoping for an escape route, but everyone else has magically disappeared. She doesn't think she can handle whatever is coming, even though she has no idea what he might say. Maybe he's changed his mind, and he wants her even though it will destroy everything. Maybe he just wants her so much, that he'll say, Fuck it all, because that's totally something he'd do and say. Maybe he's about to break Quinn's heart and all Rachel can think is as much as she wants that, she doesn't think she can live with it.
She nods, whispers, "Sure," and lets him pull her back into the choir room, over to the piano bench. They sit down, and before he even starts to speak, she knows he's not going to do any of those crazy things she just thought about. Something happened to him when Quinn gave birth. Something irreversible.
He takes a deep breath and wraps his fingers around her left hand, holding it loosely in his palm. "There is no competition," he says, his fingers strumming a slight pattern against her skin. "But if there was, Rach," he pauses, looks away from her face for the longest 30 seconds of Rachel's life, and then takes another deep breath before pronouncing, "but if there was, you would totally win. Everything."
Rachel stares at him, wondering how in the world he could have ever come to mean this much to her, in this way--in this wholly inappropriate way--and she aches, all the way to her soul. His fingers squeeze hers once more, then he releases her and eases away, getting off the bench. His eyes drill into hers, and she knows he's trying to say even more than he already has. Not that she needs anymore to be perfectly miserable in the delight that if it weren't for sweet little Caroline, she would finally get the boy of her dreams, and be completely happy.
She doesn't say anything in response. Not because she couldn't stand up and recite a monologue right now about how she feels about him, but somehow she understands that he knows anyway without the words.
It's ironic that all this started with her exposing the bad thing he'd done, and now it ends with him doing the right thing. She needs a sign of solidarity, a gesture that will show him that he's not alone in this resolve. She will do the right thing too, even though it rips her heart out.
As he finally breaks eye contact with her to turn and leave, she says, "Tell Quinn I'll come by this weekend."
He looks over his shoulder, nodding. "Will do, Berry." And with that he's gone.
*
Quinn Fabray gains and loses the entire world during her sophomore year of high school. She makes head cheerleader and loses her virginity to her boyfriend's best friend in August. In October she finds out she's pregnant and joins Glee Club. By December she's homeless, Finn dumps her, and she's suddenly living with Noah Puckerman when she's still not sure she wants him to be the father of her child (even though genetically he is no matter what). But they win Sectionals, so that's something.
In January, Rachel Berry becomes her best friend. By the end of February, she's certain Puck will be a good father, and he might even be a decent boyfriend. In March she has sex with him because she doesn't like the way he and Rachel are looking at each other. She trusts them both, but sees no point in tempting fate.
Puck whispers "I love you" to her belly every night before he goes to sleep, and the day in April that she has sweet little Caroline, Quinn feels happier than she ever has, even when the doctor tells her she will never be able to give birth again. The whole Glee Club, including Finn, comes to her hospital room and sings to her.
It's not until they're making their way to the nursery that she notices a weird tension between Rachel and Puck. They don't look at each other even once the entire time they're all together. She finds herself watching them more than paying attention to all her friends. Her stomach hurts, and not just because she has staples in it holding her guts in.
Before they leave the hospital she tells Puck that she loves him for the first time, and while he looks surprised he says it back.
Rachel comes over about a week later and paints Quinn's toenails while cooing over the baby. She makes Puck take Caroline away after she's breast fed and asks Quinn seriously, "Are you okay? Emotionally, I mean? If you're feeling angry about losing your uterus, no one would blame you."
Quinn laughs, because it's such a Rachel thing to say, and it's not like she misplaced her uterus, which is how that phrasing makes it sound. She assures her friend that she's okay.
None of this is what she planned, but she's okay with all of it. She's sure she imagined everything at the hospital, and tells herself not to feel jealous when Rachel allows Puck back in the room with the baby, and they stand together looking at her daughter while Rachel sings softly to her. She watches them from the bed and thinks about how they look like a family. Holding her arms out, she demands playfully, "Bring me my baby. I miss her!"
A while later, Puck's mother comes in to "break up the party." She insists that the three of them get out of the house because "Quinn's been cooped up too much!" She takes Caroline from Quinn's arms and shoos them all out of the house towards Puck's truck.
Quinn climbs inside carefully, and Puck helps her so that she doesn't pull anything. Once she's seated in the center, Rachel climbs in on her right and Puck circles around to get in on the driver's side. She has a flash of the night they'd come to rescue her from Finn's, so many months before. She'd been so miserable then, and now she feels happier than she thought possible.
She doesn't know where they're going, and it doesn't matter. She loops one of her arms through Puck's after he starts the car and the other through Rachel's. She squeezes them both and declares, "I'm so happy, you guys." She's with the people she loves. They don't say anything, but they don't have to; she knows how they feel.