A/N: This story wasn't originally Puckleberry but I realized that this could be easily changed into one so I did. This is still my first time writing Puckleberry or even Glee so I'm a bit (super!) nervous. I know Puck may seem a bit OOC in this and I apologize if that's the case. Hope you guys read further than this note and like the little story I wrote and please let me know what you thought, reviews are much appreciated!

Title from Matt Nathanson - Never Forget My Memories.

P.S. I sadly do NOT own Glee and any of its characters. *le sigh*

P.P.S. This is my third attempt posting this story here. Sorry if you've already read it.

-Emilia

It was just a regular day for 28-year-old Puck. He woke up a bit disoriented, not sure what had occurred the night prior. Too much whiskey and too many beers at the local bar, that much was sure, but he wasn't sure who he'd ended up taking with him to the cheap motel he was now officially living at.

Who was the fuck of the night? Not that he really cared to be honest, just as long as the slut wasn't minor. He didn't exactly have the money let alone the energy to fight in court if some bitch accused him of raping them. He never had problems with getting a girl, they were always willing to get with him, but he just wasn't really sober enough to guess their ages.

Puck had lived this life for long enough now to not really give a fuck about anything. His ma and sister had cut all ties to him a couple years prior (he wasn't exactly sure how long it had been. The days started to blend in after six or nine months, he wasn't really sure of that either) and he knew that this life was the best that he could do anymore.

He didn't have any right to mourn or whine about it. He had caused it all. It was his fault, all of it. Now he was a drunken asshole at best and that would never change. He'd just keep drinking and fucking and repeating the same pattern till he died or was too old to hit on the sluts at the bars, whichever came first. He was counting on the first, or hoping, whatever, didn't really matter considering he was basically dead anyway.

Puck turned around in the bed, thinking it was the right time to kick out whatever bimbo blond or ginger or whatever was sleeping on the other side of the bed when he registered the chestnut curls that were spread over the bare tan back and for a second he thought he was dreaming. Then he wished all that had happened over the last couple years had been a nightmare and he was back in that penthouse in New York and all was well.

Soon he would hear the cries of his baby girl that was sleeping next door to the master bedroom in the nursery they'd designed together. But then he realized that the walls and everything else was still the same design of that cheap motel room he'd lived since selling the apartment and moving all the way to Seattle to get as far away from the once so perfect life of his that he had ruined.

It didn't take long after that for Puck to kick the slut out of his room. He couldn't bear to look at the woman but he knew for a fact that she was scared of him. He screamed and yelled till she was gone and then his knees gave out from underneath him and he felt - for the first time in years he felt and he cared and it fucking hurt. It hurt more than he thought it would and it reminded him of the reasons why he'd stopped feeling in the first place. But now that it was all back, the agony and pain and guilt…he couldn't stop.

The pressure in his chest wouldn't lessen no matter how long he sat there sobbing. He'd broken that one single promise he'd made for himself since fucking that first brunette after everything had went downhill: Never again. They'd never be her, no one would.

Sitting there, giving into the pain he felt, his ex-best friend's words from several months prior echoed in his ears like it had just happened and he realized what a mess he'd let his life become. He finally allowed himself to relive the last conversation he'd had with his oldest friend, who'd once been like a brother to him, for the first time since it had taken place at the exact same room years ago.

Finn had been trying to contact him for a few weeks already, but Puck wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone who knew about his life in New York, let alone back in Lima. He had wanted to start from scratch in a completely new place, but Finn found him anyway.

He arrived to the hotel at around 11 a.m. and he was told where to go. Everyone at the hotel already knew what a man-whore Puck was and Finn got some odd looks thrown at him when he'd asked for his friends' room. He'd knocked at the door number 63 without getting any answers and after realizing that the door wasn't locked, he just stepped in, not prepared to see the, once again, mohawked man fucking a random redhead against the wall opposite to the door.

It didn't take long for Puck to recognize that the intruder was his best friend since kindergarten, shove his dick back into his pants and kick the girl out of the room into the hallway, with her dress still rolled up the her waist.

"The fuck you doing here?" He grumbled as he took another beer out of his fridge, he wasn't sure if it was sixth or seventh or twelfth for the night, not that it actually even mattered, he just knew he was too drunk for this conversation.

"D'you know it's not even noon yet? And you're completely wasted already." Finn questioned.

He hadn't been sure what to expect when he arrived to the hotel but this was furthest from that, the guy in front of him wasn't his best friend, he was more like the boy he'd known in high school. Finn remembered him as the guy who had the best life ever, who was the happiest guy out there, done with the way he'd been living in high school. Though, yeah, after everything that went down the previous year, he hadn't expected to see Puck all happy and singing rainbows but he'd thought the ring in his finger would've meant a bit more than just throwing it all away.

"It's gotta be 5 o'clock somewhere, eh?" Puck mumbled and finished his beer before opening another one.

"Puck, you can't keep living like this," Finn sighed, "Drinking and partying, is that what your life's become now? It might numb the pain for the night or whatever but it doesn't erase what happened and when you wake up next to another blond or redhead the next morning..." Finn shook his head trying to erase the image of what he'd walked in on earlier from his mind, "It doesn't really make it better, does it. You can't just fuck her out of your heart-"

"You really think I give a fuck anymore? She's gone, I get it, okay! I'm accepting what happened and moving on with my life just like you were all bitching for me to do!"

"But you're really not, are you? Handling it and accepting what happened, I mean. If you had, would you really be trying to hook up with girls as opposite to her as you can find? Would you be drinking every fucking day? No you wouldn't! You're not even fucking trying!" Finn kept another pause and took a deep breath, "You gave up the day she died. You haven't been the same since then; you've become a person you used to say you'd never be again. A drunken asshole, that's what you are right now!"

Puck sat down on his bed and rubbed a hand through his face, he was about to admit his biggest mistake and regret (much worse than sleeping with Quinn) to Finn. The real reason his wife was now dead.

"I was that even before the accident and truth be told, it wouldn't have even happened had I been the husband you all seem to think I was."

Now Finn was confused. What on earth was Puck talking about? Their marriage had been one of those fairytales they told kids about. Of course they'd been known to fight once in a while but they were Noah and Rachel, of course they fought. And yeah, there had been some trouble after Rachel had given birth to their daughter but Finn thought they'd managed to work it all out eventually.

"The night of the accident, Rachel…" Puck winced at the mere thought of her name, "…came home two hours earlier than she was supposed to and... I'm not sure what happened but there was someone else, and she… Fuck, she walked in on us. It was the first time. I know it doesn't make it better… It's just… All I can remember is that the baby was keeping us up all night long and Rachel wouldn't allow me near herself and I... Fuck I just needed a relief and now... Now they're both fucking gone and it's all my fault cause I couldn't keep my fucking dick in my pants!"

By the end of his rant Puck was sobbing and Finn just stared at him completely expressionless, and he couldn't bring it in himself to comfort Puck. He felt pity and he was disgusted. Maybe the Puck from high school would have fucked some random girl cause his wife and daughter were sick and his wife wouldn't give him the relief he needed. But not the Noah that had married Rachel Berry.

"You remember what you told me about your old man? Hope you do, cause you're just like him. You're just like your dad. Did you hit them too? Or was sleeping with a bimbo enough? I can't believe you, no wonder Rachel left so quickly. Hope you're happy now. You got exactly what you deserved," Finn spat out before slamming the door and leaving without one last look at the broken man.

After that he'd lost all contact with Finn, all his other friends and on top of that, his mom and sister, too (he didn't give a fuck about that scumbag sperm donor who'd lost all rights as their father the second he'd hit their mom when they were kids). No doubt Finn had told them that he had fucked up worse than ever before. Probably shouted it out for the whole Lima to hear too.

But now he realized how right Finn had been that day. He realized that he had actually become the spitting image of his deadbeat father, his own worst nightmare. Puck had absolutely detested their father growing up, it had been one of those things he promised himself, among his ma, that he'd never become. He'd never be like his father, a cheating, lying, wife beating, drunken asshole, and that's exactly what he turned out to be, albeit he never hit his wife - it hadn't even crossed his mind - but he did have a hand in her dead, and that was worse than anything else.

It had all happened so suddenly. Soon after Leia - the most gorgeous little girl with brown eyes and brown curls - was born, Rachel had gotten depressed. No matter what Puck had done she wouldn't smile or hold their daughter. It got better after a while when Rachel was prescribed antidepressants but their marriage never did.

Rachel would take care of Leia like the perfect mom she was and put on a happy face to everyone else but she wouldn't let Puck touch her or hold her during the night. It was like there was an unbreakable wall between them and after almost nine dry months Puck sought comfort elsewhere. He didn't know the reason he'd had; he didn't know why he hadn't helped his wife, whom he still loved more than anything else, why he hadn't waited for her to come around. Like he'd told Finn, the day Rachel had walked in on their neighbor sucking his cock on their living room couch had been the first and (in his mind as soon as the girls lips had touched him) the very last time it would happen.

The sad part was that when Puck truly thought more about that very day when he'd lost his wife and baby girl, he couldn't remember the life he'd shared with Rachel before that. No memories of them meeting, dating, hell, he couldn't even remember the proposal he'd worked so hard on or their beautiful wedding. He couldn't remember the birth of his own fucking daughter.

It was like all the happiness was erased and his life only started the day his wife found another woman deep-throating him in their house. What he did remember was everything that happened afterwards. He remembered vividly the look of his wife's face when she'd realized what she'd walked in on. The broken look and the unshed tears haunted him in his nightmares no matter how wasted he was.

Soon after walking in, Rachel had grabbed Leia's basket from where she'd already dropped it and stormed out, with the promise of divorce papers coming soon in the mail and that he'd better prepare for never seeing Leia again.

That's the moment he regrets the most, not fighting for her, for them, for their marriage. The 'what ifs' of that moment are the ones that used to keep him up till morning. 'How could I let her walk out the door?' was the question often in his mind. Without answers… He knows he threw the bitch out next but luckily he couldn't remember what the woman he'd planned on fucking had looked like; he didn't even remember her name or what it had felt like. Then he just drank himself into oblivion, and the last thought in his mind before passing out had been: I'll fix it tomorrow.

The phone call at 3 a.m. had woken him up and even through his drunken mind he had sensed that it couldn't have been anything good. That was one conversation he was glad he'd forgotten. He just knew he drove to the hospital straight away to identify the bodies of his wife and six-month-old daughter and the sight of those two all bloody and bruised and dead was the way he would forever remember them as.

He would carry that image for the rest of his sorry life as a reminder of the biggest fucking mistake he had ever made. It was something he deserved too, for ruining the best thing that had ever happened to him.

After two years of constant drinking and partying and women it took him that one single brunette to realize what a mess he was. And now he was finally ready to process what had happened on that day everything had changed. He was finally ready to admit that, although he had cheated on his wife, he wasn't at the fault when it came to the accident that had killed his wife and daughter. He hadn't been driving the truck that hit them. Yes, they probably wouldn't have been in that car in the first place if he'd been able to keep it in his pants, but he couldn't blame himself for that forever.

At that moment Puck realized that he couldn't possibly do it all on his own and he needed to find professional help to cope with his alcoholism (he knew now that it had gotten to that point) and the loss of his wife and daughter. Maybe once he was healthy again he could try to find his family and her dads' and apologize, tell his side of the story and ask for forgiveness, but he needed to be able to forgive himself first.

Fin