This had been on my computer forever. I started it this past summer and just finished it - it's forty pages (I know, I'm scared too), so I broke it up into two parts. Every section is based on a nursery rhyme (hence the title). Enjoy!
Nursery Rhymes
-Today-
"Here am I, little jumping Joan. When nobody's with me I'm always alone."
At twenty-eight, her life has become a collage of broken promises. A melody of accidents, really, that turned into hopes and dreams, then nightmares, changing their faces so many times that by the end, she isn't sure what to believe. But then again, she's never been very sure in her faith, so maybe it's a pattern. Maybe this is the way it's supposed to be.
She sips her bottle of lemonade methodically, thinking. There's a light breeze, but it isn't refreshing. The sweat is pooling at the nape of her neck, and loose strands of her blonde hair are sticking to her face, the Georgia heat staining her pale complexion. She crosses and uncrosses her legs, white dress swaying in the breeze.
She's always liked wearing white. Maybe it's a forced fake innocence she lost a long time ago. Maybe it's a habit from when she was a church-going little girl, her mother brushing her hair every Sunday morning and tying it with bows, saying "Only the prettiest girls wear white" which for her translated into perfect, angel girls and her psyche was screwed ever since; she was doomed to fall from grace. Or maybe she just likes to try and pretend everything's like it used to be, the life she could've had. When she adorned white dresses for dinner and daddy patted her head and said she was beautiful. Before she started loving boys and compromising herself for the honor of a secret that turned into hell.
Whatever it is, to her white is a virgin purity she no longer has. She shouldn't feel bad. A lot of the population doesn't even see her sins as sins. She stepped out of the minority and entered the real world a long time ago, but sometimes her mind still wanders to the other perspective.
She still wears her gold cross as some kind of sick reminder or an empty pledge. It's the only part of her that's remained since she went from the top of the world, to the bottom, to somewhere in the middle, and it's fitting in a masochistic way. Since she watched her life implode, she's always had a thing for pain, starting with monster baby lies and ending most recently with staring at the same number in her phone contacts every night, fighting the urge to dial.
Quinn made a promise she would forget. She swore up and down she'd get out of freaking Lima, Ohio, and never look back. She isn't about to let herself break all because of stupid fantasies of cliché, high school romance.
Secretly, if she lets herself look back, she might just start running all the way back, to places so shattered she can never fix them. She'd rather have her back turned and hold herself together than let herself retrace her steps to hopeless situations and fall apart completely.
It's not easy, but it's easier. She hasn't spoken to anyone from high school in seven years, hasn't seen them, save for watching Rachel Berry's role in "Funny Girl" on the Today Show. She only sings when she's in the shower or to bribe her students (sometimes the seventh graders need a little motivation). She doesn't think about him or her or anyone else, except maybe when she's dreaming or tipsy or drunk. None of it happens often.
Usually it sneaks up on her. A mother and baby playing in the park. A boy on the sidewalk, playing his guitar for spare change. Gossiping girls in the hallway, boys shaving their heads and leaving mohawks behind. The reality slams into her full force, and some days she just wants to crawl under her desk and never come out.
But she doesn't. She teaches kids about literature and verbs and life, and walks by the nursery department in the store without a second glance. She jokingly tells little boys to get new haircuts and ruffles their hair, and they whine Miss Fabray! and she smiles and tries to treat the little girls with blonde hair and brown eyes just the same as everyone else.
The last thing on her mind is Ohio or him or her. She doesn't even know where they are. Doesn't care (at least that's what she tells herself to get by). Eventually her life will pick itself up again out of this rut and she'll be happy…
Right now, it's a summer heat wave, and all her teacher friends think she's insane for sticking around instead of going on vacation north, like the rest of them. They don't realize she can't leave. She doesn't want to.
Escaping would be defined as weakness which would be defined as excuses which would be defined as home which would be defined as looking back which would be defined as-
The jingle of her cell phone pulls her out of her mind. Quinn digs through her purse, swigging her lemonade before answering hastily, wondering why the school would want her during vacation (she doesn't give her number out to anyone), "Hello?"
"Hi. Is this… Quinn Fabray?"
The voice is young. Nervous. A student? It's summer. Students aren't supposed to want to talk to teachers during the school year, let alone summer.
"Yes. May I ask whose calling?"
There is silence. Deep breaths. She stands up to begin the sweaty trek back to her apartment.
"Um… It's me. Beth. Your daughter?"
She drops her lemonade bottle. The glass shatters on the sidewalk, spilling the sugary drink across the pavement and her shoes. The stickiness seeps in between her toes.
She is sixteen again, staring at the child swaddled in pink she wants (needs) but cannot (will not) have. She is broken and shallow and lost and alone, except for one boy (man?) who doesn't know how to deal any better than she does, and the world keeps turning as they scream at each other underneath the stars of sleepless nights.
There is no more running away. The past chased her down, pinned her, and ripped her throat out.
She doesn't know what to do, what to say, except she thinks the broken glass is making her foot bleed, and a person she knew but never knew is waiting for an answer. So she says the first thing that comes to mind:
"Fuck."
…
-2012-
"She wears a bonnet, with white ribbons on it, and dimity petticoats over her knee."
For a split second, three days before graduation (June 8, 2012), she thinks it. For a split second, she thinks it.
(She's two years old today-)
But then, she pushes it away. Tries on her cap again. In the early summer air, she stares at herself in the mirror, at the absence in her room (never belonged there in the first place, but the fact that the crib is now in the basement still stings).
Friday night, she walks across the stage, receives her diploma. Two months later, she's on a plane to the University of Georgia and doesn't visit her mother until Christmas. She leaves Noah's graduation present on his front steps and doesn't call him.
Eventually, she stops wondering about them. It gets easier. Except now. Except today.
Now, she has this.
…
-Today-
"With rings on her fingers, and bells on her toes, she shall have music wherever she goes."
"Um… hello?"
Damn. What the hell is she supposed to say? This wasn't supposed to happen. She was never, ever supposed to have to deal with this. After one too many nights fighting over it, she gave up. This isn't part of the plan.
"Hi. I'm sorry… Beth," God, it hurts to say her name. It hurts too much.
She picks up her feet and starts walking away from the broken glass as fast as possible, foot throbbing. There is a cut bleeding above her big toe. When was her last Tetanus shot?
Her child is on the phone. Her daughter. Suddenly, Quinn is overcome by fear. She can't do this, can't see this, can't hear this. This wasn't part of the deal. She wasn't supposed to talk to her ever again.
(She wanted to keep her but she wanted a life; a real life, far far away from everyone else)
No. Just no.
"It's okay."
"No. I'm sorry. I just can't do this right now. I can't do it."
She's almost running, unlocking the door to her apartment complex, taking the stairs two at a time, unlocking her door.
"What do you-"
"Please just… call your father. He'll talk to you," he was always better at dealing with this than she was, probably because he liked to get drunk and didn't carry her with her everywhere he went for nine months, "Call Noah. Please."
"You're not with him?"
"No."
She hangs up her phone and hurls it at the wall.
She doesn't even know where Noah is. Maybe he's dead. Maybe Beth will call Noah and-
God, even their names hurt. It hurts too much to think about.
This is why she left. Why she won't go back. Quinn doesn't know what to do next, but she knows she could really use a drink. She cracks open a wine bottle while she cleans up her foot, taking a sip every time she thinks about him or her or anything about them. Perhaps, eventually, she won't think anymore.
…
-Today-
"The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts, and took them clean away."
He's never been very religious, except when his mom dragged him and his sister to synagogue in some act of pretending everything would be okay, but today he's praying for God to bring down some clouds to block out the sun.
It's so hot, it feels like he's about to sweat through his jeans. Roofing was never his favorite part of the job, especially when it's eighty degrees on a black roof, but he'll take whatever money he can get and hope he doesn't end up with a wicked sunburn, just a killer tan.
At least he's near the ocean. Noah will never admit it (he doesn't like using words that make him feel like a pussy), but he thinks the ocean's pretty. He'd never seen it until he got a job in the Cape Cod area as a carpenter. Having minimum wage parents and living in a landlocked state prevented him from ever seeing salt water. Now, he can't really imagine moving away. The air smells fresh and there's always a nice breeze and the scenery is kick ass. It makes him feel like he's on top of the world, even if he didn't exactly turn out the way is mom envisioned.
He hasn't been back to Lima in a while, didn't even show up last Christmas because of a snowstorm that shot his power for eight days. It gave him a way to ignore the fact that he didn't really want to go home. Ever since he perpetually ruined and fulfilled his life, the place hurt too much. He'd much rather fly someplace new and get totally wasted to celebrate his freedom. Which he did. The ocean seemed like a perfect place to forget.
He doesn't like to define it as "running away" because that's what his old man did and he's nothing like his dad. At least, he wouldn't have been, if she had given him the chance. Now he'll never really know. He never thought he was the marrying type. Most of his girls are a "hit and run" type of deal, though he's slowed down considerably since his high school days. Fucking work just exhausts him too much.
Besides, it's not running away if she ran away first. He was just following suit. They were all bound to leave at some point. He wouldn't be a Lima Loser. Not if he had anything to say about it.
He has a job now. He gets paid. He can walk down the street and not see one person he knows, which is just the way he likes it.
But at home, in his wallet, are faces he remembers. They haunt his dreams.
It's a picture of the two women who were, at one point in time, his entire life. She's lying in a hospital bed, smiling down at a pink bundle. It's after she swore at him through the pains of labor, but before she swore at him for blaming all of their messed up shit on her. It was one of the many moments he realized she was beautiful. He loved her more than ever.
Then, their world came crashing down. He tried to be a man (which was a stupid idea) and let her decide, because lets face it, she would be the one up all hours changing diapers and breast feeding and tearing her hair out. He was only a bystander. (It was his fault anyway for not keeping his dick in his pants).
Then he was left with an empty nest that never should've been (almost) full to begin with (Not that he ever actually had a nest prepared, because he always knew she was stubborn and they were young and in situations too big to comprehend).
Still, that never stopped the lingering hope, hope that still exists deep down inside today. He just managed to stuff it down somewhere indefinable. It festers when he thinks about it, hot to the touch. It'll always be unfulfilled.
He wipes the sweat off the back of his neck before positioning his nail gun again. Today repairs, tomorrow they get to install lightning rods. In this heat, he couldn't be anymore fucking jealous of the guy holding the ladder. Why doesn't anyone ever need inside work done, like building counters or cabinets? He'd paint a stupid room for christsakes, as long as he doesn't have to sit on top of this roof boiling to death.
He doesn't want to be inside this house, though. The family is on vacation from Illinois. They have a little girl with blonde hair. Her eyes are green, but that's not enough to stop him from thinking about it.
(That could've been you…)
'Course, then he just tells his brain to shut the fuck up and get back to work. The bills don't pay themselves. He'll be damn happy when he gets something higher paying, like building a whole fucking mansion-
"Hey, Puckerman!" his buddy Ron shouts from the ground, nursing a bleeding hand, "Your phone won't shut up."
"You think it's that important?" he says angrily. The faster he gets this done, the faster he can go home and fall asleep in front of the fan.
"Someone keeps calling. At least shut it off!"
He grumbles, climbing down off the roof, "Okay, but I am the one with the nail gun, idiot."
"Point taken," Ron says, reaching into the first aid kid to grab some bandages. Noah climbs into the company truck to grab his phone off the dashboard. The screen is blinking. He has four missed calls. Just as he's about to check the number, it rings again.
"Hello?" the aggravation seeps into his voice.
"Hi. Is this Noah Puckerman?"
"Yeah," he slams the door, walking around the house until he's a few hundred yards away from the ocean. The slight wind cools him down considerably, but not enough to make him un-pissed at the stranger wasting his time, "What can I do for you?"
"I'm Beth Corcoran. Your daughter."
What. The. Fuck.
Suddenly, he's not so angry anymore. He's too confused about how the hell his daughter is calling him. Quinn wanted a closed adoption. He thought it was stupid since they already knew the freaking Vocal Adrenaline coach lady. They saw her in the hospital and they saw her in town picking up diapers. But she didn't want any fucking contact, said it would be "easier" for the "both" of them. He didn't know what boat she was in, but he certainly wasn't with her. Still, he kept his mouth shut until about a month later, because she was the mom and what she said was law in the eyes of everyone but him.
Now, his kid's on the other end of the phone. The chance he always kind of wanted. The chance he's not supposed to have.
But here it is, right in front of him. Does he wager? Or fold?
…
-2012-
"All the king's horses and all the king's men, cannot put Humpty-Dumpty together again."
He wakes up three days before graduation (June 8, 2012) and doesn't go to school. He wakes up hours after his mom and sister leave, goes to the liquor cabinet, and drowns in a whiskey river.
He drinks enough to forget what day it is, to forget what her name is. He stubs his toe and passes out in the middle of the floor with a killer hangover the next day, but he doesn't care, because he's so wasted he almost doesn't even remember he's a father –
(She's two years old today-)
No. Go away.
He pukes his guts out, and he's pretty sure he drunk dials Quinn a few times, but she doesn't pick up. He wakes up in the morning on the floor, wallet open, their picture clenched in his fist.
Three days later he actually gets his diploma, even though he has to wear a gown (more like a dress) to get it. He goes home and gets online to see how much money a plane ticket to Massachusetts costs.
A few weeks later, Noah finds a small white box tied with a purple bow on his front steps. The tag reads: Congratulations, you did it! in familiar, loopy handwriting.
Inside is a small brown teddy bear with a pink bow wrapped around his (her) neck. It's the bear he gave her when he tried to apologize for the thousandth time. He said she could give it to their little girl. It never happened because she wasn't really theirs so she didn't need any presents from a sixteen year old screw up.
He takes the bear to bed with him, and cries himself to sleep for the first time in a while. It sucks, because he's acting like a fucking pansy, but she gave it back to him and this means he'll never have either of them ever again.
Except now.
…
-Today-
"I skipped over water, I danced over sea, and all the birds in the air couldn't catch me."
After a couple seconds, he remembers how to breathe.
"I know who you are."
He stares off at the ocean. High tide is coming back in, waves lapping up onto the sand. The grass growing over the dunes sways in the breeze, almost like the ocean itself.
"You remember me?"
How could he not? There's never a day that goes by where he doesn't think about her or the girl who gave birth to her, or all the hell they went through to make it to delivery day, and how afterward life just got worse. He constantly questions what could have been, what should have and should never have been. Because lets face it, they would've sucked as parents. Like, monumentally.
"Of course I do. I could never… forget about you," he wonders how the hell she's calling him. Isn't this illegal? "How old are you now?"
"I turned twelve last month."
Twelve? Jesus… How can she be twelve already?
"How'd you get my number?"
"Are you mad at me? I'm sorry I called you. I-"
"No. No, I'm not mad," surprised, blown away, but not mad. He always wanted to know who she was, even if Quinn didn't, "It's just that it was a closed adoption… sort of. I didn't know you were allowed to contact us."
"Well my mom knew you. She said it wouldn't hurt to try."
Great. Berry's psycho mom on the loose. For a second, he wonders if she knows about Rachel, if they still talk at all. Does Rachel know Beth? Does she want to kill Shelby for getting a new baby instead of getting to know her? Noah wouldn't blame her, because he kind of wants to kill her too. If she turned his daughter into another mini-Rachel he swears he'll-
That's right. This is his daughter on the phone (well not really his anymore). Beth. He picked out that name and she kept it. It's like some kind of screwed up movie. It makes it worse, because it's like she really almost is theirs but she isn't. She never will be.
"Why didn't you call… Quinn?" he hasn't said her name in years. It feels weird to say it, like his mouth doesn't want to form the sounds even though they're so familiar.
"I did. She said to call you first."
What? Why the hell would she do that? She's the goddamn mother. Maybe she doesn't want to see her. She could be living in a crack house for all he knows. She could be dead and he wouldn't know.
Well, he hopes she isn't dead. Obviously she isn't… or living in a crack house. That would suck. That isn't the Quinn he knows.
But he doesn't really know her anymore, does he?
"What do you want to know?"
"I… want to meet you. Both of you. If that's okay."
How is he supposed to answer that? It's not like he can say no. He can't really say yes either. If he sees her, he might just want to take her with him. It might rip open a new wave of regret, of sadness, of shit he swore he'd quit feeling a long time ago. It doesn't seem like a good idea, but sometimes his bad ideas turn out to be the best opportunities.
"I think I have to talk to Quinn first."
He isn't sure how, exactly, he'll talk to Quinn, but he'll do it. He has to.
"Well… okay. Call me back?"
"We will eventually. I promise."
"Okay. Bye, Noah."
"Bye… Beth."
He almost chokes on her name as he hangs up the phone.
Two more hours of work. Then home. Then, he'll call her. He prays she's sane and won't hang up on him. After all, she never wanted to talk to him before. What could've changed?
…
-Today-
"The maid was in the garden, hanging out the clothes; when down came a blackbird and pecked off her nose."
It's 6:30. Her foot hurts a little, propped up on the couch while she watches the evening news. After she stopped with the wine, she wasn't very hungry. She hasn't moved since.
She hung up on her baby. Who does that? Especially to an impressionable daughter she doesn't know? What if she hates her now?
But she's not supposed to be thinking about it. Thinking about them hurts, and she figures she's gone through enough pain for one day. Is it too much to ask for some peace?
Apparently, it is. Her cell phone starts ringing again. She heaves herself off the cushions and hops over to where she threw the phone hours ago. The number is restricted, and she prays it isn't her again. Quinn might not be able to stand that.
She waits until she's back on the couch before answering, "Hello?"
"Hi Quinn."
That voice. That damn voice she longed for and never wanted to hear again. The one other person who could make her drink herself into oblivion. The one person who screwed up her life and gave her wings all at once.
She sighs, "Hi Puck."
He snorts, "No one's called me that in quite a while."
"I'm sorry, Noah."
"It's okay. I don't mind."
She bites her lip. What the hell does he want? Why would he need to call her? How does he have her number? If he talked to (Beth) he doesn't need to talk to her. Unless…
"What do you want?"
"Missed you too, MILF! How's life been?"
"Don't fucking call me that," she sneers, mouth twisting into a frown.
"Ah, there's the Quinn I got to know so well. Seriously, how are you?"
He's not funny. She stopped thinking he was funny once he decided he wanted their child but it was too late and blamed her.
"Do you just want to play games, Puck? Because I don't play games with people like you anymore."
"I figured that by the way you fell off the face of the Earth."
She's not hiding. Anyone could find her. She just wouldn't talk to them.
"So did you."
"Nah, you just didn't look hard enough."
"Who said I was looking? I wasn't."
"Neither was I, until now. Were you really desperate enough to change your number? I had to call your mom to get it."
He called her mother? She hasn't even called her mother since… her birthday, maybe? She's been nagging her to come home. What could he have told her? I need your daughter's phone number because our daughter called us and she wouldn't talk to her?
"Congratulations, Sherlock! You found me," she forgot how bitter and jaded he could make her feel. Great.
"Not quite. I still don't know where you are."
"And I don't know where you are. We're even."
"I'm on Cape Cod," he says, rolling off his tongue easily. Of course. He really wants to know where she is?
"Really? I thought you'd be stuck in Lima forever."
"Nope. I got out just like you. Where are you?"
She sighs, "Georgia. Outside Athens."
He better not come see her. If he does, she just might kill him. Or kiss him. She doesn't want to know.
"Oh, so you've got a nice, southern boyfriend and couldn't take the time to make a phone call?"
"What? No!" she hasn't had a boyfriend since college, actually. Didn't want to get tangled up in anything she couldn't explain.
"Why'd you have Beth call me? Why didn't you want to talk to her?"
Everything in her life revolves back to that one time… maybe it's karma. Is this what she deserves for giving her baby up for adoption? Should she have kept her all along? As if she wasn't confused enough already, Puck has to come banging the door down-
"Can we not talk about this?" she closes her eyes, breathing in and out, picking stray threads out of the couch cushions.
"We have to talk about it. It's not an avoidable issue anymore."
He underestimates her ability to avoid situations. Ha.
"It's just… hard, Puck."
An ad for kids cough medicine flashes across the screen, little girls and boys abundant. She shuts off the TV with a flick of the remote. The universe definitely has a problem with her…
"It's hard for me, too. At least I talked to her."
"What did she want?"
"She wants to meet us. Both of us."
She can't even think about her name. How can she meet her? How can she see her and talk to her and not break down completely?
Quinn already wants her too much. She wants everything too much, things she cannot have. If they're there, in the flesh, she might just explode.
…
-2010-
"Lady bird, lady bird, fly away home; Thy house is on fire, thy children all gone."
It's been a month since they gave her away. July came without either of them noticing. Quinn sits in her window seat, staring at the road below. He is lying on her bed, holding a pillow to his chest. If she was in a better mood, she'd call him out for being such a baby. But she isn't in a "good" mood, and words like baby make her mouth go numb.
They've been doing this a lot. It's an unspoken agreement. Somehow, they just meet up at an unplanned location, sitting, not talking. She thinks she does it because she doesn't want to be alone, and he's the only one who can understand. (her hands still touch her stomach, finding flabs of skin instead of a child, and she remembers that now she is truly alone)
She doesn't know why he comes or follows her. But she's glad he's here.
"Quinn?"
She turns her head to look at him, frazzled strands of hair bouncing in front of her eyes. She hasn't been sleeping well. Sometimes, if her mother isn't home (or even if she is), they end up staying awake all night.
"What if we made a mistake?"
He doesn't look at her when he says it, staring at the ceiling.
She doesn't want to answer him. She hates him for voicing the one thing she's been terrified of. It doesn't matter if it was the wrong choice. It's done.
Done. Over. Gone.
"I'm not talking about this."
She doesn't look to see if he's staring at her, if he's upset. It doesn't matter.
She avoids looking at herself in the mirror as she stands up, pausing in the doorway to look back at him, "I'm taking a shower. Will you be here when I get out?"
He doesn't say anything. She doesn't wait for an answer.
…
-Today-
"Bye, baby, bunting, Daddy's gone a-hunting, gone to fetch a rabbit skin…"
"She wants to meet us. Both of us."
There's silence on the other end. He's afraid she might hang up. If only she'd stop being such a coward and deal with it.
It's hard for him too, but Puck knows the time as come to face it. They've danced around it for twelve years, since they tore it apart and that didn't work, so they decided to just not touch it altogether. It was the elephant in the room. They were never the same.
Static comes through the phone. Her breathing, "I don't know if I can."
"Why not?"
She's just like before. Avoiding everything. She still hasn't woken up from her fantasy world. He bets she still wears white, too, and pretends nothing ever happened and she's sitting alone in a place where no one knows her, not talking to anyone because she wants to, not because she's terrified of knowing her entire life is one big denial project.
"It's just… difficult."
He rolls his eyes, the cool breeze of the fan washing over his body. After he got home from work and ate some leftover pasta, he climbed into bed and tried to dial her number. It was disconnected, so he called her mother in Lima. She sounded worried, since apparently she hadn't heard from Quinn herself in a few months. Good to know she isn't only hiding from him. It's everyone, "No shit. It's difficult for me too. But we have to face it."
"Why?"
"I don't know, maybe because she's our daughter?"
"That doesn't mean anything. You should know that."
She has to be bluffing. She can't just give up. That's unlike her.
"It doesn't have to be. But it is. You're not curious?" He is. Since the day she told him she wouldn't keep her, he wondered about everything he would miss.
"No. Not really," her words come off quick and bitter.
"You're a liar."
"How would you know? You don't know me, Puck. You never knew me."
"I knew you enough to have a baby with you."
"A baby we gave up. She isn't ours-"
"Look, will you at least see me? We can talk about this face to face. It'll be good to catch up."
"The past is overrated."
Since when is she so stubborn? On second thought, she always was. They're fighting about the same subject they gave up years ago.
"The past explains how we got here. If we just talk about it… we can figure out where it went wrong."
Of course, he knows exactly where it went wrong. The problem is, it's not one place that went "wrong." It's a pile of wrongs, toppling over onto one another until they were buried.
"Come on, Quinn. I'll fly down and-"
"No. I swear, it's one hundred degrees here. Heat wave. I'll fly up."
Well. That was easier than he thought. Somehow, though, he knows it's not over yet. She doesn't come around that easily.
He grins, "Well, Miss Fabray, I'd say you've got yourself a deal."
…
-2010-
"The pig was eat, and Tom was beat, and Tom went roaring down the street."
It's been a month. A whole freaking month since they let her go, and he's still just as confused as the day it happened. He had hoped that once some time had passed, it would get better. He'd stop thinking about her so much, come to accept that it was the right choice. Instead, it's only gotten worse.
He doesn't really know what to do with himself within the long expanse of summer. Last summer he was drinking more than he should have and sleeping with girls. Repeating the past feels… wrong now that so much has changed. All he ever does is go to Quinn's house, or they meet somewhere and sit together (mostly apart, really), staring off into space, hardly talking. He can't see how this could've been a good choice, if now their lives are so empty.
That particular day, Puck decides he wants to do something to cheer Quinn up for once, instead of the moping around they usually do. He stops at the local Walmart to pick up a package of oreos. It should be simple. He's walking down the aisles heading for number nine, labeled "Snacks: cookies; crackers; chips; novelties." He turns, the oreos in his line of vision. Then he sees her.
Shelby Corcoran is standing right in front of him, adding a box of flavored crackers to her shopping cart.
He stands there for a minute, dumbstruck. Apparently, she doesn't know what she's supposed to do either, because she doesn't say anything. After a couple seconds she blinks, opens her mouth, "Hello, Noah."
He swallows, "Hi, Miss Corcoran."
"Oh, please," she smiles, "Call me Shelby."
Honestly, he doesn't want to call her anything (except for a few choice, inappropriate words). He'd rather just go get his oreos, thank you very much. Instead, he forces a smile onto his face.
"So how have you been?"
"I'm… okay," it's a lie. Maybe she can't tell.
"And Quinn? How's she doing?"
"Ah… she's… we're all dealing with… things."
He desperately wants to ask how Beth is. Did she even name her Beth? Should he even be talking to her? Is she okay? Is she taking care of her?
But he can't ask. It would only make things worse. It would only make him want to kidnap his own daughter, which is wrong and weird, and yet feels strangely… okay, in this situation.
He looks down for a lack of better idea, and sees the items in her shopping cart. Diapers. Formula. Bibs. A little purple onesie. (Tomatoes, crackers, a book, and canned soup, but his mind doesn't focus on these things)
Damn it. This is just so messed up.
"Oh, well I-"
"I'm sorry, Miss Corcoran, but I've really got to go."
He spins on his heel, forgetting about the oreos, taking long strides to the exit.
It should be him shopping for diapers and baby clothes. He should have dark circles under his eyes, staying up all night with his infant daughter. He should be singing her lullabies and rocking her to sleep…
He punches the side of his truck before he drives away, because Noah Puckerman does not cry over pansy emotions.
He makes it to Quinn's house without a trace of tears on his face. Upstairs in her room he flops down on her bed, not even bothering to knock. He thinks about telling her how he tried to be nice and buy her something, but then he'd have to tell her about Shelby and… he doesn't really want to think about it, or make her anymore depressed or lost or whatever the hell she's feeling (they don't talk about it).
"How are you?" he asks. She turns her head to look at him. Her hair looks like shit and she has bags under her eyes from not sleeping (they never sleep anymore). He suspects he looks the same, except without the huge rack (which would be hot if he didn't know why they were there) and deflated stomach.
"My boobs hurt."
"Oh," he'd read up on what would happen to her after the baby was gone. After all, he's not a complete idiot. The milk has to go somewhere… "Sorry."
"Yeah…" she mutters, turning to stare out the window again, "You should be."
They don't say anything after that.