A/N: This started from a prompt on the Puck/Rachel Drabble Meme. It went in a different direction than I thought it would and it won't be a drabble. Rating is for later chapters.
Artie saw it first. Technically, whoever had taken the picture and posted it on the site saw it first and surely many others had seen it since but of the ones who mattered, the ones who could bring it all crashing down, it was Artie. He saw it and sat staring for what felt to him like hours but was really no more than a minute or two. Then he shook his head, blinked his eyes and stared again. And again. In that moment, of all the thoughts that could have gone through his mind, the one he remembered with total clarity years later was that he owed his girlfriend the mother of all apologies. He thought he knew, hell, theyall thought they knew what had happened during Babygate. They thought it was simple. Quinn had decided that Puck wasn't good enough to be the actual father of her child, that he was a Lima Loser and that Finn would make the better dad, so she lied.
She took a lot of heat for that decision but in that moment Artie knew exactly why she had done it. In that split second between seeing and really knowing, he realized how painful the truth could be. Hiding it would be as simple as exiting the browser, going back to the living room and never saying a word to anyone. But the truth? This was ugly. The truth was going to change everything. It was going to hurt people he cared about. It was going to reopen old wounds and create new ones. At that moment, he understood perfectly why Quinn had made the choices she had.
"No way." "Can't be" "Not possible". Every denial that spun through his head was crap and he knew it. Knew it like he knew his own name. Just like he knew the girl on the screen. He'd sat in the same rooms with her 5 days a week for years. Grade school, middle school, and the last 3 years of high school. Three years of watching the two of them dance around each other. Three years "of will they or won't they?" Three years of other guys, other girls, with each other then not. Three years of "He broke up with her", "No, she broke up with him" and three years of watching the guy who had inexplicably become his best friend and the girl with the voice 5 times too big for her small body work their way towards one another. Three years of ringside seats to what everyone who ever knew them knew was going to be the endgame for both of them. Now, it was almost 3 months of watching his best friend fall apart one day at a time.
All he had to do to avoid the disaster that was sure to follow was to move his hand less than an inch to the right. Hit the X in the top right corner and keep his mouth shut forever. While his hand hovered over the mouse, the questions raced through his mind. When? How? Not how as much as why. How could she do this? How could he tell? How could he not?
While the questions and reasons and rationales played through his head, his hand hovered over the mouse. One click and it could still go away. No one had seen it yet, they couldn't have or it would be all over the school. There was almost no chance that any of them would ever see it. This wasn't the kind of site that any of them would ever look at on their own. It wasn't Perez, TMZ or even Wonderwall. He'd only come across it because he'd been with his mom when she decided that she needed to stop at the Jacobson's, his phone was dead and he was killing time on the Jacobson's computer while his mom and Mrs. J chatted. "I'll be just a few minutes Artie" "Artie, you can go watch TV or use the computer in the den while your mom and I talk." He figured he'd check out his Facebook, maybe some music sites, and they'd head home. Mrs. J had her browser open to one of those third-rate celebrity gossip sites and there it was. There she was. That picture.
His closed his eyes tightly, took a deep breath and opened them one more time just to… to what exactly? Not to make sure because he was already absolutely sure. He waited because he knew. If anyone knew how a life could change in a split second it was Artie. What he didn't know was how it felt to be the one on the decision-making end of that choice. His split second moment had been decided for him. One guy, too much to drink, the grinding of steel and the breaking of glass. Oblivion and then waking up to a new life. He'd survived it, even thrived afterward. That didn't mean it was easy and it didn't mean there weren't nights when he cursed it all and wanted back the life he had thought he was going to have. Knowing that his decision was going to put people he loved in that mental place was worth a few moments of pause.
He let out the breath he'd been holding, looked closely at the Jacobson's computer desk and saw paper. It wasn't photo paper but it was good enough for his purposes. His hand hovered over the X for another second then slowly moved left as he searched for what he needed. He chose 4 copies, hit print and listened to the sound of the printer. When he picked the paper off of the printer, he just stared. Then he closed his eyes again and thought of the apology he needed to make, the explanations he would need to give and how the next few hours, days, weeks, months and years might possibly play out for them all. Taking one last look at the screen, he exited out of the browser, tucked the printed sheets inside his jacket and sat with his head buried in his hands.