Hello everyone! This little oneshot would have been up last night but the site wasn't letting me access the document uploader. This takes place after the ending of Hairography... and I think that's all you need to know :) Enjoy!
They sit side by side at night on his bed that can barely hold him, let alone the two of them. He's flipping through channels on the TV while she tries in vain to see what she's typing past her bump. She pushes the laptop back, revealing the first paragraph of her essay that's riddled with spelling and grammar mistakes.
She's distracted by the boy next to her, the boy she's supposed to love.
"I kissed Puck," she says abruptly, hands lying lightly on the black keys. He turns to look at her, eyebrows furrowed together in confusion, lips parting to ask the next obvious question. "It was after you performed 'Push It'… and after you kissed her in the auditorium when you told me you two would be practicing…" She doesn't look at him, won't look at him. "I thought I should tell you since we're being honest with each other."
She only reveals the tip of the iceberg.
He nods, tells her he's not mad and that it's okay. He leaves the room anyway though.
She asks him a week later if he's okay. He's barely spoken to her, has only looked at her when he needs to, and she's seen the way his hands twitch and clench when he talks to or sees Puck.
"Of course," he replies, faking his usual goofy carefree grin.
"Are you sure," she asks softly, hand feather light on his arm.
He nods and she accepts it even though she should call bullshit.
Truth is, he can't stop playing the words over and over in his head.
Quinn Fabray, his girlfriend, kissed Noah Puckerman, his best friend.
It disgusts him, everything about the situation. Quinn, Puck, the fact that he drove her to cheat on him.
He runs a hand through his hair tiredly. He hasn't been sleeping much. Every time he closes his eyes, visions of blonde meeting brown appear, pale hands touching tan cheeks as lips mold together.
When he does finally fall asleep and eventually wake up, the first thing he sees is Quinn.
It makes him want to throw up.
"Why him," he asks her as they eat dinner in his living room, alone and in silence (his mom's working late).
She moves her gaze from her plate (she's been pushing around her mashed potatoes for the past 5 minutes) and her eyes lock on him. She arches an eyebrow slightly, confused by his question. He just stares at her because he doesn't know if he can say it; can say the words that produce so many images that make him want to gouge out his eyes.
"Because I knew it would hurt you," she answers him honestly after a moment more of silence, the two just staring at each other.
"But you never told me…"
She wishes he could just accept this the way she's been forced to accept that he likes Rachel, that she's carrying Puck's baby, and that when all of this ends, she'll be broken and alone. "I didn't tell you because I felt guilty and knew that it'd hurt you… I am sorry for what I did," she tells him, apology stretching past the kiss but he doesn't know that yet.
He knows that violence doesn't solve anything.
He also knows that he should never, ever hit a girl.
Still, he punches Puck with everything he's got and when he points at Quinn, he wishes he could punch her too.
That night he lies in bed alone, Quinn and everything she owns completely erased from his home.
Now when he closes his eyes, all he can see is the two of them in Puck's room. Puck pulling off her shirt, Quinn's lips parting to let out little moans and gasps when his best fucking friend touches his girlfriend there.
He gets out of bed and punches the wall. He breaks his skin, small droplets of blood appearing on his hand, a bit of red smudged on the wall.
He gets back in bed and when his mom asks if everything's okay, he tells her no before rolling back over.
When he sees her at school, walking around with bags under her eyes, shoulder slumped, and a frown on her face, he smiles.
He feels like shit so why shouldn't she?
When Quinn walks around school three weeks later with her head held high, shoulders squared, bump proudly showing through her shirt, and a HBIC glare, his shoulders slump.
He doesn't feel any better so why should she?
"What the hell are you doing," she asks as she stands in front of him, hands on her hips. He looks up at her blankly before looking back down at the floor. "Can you please stop moping around like you hate the entire world?"
He doesn't respond and she lets out a frustrated groan. "I get you being mad at me and Puck okay? I don't expect you to forgive us after a month. But you walk around here like a zombie, you put no effort into Glee, and in Spanish you drew sombreros for your answers. I know Spanish is hard for you but you do know more than Brittany. I know that I'm a horrible person for lying to you but are you really going to let me ruin the rest of your year?"
He looks up at her (tries not to look at her out stretched stomach) blankly once again. "You sound like Rachel."
"That's because she doesn't sound like Rachel and someone has to pick up the slack." They're quiet and her face softens a little. "Rachel may not be my favorite person in the world but it's starting to scare everyone how un Rachel like she's being. Like I said before, you can hate me all you want, but will you please talk to Rachel?"
"I talk to Rachel," he challenges and she goes back to being annoyed.
"Not like you used to. When we were dating, you talked to her ALL the time. Ever since I moved in with her, you've been acting distant. You being in a bad mood puts her in a bad mood and this baby is making me want to stab everyone. So PLEASE stop being an idiot and fix yourself so I don't kill you or Rachel. Maybe then things can go back to some sort of normalcy!"
The next day he sees Rachel eating lunch alone.
He sits down next to her silently and takes his lunch out of his backpack.
She smiles when they look at each other and asks him if he wants her apple.
A week later, Quinn sees the duo walking down the hallway hand in hand. When Finn looks over at her, he glares.
Quinn keeps smiling though.
"Don't you think it's been long enough?" He turns to his girlfriend with a raised eyebrow. "Quinn's due to give birth any day now and the two of you haven't spoken much since she was 5 months."
"She lied to me Rachel…"
"So? You've lied to her and we've both lied to one another."
"She slept with Puck!"
"I could have… I've kissed Puck before too." This produces a glare from the giant but Rachel holds her ground. "Everyone knows that what they did was wrong; no one is disputing that. Everybody makes mistakes."
He really hopes she won't break into that Miley Cyrus song.
"She did love you Finn… Why else would she keep up a lie for so long?"
"To save her own ass."
"But she chose you Finn. She could've told you the truth but she chose you to be the father of her baby."
He hates it when she uses logic.
He promises that in a week, he'll talk to her.
He's about to walk up to her and say something when he realizes that the only thing he can think to say is that she's too happy and deserves less than what she has.
He turns around because something tells him that if he were to say that to her, Rachel might break up with him.
He gets enough courage to talk to her when he sees her waddling to her car (she's a week over due so her waddling is even worse than what it was), Rachel already behind the steering wheel. "Quinn?"
When she turns, he can see her forcing a small smile on to her face. "Yeah?"
She looks broken (and huge, but that's rude to say) even with the faked happiness. He notices now that her hair isn't as perfect as she usually kept it, that the bags have returned under her eyes, and that she can't seem to stand still.
He can feel Rachel watching them intently from the car and he's just about to open his mouth when Quinn stops him. "I know you probably want to yell at me," she starts, voice not carrying half the strength it should. "But can you please just wait a day? I just… I know I deserve it but my back feels like its breaking and my pants are digging into my stomach and she just won't stop moving…"
She looks down and squeezes her eyes shut. She's trying not to cry (he's seen her do this too many times). She takes a deep breath before looking back up. "Please?"
He nods and she waddles the rest of the way to the car.
The next time he tries to talk to her, it's during lunch. Rachel sits beside him, nudging him to go talk to her now. She's had a good morning and even smiled a real smile on their way to school.
She sits next to Puck at one of the many lunch tables (she's scooted really far back, her giant belly taking up the space in-between her and her food). When he gets closer, Puck curls his arm over her shoulders protectively but when he asks to talk to her, Quinn pushes the mohawked boy away.
(He notices how her fingers wrap around his arm when Puck starts to pull away, fingernails dragging over the tanned skin. There's no kiss when he gets up to leave but that gesture alone alerts him to the fact that there is something more than just friendship going on between them.)
"Don't feel bad if I start crying. I cry if I can't open a banana now. So if you see tears start to well up, just keep going," she tries to say lightly as he takes the seat next to her.
She still looks tired as hell and he wasn't going to lie, it did make him feel a little happy (a little sad at the same time though). He opens his mouth (ready to propel out everything that he's kept inside: how much he hates her, ask how she could do something like that to him when she was supposed to love him, ask how she could use him like that) but nothing comes out. All the words that had been in his head suddenly disappear and the only thing he can ask is, "Do you love him?"
Her face contorts, eyebrows scrunching down and she shakes her head almost unnoticeably she's so confused by what he just said. "What," she asks, one eyebrow now arching while her eyes search every inch of his long form.
"Do you love him?"
She inhales and starts to say something but stops, instead sighing. "No. We don't know each other all that well yet and I'm not even sure we're in a relationship. It's no comparison to what we were," she says, motioning her hand in between them. "But I do like him. He makes some of my bad days feel less bad and we're trying…"
He nods and he notices that Rachel has gone over to where Puck stands against the cafeteria wall (they're talking but eyes stay focused on him and the blonde). "So it wasn't for nothing? What you did… what you did to me?"
She shakes her head. "I think that would have made me feel even worse." She pushes back her blonde hair and sighs. "You're not going to yell at me? Tell me you hate me?"
He smiles (it's small but it's so much like his usual goofy grin). "I think I'm done hating you. I'm still a little ticked off but…" He sighs and locks eyes with Rachel who smiles. "It all sort of worked out for the best right?"
She smiles now too. "Yeah."
When Quinn goes into labor the next day in the middle of Glee (both she and Rachel exclaim 'Yes!' when the blonde's water breaks), Finn goes with everyone else to the hospital and hugs Puck when he announces he is now the father to a baby girl.