Disclaimer: I don't claim anything Glee related.
Summary: Quinn and Puck talk for what seems like the first time in a year.
He finds her on the swing at the local park. It's seven pm, but it's the Anniversary and he knew she'd be here.
Neither thinks of calling it 'her birthday'. It just hurts too much.
"Hey."
"Hi."
It's kind of awkward and quiet, but every conversation they've had since last year has been. He scuffs his boot in the sand of the playground, thinking desperately of something to say. Everything just seems forced and even more awkward in his head.
"Are you going to sit?" she asks. Quinn doesn't look at him. Her hands are gripping her swing's chains and she's staring at the deep blue sky peeking through the gaps in the jungle gym. She hears him grunt in affirmation and sees him moving in her peripheral vision and she hears the chains clank and the metal creak as he sits in the swing next to her.
Puck looks at the darkening sky, too. He just wants to say the right thing right now and nothing's coming out. This time last year, he wouldn't be so worked up about awkward silences and saying the right thing, but now... He likes to think he's matured in the last year. Especially when it comes to her.
Quinn doesn't want to think. She knew that coming to the park was a bad idea, but it felt sort of right in all of the pain and confusion she was feeling. Mostly, Quinn just wants to cry but she can't. No one seems to get it. She can't help but think that Puck probably gets it and feels exactly the way she does only slightly less. After all, she was the one who gave birth. But it was still their daughter. Together. Two to tango and all that.
"Do you ever regret it?" she asks. This is probably as good a time as any to ask him the question the question that's been bothering her for a year. It's a bit harsh and she didn't, like, lead kindly up to it, but Quinn doesn't really care. Well, she does, but it's Puck. He would have gotten upset and told her to 'just say it already' or something.
"Sort of," he mumbles. Because he does. They both know they weren't ready for a kid but there will always be that part that fantasizes about the perfect little family they wouldn't have been.
"Me too."
It's quiet again and Puck thinks that, hey, since they're asking the big questions all out of the blue and shit, why doesn't he ask her the one that he's thought about since Finn was the "father"?
"Pretend for a second that no one ever found out about who the father really was. Would you have ever told him?"
They both know the answer. They both know she wouldn't.
"Do you purposely try to hurt me?" she asks quietly. There's no real conviction to it, but the fact that she still said it really pisses him off.
"Really?" he laughs bitterly. "Well, fuck you very much." Puck almost hates her right then because it's the stuff like that, when she assumes it's all about her when it really isn't, that makes him remember why this whole convoluted relationship they don't have will never work.
"I'm a bitch," she states.
"Sometimes. But we both have fucked each other over, mostly you to me, so whatever." Puck shrugs, but she still isn't looking at him so he just lets his shoulders sag.
They don't talk for a few minutes. They're both kind of swinging, their feet never leaving the ground.
"Do you ever regret having sex with me?"
Quinn stops moving. He can't make himself look at her, because he doesn't want to see her reaction.
"No."
Puck freezes; it was the opposite of what he expected.
Quinn has thought long and hard about that night. She had nothing but time to dwell on it when she spent sleepless nights at her multiple residences. And her answer was always the same. She regrets getting pregnant, yes. But in the grand scheme of things, she's never exactly sure if she regrets loosing her virginity to Puck. Part of her is, because she really wanted to wait until marriage, but she doesn't because... because for once, she'd done something no one had expected of her. It was scary and thrilling and bad and good all in one.
Mercedes once asked her if she would take back that night. She'd scoffed and said that 'of course she would' before indicating her round belly.
But after a while, she'd began to re-evaluate.
If she could take one thing- and one thing only- back from that night, it would probably just be getting pregnant.
They're silent again. Puck doesn't ask her why she doesn't regret it because he sort of doesn't want to know why. He's pretty sure he knows why but he just doesn't want the illusion he's made up ruined. Maybe, one day, he'll ask her, but that's only if they keep in touch or have a chance encounter. If they graduate and never see each other again, he'll leave it as one of his life's great mysteries.
He can be philosophical as fuck sometimes.
"Remember Santana's birthday party in seventh grade?" Quinn has a soft and wistful smile on her face. Puck laughs through his nose and can't help but grin, too.
"You mean our first kisses that we never told anyone about?"
Quinn nods. "Yeah."
Quinn smiles even wider as she remembers the way her heart pounded and how her thoughts got all jumbled. She remembers how his lips felt and how they tasted and how she blushed and smiled. She remembers how the bass of the song that was playing was thudding even from where they were in Santana's backyard and how she could hear the crickets and how haunted and cool everything had looked at night. She remembers how she made him swear not to tell anyone because this was a huge deal for her because she finally beat Santana at something. After all, San had kissed Finn first even though she knew Quinn liked him. It didn't matter that Santana wouldn't ever know about her and Puck because Quinn did. Quinn had wanted something nice and romantic, something her seventh grade mind thought she'd look back on and be happy about, unlike Santana and Finn's kiss behind the girl's bathroom during P.E.
"The reason I don't regret that night is kind of similar to why I wanted that kiss to be a secret."
Puck just nods, because even if he really doesn't see how they're similar at all, he sort of just gets her.
Quinn bites her lip gently, using her feet to twist herself in the swing. She hasn't twisted enough to make herself dizzy since the day she found out she was pregnant. She'd escaped to the park, the damned pregnancy test that displayed the fifth positive in a row in her bag on the ground. She'd stopped crying a while before she got there and had just sat in the swing, staring at nothing. Before she knew it, she was spinning herself, slowly twisting the chains together until they just wouldn't anymore. She'd stopped, leaning her forehead against the cool column of chain in front of her before leaning back and lifting her feet up. She kept her eyes wide open, watching the trees and sky blur. It was freeing and dumb and she'd regreted it slightly when the nausea had kicked in and her head spun, but it was nice to not have to think for a minute.
Puck stands up, the swing's chains rattling from the sudden movement. He stuffs his hands in his jacket pocket and stares at the ground.
"It's late, I should go."
Quinn just nods. She should have been home an hour ago and her mom will be pissed, but like with most things these days, she just can't seem to bring herself to care.
Puck exhales and he makes a move toward her, but thinks better of it. He takes a few steps away before stopping and looking back.
"Bye, Quinn."
She looks up, finally meeting his eyes.
"Bye, Noah."
They just look at each other. They don't really have much to say even though they kind of want to say something, but neither of them can.
Puck turns. He begins to make his way to his truck, his fists clenching and unclenching in his pockets. He wants to turn back and just sit on the swing with her again, even if they don't talk, but he just keeps walking until he's at his driver's side door.
He pulls his hand out of his pocket and moves to take the door handle but he just kind of gives out for a second. His fist makes contact with the edge of the roof and he lets himself fall forward until his forehead is pressed against the window. His face screws up in the pain he didn't want to know he felt and he slams his fist into the truck a few times, the metallic thuds reverberating in the quiet.
A few seconds later, his moment is over and he's in his truck and driving away from the park and away from Quinn and it's almost like he's driving away from Beth too in a way.
Later that night, when Quinn is trying to sleep, she flips her light back on and throws her covers off. She walks over to her bookshelf and pulls "Through The Looking Glass" down and lets it fall open to the place where she stuck that picture. The one that was an accident. She had asked the nice nurse to take a picture of the three of them, and they were preparing to take it again after the last one came out blurry. She had a tired smile on her face and Puck's arm was around her but then Beth made a soft little gurgly noise and they both looked down. Then they both looked at each other and they both sort of laughed. And the nurse took the picture right then and when she showed it to them they kept it.
Quinn stares at the picture, her mouth getting all watery and her throat getting tight and she feels the tears begin to form. She stumbles back into bed and turns off the light. She stuffs the hand with the picture under her pillow and lets her body curl in on itself and she buries her face in the pillow as she sobs just as hard as she did the night she came home from the hospital.
Puck is laying in his bed. The light coming from outside is lighting up the little pink plastic ID bracelet in his hand, the one he gently took off Beth's wrist when he knew the nurse and Shelby were looking but pretending they weren't. He rubs his thumb against the smooth plastic, over the spot where the heavy-handed nurse had written her name. His other hand drags the soft pink blanket up to his chest and it still sort of smells like her. And if he closes his eyes, it's like he can smell Quinn's perfume mixed with the soap-and-diaper smell of the blanket.
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