Puck saw the sonogram third, right after the happy couple. He was home alone, nursing a beer, the four day break-up with Berry still sore in his head, her words playing on loop. Berry, despite her vocabulary and her vast knowledge of academics, doesn't know anything. He loves whats inside Quinn, the tiny fetus they created together drunk on wine coolers and mismatched feelings, not Quinn herself. He would make a good father, he would, and he's grown to hate Quinn for taking this opportunity away from him.
Finn comes over that night, interrupting his thoughts, blubbering like a little girl, holding onto the picture for dear life. Puck doesn't understand why he's crying until he sees Finn, and what he has in his hands.
"Isn't she beautiful?"
"She's a dot, dude. You can't see anything." Secretly, Puck feels like something constricts in his chest, a snake coiling around his lungs to limit his breathing. His little girl is there, sheexists.
Finn doesn't acknowledge the remark, still in awe, and both boys sit and stare at the photograph. They don't make any conversation, lost in thought. The air is heavy, and Finn can't understand why.
When Finn leaves in the waning hour of the night, he leaves behind the sonogram. Puck holds it tightly between this hands, his fingertips tracing the black and white image, and tries not to cry.
The next day, Puck lies to his best friend, everything rolling easily off the tip of his tongue, and convinces Finn he must have left it somewhere else. Finn shrugs and believes him, that's the type of guy he is. Saint Finn, he'd never sleep with his best friend's girlfriend. Finn walks away, and Puck slams the locker door, and sees Berry standing behind it.
He doesn't know how it happened but somehow, Berry is around all the time, like a fungus at the bottom of his shoe. He can't get rid of her, no matter how hard he tries. They're not together again, even if she did come to her senses about what a stud she lost.
"You're like an STD, Berry."
She raises an eyebrow. "Thanks."
"Why are you thanking me? I just compared you to a sexually transmitted disease."
"Yeah, but most of those stick around forever, which means you want me to stick around forever."
He rolls his eyes. Figures Berry would twist his words to fit what she wants to hear.
He lets her stay, when no one is around, in the comfort of their homes. She doesn't press him for anything, and their moments together are usually filled with silence, and books. She insists on him studying, he has to make something of himself, achieve goals and leave Lima. He can't live here forever. He picks up new vocabulary words from her, and uses them in every day conversation, to the surprise of everyone else.
They begin to do things together, which surprises him even more. It's almost as if he's enjoying their time together.
She leans her head against his shoulder when they're watching a movie on her couch, and she fills something inside. He lingers in the smell of her perfume, he even moves a little closer. After, when she realizes, she'll apologize for the invasion of personal space, and he doesn't argue, doesn't tell her it felt nice.
He teaches her to drive, telling her it's for her own good for New York. He figures this is best chance to avoid looking at what she's in, wearing those impossibly short skirts and impossibly high knee socks, and she looks like every man's schoolgirl fantasy. She wears white and gray today, and he's pretty sure he's on the verge of his imminent death if he doesn't touch her.
She taps her foot impatiently. "New York has trains, and cabs. Car service, even. Why would I take a car anywhere?"
"What if we don't move to New York? What if we're out in the middle of nowhere?" The plurals slip out before he has a chance to catch them, and he awaits her reaction, bated breath in hand.
Berry looks perplexed. She didn't think of that. "Why would we move to the middle of nowhere?"
"I don't know. What if I got a job there or something? Wouldn't you follow me so we could be together?"
"I'm not moving to the middle of nowhere. We'll figure something out when the time comes."
"So, you're saying you wouldn't move to be with me? I'd move anywhere to be with you." The words come out with an amused twinge, but he's sure that every part of him means them.
"You would?"
He nods, and before she can stop, she leans in and kisses him, her thumb hooking the thumb of jeans.
"Come on, let's go then."
He starts sleeping over, upstairs in her room, nestled in millions of pillows and blankets, but they don't do anything. Her dads are never home to care, they're always traveling and he knows it gets lonely in her house at night. His mom never says anything, she doesn't pry.
Sometimes, he stays awake at night and watches her sleep, but not in a creepy way, because he's Puck. He watches her sleep, and finds himself smiling when she lets out soft snores. Figures, he thinks. Figures.
He helps her bake for the Halloween. Her fathers are out of town, again, and he doesn't have anything else to do, anyway. He throws flour in her hair, and listens to her laugh, and swipes wine from her fathers liquor cabinet. They have so many, he figures they wouldn't mind.
Somewhere between the third and fifth glass of wine, he stops fighting. He kisses her as the moon dips into the midnight sky, the stars in his enough for them both.
In the end, his fingers dance their way down her spine, finally settling down at the base of her neck. She's laying face down on her stomach, a preoccupied expression covering her features. They haven't spoken for the past hour, speech constricted in each throat. Neither is willing to make the first move.
"This won't matter in the morning." Puck is the first to break the silence, unsurprisingly. His words come in whispers, almost as if the softer they're said, the less likely they're to come true. He doesn't know why he picked those words, he meant to tell her something different, something more along the lines of be mine.He tries to ignore the look on her face, and pretend it doesn't mean anything.
"I know." Rachel's words are just as soft, a quiet resignation in the air. Her breath catches in her throat when she hears those words, she wonders if he noticed. She looks at his face, his breath still hot on her neck and she can't help but believe his words. Eventually, he leaves without a backward glance, feeble attempts in his head, attempts to convince himself this didn't mean anything.
When he leaves, she cries tears she never knew she had.
The next morning, she doesn't acknowledge his presence and a faint sadness tugs inside his body. It's what he wanted from her, he can't be upset she's giving him that. They're not close anymore, she avoids him like the plague. He can see her changing, changes he's no longer allowed to be a part of. She sings less solos, and she becomes a team player, and people are warming up to her abrasive personality. Time passes, and people like her, he doesn't know why he found this so surprising before. He thinks she may even be dating a geek from Vocal Adrenaline. His hands clench at the unverified rumor but he pushes it to the side.
Quinn loses the baby the week of Thanksgiving, and no one is thankful that day, but now no one's ever going to have to know the truth about the paternity. Puck feels a mixture of emotions, relief the strongest one. He won't have to watch Finn raise his daughter, he won't have to fake smiles and happy thoughts. He laughs bitterly, and almost hates himself.
Quinn and Finn break up shortly after, and he tries dating Quinn for a little while, with Finn's blessings even. They made a baby together, maybe they should try a relationship together. He didn't love her before but maybe, maybe he could love her now. Finn's too preoccupied with Berry to even care, and if Quinn and Puck are happy, happy together, he's not going to stand in their way.
The sex is good, great, but there's still something missing when he looks in her eyes afterwards. He convinces himself that everything is fine, and that things are just warming up. He'll realize later how he was wrong. It's not amazing. This relationship gives him headaches.
When they're not sleeping together, they're arguing vicious fights or engaged in the silent treatment, the hurtful silent treatment.
He remembers it was easier with Berry, and he shakes his head. Relationships aren't supposed to be easy, they're supposed to be hard and require effort to make it worthwhile. Plus, he wasn't even dating Berry so that's a poor reference.
Finn finally gets his act together and dates Berry, to the surprise of no one. Puck doesn't see why he should care but he doesn't join everyone in congratulations. Instead, he feels something like an ache inside him, but he's at a loss where to attribute it to.
They've been together about a month when Finn drags Puck Valentine's Day shopping. Neither of them have gifts picked out for their girlfriends, and they figure they should show a united front against the commercialized holiday. He tries picking out gifts for Quinn, but all he sees are gifts for Berry. They leave the store, there's nothing to be found, anyway.
Later that week, he'll go to Finn's house and trip over the Victoria's Secret bag in his room. He's horrified at the contents that fall out, and stuffs everything in the bag, locking himself in the bathroom, claiming a stomach virus. He vomits until there's nothing but water left, and vows to never eat Chinese food again.
He doesn't remember what he gave Quinn for Valentine's day but he remembers what she gave him, a break-up to be with someone else. It's never going to work, she says. She's found happiness with someone else, he should consider the same. He's too drained from their time together to argue, much less care.
He stomps around the house, his footsteps sinking into the floor. He can't talk to Finn about this newfound development in his life. Not when Finn is fucking dating the girl. He can't talk to Matt and Mike, really, what would he even say? So, he gets into the habit of talking to Cat. He talks to a Cat, for fucks sake. That's not even the part that worries him, sometimes. Sometimes, he looks at Cat expectantly, and waits for him to talk back.
Glee becomes terrifying to him. It was easier to pretend when he was dating Quinn. His stomach doesn't sit well with Finn's hands in Berry's, or when her head falls on his shoulder. He notices the kisses Finn leaves on the side of her forehead, her eyes closing dreamily. He notices but pretends not to care, and hopes no one sees how he watches his best friend's girlfriend, his second one.
It's not the same, that is. Listening to her sing in Glee, and remembering when she sang when they were all alone. He remembers the echo she'd have in the back of her throat, the hitch when she would sing Wicked. In Glee, her voice is flawless and perfect, hits all the high notes but it's different, it doesn't sound the same.
She's late to Glee one day, wearing one of Finn's shirts to Glee one day, tucked into a pair of jeans, she even wears jeans now, and Puck tries not to punch a wall. He has to be deaf to not hear her racing in, and plant a kiss on Finn's lips, and yell, hey baby. He tries to distract his mind from whether or not she was intimate with his best friend, he knows Finn would tell him the answer but he chooses not to ask, the words dying in the back of his throat. He fails miserably at the current events in his life, and solves the thinking problem with Jack Daniels. He wonders if Berry misses him. His head hurts, thinking while drunk sucks.
"You should tell her." Hummel says randomly one day, cornering him in the staircase.
Puck plays stupid. "Tell who what?"
"Rachel. You should tell Rachel how you feel. Everybody notices, even Finn. Only Rachel doesn't, and that's because she's too busy ignoring you."
Puck gives Hummel a light shove. "Mind your own business, Beyonce." He walks away from Hummel, but not away from the truth.
He wants to come up to her and tell her things, he's not sure what exactly, but he knows there are things that need to be said. He wants to apologize for that day, and fix things with her, make them right. He misses her in every way that counts, and every way that doesn't.
One day, he stays a little late for Glee, intent on talking to her. He takes his time packing his guitar, and when she bumps into him trying to get something behind him, he takes his chance.
"Berry."
"Puck."
These are the only two words they've spoken since everything.
By the time he opens his mouth to say something, anything else, she's already walked away, walked back to Finn.