Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 14th cycle. Now cycle 15!

"Wake-Up Call"
Puck, Puck/Quinn

Not many knew the two sides of him… not like he'd let them… He was exactly who people expected him to be, most of the day, but then some of that was also true on the other side. He was someone different for this mother, his little sister. He couldn't be that other guy with them, that wasn't right.

He was providing a role for them, left vacant by his father's departure, and he knew Sarah needed a male figure in her life to look up to. His mother wasn't doing much in bringing someone along to fit that bill, and who else was going to do it? So he did what he could.

It had never even dawned on him somehow, the duality of it all. He was two people, never the two to meet and so never the border to be seen. He just lived it, no big deal… But then, Quinn…

She'd done it; she'd made him see he wasn't one whole but two halves, two halves that couldn't stand for each other. It was confusing to him, so he'd try to ignore it… for a while, it worked.

As Quinn had come to live with them, it was like the balance was off… He didn't know who to be anymore. He wanted to be his home self, for his mother and sister, but then there was the other… Puck versus Noah… Having Quinn there, it made the decision harder, which was hardly something he knew how to handle.

It would take him a while more to have that breakthrough, though all along he knew somewhere inside him just what it might be that would get him there. As he'd thought, the birth of his daughter, her adoption, that had done it.

In the days that had followed, somewhere amidst Glee Club's eleventh hour reprieve, he'd found himself realizing how much he felt… tired… All the drama and the run around, he just couldn't do it anymore. He'd gone and found something good, with Quinn. And it made him see maybe his provider side mattered to him more, made him feel important, like he counted to people in this way, and it was making him happy.

But then at the same time, he knew who he was, who he'd been, and that it wouldn't necessarily accept the change so easily. He knew he could fall back, that as much as he could tell himself this turn would stick, he could well slip.

His primary concern, in considering this, was how he could disappoint someone, some others… His mother would still maintain how he could end up 'just like his father,' abandoning those who depended on him. His sister could discover the guy he was when he wasn't around her, and lose the image she'd carried of the one man she could depend on. And Quinn…

He'd had to work through so much, so many ups and downs to make her see that she could trust him, depend on him, believe him when he told her he cared for her and would be there for her. If she lost that again, he knew she might not let herself believe she could get it back… He could lose her forever, and that was a thing to worry about for him.

THE END

[A/N: Attention, reader! If you're at all skilled in helping break fic-planning conundrums, give a big ol' shout! :D]
(Note to self, don't put the words 'crack' and 'fic' next to each other, it leads to confusion ;))

[A/N: This is a one-shot ficlet, story alert won't get you anything! ;)]