Title: A Person's A Person, No Matter How Small
Rating: PG-13/T, for slight language
Fandom: Glee
Words: 2,066
Characters: Quinn, Puck, Ella (Puck's sister), Mercedes.
Summary: Puck brings Mercedes to meet his family.
Notes: This is a companion to Pancakes Without Bacon. It's quite readable either way, but if you like this, or that, then you'll probably be happy with the other piece too.
On Friday night, directly following their first basketball game as a couple, Puck brings Mercedes home to meet his family. He stops on the way to buy her one of those caramel iced-lattes she likes so much, and she's smiling like, well, a giddy schoolgirl as she makes her way through the doorway to his house.
She's met by a pair of questioning brown eyes, shooting up from the face of a 9-year-old. Huh, she must have been so busy telling Noah about herself on the way there she forgot to ask about his family. "Hey cutie," She smiles down at her. "You must be Puck's little sister! I've heard so much about you." She leans in for a hug, wrapping her arms around the tiny girl. She feels a hand on hers and suddenly her drink is tumbling to the floor. It lands to her right with a loud thud, spilling all over the carpet.
The little girl watches it, finger in her mouth, before turning to Mercedes again. "Oops," She states, overly loudly and starts to walk away.
A voice from the kitchen stops her, "Ella Noel," It says. "You apologize to Mercedes." Ella, the little girl, starts to open her mouth. The voice interrupts, "Like you mean it," It orders.
She shoots a glare back at the kitchen and sighs. "I'm sorry I ruined your drink," She states, although she stares at Puck the whole time.
"That's okay, child," Mercedes grins at her, as she picks up the cup.
"I'm not a child," She snaps, and Puck puts his face in his hand. "My name is Ella."
Mercedes keeps on smiling, "I like you, Ella. You've got sass." Ella doesn't respond, but walks back to the kitchen, where Quinn is putting the final touches on some Chicken Parmesan.
"Where are the towels?" She asks shortly, looking over the blond to the counter. "I need to clean up."
Quinn watches her, amazed at how quickly the semi-permanent smile on her face has become a semi-permanent scowl, "What's wrong?" Ella doesn't answer, but stand on her tippee-toes to reach for the paper towel rack. "You don't like Mercedes."
Ella pulls them so hard half the roll falls into her hands. "She's better than Santana," She grumbles.
Quinn stares at her, trying to think of something helpful or insightful to say, but can't come up with anything but condescending. So she takes a few of her towels, wets them, and follows Ella to where the coffee stain is lain in the rug, trying to ignore Mercedes' incessant giggling from the couch.
Ella kneels on the carpet, holding her hand out for the dampened paper. Quinn hands one to her and watches as she begins to scrub furiously, a sour expression on her face. "Can we have carrot sticks before dinner?" Quinn chews on her lip. Carrot sticks, for Ella, are warning signs. When she's in a good mood, she asks for celery, or sometimes apple, but when she's in a bad mood…
Still, she nods her head and watches her work.
The first thing Ella says at dinner is "Why is there zucchini in the tomato sauce?" Puck, Quinn, and Mercedes all stare at her.
"You like zucchini, moron," Puck snaps at her, and Quinn watches as Mercedes grabs his hand.
"Not. In. Sauce." She hisses back through her teeth. "The seeds leek on everything and make it all taste the same."
"I don't like zucchini either, child," Mercedes smiles again and Ella glares at her stupid high ponytail, perfectly frozen in place. "Just eat around it, honey."
"Stop talking down to me!" She yells suddenly, causing Quinn to jump in her seat. "I'm a 4th grader, not a retard." Puck laughs, Mercedes shoots daggers at him, and Quinn sits there with her mouth open. "You're such an idiot," She says directly to Puck. "You could have Quinn and you want to be with her?" She looks at Mercedes as if she has three heads. "There is no way we're possibly related with how stupid you are!"
"Ella, room," She stares at Quinn, who's eyes are downcast at her food.
"But-" She begins, looking at her with those big doe eyes of hers.
"Ella, room," Quinn repeats firmly. "Now."
She throws her fork at her plate in a clatter and stomps her way up to her bedroom. They wait until the noise stops, and then eat the rest of their dinner in the silence.
When Quinn approaches Ella's room after dinner, she finds her sitting at her desk. When she gets closer, she sees her writing in the journal she got her for Christmas. At the time, she's only been living with the Puckermans for a week, and Ella had spent most of her time observing her in silence. Which, at the time, had been more than fine with Quinn.
She'd noticed Ella and her books though. First Number the Stars, which Quinn remembered reading in Mrs. Cohen's class when she was her age. So she'd assumed it was assigned. Then the next morning at breakfast, Ella had eaten her cereal with one hand, a copy of Judy Blume's Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret propped open in the other. That was abruptly chased with about half of the Nancy Drew series, in less than three days. Upon closer inspection, she'd found Ella's room had three bookcases of varying shape and size, all stuffed to the brim, with the overlap covering every available surface.
She's seen the journal while she was at Walmart, getting Puck some stupid Mario baseball game he'd been whining about, and thought it would be good for her. The lines weren't too hard, so they faded into the background of your writing, and it had Platform 9 ¾ on the front. All kids loved Harry Potter, right? As it turned out, Ella was borderline obsessed with Hermione, some of the kids in class teased her for being a know-it-all, and she'd spent half of Christmas morning staring at the cover.
"You aren't reading over my shoulder, are you?" Ella accuses, her dark head still bent over the notebook.
"No," Quinn shakes her head. "You aren't writing about me, are you?" Ella tries to hide her smile.
"Not anything bad," She whispers, looking up at her. "Not about you, anyways."
Quinn sits down on Ella's bed and rests a hand on her stomach. "You know," She says quietly, "Mercedes is nice… if you give her a chance."
Ella is quiet for a minute, except for her scribbling. "I tried, but she was acting like I was stupid," She says finally.
"Sometimes people who aren't around kids a lot do that," Quinn murmurs, fighting the urge to fall asleep against the cool pillow.
"You didn't do that," Ella whispers into the sheet of paper. Quinn wonders if ignoring her for half a month, until she had her arm twisted into babysitting one afternoon and Ella started babbling at her was the better option. "You treated me like a person."
Quinn gulps down the sob that's threatening to escape her lips and croaks out, "You are one."
Ella looks at her for a long time, before turning away, "I'd like to be left alone now." She waits until she's alone and then rests her head where Quinn's was on the pillow. The spot is still warm.
Are you there, God? It's me, Ella.
Mom's always saying you're always listening to us, because you feel guilty about killing so many of us in the Holocaust. It's all right, I figure that was mostly the devil and those damn Germans anyways, and that the little girl in the red dress in Schindler's List didn't actually die. And that maybe you made so many people that you can't control them all the time anyways.
Is that what happened to Noah? Did he stop listening after Daddy went away? Is that why he keeps treating Quinn like she doesn't exist? I figure she must love him a little bit more than she pretends, because she's so good and perfect and you aren't supposed to do things like that unless you love each other. I know you aren't a genie, and we aren't supposed to wish for things, but I really wish you'd save Puck's soul.
I don't want him to break Quinn's heart like Dad broke Mom's.
I think, maybe, he really loves her, but he forgot what love feels like, you know? And it's not his fault, because all Mom ever does is call him a screw-up and the way Quinn talks, when she does, I think all his teachers do the same thing. Could you just remind him, please? And when you do, can you make sure he's not near Mercydies? I know it's mean, and I did try to be nice to her, but she's not supposed to be my sister. Quinn is.
Thanks!
Love,
Ella N. Puckerman
When she wakes up the next morning, Noah is the only one home. "Where's mom?" She demands, standing in front of the TV as he tries to play Super Paper Mario.
"She went to the Synagogue's food pantry to volunteer, apparently the way to remedy feeling guilty for not spending enough time with us is to hand out old corn to strangers," He leans around her, trying to see.
"Where's Quinn?" She persists, stepping in his way again.
"Mom took her, because she knows she won't guilt trip her and so Allison Goldstein won't rip her a new one in front of the pregnant girl," He pushes her legs sideways. "Seriously, I'm trying to defeat Dimentio so that Blumiere and Timpani can be reunited. Go find one of your stupid books or something."
She sits down next to him and watches him play, cursing every time he dies repeatedly before she speaks up, "Why don't you want to be with Quinn?"
He snorts, furiously pressing buttons, "If it were that simple, I would be problem free."
"Yeah, right," She giggles and he glares at her out of the corner of his eye.
"I told you, I'm trying to concentrate."
"I stopped blocking the screen," She points out.
He sighs, "Yeah, because that's the only thing that matters."
She furrows her eyebrows, "Would you stop avoiding my question?"
"Would you stop being such a pain?" He shoots back, before dying again. "Damn it!"
"Would you answer me?" He throws the controller on the floor.
"She doesn't want to be with me, Ella," He shouts, balling his fists at his sides. "She wanted fucking Finn and I ruined it for her, and she doesn't even want to live here, okay?" He sits down on the couch and breathes too loud.
Ella moves up next to him, sitting down, and putting a hand on his arm, "Noah, did she say she didn't want to live with us?"
He stares at his little sister, and sighs at the look on her face, as if she'd ever done anything wrong. She was the good one, the one you didn't have to pretend wasn't in existence, "No, she never said that."
She keeps on looking at him and he squirms, "I think she likes it, and I think she likes you too." He can't help the way his heart beats when she says that. Sure, she's a 4th grader, who knows absolutely nothing about relationships, but it's nice to have hope when everyone's always telling him to give up…or take his shirt off already.
"Whatever you say, Ella," He mumbles, picking the Wii remote up of the ground.
"It's kind of like Mario, actually. Sometimes Bowser kidnaps her or she gets stuck back in time, like in that one where they're all babies, but she's always going to be your Princess Peach, you know?" And he does. "Even when that weird computer from the Thousand Year Door falls in love with her."
He nods, trying to take that in, "You want to play Mario Kart?"
"I thought you said it was stupid and non-canon since Mario doesn't drive in any of his other games, except Mario Party," She smiles, grabbing the good steering wheel.
He picks up the crappy one from Game Stop, "Want to know a secret?" She nods. "That's just because you kept beating me at it." Ella smiles.