Sometimes he thinks about what could have happened that night. If Finn had been out of town. If he could have been the one consoling Quinn. If…
But the way it played out was, Quinn was upset that Coach Sylvester told her to do extra laps around the football field, which Quinn heard as "You're fat" and Finn was there when she needed a shoulder, not visiting his aunt and uncle for the weekend like he was supposed to do, because his cousin had the chicken pox and was highly contagious.
So that Friday night, the football team joined the Cheerios for a party at Santana's. There was drinking, dancing, frivolity and fun had by all.
Puck enjoyed himself he was with Santana that week, so of course he had a good time, but still…
At the age of twenty four, standing beside Finn Hudson and watching Quinn Fabray make her way up the aisle in a beautiful white dress, he thought about the night that he could have made his move, and made a start at telling her how he felt, how he had always felt. She wasn't Jewish, and it was important to his mom that he end up with a nice Jewish girl, but still…
She'd gotten a little crazy that night, apparently she was an angry drunk, and two wine-coolers was all it took to get her going, and telling anyone who would listen that Sue Sylvester was an evil dictator and there was nothing wrong with her body.
When Santana challenged that statement (because, while the two girls were sometimes friends, they were also bitchy seventeen year olds, prone to fighting every now and then) Quinn started screaming and trying to land a punch. Finn managed to get her to his mom's car with Puck's help (who felt bad that his girlfriend was the one to cause that batch of tears) and drove her home.
Puck couldn't help himself he often imagined how that night could have turned out, had he been the one to deliver her home.
Maybe Finn wasn't there, and she wasn't so hysterical, but wanted to leave anyway, and since she'd gotten there with Santana after Cheerio practice, she was sort of stuck.
"I can drop you off." Puck would have volunteered.
Quinn would turn her hazel eyes on him, and they would be that darker brown they became when she was annoyed, her hands planted firmly on her hips, she'd cock her head to the side, "You've been drinking."
"Just one. I'm good to go, promise."
He'd wait for her to make up her mind – stay here with the bitching and catty remarks, or risk dying in a fiery car wreck with her boyfriend's best friend, drunk behind the wheel?
"Let's go," she'd say and as they headed for the door, he'd grab a couple of wine-coolers – maybe when they got to her place she'd want to restart the party.
She was getting closer now, and they shared a smile.
During the drive he insists that Santana and Coach Sylvester both are stupid – of course she's not fat, she looks great. "You're the hottest chick at McKinley," She smiles demurely, but he knows that secretly she's thrilled.
When they reach her house, it's dark and empty – her parents out for the night at some work function to do with her father's job – so she invites him in, to keep her company for a while, because - and he doesn't know why he knew this, but he did – she didn't like being in the house alone, it made strange noises, and if they were big enough, she sometimes jumped at shadows.
Retreating to her room, to listen to a new CD she'd bought, they would sit, talking and sipping their drinks, occasionally singing along. Puck would make himself comfortable on her bed, as Quinn moved around, or sat at her desk, before finally coming closer to him.
When she sat at the end of the bed, it occurred to him that they'd never been this close before, alone. And then in the next moment, he'd realize that this is his chance.
The first time he kisses her, she shrinks away and stares at him as if he's just sprouted an extra three heads and they're all funny colors and speaking foreign languages, but, when he tries again, this time, actually managing to get a grip on her, she relaxes into his touch and allows it to happen. Again and again.
Before either of them knows it, they're horizontal on the bed, and Quinn pulls back.
"I can't do this."
She comes up with reasons as to why they shouldn't be in this position, and they shouldn't do this. He has a reply for all of them, and he almost completely believes himself when he says that neither of them will even care about Finn by the time school is over.
And then she gives in.
He can taste the wine on her tongue and feel the material of her cheer-leading uniform even now, seven years after it didn't happen.
He winces slightly, realizing where his mind was headed, and remembering he's standing inside a church. He's probably going to get himself smited as soon as he steps outside. Which would really ruin the mood of the day.
In his imaginary version of that night, the one that includes Finn being out of town, Quinn's parents being out of the house, and the wine coolers in her bedroom, something happens later. Weeks afterward, it's revealed that she's pregnant, and not to Finn, as it's widely believed when the bombshell drops in the school, but instead to him.
Puck doesn't really like to think this part too often, but it all just rushes in along with the party and the sex and then she's calling him a Lima loser and telling him that she'll go to her grave claiming that it's Finn's baby.
Then she gives the baby away.
Of course there never was a baby, because the night didn't happen that way, and Finn does still mean something to the both of them, even now, close to a decade later.
But still…
He'd been really pissed at the both of them, when Puck finally plucked up the courage to confess his feelings in senior year and Quinn returned them. But in the end, Finn was able to see that they made each other happy and they were clearly meant to be.
After all, they were moments away from becoming husband and wife.
There never was a night where Quinn Fabray's reputation was destroyed by her getting drunk with the wrong boy and falling pregnant, and while Puck had thought about it now and then, he still had no idea how he would have handled that situation. He was just glad that he'd been able to man up and get the girl.
And maybe one day soon they would have that baby he'd imagined.