She doesn't rejoin the Cheerios.
It kind of takes everybody, even the kids in Glee Club, by surprise. But she meant what she told Ms. Sylvester during the whole yearbook debacle: she no longer wants anything to do with a team that wanted nothing to do with her when she needed them most.
(Speaking of Coach Sylvester, the woman is understandably livid when Quinn turns down her invite to come back to the squad. She spends the better part of a half hour ranting and raving about does Quinn want her body to look like that forever, and how just because she popped one out doesn't mean she has to go getting moral on her now, and if Quinn thinks regaining her captaincy and the respect of her teammates is hard, she should try living with perennial hemorrhoids because that's hard.)
Her mother is pretty disappointed about the whole thing, but Quinn figures it is only because Judy is seeking the highest degree of "normalcy" possible. She doesn't stop talking about how Quinn will need extra-curriculars to get into a good college and she'll need more than just Glee Club on her applications. Quinn picks up an after-school gig tutoring freshmen in French, and that seems good enough.
Other than that, she fills her time with homework and Glee, getting mani-pedis with Mercedes and SAT prep classes. Quinn Fabray has never been the type to sit and wallow.
She and Puck are...trying. She doesn't call him her boyfriend and he doesn't call her his girlfriend, partly because it seems like they are so much more than that. But for all intents and purposes, they are together: they go to each others' houses after school (where they are carefully monitored by their suspicious mothers – or by Puck's little sister, who Quinn is pretty sure is getting paid to spy on them), they go out on dates (to the dollar-saver movie theater and the Frisch's Big Boy, but still, they're dates), and basically spend all their free time together.
Sometimes Puck can be really intense, which Quinn doesn't like. When LeBron signed with the Heat instead of staying with the Cavs, Puck threw a juice glass across the room, broke his NBA 2K9 game in half, and didn't leave the house for a week. Intense.
Other times, though, he can be really...well, not exactly sweet, but decent. He carries her books to class or buys her Coke slushies on their way to school. Quinn and Mercedes call him Dr. Noah and Mr. Puck and laugh about it, but it's fairly accurate. There are two acutely different sides to Noah Puckerman and she's never quite sure which one she'll be dealing with each morning when his ancient old pick-up truck rumbles into her driveway.
(One random day in mid-September, Rachel suggests that they go on a double date with her and Finn. Quinn isn't sure whether she should laugh until she cries or hit this crazy midget upside the head...so she opts to do neither and simply stares disbelievingly until Rachel meekly suggests they discuss it another time and backs slowly away. She tells Puck about it later, and he laughs so hard that he starts to hiccup and he nearly wrecks his truck.)
They get along, for the most part. It helps that they've mutually decided that the living, breathing Thing between them should never be brought up or used against each other in a disagreement. It also helps that their Glee friends seem to have caught onto this arrangement and never mention the Thing either. It is this unspoken law of keeping the peace, and they are all willing to oblige.
One night in late October, Puck picks her up at her house and they drive out to the lake at Schoonover Park and park (illegally) on the running path that winds all the way around it. It gets pretty chilly at night this time of year, but she bundles herself into one of Puck's old McKinley High sweatshirts and they lay on their backs on top of a blanket in the bed of his truck. The sky is really pretty clear, the way it gets when the air turns crisp and the leaves start to change, and Quinn entertains herself by trying to name all of the constellations that her daddy taught her once upon a time (back when he still wanted be her daddy, a nagging voice in her head reminds her, but she pushes the thought away and tries to concentrate).
They are not talking, just laying down and looking up, watching their breaths puff out in little white clouds that disappear before they form into any real shape. Quinn thinks that her teeth will probably start to chatter soon, and then he'll make them leave, which will be a shame because it is just so peaceful out here and she actually is really enjoying herself.
Orion, Aquarius, Pisces...
"Do you ever..." he starts suddenly, then trails off in thought, folding his arms behind his head.
"Think about how Super Mario Brothers changed the world?" she finishes dryly. "No. We've been over this."
"That's not what I was gonna say," he grumbles, and if she turns her head to look at him, she knows he'll be pouting. So she doesn't turn her head, and he's quiet for a few minutes.
Capricornus, Pavo, Cassiopeia...
"I was gonna ask if you ever...you know, thought about her."
Pegasus, Andromeda, The Phoenix...
She doesn't answer for a long time. She can feel him clenching and unclenching his hands into fists, waiting.
"Beth. Do you ever think about Beth?" he says, a wholly unnecessary clarification.
"I know who you meant." Her voice is surprisingly strong when she finally speaks.
Sagittarius, Cygnus, Lyra...
"Well? Do you?"
"Of course." Her voice cracks then and she clears her throat, irritated. "She's my daughter. Of course I do."
"Our daughter." His voice is dangerous, like a deadly thing. "She's our daughter. And you never talk about her."
"We never talk about her," she counters. "What is there to say, Puck?"
He huffs a long breath out through his nose. "Jesus, Quinn, I don't know, but you fucking pushed out a human being who was part you and part me, so I thought there might be something there to fucking say."
She sits up and looks at him, his sweatshirt draping her body like a circus tent.
"Yes, Puck. We made her. I am her mother and you are her father, but we are not her parents. Shelby Corcoran is raising that little girl because she can take care of her and she deserves to be her mom."
"Why didn't we deserve her? Why weren't we good enough?" The anger is gone from his voice, replaced by something much different. He looks like a lost little boy. She sighs.
"We did what was best for her. You know that." She reaches out and puts her hand on his shoulder. "Puck, you know that." He nods shallowly, but she knows she didn't answer his questions. She thinks maybe he knows she doesn't have an answer.
"Yeah, I know." He doesn't say anything after that, and after a while, she lays back down beside him.
The silence is completely enveloping. There aren't any crickets or cicadas chirping or buzzing, because they've all gone and done whatever it is crickets and cicadas do in the wintertime. (Die, probably.) There isn't even any wind. It is so quiet. She closes her eyes.
"I do think about her," she says at last, but this time it feels like she's telling him a secret. She feels him turn and look at her, but she doesn't open her eyes. "I think about her every day." There's quiet for another minute as he seems to digest this.
"I almost drove out to Carmel this summer to see her."
This is news to Quinn. She turns on her side and stares at him, wide-eyed.
"You did?"
"Yeah." He shrugs one shoulder
"What happened?" she breathes, and he has the modesty to look embarrassed.
"I made it all the way to Troy before I realized I didn't know where Shelby lived. Then I kinda lost my nerve to do it, you know?"
Quinn nods, and has to laugh then, because it's a pretty classic move for Noah Puckerman to run off with a half-formed idea in his big, dumb mohawked head. She rolls back onto her back and looks back up at the stars, trying to see more of a big picture this time.
"Maybe we can send her a present for Christmas," she says after a pause.
"Hanukkah," Puck corrects her without missing a beat. Quinn rolls her eyes.
"Chrismakkuh," she offers.
"Deal," Puck says. His hand finds hers on the blanket and he threads their fingers together as they look up at the sky. "I'd like that."
"Me too."