Disclaimer: Though I wish at 11:11 every day and night, I still don't own glee. =(
Author's note: As always Beth's name has been changed to Sophia.
He's not really surprised to feel her behind him. Sooner or later he knew she would come here, what he didn't expect was for her to be alone. But there's no inner voice telling to keep his hands to himself so he knows Finn's not around. Typically he would spend some time thinking about that, but he's only got 26 hours left with his daughter.
"Quinn probably needs a shoulder to cry on right now" He'd be doing it himself but they'd both decided that at least one of them should stay with Sophia and she wasn't allowed to leave the room. "Yeah, Santana seems to be handling… that, quite well when I checked on her", he doesn't think he's ever heard her speak so quietly, she sounded so far away, so small. He spared her three seconds of his attention. It took a second for him to realize that she was crying before she was in his arms.
"I… I am just so sorry. I… you'd be a good father Noah. I know you don't believe that, that you don't believe you'd be a good anything but you've been there for Quinn and…and Sophia from the very start and I am just so sorry you're going through this. I… god I'm supposed to be taking care of you." He'd laugh but he's pretty sure it would just cause her to have a nervous breakdown. Plus, she was taking care of him. He was sick of thinking, of talking, of making decisions, all he needed was to watch his daughter and listen to Rachel ramble like only she could.
"You are… helping y'know, just you wan… can you keep talking?" he feels stupid but with everything that's gone on this year he thinks he's earned a moment of stupidity… he was still a teenager.
Rachel was pretty sure that if there was anything she could do it was keep talking. So she started with the calamity that had been regionals, and just said whatever came next. She tried to include things she thought he would be interested in but he didn't seem to care. He'd turned them around and resumed watch over the daughter he would never know. For once Rachel didn't care that the attention wasn't on her; she was use to being ignored for far less important reasons. She focussed on his heart beating against her back and the way his fingers drew patterns into her hips.
Sophia woke up a few times and Noah was by her side in an instant. The nurses were starting to fall in love, watching him while they tend to the other newborns. He hushes his daughter and soothes her until she's lulled back to sleep and then he's back outside holding Rachel. "Kay, what were you saying?" She had no idea; every time he left she would text Santana to see how Quinn was doing and then she would think of what she would say to Shelby when she finally came to break both of their hearts (for different reasons obviously).
He would look at her through the glass, watch the tears that slid silently down her cheeks and the creases in her forehead creased signs of the obvious stress of her thoughts. He just took in the sight of her; Rachel Fucking Berry, the crazy Jew that had somehow become his best friend. He held her against him, making sure she kept talking but only half listening. Her hands were rubbing up and down his arms and she was so tightly tucked into him, if he had the mental capacity to he would really be stressing about the consequences. Finn couldn't be happy that Rachel was here, it's been hours and she hasn't moved, hasn't even mentioned leaving and the way he's touching her may be innocent but it's far from platonic. It's something he'll have to think about later though because now she's talking about how much Sophia looks like him (but she's got Quinn's eyes) and he refocuses his attention because there are only 16 hours left.