Rachel pushed open the door to the dark choir room, to find Finn and Quinn sitting on chairs having a hushed conversation. When she entered the room, they both turned and looked at her, Quinn smiled and ushered her over to them, turning back to Finn as the brunette made her way across the room.
"I don't get it, I got a job so we could pay for all the baby stuff" Finn whispered to his girlfriend. Rachel felt a little sorry for Finn, clearly he was trying to do what was needed of him, but he just didn't understand how much this pregnancy was costing.
Quinn looked at him sweetly, "I know, and the moneys helping to pay for all the bills we've already got, but I have new expenses all the time, and we're just not keeping up with it," she explained gently. "Rachel heard me on the phone to the doctors, and offered me her card" she further clarified, before adding "and then everything went nuts."
Rachel pulled over a chair and sat down with the other two, waiting for Quinn to finish explaining before she spoke up, "Umm, I don't really think Finn will work," she told the blonde, and then admitted, "they already know he got you pregnant, I think they'd be about as receptive to him as Ms. Sylvester is of Mr. Shue's hair."
Quinn stared at Rachel horrified, "you've been telling people I'm pregnant?" she fumed, "what if your dads tell my parents?"
Rachel only rolled her eyes, "Quinn, our parents have spoken once, ever" she emphasised the last part, "they met at our 'welcome to high school' PTA dinner at the beginning of freshman year, and your mom told my dads, that every time they fornicated, they killed an angel, so my dads, are not going to tell your parents" she explained.
Quinn huffed a little, "my mother can be a little, forceful" she admitted, "besides" she turned to look back at Finn, "he's not here to be your baby daddy, he's here as emotional blackmail, so we can pull the, 'do it for your best friend' angle if we need to" she smiled, the last hour and a half had given her a chance to put things into action.
Finn cleared his throat meekly, "I don't know if I want to blackmail Puck into this," he admitted, "I mean it's kind of a lot to ask."
"Finn" she stared, using a voice that was somewhere between condescending and sympathetic, "if we get caught," she gestured to herself and Rachel, "we could go to Juvie" she explained, getting the look of horror from him that she had hoped for, "yeah , I could end up, living out my pregnancy in a Juvenile Detention Center."
"At least you wouldn't be a minority anymore," came another voice from the doorway. Having caught only the last part of their conversation, Puck sauntered over, chuckling at his joke as Quinn rolled her eyes in annoyance, looking up at the clock on the wall to check the time.
"You're late" she commented as he took a seat on one of the choir steps next to them all.
He looked up at her unapologetically, "well at least I came, what do you want?" he asked, wondering what on earth possibly warranted his attendance.
"We," she hesitated, not sure the best way to go about this if she really wanted his cooperation, "we, need a favour," short and simple she figured, anything that might get him intrigued.
"When you say 'we,' do you mean the three of you?" he asked, looking confused and a little disgusted at the thought of having to spend much time with any of them. Finn was his best friend, and provided the dude kept his emotions in check when they were hanging out together, they got along well. The girls on the other hand were a different story, Quinn was unpleasant at the best of times, and with the baby hormones added to the mix, she seemed to have sporadic bitch attacks all the time. Also he'd realised since her exile from the Cheerio's, that the mild attraction he'd always had for her, seemed very much tied to sexy uniform, and without the uniform, she was just a seething blond. Rachel on the other hand was bat shit crazy, no one in the world was as scarily unaware of social norms as she was, and while she could behave normally sometimes, the other side of her was just too much to handle. He had to admit though, she on the other hand had not stopped wearing the short miniskirts or the fitted and slightly see through button up shirts, so she had certainly maintained some of her sexy factor. He had also learned from their one week of dating, that her tongue had some impressive qualities, and even though the only place she'd ever used it on him was in his mouth, even that had been sort of worth the slushy.
"Yes" Rachel piped up, "you see, the three of us, have gotten ourselves into a less then desirable situation" Rachel began explaining what it was they had done, but Quinn cut her off and took over, knowing that Rachel's long winded explanation would be enough to scare Puck off in itself.
They were all sitting and staring at him now, having spent the last ten minutes detailing their scheme and his possible role in it. Having finished, they were now waiting for his reaction.
"You're joking right?" he asked, and they all just shook their heads. "Well then you're all morons" he scoffed, "how the hell did you think that would work?"
"Well if my idiotic new doctor hadn't gone and called Rachel's dads, no one would have been the wiser" she spat back at him, before softening. "I know it's a lot to ask, but you'd only have to go and meet Rachel's dads once or twice and get yelled at," she over simplified.
Rachel piped up, "yeah, I mean, if we just tell my dad's that we dated for a bit, which is technically true, and I got pregnant and you're gonna help me out, but we're not together anymore, then they won't expect you to be around all the time" she explained. "And no one at school knows about any of this so it's not like you have to fake anything here, I mean, you don't even have to talk to me at school anymore" she tried to bargain.
"I don't, talk to you at school" he pointed out sullenly, "say I do this, what do I get out of it?" he asked, only mildly intrigued.
"The satisfaction of doing something good for someone else" Quinn said faux sweetly.
He raised his eyebrows as he answered her, "what you're doing isn't good, it's illegal," he pointed out.
Quinn huffed, "fine, it's illegal, it's not like you really care about breaking laws," she said accusingly, but she knew she wouldn't get him to agree using that train of thought and relented, "okay, name your price" she told him. A sly grin spread across his face as he gave both the girls a once over, and she quickly added, "no sexual favours, from either of us, unless berry wants to show you her treasure trail or something" when Rachel scowled at her, she rolled her eyes in a bitchy manner, "what? You're the one who dated him."
"I was actually taking offence to the revival of that nickname," she pointed out, but moved on, turning her attention back to Puck. "So nothing sexual, what else?" she asked him.
He just shook his head, honestly, what did they expect from him? He had no desire to spend any unnecessary time with either of them unless they were going to be naked, or at least clothed but groapable. Although, he suddenly had a thought, and his gaze settled on Rachel, and he could see her getting nervous being the object of his scrutiny, "you have to come meet my mom" he told her. She looked very confused, "she's always giving me crap about how I never date any nice Jewish girls, so you have to come over and meet her a few times so she'll think were dating and leave me alone," he explained, and she nodded excitedly, realising that it was a pretty good bargain. He pointed a finger straight at her, "you have to behave normally though, and when I say normal, I mean normal peoples normal, cos your normal is like normal normal on drugs" he told her, and then had to wait while she grasped what he'd said.
"Fine" she told him, "I'll meet you mom and you'll meet my dads, it's a deal" she held out her hand so he could shake it, and he rolled his eyes at her lameness but accepted the outstretched hand anyway. "But you shouldn't meet my dad's for at least a week I think, hopefully they'll have calmed down a bit by then.
Having agreed on the terms of their agreement, the four of them went back to their regular day, Rachel felt a lot lighter as she realised now that she wasn't going to get caught in a lie, and she had a pretty good chance of pulling the whole thing off. However, when school ended and she realised she had to go home, to a house where she was 'pregnant' and face her dads, she began to wonder how she was going to keep up this charade. Choosing to put off going home as long as possible, she walked to the local library, telling herself she needed books for an assignment, although if she were really being honest with herself then she would admit she could have found the books at the school library. She stayed there until it started getting dark, when she got home it was about 6:30, the house was unlit and no one was home. She turned on all the lights, walking over to the pin board in the kitchen for a note or anything that might tell her where they were. All she found was a post it that said, 'out to dinner, we'll be home late' and it made her a little misty eyed, it wasn't abnormal for them to go out to dinner on a week night, but usually their notes would say something like 'call if you need anything,' with a love heart or a star drawn on it or 'love you sweetheart' written at the bottom. This one just seemed so angry, and she told herself to be strong as she wandered back through the house to her bedroom to do some homework.
Hours later she heard the car pull up in the driveway and the doors open and close, shortly after that, the sound of keys jiggling in the lock and the front door opening, filtered down to her room. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, dread building inside her as she waited for them to come and yell at her more. She heard them move further from the corridor, towards the kitchen, and wondered if they realised she was home. She assumed they must, and were simply choosing to ignore her still. She Lay back on her bed, closing her eyes tight and hoping that they would just leave her be, at least for tonight, she was still too scared to confront them about it. Picking up the book she'd been reading she tried to distract herself, but she didn't have any luck, her heart was beating too rapidly in her chest, and all she wanted to do was get out of the house, be anywhere but here, having to deal with any of this.
She didn't have all that long to panic about it though, because within 15 minutes she could hear her daddy walking down the passage, and she took one last shaky breath as she heard a soft rapping on her door, and she looked up to see him poking his head into her room.
"Mind if I come in?" he asked, sounding sedate. She nodded, feeling her voice would fail her, and he pushed his way into her room, carrying a plate of warmed up left over's in one hand and cutlery in the other. He set them down on her bed and gestured to them, "I didn't know if you'd eaten anything," and she shook her head, picking up the fork to prod at the food, she didn't look up at him when he sat down on the bed. "I don't know what to say to you" he admitted morosely, "we've been out talking about it, and frankly, neither of us knows what to say. I'm just, I don't understand how you possibly ended up in this situation," he told her honestly. "You know so much better than this, you know about birth control, I just can't understand what you were thinking when this happened" he sighed exasperatedly.
"I don't know what I was thinking" she admitted, and it was true, she couldn't for the life of herself remember why she had thought giving Quinn her card was a good idea. Or why she thought it was ok to risk doing all of this to her fathers, but she had and she was stuck in this situation now.
He huffed, " well you're going to have to start thinking now" he warned her, "we're going to need some information, and we need to know what decisions you've made, or haven't made, and we need to meet this boy, I mean, oh god" a thought dawned on him, "it is just one boy right? You know whose baby you're having, don't you?"
Her head snapped up at this, how dare he, "of course I know who the father is, he's my boyfriend" she spat, admittedly it was lie, one she'd promised she wouldn't tell, but she was so angry at the fact her father apparently thought she was a whore that she didn't care.
"Don't get snippy with me young lady" he ordered, standing up so he was towering above her, "I won't apologise for being overwhelmed after finding out that my sixteen year old daughter is pregnant, I wouldn't have a clue what's been going on with you, you certainly never told us you were seeing anyone."
She dropped her head, looking back down at her plate, "maybe you just weren't paying attention," she uttered maliciously under her breath, it wasn't fair to attack him back, she knew that, but she was so hurt and insulted that it was all she could do.
He scoffed, "If that's how you want to behave, you go right ahead and do that, but I'm not impressed, and in a few months your kid won't be either. Things are going to have to change," and with that he turned and walked out of the room, and within seconds of him closing the door there were tears pouring down her face. She felt so conflicted, this was a choice she was making, to help Quinn and Finn and the baby, but she didn't expect it to be so scary. She couldn't fault her dads for feeling the way they did, if she had been looking in on this situation, with only the information they had, she'd have been disappointed in herself as well, but a part of her felt so broken hearted that they weren't being a little more supportive.
She heard the door open, and she looked up, frantically wiping the tears from her cheeks as her other father poked his head in the door. Seeing her like that, she could tell he felt a bit sympathetic, and she half expected him to walk over and wrap his arms around her and tell her it would be ok, and that he was there for her. But he didn't. "This is a lot to process" he told her, and she nodded, tears still escaping her eyes, "and I'm not happy with how you're choosing to deal with this" he said gesturing back towards her father in the other room. His eyes slipped closed for a moment, and when they opened there was a little extra shine on them, "I just wanted to ask, I mean, we wanted to know" he emphasised the 'we', then looked right at her with concern, "you and the baby, your both fine?" he clarified.
She wiped her eyes once more, and nodded, adding "we're fine" and he nodded back to her, before turning around and closing the door behind him.
She put the book down in her lap, burying her face in her hands as she let out one sob after another, she was having a hard time weighing the pros and cons of this particular con. Especially as she began to consider the fact, that even in all their heart break and disappointment, they still wanted to know that she and 'her' baby were going to be ok. It made her feel so guilty because she knew that in two months time, this baby was going to 'die.'
She pulled her phone out, letting the tears run more freely down her cheeks now that there was no one there to watch her. She found Quinn's number and her finger rested over the call button, but she didn't want to dump all of this on Quinn, even if the girl owed her, the girl was going through her own hell at the moment. She considered Finn for an instant before deciding that it wasn't appropriate to call him, and that only left one person, she scrolled back up through the phone to Noah's number, and pressed dial, not giving herself the chance to reconsider.
The phone rang four times before she heard the line click through, and his disinterested answer came down the line, "hi Berry." She didn't say anything for a moment, pursing her lips together and letting her eyes tighten as she warded off a sob. "Rachel?" his voice filtered through again, this time a hint of concern mixed into it, she opened her mouth to speak, letting out a loud sniffle. "Are you ok?" he asked, definite concern flooding through him now.
"No" she whispered quietly, letting a sob fall out with her words, "I feel like the worst person in the world" she confessed.
He took a deep breath, steadying himself before speaking, he wasn't used to dealing with emotional girls. "You're doing it all for a good reason though," he reminded her, "your helping someone, that's a decent thing to do."
"Yeah, but my dad's," she sniffled, "they're so disappointed, it's like I broke their hearts" and she couldn't hold back the next run of tears.
Listening to her sob over the phone, he made a decision, one he wasn't sure about, but he did it anyway, "I'm coming over, ok?" he told her, it was phrased as a question, but it wasn't, he knew she needed him, and even if he was only being a fake dad, he wasn't going to be a crap fake dad.
"You can't" she sounded panicked as she tried to convince him not to come over.
There was no point though; he was already half way out his bed room door. "I'll be there in ten minutes" he told her, but understanding her worry he added, "Open your bedroom window, they won't even know I'm there," and then he hung up on her, slipping out though the laundry so as to not alert his mother to his actions.
She listened to the dial tone for a moment, before sliding the phone closed and walking over to the window. She pushed it open, and even though the night air was a bit crisp, the cool breeze that hit her headachy tear stained face was somewhat soothing. She picked up her sweater from the end of her bed, pulling it over her head as she picked up the plate of uneaten food and put it on her desk, out of the way. She quietly pushed her way out of her bed room, she could hear the TV and her father's talking over the top of it, about her, as she walked over to the bathroom to splash some water on her face before creeping back. She turned the lights off, letting the street lights and moonlight from outside the window cast shadows across the room, before she lay down on her bed, facing her door, watching, just in case someone should dare enter. She let her eyes slide shut, begging them to stop spilling over with salt water as she waited for him to get there. She was actually glad that he was coming, as callous as he was at school, she knew he wasn't really a monster, she had learnt that herself.
A short time later she heard a gentle 'thud thud' as his feet which had swung across the window frame hit the floor, and she felt her mattress shift underneath her as he crawled across it to lie behind her. Far enough away to respect her personal space, but close enough that he could reach out and rub his hand along her arm. She rolled onto her back, turning her head to look at him, and he was lost for words. There were fresh tears resting on her cheeks and her eyes looked bloodshot and red as if she'd been crying for days. He really didn't know what to say to her, he didn't know her dads, so he couldn't tell her they'd forgive her, for all he knew her fathers were tyrannical assholes, although he doubted that. So he said what he did know, "At the end of the day, when Quinn's baby doesn't have like extra fingers and toes cos your insurance paid for her baby medicine, you're gonna be really glad you did this, even if your dads are mad now," he told her, and even though there were still new tears dripping down her face she did laugh a little. "Is there anything I can do?" and part of him mentally kicked his own ass, cos he was burying himself a lot deeper in this then he had intended to.
She smiled softly, "can I have a hug?" she asked, having wanted someone to just wrap her up in their arms since her dad had walked out the room. He nodded and slid a little awkwardly closer to her, not sure if he should sit up and giver her one or just lie there with her, he couldn't tell if one was enough or if the other was too much. She didn't give him long to think it through though, because as he moved over to her, she rolled closer and nestled in beside him, her head sitting in his shoulder, her arm slung tightly across his chest. So he wrapped one arm around her back, holding her close as the other lay across his own body entwined with hers. When her sobs had all but stopped, his hand travelled up her back, and rested in her hair, running it through his fingers, but he regretted it quickly as his thoughts strayed to a place where it was ok that her shampoo smelt nice and her hair was soft, and that she made little noises when he massaged her scalp. He stopped his thoughts almost as quickly as they started, reminding himself that this was Rachel Berry, who he hadn't even been able to stand for a week and who had just roped him into illegal activities, but his actions didn't stop.
After a while she felt so comforted by him that she looked up at him, from her position on his chest and admitted, "I know I'm not really pregnant, but in some ways, it almost feels real, because of how serious everything is."
He chuckled a little, and her eyebrows furrowed in confusion, "I was thinking something similar before you called" he confessed, "I just couldn't stop thinking about it, all afternoon, I'd try to concentrate on something else, and my thoughts would keep coming back to you and Quinn and Finn and the baby, and the fake baby," he prodded her stomach. "And how your dads aren't going to know what we know when we talk to them, so they're going to be really mad" he paused, milling though it in his head. "I'm sure it'd be heaps worse if you really were pregnant, I'm not saying it's the same thing, but it's still weirdly stressful," she nodded into his chest understanding entirely where he was coming from.
After a while he looked down at her poking her gently in the back as he went on, "you on the other hand, it's probably worse for you then if it were real. I mean Quinn's really pregnant and her folks don't have a clue, they're still walking around, acting as if the sun shines out her ass and here you're getting all this crap over a lie" he scoffed.
He lay with her for a while, running his fingers through her hair until he felt her shiver, the first time he figured it was just because she was enjoying his ministrations, but when she did it again, and moved the arm on his chest closer to her body he realised it was because she was cold. So he sat up on the bed, effectively pulling her with him. When he turned to her, her face was hardly more than an inch away, and he could feel his own breath bouncing back off her cheek, "I'm uhhh, I'm going to shut the window, it's kind of cold" he told her, sliding away from her.
"You know, you can go now if you want," she told him quietly. Without him there beside her, she suddenly remembered that he was him and she was her, and that even though he was being super nice to her, he was probably bored shitless and wanted to go home.
"Nah," he said moving back to the bed, kicking off his shoes as he walked over, "it's late, I think I'll just stay here" he told her confidently.
She considered pointing out to him that she hadn't actually invited him to stay then night, or that she hadn't even invited him over. However, it occurred to her that she was going to have to tell him the next day that she'd informed her father's that they were dating even though she'd promised not to. So perhaps letting him get a little familiar first might not be such a bad idea, besides, he'd been unexpectedly comforting, he'd made her feel safe and she'd really needed that. So she shrugged as he climbed into bed, and excused herself to go and put her pyjamas on, opting for a pair of shorts and a clingy singlet over her kitten nighty, wondering as she left the room, if she had been imagining the little sparks between them.