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It's prom night in McKinley High...
Her golden blonde hair, pinned up in tight rollers on her head, Quinn hastily rubbed in some moisturizer into her sun kissed skin, keeping a watchful eye on her two-month-old daughter. Beside her, clad in the palest pink, Ella lay wriggling on her back, her tiny limbs flailing wildly in the air.
"Ella's the best baby in the world, aren't you, precious?" Quinn chanted softly, her heart melting a little at Ella's answering coos. Unable to resist her daughter, Quinn leaned down and scooped the tiny bundle into her arms, reveling in the feel of her daughter's velvet skin pressed against her cheek.
"Look at the pretty dress your mommy is going to wear," Quinn murmured softly, dropping a kiss onto Ella's head of wispy blonde curls, that Puck liked to scrape into a sudsy mohauk, just like his, when she was splashing happily in her blue plastic bath tub.
Borrowed from Brittany, the dress was made of the most delicate silk and shaded in a color close to honey. It glided seamlessly over her neat curves and draped low on the back, exposing her a generous expanse of gleaming flesh, of which she knew Puck would approve. It now hung carefully in the battered closet, sandwiched between Quinn's veritable rainbow of sundresses and skirts.
"It's pretty isn't it, Ella?" Quinn thrilled happily, holding her daughter up playfully in the air and laughing as Ella shrieked delightedly from her lofty perch up above her mother's head.
"What's pretty, besides my two beautiful girls?" Puck declared in a comically charming tone, walking up behind Quinn and wrapping his arms warmly around her waist.
Whipping around to face Puck, Quinn pressed her lips to his quickly before passing their daughter into his waiting arms.
"I was just showing Ella my dress for prom," Quinn informed him with a sunny smile, unable to resist reaching out a hand and running it over the shimmering fabric.
Motherhood was many things but providing Quinn with opportunities to look glamorous it did not. Her morning routine was a frantic rush, Quinn barely managing a hasty shower and smoothing on some makeup while Ella cooed delightedly beside her in the playpen. Breakfast was a messy affair, Ella perched carefully in the crook of Quinn's arm, her feet kicking happily as she suckled eagerly on her bottle. Milk would dribble lazily out of the corner of the baby's mouth, staining Quinn's brightly colored shirt with patches of sour smelling damp and predictably Quinn would have to strip off her shirt for a fresh one, the whole process rendering her hopelessly late for school.
The occasion provided the perfect opportunity for Quinn to luxuriate in the frivolous excesses of prom and though her dress was borrowed and there was no money to allow her pay to get her hair styled, it hardly mattered, Quinn simply delighted to be allowed resume her former life as a carefree teenager, if only for a night.
"Is your mommy trying to turn you into a shopaholic before you even turn one?" Puck murmured to his daughter jokingly, Ella chortling in delight at hearing her father's familiar whispers, her blue eyes dancing happily as he held her gently to his shoulder.
Seeing Puck interact so naturally with Ella never failed to bring out a smile on Quinn's face and replacing her compact momentarily on the ancient dressing table, she dropped a kiss on her daughter's soft head before standing on her tiptoes and pressing her lips softly to her boyfriend's.
"You're amazing with her, you know," Quinn murmured, smiling as she trailed a finger gently across her daughter's cheek, the action prompting a wide eyed grin from the squirming bundle in Puck's arms.
"I know," Puck declared with characteristic cockiness, affording a cheeky wink at his daughter before flashing Quinn with a bright smile.
Though having tentative beginnings, Quinn and Puck's relationship had deepened in the weeks following Ella's birth. Puck blew off hanging out with Mike and the other members of the football team to sing softly to his daughter and Quinn loved nothing more than lying sprawled in Puck's arms, baby Ella nestled carefully between the two of them. In the moonlit hours, when Ella was fussy and refused to sleep, Quinn chatted weary-eyed for hours with Puck, their baby pressed tightly against her breast. She quickly learned that his favorite movie was Finding Nemo (though to his jock friends, he cockily claimed it was Scarface) and that he had broken his right arm twice, falling off the highest branches of the chestnut tree in his yard two summers in a row.
"I'll take Ella for a walk in her stroller and give you a chance to get ready," Puck offered genially, careful to bundle his daughter into a warm woolen cardigan, despite the blazing sun outside.
"That would be great," Quinn sighed gratefully, a hasty glance at the clock confirming her suspicions that the time was edging dangerously close to when they would be expected to arrive at Brittany's house for the requisite champagne and photo opportunity session that her mom simply insisted on having.
--
"You look so hot in that dress," Puck whispered heatedly, taking Quinn's hand and enfolding her warmly in his arms.
"You think?" Quinn replied back a little self-consciously, though inwardly she knew she looked good.
Sleepless nights and Ella's demanding schedule had worked wonders on Quinn's figure and the last few pounds of pregnancy weight had fallen off her, with little effort on her part. The silk dress glided seamlessly over her slim frame, maximizing her newly enhanced breasts and smooth creamy skin to their best advantage.
"Definitely," Puck agreed with a slow smile, looking so incredibly sexy in his black tuxedo that Quinn was struck with a sudden urge to drag him over to a darkened corner of the function room and allow him to show her exactly how irresistible he found her. In true Puck style, his narrow grey tie was already opened and slung casually from his neck, his dress coat long abandoned on the back of some random chair. "You're the hottest girl in the room,"
In her former existence as head cheerleader, Quinn would have immediately agreed but her confidence had taken a knock during the long nine moths of pregnancy. It was hard to feel sexy and beautiful, when silvery stretch marks marred her skin and her breasts had been so engorged with milk that they felt like they could explode at any given second.
His stubble rough against her neck, Quinn sighed in contentment as Puck brought her face up to hers and kissed her deeply.
"You taste like strawberries," he observed with a curious grin, cupping her face gently in his hands and leaning in again to snatch a tender kiss.
"Get a room, you guys," Santana and Brittany chimed in teasingly as they stalked off the dance floor towards them, a potent looking vodka concoction in hand. Clad in varying shades of blue, Brittany's figure hugging dress guaranteed she command every eye in the room, while Santana's red, strapless dress, gave her the illusion of having the voluptuous chest she always wanted.
"We might just take you up on that," Puck retorted slyly, slapping his girlfriend playfully on the ass, causing Quinn to glare up at him with a warning expression in her hazel eyes.
Though Quinn and Puck had grown closer in many ways since the birth of their daughter; sex had been one item that had been firmly off the agenda. Quinn on her part was understandably wary of engaging in sexual activity, the torture of labor still painfully vivid in her mind. And Puck had been wonderfully patient, though that still didn't stop him from edging a hand tentatively under her panties when Ella was sleeping peacefully in her crib and Quinn was lying sprawled beside him on the bed.
Maybe tonight, she considered thoughtfully, turning immediately away from Puck, as though afraid that the blush creeping across her cheeks would betray her very thoughts.
"You coming dancing, Quinn?" Santana asked brightly but Quinn didn't miss the way her friend's liquid brown eyes swept over Puck appreciatively. Though she would never admit it, Santana had always harbored somewhat of a crush on Puck. At school, Santana always found an excuse to be hanging around Puck, pleading with him to help her with her algebra homework, when it was common knowledge that Puck flunked regularly in math. At parties, she was even more shameless, Santana draped drunkenly over Puck, while he tried in vain to escape her clutches.
"Definitely," Quinn smiled thinly and though she knew it was childish, she couldn't resist trailing a hand possessively across Puck's well muscled chest before pressing her lips longingly to his.
"See you in a while," he whispered back, the arm snaking her close for a final kiss, leaving their audience of Cheerios in no doubt as to where Noah Puckerman's affections lay.
--
Silver and blue streamers trailing from the ceiling and the tables festooned with balloons, the hotel function room had been miraculously transformed into a winter wonderland, which was rather ironic considering the blistering heat outside. The dance floor was heaving, crowded with mostly girls clad in jewel-colored satin while their boyfriends hung reluctantly on the edges. Squeezing her way carefully through the crush, Quinn squealed delightedly when the band played the opening notes to her favorite song.
"I love this song," she gushed happily, a wide smile displaying her pearly white teeth to perfection.
Encircled by her Cheerio friends and her blonde curls bouncing lightly on her shoulders, Quinn felt she was regaining a little of her old self, the Quinn she had given up for lost when, alone and afraid, she had been handed a squalling Ella in the delivery room. It felt good but even so Quinn tactfully declined Santana's offer of some smuggled vodka, the plastic container of alcohol miraculously concealed in the tiny confines of Brittany's silvery-blue clutch.
Quinn had sworn to herself that she wouldn't drink. A hangover and Ella's infamous screaming matches were a combination she wasn't willing to risk.
"Suit yourself," Santana shrugged and Quinn was certain she could detect a scowl on the other girl's face but then she was gone, disappeared in the faceless crowd.
Two cokes, fifteen songs and one ass grabbing incident later and Quinn traipsed wearily through the crowd, already looking forward to pressing her lips softly to Pucks and suggesting sweetly that they take advantage of the rare baby-free night.
Brittany was drunk and wrapped around some anonymous senior that Quinn already knew, she would regret in the morning and Santana was MIA, presumably locked in a similarly passionate clinch with whatever jock she had deemed as being passable for the night.
The music was starting to graduate towards the slower, more lethargic songs and glimpsing Mike flirting shamelessly with some, well endowed blonde that Quinn recognized vaguely from the halls of McKinley High, she couldn't but roll her eyes in annoyance.
"Hey Mike, did you see Puck?" Quinn demanded impatiently, unwilling to spend a second more than absolutely necessarily with Puck's egotistical jock friend.
The blonde looked uncomfortable at that and Mike's obviously contrived answer added to Quinn's sense of unease.
Where the hell was Puck?
Stepping away warily from the couple, Quinn could feel their eyes following her as she negotiated her way through the heaving crowd.
In one corner, she could just about make out Rachel smiling adoringly at something cute Finn had just said, the pink of her dress shimmering prettily under the twinkling fairy lights strewn from the ceiling. In another, a red head was splayed unattractively on the ground, emptying the contents of her stomach on the carpeted ground after an obviously heavy night of partying. Shuddering at the sight, Quinn edged her way through the fringes of the crowd, goose pimple rising on her skin as a blast of cool air blustered through the open doors of the function room.
Wrapping her arms protectively around her thin shoulders, Quinn was just about to return to the party, when a flash of red out of the corner of her eye caught her attention.
Fire engine red. The same color dress Santana had been wearing earlier.
Imbued with a feeling of both fear and dread, Quinn felt strangely compelled to glance over at the offending couple.
Seeing Puck's arms wrapped tightly around the Cheerio, Santana's dress hitched up immodestly around her waist, Quinn felt sick.
Choking a sob, she rushed out of the hotel and into the inky black of the night outside.