Well, you feel so close to some resolve
You say the things that you're standing for
Don't let your courage get dissolved
'Cuz it's then that the fear grows

- "Falling On," by Finger Eleven

It took three nurses and two male nurses (who were no where near as jacked as him) to pin him down to the bed. When Puck realized they were threatening to knock him out with some drug he immediately stopped struggling. He may have wanted to get the hell out of this fucking hospital room, but he'd be even more screwed if he was unconscious as all this was going on.

While the nurses lost their shit with him, Rachel got up and stood in the corner of the room, not saying anything, just watching.

She explained everything. Not the sugar-coated 'everything' that Mr. Schue basically spoon-fed him, but the actual truth everything. Right after Quinn announced all of this, she passed out. Like, just collapsed without another word.

That was when Finn started freaking out. Quinn had been living with him after her parents kicked her out, but after the fight she stayed over at Brittany's, where it sounded like she spent the whole weekend alternating between crying and calling Finn. And that was basically it. No eating, no sleeping, just crying and calling. Her body, and her baby, couldn't handle all that stress with nothing to ease the pain.

She had been rushed to the hospital shortly after him. Oddly enough (and because she clearly hadn't helped out enough), Rachel piled Finn, Quinn, and Mr. Schue into her brand new yellow VW Beetle and took off to the hospital.

From there, it was a steady stream of doctors, nurses, orderlies, and more hospital staff that all rushed Quinn to the emergency room. Finn and Mr. Shue followed close behind, while Rachel was forced to sit on edge in the waiting room.

That had been around 9 A.M. It was now close to 7 P.M., and she still hadn't heard a word about Quinn. She had found his room and snuck in using Mr. Shue's discarded jacket and a hat she'd swiped from the lost and found.

Mr. Schue had left Quinn around 2 to make some calls and talk to Puck and his mom, which was when Rachel followed him and found Puck's room. Mr. Schue had refused to give her any information about Quinn.

Which blew out the ass 'cause at that moment, Rachel fucking Berry was the only one crazy enough to talk to Puck honestly. He needed to know how Quinn was doing, and if Rachel was the only one that could tell him, she needed to find out. Like, immediately.

The nurses and orderlies finally backed the hell off when they realized he went from basically foaming at the mouth to limp in about 2.5 seconds. Granted, there was one burly-looking orderly standing by the door, trying to look menacing or some shit, but Puck was pretty sure he could knock that dude unconscious with one hit, even with all his stupid bruises and stitches.

He looked over at Rachel. She was still standing in the corner, still alarmingly silent. After her stupid little 'undercover' costume, he guessed she'd probably get in trouble with the nurses if they caught her in his room.

"Rachel, I need you to tell me what happened to Quinn," he said, voice flat with just the slightest tinge of urgency. If she could get into his room, there had to be some way for her to get into Quinn's room.

She finally stepped away from the wall, eyes wide and sad. "I-I can't," she whispered, shaking her head.

"What the hell do you mean, you can't?!"

For the record, he didn't mean to practically shout that (which made the retard orderly at the door glare even harder). He certainly didn't mean for his voice to break embarrassingly at the word "can't."

She walked to his bed, slowly taking his hand in hers, not even hesitating when his whole body froze up, tensing on the slight, soft physical contact. "Noah," she said, her voice even softer than her hand. She was staring at him with a weird look in her eye, all glassy and bright. "Quinn is… when I left the waiting room to go find you, I-I saw Finn. He-he didn't see me, but he was heading towards the operating room."

Puck gripped her hand, and for a second a tiny part in the back of his brain worried that he might break her hand. But he was stricken with too much fear, and she was his only anchor to reality. "Wh-what does that mean?" he asked. He was beyond acting macho, or being his usual badass self. He was just fucking scared. He didn't want his little baby girl anywhere near the operating room. She was too tiny to be in there yet.

Rachel squeezed his hand right back. "I don't know," she whispered, and he realized her eyes looked funny because there were tears brimming in the corners of her eyes. Rachel Berry was about to cry, and that scared the shit out of him, more than anything else. He'd never seen Rachel Berry cry before, even when he threw Slushies in her face every single day or when Santana went out of her way to terrorize her.

"I really don't know, Noah."

Well, I was sitting, waiting, wishing
If you believed in superstitions
Then maybe you'd see the signs
But Lord knows that this world is cruel
And I ain't the Lord, I'm just the fool
And lovin' somebody don't make them love you

- "Sitting, Waiting, Wishing," by Jack Johnson

It was the longest day of his life.

The doctors didn't let him go home until midway through Tuesday. His first reaction was to throw on his jeans and a shirt, bowl past the doctors and beat it to the nurses' station, where he immediately demanded to know Quinn Fabray's room number.

She was still in the building.

Fuck.

She was two floors up, and he didn't want to know what that floor was there for- he didn't want to psych himself out. It didn't matter what happened, he just needed to know she was okay.

God dammit, she needed to be okay.

When he sprinted down the hallway, heading toward her door, he already knew something was wrong. Finn was standing there, outside of the room, talking to Quinn's parents. But Quinn's parents disowned her, kicked her out of their house. Why the hell would they come back?

Finn noticed him first, because he was facing Puck while Quinn's parents had their backs to him. To his everlasting shock, Finn's whole face crumpled when they locked eyes. He pushed past Quinn's parents, meeting Puck halfway, at which point the huge dopey bastard collapsed into Puck's arms.

And started weeping.

And dammit if Puck wasn't having a hard time crying right along with him. What the fuck happened to Quinn? What was going on? And why were her parents there?

"I-I'm sorry, Puck," Finn said, between sobs. "I'm s-so so sorry. I-I d-didn't mean to kn-knock you out."

Puck tightened his jaw, screwing his eyes shut and hugging his best friend back. "I'm sorry, too," he said. "I'm sorry I slept with Quinn. It's my fault all of this happened."

That was the first time he'd admitted it out loud. And he really was sorry. He fucked up in the worst way possible, and he now owed a hell of a lot to some very important people to him. He didn't know how he was going to fix it.

"Sh-she lost the baby," Finn sputtered out, and when the meaning of his tearful words sunk into Puck's brain, he could feel his heart stutter to a stop.

"What?" Puck said, and distantly, he could hear his voice, but it sounded distorted and far away. It sounded like the ocean was rushing through his eardrums, and he could no longer feel the rest of his body.

"Quinn's been upset an-and-and sick, but we didn't know how sick until she passed out, and then we took her here and the doctors started freaking out b-but none of them would tell me what was wrong, and th-then they wheeled her into the ER and then they started t-talking but it was all hospital talk and I-I didn't understand an-and then they said operate and oh my God they started operating on her and n-now Quinn's lost her baby and I'm s-so sorry I ever yelled at her. I love her, Puck. I re-really love her, and I almost lost her."

Puck wasn't sure when he stopped listening to Finn, but it was sometime early in the speech, and by the time he stopped talking, Puck realized he couldn't support himself, let alone another 190-pound football player, and he was dropping to his knees before he even knew what was happening.

He lost his baby girl. Losing Quinn again and again to Finn was bad enough, but he couldn't seriously lose his baby girl. She was the only good thing in his life he actually looked forward to seeing. He knew Quinn would immediately give the baby up for adoption, but he wanted that chance to meet his baby girl. He wanted to be able to hold her, for the first and last time.

But, like all the good things in his life, he lost her before he even had a chance to fight for her.

Truth be told, I've tried my best
But somewhere along the way
I got caught up in all there was to offer
And the cost was so much more than I could bear

- "Fallen," by Sarah McLaughlin

Puck didn't talk to Quinn's parents. Actually, he breezed right past them after he and Finn were done with their 'moment.' Finn left to go talk to the nurses about getting Quinn lunch, but Puck knew it was just his clueless friend's way of giving him time. Which he appreciated. However, he didn't appreciate Quinn's controlling dad glaring at him while her frigid yet still kind of hot doubtless cougar mom checked him out behind the sneer. He had no doubt now that they knew that Finn wasn't the dad that they wanted to have 'words' with him, but they could just suck it up 'cause Quinn was more important to him.

He shouldered them out of his way, pushing the door open slowly and peeking inside. There was Quinn. She looked so… tiny against the white sheets and pillows and blankets. Tiny and pale. All her pale blonde hair and sad blue eyes. She had clearly been doing a lot of crying, but when she stared at him, there were no tears. Just emptiness, like she had nothing left to give. He wanted to hug her to his chest and never let her go.

"I'm sorry," he said, automatically lowering his voice. He seemed to be doing a lot of apologizing all of a sudden. If it meant she would speak to him, it'd be worth it.

She laughed a little, and the sound was hollow. It wasn't a good sign.

"And what do you have to be sorry for, Puck?" she said, shaking her head and looking out the wide window where the blue sky was visible over the buildings.

"Everything," he said, causing her eyes to snap back and lock with his own. He took that as a sign to continue. "I really fucked up, and I dragged you along with it. But I never wanted this to happen. I didn't want this to be the cost. I wanted our baby to be okay. I'll be a Lima loser for the rest of my life if it meant I could see our baby girl. That's all I want."

She looked away again, but he saw her bite her bottom lip and the tears that were rapidly welling up in her eyes. He finally stepped forward, breaking away from the doorframe and walking towards her. He didn't stop until he was by the edge of her bed clutching her face in his hands. Tears were streaming down her face now, and he tried to wipe them away as best he could with the pads of his thumbs.

"I couldn't handle a baby," she said, voice breaking. "But I didn't want a miscarriage. I wanted our little girl to go to a nice family, even if it wasn't Mr. Schuester. I never wanted this either, Puck."

She reached her hand up, that tiny and pale hand covering his and squeezing gently. There was a sort of a breaking in this action, finally recognizing what was happening. Quinn still loved Finn. She loved Puck, but it wasn't enough. Even after the baby, she needed to be with Finn, regardless of how retarded he could be.

Puck finally understood. It was killing him on the inside, but he understood.

He swallowed thickly, finally breaking eye contact with her. He'd never been through an official break-up- he preferred the 'hook-up and leave' method, and it wasn't like that retarded excuse from Santana even counted 'cause he knew it was just so she could spend more time making out with Brittany- but this felt so much more final and absolutely depressing.

"So," he said, clearing his throat so she wouldn't hear in his voice that he was actually pretty torn up about all of this. "What's gonna happen now?"

She shrugged, but there was a little bit of lost helplessness in the action. "I don't know," she admitted. "My parents are considering letting me come back home, but that's only if they pull me out of high school and send me to this all-girls' Catholic school upstate."

"What?!" Puck said, nearly letting go of her face. "You're going to transfer?!"

She laughed, but it was hardly a happy laugh. "I don't know," she said, clear blue eyes sad. "But it's not that horrible of an idea. Especially after everything that's happened in Lima, a fresh start doesn't sound that bad."

He pulled away then, stepping back and pulling his hands out of her grasp. That was fine. She was in love with Finn anyway. It wasn't like her leaving ultimately affected him in any major way.

Quinn's eyebrows knitted together when he moved, even more sadness clouding her eyes. "Puck, don't go," she said, voice cracking. "I didn't say I was definitely going to leave- I'm not even sure I can handle going back to my parents after they threw me out. I'm probably still going to stay and live with Finn."

He nodded, once, twice, and then forced a smile. "That works," he said, aiming for casual but missing by a mile. "It's good that Finn took you in. Even though I still say I would do a way better job taking care of you than Hudson."

He almost immediately winced at the desperation that laced his tone, but she laughed again, a real laugh this time, so he kept a straight face and didn't add anything else.

"I really wish things didn't turn out this way," she whispered, a few more tears streaming down her cheeks.

He looked down at the linoleum floor, forcing another quick smile that was really more of a grimace. "Same here," he said. "But I should really leave you time to, y'know, get better. And I'm sure Hudson wants to go back to mooning over you."

She smiled at him, eyes still sad but there was a glimmer of the old Quinn in her gaze. It made his chest tighten in a way he'd never admit, especially to her.

"Just so you know," he said, heading towards the door and stopping to face her with his hand still on the doorknob. "I love you."

She smiled, more tears streaming down her face. "I love you, too," she whispered.

There'll be girls across the nation that'll eat this up
Babe, I know that it's your soul but could you bottle it up?
Get down to the heart of it
No, it's my heart, you're shit out of your luck
Don't make me tell you again
My love, love, love, love
Love, love, love, love

- "Bottle It Up," by Sara Bareilles