Quinn sat on the couch in the living room, eating a bowl of popcorn and doing her Algebra homework. Mrs. Bardwell sucks, she thinks. Why did she have to give us homework over winter vacation? Does she want to ruin our lives? Just then, Will walked over to her. "Hey," he said.
"Hey."
"I was, um, wanting to tell you something. I have a, um, date tonight, and I was wondering if you'd feel comfortable staying home all by yourself."
"Will, of course. I'm 16, not a 5 year old. Before I was pregnant, before I was kicked out…" Quinn felt her throat tighten, but she kept talking. "My parents were hardly around the house, so I learned from an early age to fend for myself. One evening is not going to kill me, Will."
"But you're pregnant…"
"Yes, I'm pregnant, Will, not an invalid. And besides, my due date isn't for two months."
Will smiled. "Alright, I'll see you later," he said, standing up and walking to the door. "Remember, we're going shopping for the nursery tomorrow."
"Alright. Say hi to Miss Pilsbury for me!" Quinn shouted as he walked out the door. She giggled.
Apparently, Will's date with Emma went really well, because he was in really good spirit's the next day. "Ready to go shopping?" Quinn asked. She was wearing a pretty blue dress. Even though she was pregnant, she still deserved to look pretty and fashionable. Right?
They got into the car and drove to Sheets and Things. They walked in and began to browse.
Everything went really well. Quinn and Will chose a rainbow of clothes in a lot of soft, girly pastel colors. Of course, they set up for the furniture and other big items to be delivered to the apartment in a couple weeks, and then they arranged to bring the rest home with them. "What do you think about these sheets, Will?" Quinn asked. She picked up some sheets, which were pink and white plaid.
"They're nice," Will said.
"You say that about everything!" Quinn whined.
"Sorry," Will said. "I'm not really good at doing this picking out and shopping stuff, which is probably good that I'm not a single father. But I'm serious, Quinn. They're really nice."
Quinn held them up to the light. "They would go nice with the curtains," she said, to which Will nodded. However, he then stared straight ahead, his eyes fearful, his spine straight.
"What's wrong…" Quinn asked, but she followed his line of gaze, down the aisle to where Terri sat. She looks so different, Quinn thought. Quinn had only ever seen Terri when she was pretending to be pregnant, and it seemed so weird to see her without the pregnancy pad under her shirt. She and Will were having a staredown.
Quinn threw the sheets into the shopping cart, and then tugged on Will's arm. "Come on," she said. "Let's go check out."
Quinn walked down the hallway, her books clutched tightly to her chest. It was the first day back from winter vacation. While she had given Will a Christmas tie and some movies that had come out while Will was growing up that had just come out on DVD, Will had bought Quinn a book of fairy tales and some lavender oil for the bath.
Quinn remembered opening the book of fairy tales, giving Will a questioning looks. "Thanks," she said. "But why did you give me a book of fairytales?"
She checked the back of the book to see if it was a book for children. It wasn't. She flipped it open, to Sleeping Beauty. This version was way more gruesome than the childrens' edition, and it had no pictures.
"You deserve to be a kid again, Quinn," Will said. "You deserve to believe in magic again, at least for a little while."
Quinn had begun to sob when Will said those words, and he leaned over, wrapping her in his muscular, strong arms. They stayed that way for the next hour and a half.
Quinn felt horrible. She was 8 months pregnant and 16 years old, who could blame her? Her stomach had swollen to such epic proportions over the break, she now could no longer see her feet. She was so tired, she no longer had the energy to spend an hour on her hair in the morning, so it looked limp swept back in a low ponytail, not the kind of ponytail that actually required you to spend a lot of time on it. Her ankles were huge, and so were her breasts. Why are my breasts so full of milk already? Quinn thought. I'm not due for another month. She figured this was God's way of punishing her for getting pregnant at 16. Her face looked like a beach ball, and her sore, cramped muscles were all stiff and burned painfully from lugging around textbooks and binders all day long.
Quinn was no longer Quinn Fabray, HBIC. Instead, she was the idiot who got herself knocked up and kicked out at 16. Girls passed back in the hallway, giggling and pointing at her, and the dudes never stopped to check her out and flirt with her. The only reason they even looked at her was to leer at her expanding chest.
Quinn walked down the hallway on her way to Spanish. One of the (only) advantages of being pregnant was she could be as late as she wanted to class, since she had to waddle everywhere, her nails and hair had grown longer, and she had no period, although, admittedly, being relieved for nine months of the discomfort of bulky pads was off thrown by the discomfort of being pregnant and being so fat she couldn't even see her feet anymore.
"Hey." Quinn didn't have to look up to know that the person who was walking beside her was Puck. She was always able to know it was him, just by his husky voice that made Quinn want to touch him. She controlled her impulse.
"What do you want?" Quinn asked.
"I want to talk to you about our daughter."
"My daughter, actually."
"Come live with me Quinn. We can get some furniture and become a family. I told my mom last night about you and the baby, and she's really excited. Please don't break her heart, Quinn. I haven't seen her this happy since my sister Sarah was born, before my dad left. If you're not going to keep her, at least give her to me instead of to a total stranger. I'm her father."
"No," Quinn said.
"What?" Puck asked, shocked. "I know you think money's an issue and everything, but it's not. I got a job at Burt's Garage, and he pays me really well. You go give birth, and we can buy everything we need, get a dog, a house with a nice picket fence and spacious backyard, be a family."
"I can't," Quinn murmured, looking at her swollen stomach as they walked, because it was the closest thing to the ground she could see in her current state.
"Why?" Puck demanded. "Where are you living?" "None of your business," Quinn snapped.
Puck's eyes widened. "Are the rumors true?"
Quinn's heart just about stopped. "What are you talking about?" she asked, saying a quick little prayer to God that Puck was talking about something completely different from what she thought he was talking about.
"Are you really living with Mr. Schue?"
"What's it to you?"
"Are you sleeping with him?"
Quinn didn't know what she was doing, but a wave of rage washed over her body. She had always had a bad temper. She couldn't control herself, but she stepped forward, bringing her hand back and slapping Puck's face.
Everyone in the hallway was watching now, gawking at the two troubled teenagers in the middle of the hallway. "Stay away from me," Quinn said as she turned, and walked as fast as she could in the opposite direction of her baby daddy.
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