Manda's Note: I'm not gonna lie i'm hoping this does better than the last time. If you read it please hit the review button :) it means a lot to me. Enjoy!
"I've raised you and your sister. I've got ten years left on one and two years left on the other. I'm not doing it again with a newborn. Noah I don't want another child. If you're not going to take care of her… I'm sorry, call me the grandmother from hell… whatever you want. It's not going to change my mind on the matter. If you can't take care of your child then, she needs to go to someone who will."
Jane Puckerman was frustrated, even that sounded like it was putting it mildly. It seemed like whenever she was home all the infant did was scream and cry. She'd switched her hours to nights just so that she could help him take care of her yet, at night seemed to be the only time he did take care of her. Which was funny, he normally told her he slept through the night. She wasn't asking questions, all she knew was that she was sick and tired of ear splitting cries that lasted all day long. Jane was beginning to forget what it was actually like to think. All Beth ever did was cry, scream, and whimper. Even in the background of another one of their round offs the screaming could be heard at a high pitch.
"She's my daughter Ma… what do you expect me to do? Throw her out like she never happened? Leave her on someone's door step? What about her needs?"
While she saw her son's point it still didn't change the fact that neither one of them could ever get the eight week old baby to stop crying. How could that have even been good for an infant's lungs? Hours on end of nonstop colicky screaming. the beginning of August was in full swing and she was almost positive that Li hadn't had one good day of summer break at her own house because of the baby's constant cries. She couldn't take care of both of her children and a grandchild, Jane hadn't signed up for it. Had she done that than she would have been the one to take her in herself, but she wasn't Puck had been the one that'd insisted that he couldn't give her up.
"Then call Quinn. Tell Quinn that Beth wasn't adopted, that you'd decided to not sign the papers and take her home yourself. See if she wants to help you with the mess you've created because I can't do it Noah. I told you things weren't going to be this way just like I told you that I wasn't going to live with Quinn Fabray forever. I got my way once Noah and I'll do it again. So help me if you don't get her to stop crying…"
He couldn't remember the last time they hadn't fought, for the boy who'd always been a mama's boy he hadn't once in the past eight weeks so much as asked her to wash his hair. She worked all night and when she was supposed to be asleep during the day she had a baby screaming her lungs out preventing any sort of sleep from coming. The entire household was suffering from the decisions Puck had made.
"I know… I know that this is the hardest choice that you've ever even had to think about baby but, you're seventeen years old, you're too young to handle any of this by yourself. I love you Noah, and I know how strong you are but, this is something above the both of us."
It killed her to see her son's face so distraught, to see him torn in two over the decisions he'd chosen to make. But Jane couldn't handle it; she couldn't help him raise Beth if he wasn't willing to give her a little bit of help also. She'd raised her two children. She was the sole provider for the two children she'd raised. She needed to work at night; she couldn't help him out if he was going to let the baby scream at all hours of the day. With their luck the neighbors would start complaining about all of the noise soon.
"I don't want to lose her mom. She's my daughter… I almost lost her once. It's not her fault that I was stupid and she exists. It's not her fault that I have no idea what the hell I'm doing. What if there's something wrong with her? What if that's the reason she cries so much? What if someone else can't handle that either? What if I'm just not meant to be a father in the first place? …ever. Does this make me just like him?"
Covering her eyes with her hand she couldn't look at her eldest child's distraught face. She'd long ago lost count on how many times she'd warned him about having sex. Given that normally is was him and Santana she was sitting down to lecture, but none the less she'd still warned him what could come out of it, what a mess of his life he could make.
"Noah Gabriel Puckerman you are nothing like your father. Do you hear me? Nothing like him, do not even begin to think that. You're not running away from two children and a wife. You're being a teenager, what you should be."
Wrapping her arms around her son it was only then that she noticed the quiet in the house. The normal little girl's screaming wasn't happening. The house was its new unusual of being completely silent. It would have scared her if she hadn't seen the movement in the doorway. Standing in the doorway with her head bent talking to the now quiet child who's eyes scared up at her in contentment, who's tiny fingers were completely wrapped around the cheerleader necklace around her neck for dear life.
"While you two bicker and bitch I'm taking the girls out of Lima for the day. We're going to the playground and out for lunch. Either one of you even so much thinks about calling Fabray again I'll make sure she's at some safe haven hospital somewhere so she doesn't have to deal with that shit."
Santana barked out not once looking at the mother son duo, she simply put the baby on her shoulder as she made her way around the kitchen gathering stuff for later on bottles. She was the share image of standing perfection. Both mother and son stood there staring in surprise as she turned slightly to glare at the both of them, fixing the diaper bag on one shoulder and the baby in the other arm.
"By the way, she and I decided that she hates the name Beth. It's old fashion and it just plain sucks."
"Anaaaa, why do we have to drive all the way to Elida to go to the playground? There's one right up the street at my old school. "
Li pouted as Ana opened up the back door and ducked her head in enough to unclip the harness of Jackie's car seat and get the still tiny newborn in the car along with the light receiving blanket. She still for the life of her couldn't figure out what she was doing or why she was doing what she was. There was just something that made her feel the need to defend the little girl; it wasn't her fault that she was born into the middle of a complete mess. Santana knew what that was like; she'd been a child of nearly the same situation. Only it'd been her mother that had wanted her and her father who stayed just to beat the shit out of them like the good for nothing ass he was. Not that that exact situation as Jackie's, but, it was just one of the reasons that held her there.
"Because the one at your old school… because I felt like driving."
She lied as she pointed in the direction of the open gate. For the life of her she couldn't figure out why she was so …scared about running into Quinn. She just didn't want to see the infant land in the arms of someone who didn't care. It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that she'd snuck through Puck's window every day for the past eight weeks just to hold the infant and rock her to sleep, nope, there was no connection there at all. She'd keep telling herself that one too.
"All she ever does is cry Ana… nonstop. How'd you get her to stop?"
Looking over at Li who was halfway up the slide already she didn't know how to answer it. How exactly did you explain to an eight year old that you weren't quite sure she how much you liked the child yet you couldn't explain yourself why you felt so connected to the thing. As Santana sat down in the middle of the tire swing propping up the baby against her, the baby who'd hardly made a peep once.
"I don't know squirt, guess she just doesn't like your dumb brother"
Shrugging her shoulders she looked over at Li who was finishing up a round on the monkey bars and staring at the baby in San's arms like it was a foreign object. In many ways it was a foreign object, Santana wasn't known to be very good around children.
"You her mommy now? Babies always stop crying for their mommies and I'm not sharing mine with her."
Santana started to laugh and shake her head at Li, the nearly seventeen year old wasn't a mother, and she wasn't Jackie's mother. She was just… there. There was no explaining it or labeling it, she didn't really know how to. She'd decided to only focus on the statement part of Li's speech.
"You don't have to share yours with her shrimp, your brother's gonna smarten up and learn how to take care of her all by himself. Don't worry about that one."
She heard the eight year old laugh as she ran forward to kiss her nieces cheek for a quick moment before lazily pushing the tire swing gently with her knees. It was strange seeing Li with the baby, last she remembered Li was just a baby herself, she could still remember being drooled on at the age of ten by the little clinger.
"Everyone needs a mommy Ana. You know that better than anyone else. Mommies are the protectors. You'd be good at that. You take care of me while mommy's at work so that Noah doesn't lock me in a closet he did that one time when I put mommy's lip stick on him while he was sleeping. But he really shouldn't have been sleeping anyway. Mom told him not to go to sleep on me."
The kid learned things pretty well, if she didn't get her way she was almost ruthless. She'd taken a pair of scissors to his Mohawk a time or two also. Li tended to hang on every word that Santana said, one of the reasons she had more than one side of herself, her school side and the side that Jane and Li got to see, the side that was now looking at the baby girl in her arms and trying to sort out her feelings exactly. Could there have been a chance that she actually did like taking care of Fabray's accident child? She exhaled a sigh and shook her head, what the hell had she gotten herself into?
"Where have you been? I've been trying to call you for hours."
It was bullshit and they both knew it, but, it sounded good. His sleepy hazel eyes were blurry with sleep and he was chilled regardless of it being late July, him away for the bad liar he really was showed right though. He'd probably been sleeping since she'd sent him the text of the comfortably sleeping baby in the restaurant. She wasn't about to bitch at him though, it just meant he trusted her not to droned the kid in a river somewhere. Opening up the back door of the car he started to make an advancement forward to take the baby's car seat out of the car only to receive a glare and a stare down till he finally got the hint to back away slowly before he got hurt.
"Carry the squirt in the house and put her to bed. Don't forget to shut her nightlight off. I'll get Jackie ready for bed. Have her bottle ready in the living room. We need to talk and don't you dare even think of turning on a video game or you will be sorry."
As much as the business like tone in her voice stood out as she did her usual barking out of orders at him, there was something else too, something that he didn't recognize right away. As he watched her take the car seat out of the car slowly it began to dawn on him. It was the moment she immersed herself completely in checking to make sure the baby was all set before proceeding into the house that it finally clicked. He watched her retreating steps into the house till she was completely out of sight before he opened Li's door and pulled his baby sister up in his arms. San was in mother mode, who was he to derail her?
It took him twenty minutes to tuck Li in, shutting off her night light, setting her air conditioning to low, and making sure her high school musical fleece was within reach. He liked to think he wasn't so bad at it, at handling the whole father thing. Handling taking care of Bet… Jackie just as well as he took care of Li. he'd gotten her to 2 months ol… no, who was he kidding? Sanntana probably had something to do with that one too. Maybe he should have questioned why the baby had always had her clothes for the day laid out when he woke up in the morning. But, he was Puck, he wasn't one to even consider things like that.
He'd heated her bottle and tested it on his wrist just like his mother had taught him to do day one. He wasn't used to doing it without Jackie screaming bloody murder in the nearby room. Instead, when he walked into the living room she was simply being paced back and forth all content and snug in light summer bunny pajamas as she stared up at the face in front of her like it was something she'd always done for hours a day.
"Let's get something straight Puck, you are not calling Fabray. Quinn will have absolutely no problem with taking Jackie right out of his house if you do that. I don't think that you or (though she'd probably deny it right now) your mother would be able to handle that happening. Nor does she deserve to be raised by that self serving bitch anyway. She blamed you for this whole mess so you're going to show her who the bigger person in all of it is… one day that's not any time soon."
He couldn't help but smile at her as she went ranting on and hardly even looked at him as she took the bottle out of his hand, checked it herself (clearly not trusting his instincts) and sat down on the couch to feed her. He could tell just by the tone of her breathing that she was clearly not done berating him.
"Listen Puckerman… this is how it's going to work. You're gonna get a job. At Sheets N' Things or the friggen circus… I don't care. But you're gonna set your hours up around my cheer schedule, if I miss a single practice Sylvester goes through the roof. I'll watch her while you're at work, and you'll watch her while I'm at cheer. Your mother will not have to do one single thing to help you out till school starts in a month. And so help me Puck if you ask her to watch Jackie so much as once while I'm at practice you'll be taking cold showers for a week and I'll make sure they're painfully cold …do you hear me?"
It was a different side of Santana, a side that even he hadn't seen before. Yet, at the same time it was a side that told him everything was going to be all right and he didn't have to worry about losing her or his daughter again. Even with her rambling and throwing out orders like she did when she marched up and down the gym throwing orders to the rest of the cheerleaders and proving her head bitch stance. He nodded his head seeing her glare at his smile he dropped it instantly and settled for sitting down on the floor next to her instead.
"I've talked to your mom through text all day today too …You've got a lot of work to do."
Tight lipped and not her usual melt into his arms self she didn't put her head on his shoulder the moment he sat down beside her. Instead, she stayed completely ridged watching the baby in her arms. For some strange reason he could tell what she was thinking, he could tell she was trying to sort out where she fit into the whole thing. The only thing he could do was to burry his face into her neck and kiss the spot halfway to her ear to elicit the slightest bit of a shiver. Just because he was the cause of the mess didn't mean she wasn't still cleaning up the disasters he made. She'd done it from the day he'd nearly been suspended for bringing a plastic knife to school. This might have been bigger than that but she was still standing by him to do it, something he'd never be able to prove to her how thankful he was for.