Future

They move across the country. He gets a job as a construction worker and she signs up to be a substitute teacher until they find something more permanent.

It's different and yet normal. Normal to her is strange, and that should be worrisome. She keeps waiting for the moment it all changes, but nothing happens.

She's afraid to feel happy because what if one day it ends? It'll break her heart. She just got used to blocking herself off. Opening up seems like too much effort.

Puck notices. Of course he does. He notices it in the way she walks, the way she won't talk about anything, the way she locks herself in the bathroom when she starts to cry. It makes him angry and she hates that.

Why does denial have to be so dangerous?

About two months into their new life, she comes down with the flu and spends a week lying on the bathroom floor.

This wouldn't faze her, except she's missed her period. Two pink lines only confirm what she feared.

She walks into the kitchen on a Sunday morning, sunlight streaming through the window, sits down, and just says it.

I'm pregnant.

He doesn't say anything. She isn't sure exactly what he can say.

They used protection most of the time. Michael never did. The odds are stacked against them.

She should've been thinking about this. She should've never used protection with Puck in the first place, and then when she got pregnant and had to marry Michael (or run away), there would've been a greater chance it wasn't his and she could live her life knowing at least she defied him in some way…

No, that's stupid. It could still be Puck's just as easily as it couldn't. They don't have a great track record when it comes to birth control, anyway.

Still.

"What if it isn't yours?"

He reaches over and takes her hand.

"Doesn't matter. I love both of you anyway."

This feeling of wholeness inside her takes some getting used to. Funny how it never should've left in the first place.

It's stupid, but she wants him to hit her.

She can't explain why. It just happens. They're arguing and she just yells it at him. After keeping it in since she ran away, it burst forth in a mangled scream.

"Just do it. Hit me."

He won't and for some reason, that makes her even angrier. It's what she wants. Why can't he just do it?

He looks frightened by her. Maybe he should be. She'd probably be pretty shaken up herself if she was in the right frame of mind.

"I'm not going to hit you."

"Why not?"

"Because I love you."

I don't want him to love me. I don't want…

I don't want to want.

Wanting implies that she's human and being human means she's weak.

This isn't supposed to be so hard.

"I hate you."

"Why?"

Well that's a stupid question. How the hell is she supposed to know why? She doesn't know anything.

"Because… you won't do what I want."

"I'd do anything for you. Except hurt you."

He loves her so much it makes her want to burn. How can anyone love her that much? How does someone care that much about another person without something getting in the way? (She used to know the answer to that…)

She gives up after that. But she still doesn't let him see her cry.

"You're not dealing with it."

She flinches when he pops up behind her in the kitchen. Of course, he doesn't miss it, though sometimes she wishes he would. It only makes him worry.

"Yes I am."

"Then how come you flip out every time I move?"

She's not supposed to have to talk about this. They're supposed to be a happy little family with a white picket fence. After all, the only things she has to be afraid of are her memories, of him finding her, of him showing up with a knife and going Psycho on their house.

She doesn't tell him about the nightmares keeping her awake. The ones where the baby dies or the baby lives and comes out looking just like him, or he shows up and takes the baby away, or he kills the baby, or he kills Puck.

She doesn't have nightmares about him trying to kill her. She's used to that. It was a reality. You only have nightmares about what could be. Not what will be or would have been, but that's too morbid to really think about.

"It's just hard. You can't expect me to be all better just because he's gone."

"I don't. I just want you to talk about it."

She keeps chopping vegetables for dinner. She's lucky she hasn't cut off her thumb yet. Lucky no one's done it for her, like…

"I don't want to talk about it."

He can't know how weak she is.

"Will you at least talk to someone?"

"We don't have money for therapy." Not that she'd go.

"We can make it work."

"I don't… I'll be fine, okay?"

He slowly takes the knife out of her hand, where she's been slicing the green peppers into microscopic pieces. She looks up to face him, his eyes boring back at her. Worried. Maybe a little scared.

"Do you call this fine? Right now?"

"I don't know."

I don't know what normal is anymore.

They fight a week later and she throws silverware at his head, walking out because she can. She manages to waddle a few blocks before he catches up with her and makes her come home. He's afraid she's going to go into labor in the middle of the road and drop the baby, even though they've been over this before. That's not how it works.

He's still angry because she won't talk to him and she's angry because he wants her to talk.

How can she tell him how she feels? What happened? It'll break his heart. It certainly broke hers.

But her life will never really reroute if she keeps it all inside, and she's slowly starting to realize that.

When they get home, she pulls a fork out of the wall (he's lucky she has bad aim) and places it in his hand like some sort of truce.

"You want to know what happened?"

He doesn't say anything. He reaches for her hand, tangling their fingers together. They sit. She wishes her hands would stop shaking.

Talking about this means there's no going back. He'll know everything. He saw the bruises, but he never saw how they were placed there. He doesn't know what went on inside her head, how it felt… how she could've ever thought that's what love meant and how that's so hard to get past now that it's stuck there in her brain.

She takes a deep breath, other hand resting on her swollen belly, "I started living for other people instead of myself."

"Why'd you stay with him?"

"He made me feel wanted. Needed."

"I need you."

"I know."

And she tells him and they cry a little bit, which upsets her because she hates crying in front of people, but maybe that's part of the problem. Maybe it's part of the wall she needs to tear down.

She doesn't tell him she's going to do it. Doesn't tell anyone. The idea sort of just comes to her. She's out shopping and suddenly she's in her car, pulling into the police station and walking up to the front desk saying, "I'd like to press charges against my ex-fiancé."

The secretary shuffles her papers, "What kind of charges, Ma'am?"

"Domestic violence."

The words are bitter on her tongue.

She's tied up at the police station all day and Puck calls in a frenzy wondering where she is. They finally get out around dinnertime and she doesn't realize what she's done until the waitress asks her if she'd like any dressing for her salad and she can't answer without choking up.

Puck says everything will be fine. Of course everything will be fine.

She's going to have to face him again. Will it ever end? What if he's proven innocent? What then? What if he manages to get her alone?

Michael was never one to give up easily. She has no doubt that once he receives the papers, he'll want her back. He'll want to punish her. He'll want to…

She rests her hands on her pregnant belly, praying for fate or God to keep them all safe.

It's November. They lay on a grassy knoll after a night at the local carnival, sucking on ring pops they got out of a vending machine. Puck gave her the watermelon flavored one, even though he doesn't like grape very much, and they wear them on their ring fingers.

"Do you think we should get married?" he asks quietly, hand resting on her pregnant stomach.

She smiles brightly, teeth turning a light pink, "I thought you'd never ask."

They knock their candy together, laughing like children.

Quinn finds this to be a large improvement compared to the band that once sat on her finger. All engagement rings should be edible.

He promises they can go out to tomorrow and buy her a real ring.

She says he should just buy her some more ring pops.

Their lawyer approaches them in the weeks up to the hearing, thick manila folders resting in his hands.

"We need Noah to take a paternity test."

"Why?"

"If Michael's the father, it'll be evidence against him."

Evidence is all that matters. What about her sanity?

"But… I don't want to know."

"I won't tell you the results if you don't want to hear them. They'll only be shared with the jury."

She nods, fingers curled with Puck's as she drums her fingernails against her knee.

They're called to court just before Christmas. She wears the classiest pregnancy top and skirt she can find with her golden cross and black ballet flats. Puck isn't allowed to sit with her and her lawyer, which makes her a bit queasier than she already is. The baby's about to pop any minute now, although she's expected to hold out at least another three weeks, and her feet are swollen. She checks her mascara for the twentieth time as Michael enters the room with his attorney, neat as a pin.

He stares at her over her compact and she snaps it shut, glaring back. No matter how much he once frightened her, this is a fight she's determined to win.

He's brought up to the witness stand and her defense prosecutes him. He denies ever touching her, says she hurt him too. They bring up the hospital records and the scars on her body, and he starts to sweat underneath his collar.

Of course, his money means a good lawyer, and his lawyer chews her out hard. He says she was petty and delusional. Michael did the best he could, but well, there's only so much you can do with a deranged girl. She'd never stop harming herself – throwing herself down the stairs, slicing herself up, trying to choke herself, you name it. Miss Fabray was only Mr. Eaton's charity case. He practically saved her life.

She'd like to strangle both of them, but takes deep breaths like her lawyer coached her and tries to answer all of their questions honestly.

They say the jury will receive evidence of the paternity of the child, but it will not be revealed to the public. For once, Michael being the father will actually be a good thing – it'll prove his abuse. Of course, he sees it differently and claims it's only her way to pin someone else's child on him. You do know, after all, that she was pregnant at sixteen? Wouldn't surprise me if she had three babies before she met me! Girls like that never change.

She sips water from a plastic cup in the hallway while the jury debates and Puck holds her hand.

"You did good."

"Hopefully good enough."

"You were great, really. I would've punched that lawyer of his in the face if I were you."

She laughs a little, but it dies away once she sees Michael step out of the courtroom.

"Hello Quinn."

She stares at her shoes, "You're not supposed to talk to me."

"Well, what they don't know won't hurt them."

"Get lost," Puck spits, tightening his grip on her hand.

"So you're the famous other man," Michael smiles, charming as ever, "I don't believe we've formally met. I'd say it's my pleasure, but I fear it's quite the opposite."

"You should leave, Michael," she says quietly, finally looking up at him, "I don't want to see you."

"Maybe you should've thought of that before you charged me with physical and sexual domestic abuse, Quinnie. Do you know you got me arrested in front of the entire neighborhood? Quite the scandal. Your parents still don't believe it, though I told them you abandoned me for this trash, and now you're pregnant? When they hear this, they'll faint dead away-"

"Leave. Now."

He chuckles as he walks away, "Of course, sweetheart. Send me a card when the baby arrives?"

"He's just… messing with us," she says once he's gone, reaching up to cup Puck's cheek, "It's what he does. We'll be fine."

"I know. I'm… proud of you. For being so brave."

She grins, kissing him on the nose, "I learned from the best."

Despite his confidence, Michael is found guilty. He's sentenced to eight years in prison, five years with good behavior, and a restraining order.

She sits on the courthouse steps with her skirt billowing around her knees and cries over him for the last time.

The baby is born in January, only a few weeks after the court hearing. It's in the middle of a snowstorm and Puck has to drive at a snail's pace to get to the hospital safely. She clutches his hand and he winces as he turns into the parking lot.

Giving birth was fairly uneventful. It hurt just as much as the second time, but emotionally it was a bit better because she knew at the end of the day she wouldn't be saying goodbye.

She names him Aiden. She doesn't see how she could ever stop loving him, no matter who he belongs to.

Puck holds him and she can't help smiling. Even if he really isn't his, he belongs to him too.

They're going to be a family, and her child will never see the monsters behind better picket fences. Not if she has anything to say about it.

She stands at the entrance to the chapel, shaking with fear underneath her dress. The wedding is small – only a few family and friends. Her sister Jackie is her maid of honor.

They don't invite their parents – they're angry that Quinn ran away, angry that she never talked to them, angry that they couldn't see what was happening. They want her to Face It like a Proud Fabray. There is no pride in running away from your problems.

Good thing she won't be a Fabray for much longer.

She walks down the aisle alone and she gives herself away, but that's fine. After struggling with control issues, she doesn't see why it should be her father's job to give her to anyone.

Puck's mother holds Aiden in the front row while they exchange vows. She can't help wondering how different it would be if she was still wearing Michael's ring, if their wedding had happened, if she had raised Aiden in that home. It would be a death sentence. She would live her life broken.

She looks at Puck, at her child, and knows this is a better place.

At the reception they skip the father daughter dance and give everyone ring pops as gifts. They honeymoon at a beach house a few hours away for a week and return to their lives.

It really isn't any different. They already acted like they were married, anyway. Puck says it makes him feel like he can protect her better now - they belong to each other, legally as well as in every other way. She can see his point. It's nice to wake up in the morning and know he isn't going anywhere.

It's nice to know they're finally real after all these years and no one can hurt them anymore. No one will ever hurt them again.

Aiden's first word is "dada." She's a little jealous. Relieved. Mostly, she's happy he'll grow up and never know the difference.

None of them will ever know the difference. But his eyes are blue, and neither of their eyes are, and Puck says it's probably just a recessive gene or something but what does he know because he didn't even pass biology.

It hurts her heart. She doesn't want to be marked by him. She doesn't want her child to be marked by him. She doesn't want him to grow up knowing half of him is awful.

She still doesn't really know who he belongs to. But at least he's hers. She can find comfort in that.

Their lives will change and grow but she has love now, and that love will stay by her and she will not let herself be remembered as a victim or a coward or a statistic.

She is a survivor. She's alive and finally happy, and no one can ever take that away.


Finished!

Weirdly enough: I wrote the thing with the ring pops way before Puck gave one to Lauren. Go figure. Also, I didn't do any research for the court scene, so bear with me on that one.

Hoped you liked it! Just to give you a heads up, if you enjoyed this, I'm writing an alternate ending of what I think would've happened if Quinn had ended up staying with Michael (it'll be a chapter after this one). Review if you have the time!