A/N: I've actually had this written for nearly a month, but I was completely at a loss for how to end it. Let me know how I did.

Sun Gone Lost

Neither Rachel nor Mercedes uttered a single word on the way back from the hospital, and it was a little unsettling to see both of the Glee club's most outspoken members so quiet. A quick glance in the rearview mirror showed Will that Mercedes was staring out the window with Rachel leaning on her shoulder, both lost in their own thoughts. Will sighed and returned his eyes to the road. If there was one good thing that had come out of Puck being hospitalized, it was that the Glee members had begun to bond in ways that would not have happened otherwise. He doubted that the football team could say as much.

When he and the rest of the club had finally wrapped their brains around the fact that Puck wasn't going to be back any time soon, they'd held another round of auditions and gotten Jake Harris, another jock from the football team with less personality than Karofsky's fist, and most of the club was still refusing to acknowledge his presence during practices. Will felt slightly guilty about it, but he was secretly glad that they were giving Jake the straight-arm. Their behavior did mean that they were staying loyal to Puck, after all, and wasn't loyalty what he'd been trying to establish all along? And yes, he was aware of how conflicted that was. He'd been reluctant to give Jake any singing parts at all, so in a way he was doing the same thing. Assigning parts had become even more difficult since Jake joined the club, mostly because he had the exact same singing range as Puck. It was one thing to work around Puck's absence. It was another thing entirely to give what should have been his to a near-total stranger.

And all of this paled in comparison to the fact that Puck didn't know who he was.

Will had known ahead of time that seeing Puck in the hospital and just knowing to any extent what he was going through would be difficult for both himself and the kids in the club. He had researched schizophrenia extensively before his visit with Finn and Quinn to try to understand what exactly what was going on in Puck's brain, why the firing of neurons had suddenly gone haywire. But nothing he could have done would have come close to preparing him for actually seeing it in the flesh. Before Beth had entered the world, Puck had been the very embodiment of confidence – most of the time it was real and when it wasn't it was Puck's priority to keep up appearances. Now, after seeing Puck trying to fight the nurses and the effects of the drugs at the same time, while at war with his own brain, if someone had asked Will to describe the condition in one word, he would have said fear. And that was a word that none of his research had brought up.

After dropping Rachel off at her house, he drove Mercedes home. To his surprise, as Mercedes climbed out of the car, Quinn came out of the house and approached the driver's side window.

"Hey, Quinn," Will greeted her.

"How is he?"

Will sighed. "He's…he's fighting hard. What about you?"

Quinn avoided the question and asked one of her own. "Mr. Schue? Do you have any way of contacting Ms. Corcoran?"

He frowned in surprise. "Yeah, why?"

She bit her lip. "I'm Beth's mother…" she started. At Will's shocked expression, she hastily said, "I'm not talking about taking her back, Mr. Schue; the adoption papers have already been signed. But I'm Beth's biological mother, so it's my responsibility to tell Ms. Corcoran what's happening to Puck."

Will felt his stomach twist. He hadn't even thought of how Beth would factor in to the whole situation and what Puck's illness could mean for her. But telling a new mother that her baby girl's brain was a potential time bomb waiting to go off was a task that should not fall on a sixteen-year-old.

"I'll do it," he said.

"What?"

"I'll tell Ms. Corcoran what's going on." Quinn opened her mouth to protest, but Will cut her off. "Really, Quinn, I'll do it. It shouldn't be your job."

She ran her fingers through the ends of her hair in agitation, glancing up at the cloudy sky. "I'm her mother," she said again.

"I know," he replied softly. "Don't worry. I'll let you know how it goes. Okay?"

She nodded, swallowing. "I, uh… I'll see you Monday, then."

The next day, a Saturday, Will called Shelby up and asked that she meet him for a cup of coffee at a diner near the Carmel High campus. She seemed to sense that something was off about his tone of voice, but she agreed, and when he arrived she was already sitting in a booth at the far end of the diner.

"This isn't a date, is it?" she said when he sat down. It wasn't really a question.

Will couldn't help but smile sadly at that. He didn't know Shelby very well, but she was definitely one of the most straightforward people he knew; it was a trait she'd passed on to Rachel. "I…have some news," he started, rubbing the back of his neck nervously.

"Is Rachel all right?" she asked immediately.

"Yeah, yeah. Rachel's fine," he assured her, fiddling with his car keys on the tabletop and not meeting her gaze. "It's actually about Beth."

Her lips tightened slightly, her eyes wary. "What about Beth?"

He sighed, trying to figure out how to word what he wanted to say.

"Does Quinn want her back?" she questioned. "Because I—"

"No! No, Beth is your daughter now, Quinn understands that."

"Then what is it?"

"Noah Puckerman… Beth's dad, that is—"

"I know who he is."

"Right. Well, he… he's been hospitalized."

Shelby didn't say anything for a few seconds, her protective expression slowly melting into one of worry. "What happened?"

"He's been diagnosed with schizophrenia."

Shelby froze. It was clear from her expression that she'd thought he meant a different kind of hospital – car crash at best, cancer at worst. "How – how bad is it?"

Will shook his head. "I'm not a doctor. I can't tell you how bad it is," he admitted. He leaned back in the booth. "I've been visiting him for the past few weeks, and he's been pretty out of it most of the time – they have him medicated. I'm sorry."

She looked out the window, clasping her hands on the table. "It's genetic, isn't it?"

"I did a lot of research on it," Will said, "and apparently it runs in families, but it's triggered by something besides. Like, drugs or stress. Just…be careful. Make sure Beth's careful."

She nodded. It was obvious she was still processing the information, so Will decided to leave her alone. He stood up and gave her shoulder a squeeze, muttering a hasty goodbye before leaving the café and shivering in the autumn air.

A/N: Please leave a review. Next chapter, we return to Puck inside the ward. Also, new installments have been posted! Check out Somewhere Under the Rainbow, Mind Over Matter, and Aquarius for Rachel & Mr Schue, Artie, and Tina's unexpected stories!