Ahh mood swings, 50% of people can identify with them, they are called females. 50% of people have to suffer at the hands of people having mood swings, they are called males. This chapter may be a little jerky, it took ages to write, especially given I had like two lines of dialogue for both Puck and Quinn to work with, so this is mostly Quinn central.
Quinn woke up that morning feeling better than ever, as she stretched, she came to a realisation that but a beaming smile on her face.
Skipping downstairs in her Cheerios uniform, Beth in her arms, she found her mother looking tired and haggard.
"Beth slept through the night." She happily announced to Judy, who frowned in concern.
"Honey, Beth woke up three times, you must have just slept through it." She told Quinn gently, and Quinn's mouth gaped in shock.
"But I always wake up when she cries." She protested.
"You must have been tired from Cheerios and Glee." Judy put a comforting arm on her shoulder. "I was happy to get her. Don't forget Beth has an appointment to get her shots at four this afternoon."
Quinn had completely forgotten about the four needles Beth needed to be subjected to, apparently routine at her age, it had broken Quinn's heart the first time Beth got a shot. That coupled with her guilt about burdening her mother with Beth's broken sleep pattern distracted her all day to the point that when Artie was announcing his place on the football team when Quinn blurted the first thing that came to mind.
"I thought Artie's legs didn't work?" She instantly regretted the blunt statement, but Artie seemed unaffected by it, going on about his plans, while Rachel gaped at Finn's rejoining the football team.
Through all the drama, Quinn sat there, knowing that Puck wasn't talking to her, she'd even sat up the back where he normally sat, but when he walked in right before the bell, he'd slumped down in the first row and hadn't even looked back towards her direction. Quinn didn't want to bring up their conversation from the previous night, not if it was only going to start an argument.
She zoned out, lost in her thoughts, only to be bought back in when Mr. Schue announced he would be performing a Britney Spears number with them. The cheering came to a halt as they exchange horrified looks, concerned with the stranger that used to be their Glee Club Coach.
"But what song are we going to do?" Someone asked and their celebration quickly became an argument, Rachel arguing for 'Baby One More Time" while Artie wanted 'Stronger'.
"'Oops!…I Did It Again'." Tina was trying to get someone other than Mike to agree with her, while Finn just looked lost.
"'If U Seek Amy'." Santana had a suggestive smirk on her face when she named her song choice, while Quinn rolled her eyes and threw the first Britney song she thought of into the mix.
"'Crazy', it has a good dance beat and it's a classic." She shrugged and started on the Spanish homework due after lunch.
"Toxic." Everyone turned to look at Puck, who simply shrugged. "She was hot in that song."
The girls rolled their eyes.
"Now, we need to talk lead singers and costumes." Rachel began to babble while Quinn tuned out in an effort to complete her Spanish homework.
"Quinn? Quinn?" She looked up to see everyone filtering out and Mr. Schue looking at her in concern.
"Sorry." She began to pack up her books. "I got caught up in homework."
"Is everything okay Quinn?" He asked in concern, but Quinn brushed away his worry.
"Just readjustment." She shrugged, she didn't want to confide in Mr. Schue about the guilt that was beginning to surface.
It plagued her during the day, fears of abandoning Beth so she could climb social ladders and form human pyramids, exhausting her mother by ignoring Beth's cries during the night, sleeping through her baby's cries.
And the underlying fear that she didn't do the right thing by keeping Beth, that somewhere out there, there was a loving childless couple who could have done the right thing by her daughter.
Her Cheerios uniform, which had felt so right when she put it on that morning, became like a straightjacket, restricting and suffocating, her scalp throbbed with the tightness of her ponytail, and in a swift move, Quinn pulled her hair tie free, letting her hair fall down. She felt better instantly.
"Miss Sylvester." She caught up with Sue as soon as she saw her in the hallway, speaking before the coach could criticise her for having her hair down.
"I can't make afternoon practice." She informed her. "And if you think that's going to be a problem, I think I should quit the Cheerios."
"And do what?" Sue asked. "Replace you with Finn Hudson?"
Quinn frowned at the comment, but before she could say anything, Sue put a hand up to cut her off.
"I want to offer you the position of Head Cheerleader." It took a moment for Sue's words to sink in, leaving Quinn standing there mouth gaping.
"I- I can't." She eventually managed to stutter. "I'm exhausted, from Glee, from Cheerios, from Beth." As soon as the words left her mouth, Quinn regretted them, she couldn't blame Beth for her exhaustion, that wasn't fair.
"Think about it Q." Sue told her. "And I don't accept your resignation from Cheerios. Get a nanny, you're the only girl who can do a triple back flip."
She left Quinn standing in the hallway, more confused than ever, mostly because she'd never done a triple backflip.
"Puck." She saw him standing by his locker and approached him slowly, waiting for his rebuffing.
"I know, get Beth from the centre after school, you'll get her after five." He recited, roughly shoving a book into his bag.
"Actually I was going to say Beth has a doctor's appointment I forgot about and I was wondering if you wanted to tag along so you didn't miss out on daddy time." Quinn informed him.
Puck scratched the back of his head in contemplation before shutting his locker.
"She's okay, right? Beth?" He asked, looking half concerned.
"Yeah, just some booster shots, nothing fun." Quinn explained, waiting for an answer to what should have been a simple question.
She watched his eyes slide along the hall and she followed his gaze to where Santana was leaning against a locker with Brittany, the two of them swapping Britney Spears CD's, giving Quinn all the answers she needed.
"You are incredible." She said in disbelief, shaking her head. "Your baby daughter is getting shots and you would be rather taking shots at Santana."
"What? No, I didn't say that." Puck said defensively. "Besides, she'll be at Cheerios practice."
Quinn scoffed, shaking her head. "Seriously. Forget it, I don't know why I even bothered."
"Come on Quinn!" He grabbed her as she turned to walk away, pressing her back against the lockers. "It's not like you're putting out."
Quinn felt herself flush, and for a moment couldn't tell if it was from anger or embarrassment, before settling on anger.
"You know what Puck, screw you." She told him, shaking her arm out of his hold and marching down the hall.
That afternoon, she held her crying baby as she was given four needles, soothing her as she cried herself into a restless sleep.
An early morning Glee practice found her grinding against Puck with an air of indifference, snapping his suspenders with more force than necessary and cursing Mr. Schue who seemed to think they were the perfect dance partners. She didn't even bother to redress into her Cheerios uniform, instead dressing herself in one of her classic white dress and cardigan combinations, because although her chance to save her virginity for her husband was gone, she could make it very clear that there was no way she would be giving her body to Noah Puckerman again.
Puck gave her distance, which proved to be exactly what she needed, her angry burn slowed to a simmer by the afternoon, where she cut her last class early to pick up Beth and bring her back in time for the next Glee rehearsal. She had no idea who Bob Fosse was, or what he had to do with Britney Spears, but Rachel wouldn't shut up about him and how much of an impact their 'Toxic' number would have. Quinn eventually busied herself with a fussy Beth during their short breaks, disappearing in order to feed and change her, while the others were left to suffer Rachel's ranting.
Friday couldn't have come soon enough, her mother finally returning from her sister's home just in time for Beth to get an ear infection and Quinn to miss out on another Cheerios practice because she had too much pride to ask Puck to take care of Beth.
The girls and Kurt all gathered in the bathroom to change, and while the others chatted excitedly, Quinn stood slightly apart, changing quickly and tying her hair up at the nape of her neck.
"Can I ask you for a favour?" Rachel approached her as she was putting on her hat and Quinn turned to face her with a blank expression.
"Look I don't have time to think let alone run around doing favours for people who are of no help to me." She told the other girl bluntly, watching for a moment as he face fell. "What is it?"
"I need you to proposition Finn." Rachel blurted and Quinn felt like laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation.
"Is this because he's back on the football team?" She asked Rachel, leaving over the sink to touch up her makeup in a mirror, trying to cover the dark circles under her eyes.
"And rumours are that Coach Sylvester wants you as Head Cheerleader again." Rachel informed her, Quinn paused in her actions.
"I'm not going to go after Finn, if that's what you're worried about." Quinn told Rachel with an undertone of bitterness.
"But that doesn't stop other people from going after him." Rachel murmured, her eyes flicking up to the reflections of Brittany and Santana.
Quinn sighed, flicking a coating of mascara over her eyelashes and then another until she was satisfied with her reflection.
"Can it wait until after this stupid Britney number?" She asked. "And tell me what to say, you're the one who knows what Finn wants to hear."
As they posed behind the curtain, Quinn in an uncomfortable proximity to Puck, they could all hear the sounds of the students chattering excitedly in the gymnasium.
"How is Beth?" Puck asked, his voice uncomfortable loud in their little sanctuary behind the curtain.
"She's fine." Quinn said brusquely, looking anywhere but at Puck.
Mr. Schue burst in through the curtain, revealing for a moment the McKinley students, the ones who tortured, bullied, harassed and slushied them. And Quinn remembered she used to be queen of them, could still be if she wanted to.
"Ready guys?" Mr. Schue asked them in excitement, and Quinn could only sum up her feelings in one work. Anxiety.
She looked around at the others, Brittany for once seemed not to be floating a glassy-eyed fragmented fog, rather she was standing with her legs together and her palms flat on the floor, straightening with a determined look in her eye and her hat in her hand, it gave Quinn some determination to perform as well as she could.
When the cheering students rapidly spiralled down into a panicked mob, frozen in their poses, the New Directions watched in amazement, and when the last student fled the gymnasium, the sprinklers burst to life, soaking them within moments.
"Well, I think they liked us." Tina deadpanned. No one disagreed with her.
Quinn snapped from her funk as soon as she picked up Beth, Beth who looked up when she walked into the day care centre and smiled a gummy smile in Quinn's direction. Everything seemed better then, Beth only waking once that night, and the next morning Quinn was almost proud to zip herself into her Cheerios uniform, singing a song beneath her voice to Beth as she fed, bathed and dressed her, pulling a little hat on her head to protect her from the chilly wind outside.
When Quinn stepped into the hallway, she made a bee line for Finn's locker, giving her best sweet smile and glancing up at him from below her lashes in a way that drove boys crazy, a move taught to her by her own mother.
"Congrats Finn." She touched his shoulder gently, trailed her fingers down his arm, and made sure to sweep his body with her eyes. "You're back on the team, I'm going to be Head Cheerleader again, some kind of symmetry, don't you think?" She looked past Finn to see Rachel standing there. "With all the nastiness between you and I behind us, I think we should be together. We'd be shoo-in for Homecoming King and Queen. So what do you say, you and me, eight o'clock Breadstix?" She leaned in closer, looked up at him innocently.
"Look, I'd be lying if I said I didn't have feelings for you. Probably always will." Finn's revelation was news to Quinn. "But I'm not going to get back together with you, there's someone else, you know who that is. I'm asking you to respect that. I'm sorry." He took off down the hall, and Quinn couldn't help but blink back tears at the painful sting of rejection, even if it was just a set-up. She took a moment to compose herself before continuing down the hallway towards Rachel.
"I said what you wanted me to, he shot me down." She realised how jaded she sounded, but couldn't be bothered caring at that point. "So congrats, looks like really loves you." She fled before she had to witness Rachel's delight at Finn's reaction.
Quinn knew Rachel had used her, but that didn't stop the sting at Finn's gentle let down, and the reality that while most of the Glee Club were coupling up, she was the teen mom who had responsibilities before she could invest herself in a relationship, not that anyone was interested in her.
In Glee, Rachel was still rejoicing in Finn's devotion to her, and when she stood, Quinn mentally retreated, save having to witness another outdated ballad of self worship that Rachel seemed to favour. But the familiarity of the song bought a small smile to her lips. And when Rachel reached the chorus, Quinn felt a soft touch of a hand on hers, looking down at Puck, she felt tears prick at her eyes and sang along with the others, while Puck sung to her, telling her she was the only exception, and she sang it back to him.
Leaving the choir room, she saw Sue Sylvester wearing a ridiculous neck brace and all her negative energy came to a head.
"Coach Sylvester?" She stopped in front of the coach. "I quit the Cheerios."
She didn't wait around for a reply, instead she went home.
That night, she sang the same song to Beth as she fed her, watching as her eyes fluttered shut, not stirring, even when Quinn laid her down in her crib.
Anyone else catch 'Furt'? Don't keep reading if you haven't, but I have high hopes of Santana sinking her claws into Finn, leaving a not so sexed up Puck and Quinn realising that her new 'boyfriend' has ridiculous lips. Seriously, I like Sam, but with Quinn. No.