Emma and I had just walked through the doors of Lima General Hospital when I heard the two of them outside.
"Come on, Berry!"
"Noah, I can't run that fast! My legs are short!"
I laughed when, two seconds later, Puck burst through the door, dragging a breathless Rachel behind him.
"What happened?" He panted. "Did you have the baby?"
All three of us girls laughed that time, and Puck looked slightly offended.
"What? I don't know how this childbirth thing works!"
"Well, Puck, I still look like I have a bowling ball strapped to my belly, so I think that should have tipped you off."
"Next!" Called the hospital's receptionist. I stayed back with Puck and Rachel while Emma talked to her. I was pretty much scared out of my mind. Puck looked equally freaked out and excited, and Rachel was smiling so much I thought her face would break. Well, she wasn't the one who was going to be giving birth in a few hours. A couple seconds later, a nurse came into the lobby with a wheelchair. I got in, and Puck and Emma followed the nurse to wherever she was pushing me while Rachel sat down and immediately started calling everyone we knew.
Pretty soon, we got up to my room on the 3rd floor, which is where they keep all the babies. The doctor told me I wasn't going to deliver for a while, so what I actually ended up doing was walking laps around the maternity ward. Puck came with me so Emma could call Mr. Shue.
"I can't believe this is happening." Puck said as we walked (or in my case, waddled) through the halls. All of the doors had signs saying "It's a boy" or "It's a girl" with the new babies' names on them. Some of them were truly ridiculous. I was so glad that Mr. Shue wasn't insane, and I didn't have to worry about him calling the baby something like Sapphire or Indiana. And not to dump on Indiana's parents, or anything, but we're in Ohio, for God's sake.
"Yeah, me either."
"Does it hurt? The contractions or whatever?"
"Not really, it's not that baOWW!" I replied. It's really awesome when a particularly awful contraction hits right in the middle of a sentence. I pretty much had Puck's hand in a death grip, so he was cringing as well. Good. He was half responsible for it, so he should have had to take some of the pain. After a few seconds, both of us recovered and kept walking.
"Finn asks about you a lot, you know."
"Yeah?" This was pretty good news. It was nice to know he still cared about me. And her. Still, since the invitational, thinking about Finn usually made me cry. I still wondered what he meant by "I'm not perfect, either." It had occurred to me that something happened between him and Rachel. I'd thought that for a while. It was the whole reason I even joined Glee. Something probably did happen between them, I decided. But whatever it was, it had been over for a long time. And I couldn't hold it against either of them. I didn't want to. Rachel was my friend by then, and no matter what Finn had done, it was clearly the lesser of the two evils. Despite everything, I was proud of myself. I'd grown up. I wasn't a vindictive, mean little girl anymore, and it felt really good. The contractions, however, did not. I clearly learned that lesson the hard way.
A few hours passed, and the doctor finally said I was ready to have her. It was kind of sad, actually. As much as being pregnant sucked (and believe me, it did suck), the baby had been a part of me for nine months. I'd been through so much with her, and, even though she wasn't technically born yet, I sometimes felt like she was the only one in the world who didn't hate me. Seriously, I don't know if I could have handled giving her to a stranger and never seeing her again.
I was on this bed with wheels and some nurses were pushing me to the Labor and Delivery area. Puck and Emma were coming with me. I was freaking out because a baby was coming out of me. Emma was, too, because of all of the blood and guts and other things that I didn't want to think about that were gonna come out when I had the baby. She's not good with messes, you know. Puck was trying to go through breathing exercises with me, but neither of us had ever been to a Lamaze class or anything, so he really had no clue what he was doing. It did make it a little better though, to watch him make all of these ridiculous faces at me while we were going to L&D.
We finally got to the room. Puck and Emma were on either side of me, and I was squeezing the life out of both of their hands. The pain was just ungodly, and I was more physically exhausted then than I'd ever been in my life. And that's saying something, since I used to be a Cheerio.
Something was wrong. I knew something really bad was happening. The doctors all looked worried, and that scared the crap out of me. I was trying to ask what was going on, but I was so tired that nothing would come out. After what seemed like hours, I gave one final, agonizing push, and my baby was out. And she was healthy. She was a big, beautiful, healthy baby girl. I really thought it was all going to be okay then. And then I heard Puck.
"Ms. P., what's going on? Why is there so much blood? That can't be normal!" He sounded scared. He was never scared. I could feel the blood pooling under me. That might have been the most horrible feeling in the world. Some nurses took my baby out of the room. I looked up at Emma, who was turning a little green. I hoped she'd look away so she wouldn't faint.
The doctors were all running around yelling at each other. I heard one of them yell, "She's bleeding out", but I couldn't see anything anymore. I couldn't feel anything but numbness, except for when one doctor stabbed an IV into my arm. Even in that state, I knew it was bad. I was scared. The only sound I could hear was Puck muttering, "Oh shit, oh shit" to himself next to me. There was so much I wanted to tell him and Emma. I wanted them to know how grateful I was to both of them for taking care of me through this. I wanted to tell Rachel and Artie and Kurt and all of my other new friends that I loved them and that I was sorry for how I'd treated them before. I wanted Britt to know that she was the sweetest person I'd ever met, and Santana to know that I was always glad to have her as a friend, even when we fought, which was a lot. I wanted to tell my sister I loved her, and my parents that I forgave them. I wanted to tell Mr. Shue that he's the only one I would ever trust to take care of my baby. Most of all, I wanted Finn to know that I was still in love with him and would always regret hurting him.
I couldn't say any of that though. The only thing I heard was Emma next to me, whispering, "It's okay, Quinn, you did great. It's over, Quinn. Please stay with me. Please try to stay with me," as I slipped away.
