Author's Note: Sorry again for the wait on the updates. It's been over a month again, I know. Time just keeps getting away from me. I wanted to write this chapter sooner but I kept getting more inspired to vid or write my new The Vampire Diaries fic. But here I am now and I hope you enjoy it. Waiting_To_Be_Broken (Chris) is still my beta and so to her I say thank you SO much. And thank you to the few of you who always read and review! You have no idea how much it means to me.

I did find a new team of Glee betas to help Waiting_To_Be_Broken out too. DreamingOfASoullessIan aka Jamie and Dawn (yeah they have a joint account here) are also helping me beta this now. Thank you so much.

For this one chapter, Dawn and Chris were my two betas. :D Thank you.

If you guys catch anything they missed about grammar/spelling/typos or about characterization/continuity/plot whatever, let me know though! I'd be happy to fix something.

Also if any of you like fanvideos, I'm a vidder more than I'm a fanfiction writer, and I recently made a Quinn Fabray vid about all 3 seasons and mainly just her relationships with Finn, Puck, & Sam. I'd love your opinion on it if you haven't seen it yet. It's set to the song "Slow Down" by The Academy Is...

/watch?v=CFgAOLG27Z4

(I can't post a full YouTube link there but go to any YouTube video and then copy/paste to substitute that in as the ending of the URL)

I really hope you all enjoy this chapter and I'll try my best not to leave you hanging for too long again. I plan to finish writing about ALL of season 1 and complete this fic by the end of 2012 for sure so I plan to write chapter 12 within the next few days and hopefully can stay on a writing roll for a little while. Please don't forget to review, it really motivates me to write more, I swear. ;)

Chapter 11: Artie and Quinn work together on their ballads

Artie picked Quinn's name out of the hat. Apparently, they were going to be partnered up for the ballad that was their glee assignment for the week, despite Finn sweetly having said he wanted his girlfriend as a partner. Quinn was glad he hadn't shown any hint of wanting Rachel, and Finn instead got stuck with Kurt, much to everyone's amusement – including Quinn's. She smiled as discretely as she could, trying not to let her boyfriend see how humorous she found the whole situation – Kurt clearly had a huge crush on Finn, and Finn was clearly as straight as they come and freaked out by the idea of Kurt possibly liking him. And Mr. Schue was the one who got stuck with Rachel, who insisted they sing the hilariously inappropriate ballad "Endless Love" right then and there as an example. Quinn watched Rachel sing lovingly while staring intently into their teacher's eyes – he was clearly very uncomfortable. Quinn glanced over at her boyfriend and followed his line of sight... straight to Rachel's butt? She hoped she was mistaken and he wasn't just staring at her ass. The way he looked away quickly made her sure that he was though, and so Quinn just glared at him. She wondered if Finn had ever looked at her own butt that way. She kind of hoped he had.

After the example ballad was over, and the bell rang, Quinn went over to Artie. They agreed to meet up the next day after school to work on their ballad. They decided to try to think of some songs that they'd like to sing to express themselves before they met up. Artie was nice and though she didn't know him too well, she was kind of looking forward to perhaps learning something more about him when they worked together on this glee project. However, Quinn was not thrilled by the prospect of having to bear her heart and soul to anyone. The thing that was really eating her up and consuming all of her thoughts was the lie – the fact that she'd made Finn think he was the father - and she couldn't tell anyone that little fact, not even Artie. She couldn't sing her ballad about what she really wanted to sing about.

On the drive home from school, Quinn tried to think of a good song to express how difficult keeping the secret from her parents and sister was, or of one to just express how difficult being pregnant while in high school was. She considered maybe singing about how hurt she was by Sue kicking her off the Cheerios. Even singing about how she wanted Rachel to stay away from her boyfriend was a possibility she realized. She tried to rack her brain for a good song to express something she was feeling, one that really told a story in a ballad type format. It was very difficult to think of anything though.

She walked through her front door and immediately was greeted by her mother.

"Hey, Quinny! Look what I have here!" Judy called out to her from the living room, sounding all excited. Quinn rolled her eyes in loving annoyance.

"What is it, Mom?" she replied, dropping off her books on the little table by the mirror in the foyer, then heading towards her mother. When Quinn entered the room, she saw her mother holding up a dress bag; presumably containing her dress for the Chastity Ball. Quinn's eyes widened for a moment in shock and dread. It all came back to her, she was supposed to go to the Chastity Ball with her father in about a week and pretend she was still a virgin while a little baby girl grew inside of her. The thought of attempting to survive that night despite how guilty and hypocritical she'd feel actually made her feel physically sick. The man she'd be lying to was probably in the family room only a few feet away, watching TV. She hated how high her dad's expectations had been for her. It only intensified the guilt she felt about getting pregnant.

"Honey, is something wrong?" her mother asked her, concern heavy in her voice. She'd noticed her daughter's less than delighted reaction. Quinn realized that immediately and caught herself, forcing a fake smile for her mother's benefit.

"Oh, what? No, I'm totally fine. Happy, I'm just surprised," she offered, telling the partial truth and omitting the real reason for her previous facial expression. "I totally forgot that the Chastity Ball was coming up so soon," Quinn explained honestly.

"Oh, okay," her mother replied, accepting the answer. "So go on, I want to see how it looks on you," Judy continued, practically giddy as she went over to her daughter and pushed the bag into her hands. Quinn internally was frozen in panic as she took the dress from her mother and forced another fake smile. She was really starting to have a baby bump, and she still was fine not wearing maternity clothes but she'd had to avoid wearing jeans and certain skin tight types of outfits. She was worried that maybe this dress that had been perfectly fitted to her body would show her baby bump... or worse, not even be able to be zipped up. Quinn and her mother headed away from the window and toward the mirror they had in the living room, which was especially useful in situations like this, and slowly, very nervously, Quinn started to get undressed in front of her mother. She took off her shoes and looked up at her mom. She wished her mom would give her some privacy... and Judy sensed that.

"I'll leave you alone, sorry, I forget you're not a baby anymore and that this is a tad awkward!" Judy sweetly explained to her daughter. She headed into the kitchen, saying over her shoulder, "Please just call me when you have it on!"

Quinn breathed a sigh of relief and then took off the rest of her clothes quickly. She glanced at her body wearing only underwear in the mirror. Her baby bump was pretty obvious on her naked body and she was glad her mother wasn't there to see it. Her breasts were also pushing the limits of her bra instead of fitting very nicely into the cups and she quickly took the dress out of its bag and slipped into it, eager to hide what her pregnant body looked like. It was really tight around her waist, just as she'd expected, and Quinn sucked in her stomach as much as she could, hoping that would help. After getting her arms through the little sleeves she reached around and tried to zip it up herself but she couldn't reach the zipper. So she called for her mother instead.

"Mom, I'm done, I just need help getting it zipped up!" she yelled. Then she just stared at herself in the mirror. At the white dress on her body, and all it falsely symbolized. She remembered when Gabrielle had worn a dress like this and how Quinn had looked forward to this day. Oh how things had changed so drastically since then. Judy came over with a martini she must have poured herself while in the kitchen and then gasped and got all teary eyed. Quinn ignored her over-dramatic mother. Judy knelt down on the ground and then reached out a hand and touched Quinn's arm gently.

"Sweetie," she whispered, causing Quinn to turn to look at her. "I am so proud of you. The Chastity Ball is so important to your father."

As Judy got up to help her daughter with her zipper, Quinn thought about how much she missed the firm support of her Cheerios uniform, which could successfully hide her growing abdomen because of the control panel it had built in. Judy tried to zip up the dress but the zipper got stuck about halfway up, and Quinn's mind raced as she tried to think of an excuse for why, to Quinn's extreme disappointment, the dress just didn't fit anymore.

"Huh. That's odd," Judy commented. "We had this custom made a month ago."

"I had a really big lunch today at school," Quinn immediately justified. "Really big tacos," she said, looking at her mother through the mirror and nodding, trying her hardest to convince her mother of the lie she'd made up on the spot. The look on her mother's face spoke volumes though. Maybe Quinn had been too obviously desperate just then because Judy wasn't simply not believing what her daughter had just said. It was more than that. She clearly realized that Quinn was pregnant. Judy was standing there, thinking about all of the signs that had been there and looking at her daughter's stomach in the mirror now. Quinn wished her mother would stop staring like that, and wished she was wrong, but Quinn just knew that her mother knew now. Judy breathed out and broke into a smile, and then grabbed her daughter's shoulders and lovingly leaned her head right against Quinn's. Quinn wasn't sure what she was doing.

"No worries, sweetie," Judy said, rubbing her daughters arms repeatedly. She seemed to be sort of near tears but holding them back as she continued speaking. "I'll just take it down to the tailor tomorrow, we'll let it out a little bit." Quinn realized her mother was going to pretend she didn't just figure out that her sixteen-year-old daughter was pregnant. She quickly resented her mother for this fact as she listened to her continue speaking. "The problem here, honey, is... You know, I- I just don't think you've been getting enough exercise ever since you quit the Cheerios." She reached over into the sewing box she conveniently already had in the living room from some sewing she'd done earlier today and pulled out the tape measure. "Am I right?" she asked Quinn as she pulled the tape out around Quinn's waist.

"Yeah," Quinn decided to answer her. "Yeah, that's right." Quinn figured she shouldn't ruin her mother's wall of denial. Clearly her mom was desperate to not believe her daughter was pregnant, and Quinn couldn't bear to break her mom's heart.

"I mean you used to spend hours, every day, doing back-flips and high-kicks. And now... I mean now you spend all your free time sitting on a stool in the dark singing show tunes."

Quinn realized her mother had no idea what glee club really did. Did her mother truly believe she sang in the dark and was always just sitting down? Glee club was a surprising amount of exercise; even when they were sitting in wheelchairs the whole time figuring out how to dance to "Proud Mary" her arms had gotten quite a workout.

"Do you know how many calories you burn singing?" Judy continued, looking her daughter in the eye. She reached out her hand and placed it under Quinn's chin. "Hmm?" It was a rhetorical question, so Quinn didn't answer. "Not very many," her mother finished with an air of wisdom. She was chastising her for what she still thought was Quinn's choice to quit cheerleading instead of addressing the issue that both of them now knew about, and Quinn wasn't sure how she was supposed to react. Luckily, her father interrupted them and saved Quinn from having to say anything at all.

"Judy!" he called out to his wife from the family room. "Glenn Beck is on!"

She gasped excitedly, her hand still on Quinn's face and she looked at her daughter happily. Quinn was well aware of how much her parents loved Fox News' Glenn Beck. Judy looked up to see her husband entering the room to come fetch her. He caught sight of Quinn and then put his hand over his eyes quickly.

"Wait, hold on! Hold on!" he continued to yell. Judy laughed at his reaction. "Oh, I don't want to see," he continued, and even Quinn couldn't help but smile at how cute her father was being about all of this.

"Daddy, it's not like we're getting married," she said, trying to tell him that it was okay to see her in the dress. He took his hand away from his face and sweetly kissed her cheek.

"Oh... look at you," he commented as he glanced up and down his daughter. "Speaking of getting married, how's that boy you've been dating?"

"Yeah," Judy seconded. "Yeah. He's not, uh... pressuring you at all, is he?" she asked her daughter nervously, and Quinn hated that they could think that about her wonderful boyfriend. Finn had done nothing wrong and had always respected her wish to remain chaste. She felt so bad that now, by being pregnant, people like her mother would possibly think that Finn had forced her into having sex.

"No!" Quinn replied, defending him. "No, he's a gentleman." She looked specifically into her mother's eyes as she said it. She needed her mother to believe her. This wasn't Finn's fault and she didn't want her mother blaming him unfairly.

"I'm glad to hear that," Russell said. "That's why I'm inviting him over for dinner on Sunday," he said more to Judy than to Quinn given the way he leaned his head toward her.

"Oh!" she replied, her voice very high-pitched. "Wonderful," she practically breathed. She was being all exaggeratedly excited and Quinn couldn't believe her life. She looked away from her parents and up in desperation for a moment, wondering why God hated her so freaking much. She didn't think Finn would be able to keep this secret from her parents if he had to spend a whole hour or two with them eating dinner and whatnot.

"Refresher?" Russell asked his wife, offering to refill her drink. He was being all generous and sweet today, Quinn noticed. She wondered why he was in such a good mood.

"I don't want you to lift a finger for me," Judy replied, putting her hand on his face and making a kissing noise. "I'm your wife!" Quinn hated how her mother conformed to typical gender roles and as she watched her mother grab her father's drink and start walking to refill both of theirs, Quinn made a mental note to try to make sure if she ever got married - sometime long after her baby was given up for adoption of course - that she and her husband would be equal partners in the relationship.

"Hmm... my little lemon drop!" Russell said, clearly pleased with his wife's actions, and then he slapped her butt. "I gotta go catch Glenn," he then noted, and rushed out of the room.

Quinn couldn't believe both of her parents. She was not looking forward to when she was more pregnant and it was more obvious. She wondered how long her mother could keep up the pretense... or perhaps the more relevant question was how long it would take for her father to figure it out. She then realized neither really mattered at the moment as she turned to look back at herself in the mirror again. Finn was the real issue. Would he be able to keep his mouth shut at dinner on Sunday? She wondered silently to herself and hoped for the best.

That night Quinn tried to think of a good ballad to sing to express herself to Artie, and as she was falling asleep, she finally thought of a great one. It would express how grateful she was to have Finn standing by her throughout all of the difficulties of her pregnancy, which was a true thing that she felt. As she pulled her comforter tighter around her she hoped Artie had thought of a song too.

At school the next morning, she came across Finn waiting for her at her locker. He looked really nervous... upset... maybe guilty? Quinn did not like the look on Finn's face. What was he about to confess to?

"Spill it," she demanded. She hoped he hadn't cheated on her with Rachel or something horrible. She waited with bated breath for his response.

"I... I'm really sorry," he prefaced, and Quinn wished he would just get on with it. "I didn't mean to, but she caught me singing to... well it's kind of Kurt's fault, he suggested I do it," he stammered.

"Finn," Quinn said impatiently. He sighed.

"My mom knows you're-" he explained, pursing his lips and gesturing. He knew better than to actually say the word aloud while in the school hallway, just in case someone didn't already know. Quinn just stood there, taking a moment for this to sink in.

"What?" she finally exclaimed. "No! Just... err!" she vented, storming away from Finn and toward her first class for the day. She thought about what kind of a person Carole Hudson was. Finn had been following her and when she slowed down to think, he caught up.

"I really am sorry," he offered gently, hoping it might be a small consolation, and while Quinn was pissed at him, she still appreciated the sentiment and could tell he felt bad about letting the secret slip somehow. She wasn't ready quite yet to accept his apology, however.

"I can't believe you told your mom," Quinn replied, ignoring him. "What if she tells my mom?" Quinn could just see Carole doing that, calling up her mother and gently breaking the news to her, apologizing for her son's part in it, doing something overly nice with good intentions but in the process ruining her life.

"No," Finn insisted. "She, she's not. I-"

"Half the school knows, your mom knows, who else do you want to tell, huh?" Quinn asked angrily. She remembered how Finn was the one to tell both Mr. Schue and Puck originally. He really was a blabbermouth, wasn't he?

"But she's not! She's not gonna tell anybody! I-"

"You're wrong, I'm right," Quinn stated. "I'm smart, you're dumb."

"I'm not dumb," Finn replied, trying to defend himself. "And I know my own mother, she wouldn't tell anyone, I swear!"

"No, no, no! You're wrong, I'm right!" Quinn insisted, walking away from him. She didn't want to be late for class. "I'm right! Okay?"

"She- She doesn't talk to other moms!" Finn called after her, but it was no use.

"So did you think of any good ballads for expressing yourself?" Quinn asked. She smiled at Artie but to her surprise, he darted his eyes away. "What?" She was confused. She had gone over to his house after school, and was now with him in his bedroom so as to get some privacy away from his parents.

"Oh... well I'm not sure if you knew this," Artie started hesitantly, looking back up at Quinn. "but Tina and I kissed." Quinn rose her eyebrows in surprise.

"I had no idea, but aw, that's so great Artie," she said. She kind of thought they'd been crushing on each other ever since Quinn had joined glee club. She then realized that Artie didn't seem thrilled about it though. "What happened? Wasn't it a good kiss?" Artie laughed.

"Well I don't have much to compare it to," he admitted, blushing, "but the kiss was great. It's just..." he hesitated again and Quinn looked at him in anticipation. "Well after we kissed, Tina confessed to me that her stutter has always been fake." He looked up at Quinn and she took a moment to digest the news.

"What? She doesn't really have a stutter?" Quinn couldn't believe it.

"Yeah. She doesn't. And..." Artie trailed off, looking away from Quinn. She could tell this was breaking his heart and she was still confused as to why. "It's just I thought Tina and I shared the fact that we had a disability, and that was a huge part of what I liked about her. Not her disability, but... how she didn't let it define her. But now that it was all a lie... I feel so betrayed. I don't even know if I still like her anymore," he explained.

"Aw, Artie..." Quinn said. "Come on, Tina's still the same person." Quinn honestly believed that, although she found the whole faking a stutter thing very odd.

"She lied to everyone! Even me! She kissed me before telling me the truth. What kind of a person lies like that to all the people that care about them? Who can kiss someone while hiding such a huge secret that really affects the person they're kissing?"

Artie was exasperatedly asking rhetorical questions and was obviously very hurt by Tina. Quinn didn't know what to say. She felt like Artie was justified in his feelings, but she also unfortunately knew the answer to those questions – Quinn was that kind of a person, she'd been lying to Finn just like Tina lied to Artie. Just like it but only her lie was way worse, Quinn painfully realized.

"So you want to sing a ballad about how... betrayed you feel?" Quinn asked, trying to sympathize with Artie and forget how instead she empathized with Tina.

"Yeah, I guess," Artie answered. "I just couldn't think of anything quite right for how I feel." He looked up at Quinn, hoping Quinn would be able to help.

"Hmm," she said, pulling out her iPod and putting it on shuffle, then skipping songs quickly because she was just looking for one that might fit Artie's situation, not listening to them. "Well, this one might be pretty good," she said, handing her iPod and earbuds to Artie.

He listened to "False Pretense" by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus and the first lyrics jumped out at him as pretty darn perfect.

The world's got a funny way of turning 'round on you
When a friend tries to stab you right in the face
Losing faith in everything I thought I hoped I knew
Don't sweat it, it was set on false pretense

"Thanks," he said. "I think that'll be great. I won't sing it as..." He struggled to find the right word.

"Intense?" Quinn suggested.

"Yeah mine will be more simple and raw, less crazy intense. But I'll sing the same words. I really like the lyrics for expressing myself," he said.

"Perfect," Quinn replied. "And I thought of a song that is pretty good for what I was looking for too." She took her iPod back from him and scrolled through the menus until she found it, then handed it back to Artie.

"'Stand by Me' by Ben E. King?" he asked, surprised. He looked up at her. "You're really going old school I guess," he commented, amused.

"I know it's such an old song, but it's totally a classic," she justified. Getting more serious, she added, "And it fits how I feel about Finn so perfectly." She felt a bit nervous being so honest to someone she didn't know so well, but she shouldn't have. Artie was very understanding. Quinn continued, "I especially love the lyrics about how the singer won't be afraid... nor cry. Because he has his 'darling' to stand by him. And Finn is that rock for me to stand up against too. I..." she looked at Artie, debating whether should she tell him. "I haven't told anyone this, not even Finn, but... I think my mom knows I'm pregnant. And I'm so scared," she breathed.

Artie rolled himself a bit closer to Quinn, then reached out his hand and placed it comfortingly on her leg. He was being too nice and she was still hormonal... and so she couldn't stop a single tear from falling down her face.

"I don't think I've ever heard a female cover version of it done before, but I think yours will be hauntingly beautiful," he kindly told her. She smiled and wiped her eye.

"Okay," she said, regaining her composure. "So do you want to meet again tomorrow after school to actually try singing these things?"

"Yeah," Artie replied. "I need some time to listen to the song and get ready, since I've never heard it before."

"I figured." She nodded and stood up, heading toward his bedroom door. She looked back at him one last time before leaving though, and quietly said, "Thank you." He just smiled and blinked hard, accepting her gratitude.