A/N After this there is just an epilogue, with my dissertation due in five weeks I really need to concentrate on that rather than a multi-chapter sorry! Plus I don't want to drag this on unnecessarily.
But hey I updated quicker! And I will more than likely write a few one shots if I get some good prompts :D
Nate 12
Breaking up the meeting after the Puckerman's offer the newlyweds returned to their eastside apartment while Finn took his mother back to his own across the river into New Jersey where he coached high school football.
"We need to talk about this Finn" Carole worried as Finn opened the door to his two bed single story house in Jersey City.
"Yes mom" Finn drawled again as he shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it over the back of his sofa, sighing as his mom automatically picked it up and hung it up on the cloak stand she had brought on one of her trips to see his son. "Hey Burt" he greeted his stepfather who grunted at him from the armchair and concentrated on the game on the big screen TV, accepting a kiss from his wife the male Hummel studiously ignored the conversation going on behind him wondering if it was too late to return to Lima and back to the safety of his garage.
"Finn, this is important!" Carole protested as Finn pulled a couple beers out of his fridge and handed one to Burt before twisting off the cap and taking a deep pull as he loosened the tie his mom had insisted he wear.
"Mom! I know it is ok?" Finn growled as he flopped down on the coach "and I'm thinking so could you maybe stop trying to force your own opinion on me and let me make my own mind up about my own son?"
"We only have a week to get a proper defence there is no need to think about anything"
"Yeah Mom, there is, there is thinking about their offer"
"You are actually thinking about it?" Carole asked in surprise "why?"
"Because it might be the best thing for Nate" Finn said slowly, slightly smarter than he had been in high school he realised that what his mom wanted might not be in the best interest of the son he abandoned.
Yes he would admit that he had a blind spot when it came to Rachel and when he had come back he had wanted her back as well, it was a mind state he hadn't been able to get rid of despite being out of high school for five almost six years now. It was had broken up him and Quinn more times than he could count in the last five years, Rachel hadn't had to be around for the blonde to feel threatened that he would run away to find her.
Falling into coaching after being harshly told that he would never get to the pros while at Boise he had accepted a job after his graduation that meant, at least in theory, that he was ten hours away from his mother, this of course had been shot to hell after the helpful telling of his mom about Nate and her subsequent desire to be in contact with him. Because other than some momentary pangs of regret over what he had done he had given little thought to the child he had left behind when he went off to college, because as douchy as it had been to do it, it would have been worse to leave the kid behind or make it feel unwanted as it grew up.
"How would it be best for him not to have his father?"
"What offer?" Burt suddenly interrupted muting the television
"Rachel and Puck have said that they are going to give Nate the choice to know me when he is older" Finn told his stepfather who had been very quiet about this whole situation for the last eight months, even with his wife travelling to New York a few times a month.
"So you leave them alone for the next ten years or so?" Burt checked as his wife huffed and sat down herself.
"Yeah, cos even before Puck adopted Nate he was his dad" Finn shrugged "course I'm surprised they even made that offer after we pissed them off with mom's request for full custody"
"Excuse me? Carole you wanted full custody?"
"Uh..." Carole avoided answering
"That is something we should have discussed first" Burt growled angrily
"We were never going to get it anyway" Finn admitted "and to be honest I wouldn't have wanted it"
"But Finn!"
"No mom, this is my decision not yours. I was not ready five years ago and as a 23 year old I'm not much readier. Not to mention Nate is not particularly ready to have me in his life either if you remember him kicking me in the ankle at the wedding"
"So you are just going to take them up on their offer and walk away after all this effort?"
"It was your effort mom, you wanted your grandson. But really he was never yours, just like he was never my son"
"WE could fight them, take them to court gain visitation rights"
"Drop it mom. We aren't winning this fight"
Gleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
"So I come with good news" Sam grinned as he joined them all late the Friday of the same week
"Well it's good news you finally turned up" Mike joked his arm around a blonde, Sarah, that he had met at work "now we can eat" he joked not seeing Tina watching him carefully as she stood on the opposite side of the room in Rachel and Puck's living room.
"Haha" Sam laughed sarcastically rolling his eyes "no I come bearing the news that...drum roll please" he ordered Artie and Mike doing as he ordered on the coffee table everyone looking at Sam in anticipation. "Finn Hudson is officially out of your life unless Nate wants to know him in ten years"
Grinning as Rachel threw herself at him in thanks Sam listened to others starts to talk excitedly, happy that their family was safe now.
"Thank you so much!" Rachel cried as she hugged him tight, before letting go so that Puck could shake hands with him.
"I didn't really do anything" Sam laughed "just knew a good lawyer"
"Still nice to know Nate has an uncle that will go to bat for him" Puck grinned
"Always" Sam shrugged dismissing the thanks, he would do anything for that little boy and he always would.
"Which actually leads us on to another announcement" Puck continued to the room at large snagging his wife around the waist and yanking her back to him "as my wife so publically told all of you, and ninety other guests, at the wedding, we are expecting another little one" he told them all with a proud smile as his hands came to rest on the still flat stomach of his wife "we have actually sneakily gone for our first ultrasound this week..."
Rachel still in his arms laughed at the murmurings and protestations of everyone that they hadn't been able to be there or knew about it.
"You better have a good reason for that!" Santana said with narrowed eyes at her best friend as she sat on Artie's lap "I said that I wanted to be there for that stuff with her second pregnancy"
"I'm sorry Satan, I thought just once me and Rachel could do a wife and husband thing with your permission" Puck laughed at the indignant Latina who had the grace to blush "anyway back to my story, we went for our first ultrasound and we would like to tell you all that you are going to have a little girl to spoil in about seven months"
"Oh my god!" squealed Mercedes and Brit rushing to hug them both as everyone crowded around to do the same even Sarah who Rachel and Puck had only met a few times doing the same as she offered her congratulations'.
"Mike can I have a word?" Puck asked nodding towards the kitchen as everything died down a bit around them.
"Rachel?" asked Tina at the same time her friend leading her into the bedroom to talk
"What's up?" Rachel asked as they perched on the bed "I'm assuming this has something to do with Sarah?"
"I lost him haven't I?" Tina asked sadly "he watches her like he used to watch me"
"I'm sorry Tina, but yes you have" Rachel said quietly "I didn't tell you about Sarah that last night before my wedding because I don't think you were ready to face it. When you said no to him you really broke him and Sarah makes him happy now"
"Oh" Tina said sadly
"I did want to ask you something though, but if it makes you uncomfortable with Mike I want you to think nothing of it"
"Ok?"
"Will you be this little one's godmother?" she asked pressing a hand to her stomach "Mike is being asked to be godfather though so if..."
"No! No I want to do it" Tina promised tears in her eyes at the honour of being asked "I would love to be her godmother"
"Dude are you serious?" Mike asked in the kitchen "of course I do! Even with Tina I want to be her godfather of course I do!"
"Awesome" Puck grinned knocking his beer against Mike's in agreement before they rejoined everyone.
"So no more Finn really?" Mike asked as they joined the other boys.
"No more Finn" Puck said with a grin and a sigh of relief "you know when he walked away all those years ago and I picked up the pieces I worried about what would happen when or if he came back. Out of all the outcomes I imagined, this is the best way it could have worked out"
