A/N: So Rachel needed a baby shower but I freakin' HATE baby showers. I go to them out of respect but if I ever actually do get pregnant, I'm going to try to find a way around one while still managing to get all the loot!
A few weeks after the surprise, partially-Puckerman-induced engagement of Finn and Quinn, Rachel was relaxing in front of the television on a Saturday morning. At 33 weeks pregnant, her belly was expanding fast and she found the idea of going out less and less appealing. Flipping through the channels, she rolled her eyes at Paula Dean as she flipped past The Food Network and came to a stop on TCM. Discovering that Meet Me in St. Louis was on, she soon found herself enthralled, despite the fact that she had seen the movie dozens of times. Puck had come downstairs and attempted to grab the remote, only to be shot a withering look that forced him outside to find other avenues of entertainment. Glaring at Rachel as he pushed himself up from the couch and padded to the door, he decided that they needed a second television so he wouldn't have to share with his moody wife.
Standing on his front lawn, Puck heard a few car doors slam and glanced toward his mother's house only to see Quinn ducking inside carrying about two dozen shiny blue balloons. What the hell? Next, Miriam ran outside and pulled a huge bakery box from Quinn's trunk. Seriously, what's going on? Miriam waved at Puck and motioned for him to come over.
Jogging over to her, he stared curiously into Quinn's car, which was packed with presents, decorations, and other blue-colored items.
"What's up?" Puck asked, propping himself against Quinn's car.
"We're having a surprise baby shower for Rachel in two hours so you have to keep her at home," Miriam confided breathlessly, her eyes darting into Quinn's car.
Puck snorted. "That won't be a problem. She's in there watching some stupid Judy Garland movie that makes me want to light myself on fire. She's not going anywhere!"
Miriam looked relieved. "Well, Beth is going to come get her in a little while so if she tries to leave, distract her and keep her entertained."
Puck's lips curled into a leering grin. "Oh, don't worry, Mom. I can keep her entertained. And I definitely know how to distract her, I promise."
Miriam, obviously catching on to her son's perversion, smacked Puck in the arm with an accompanying hateful glare. "She is a pregnant woman and you are a dirty, dirty man."
Puck shrugged, knowing it would be pointless to defend himself. "S'ok. Rachel likes me dirty….Bye, Mom!"
"Don't you tell her anything, Noah!" She called to his back.
He flipped his hand up in response, heading back the way he came.
Back inside, he flopped down on the couch and dropped his arm across Rachel's shoulders. Glancing at the TV, he rolled his eyes. Judy and her goofy-ass looking friends were singing on a trolley. He watched for a few minutes, his eyes wide at the sheer stupidity of the scene before him.
"Babe, I know you love this, but this shit is terrible," he said, a little louder than she liked because she shushed him, never looking away from the screen.
"Seriously, Rach, what is it with chicks and musicals?"
"Shhhhhhh…" Rachel said.
Puck rolled his eyes, kicked his shoes off so he could prop his feet up on the coffee table and leaned his head back. If she was that enthralled in Judy and her stupid hairdo, he was going to take a damn nap.
A little while later, there was a quick knock on the door before it opened and Beth let herself in. Rachel looked up from the TV and over at Beth. 'Hey, there," Beth said in a loud whisper, trying to keep her voice down because she could hear her brother snoring on the other side of Rachel.
"Hi, Beth. How are you?"
"I'm great....Uhh...Mom sent me down and wanted to know if you could come see her right away. She has something she would like to show you."
Rachel glanced over at Puck, whose snores were getting louder by the minute. Leaning towards his ear, she whispered, "Baby, I'm going to your mom's house for a while."
Puck grunted, "okay have fun," before emitting another loud snore. Gently lifting his arm from her shoulders, she kissed him on the forehead, slipped on her shoes, and followed Beth out the door and down the street.
As they got closer to Miriam's house, Rachel cocked her head curiously. She recognized both Quinn and Mercedes' cars parked on the street near the house. What is going on?
Beth rapped on the door and then pushed it open. There was a chorus of "shhhhs" as Rachel stepped inside and then a room full of women yelled, "Surprise!"
Looking around Miriam's living room, Rachel felt the burning in her eyes of her nearly ever-present tears. A huge banner reading, "It's a boy!" hung above the dining room door and she could see that the table was holding a large cake. Presents were stacked on a smaller table in one corner of the living room, blue balloons were everywhere, and many faces, the majority of which Rachel had never before seen, were staring at her from their various vantage points in the room.
Miriam stepped up to Rachel, taking her hand and placing an arm around her back, pulling her closer.
Speaking to the room, she said, "For those of you in our family that haven't met her yet, this is Noah's wife, Rachel."
Nearly a dozen women stood up and made their way towards Rachel. One by one, they introduced themselves and when they were through, Rachel was trying to remember the names of four of Miriam's sisters and seven of her nieces. Rachel felt a bit overwhelmed at the number of Noah's family now staring at her.
With a quick hug to Mercedes and Quinn, Rachel walked over to where Beth was standing and said, "You're going to have to help me remember all of your aunts' names."
Beth gave a very Puck-like snort and said, "That shouldn't be that hard. The aunt with the reddish, turnip-looking hair? That's Aunt Debbie. Her daughters are the three standing over by the table..." Rachel glanced that way but before she could really register which ones they were, Beth continued, "Yes, the three ladies with the massively huge noses. Those are Debbie's daughters. The two ugliest are twins – Deena and Dina. Their sister, the one with a slightly smaller nose? That's Darra."
Rachel giggled quietly at her young sister-in-law's assessment of her family. Turning her head toward Miriam, Beth elbowed Rachel and continued. "The lady talking to my mom right now? That's Aunt Nora. She doesn't have any kids....Well, she has 14 cats that she calls her kids but no human kids. She lives in Cleveland and needs to stay there as far as I'm concerned."
Rachel snickered.
"The one with the big butt in the leopard-print skirt? That's Aunt Tammy. Her two daughters, Becca and Mary Ann, are over on the loveseat."
Rachel glanced their way, noticing how much they looked like their mother.
"And finally we have Aunt Iris, who is in the middle of boring Quinn to tears. Her two daughters, Leah and Alissa, are probably hovering over the food table because they're pigs."
Rachel dissolved into laughter. "So, how do you really feel about these people, Beth?"
Beth rolled her eyes. "You gotta love your family, right? My mom's family just all happens to be a bunch of freaky freaks. Mom is the most normal one of them all, God help us."
Just then, Quinn called everyone's attention toward her and stood up.
"Rachel, I know that you and I are recent friends but I really wanted to make sure you had a baby shower. So I spoke to Miriam and we planned this. After all, it was your difficult husband that helped push Finn into proposing and I wanted to return the favor! Anyway," Quinn looked around at the room, "let's start the stupid games!"
For the next 45 minutes, Rachel was forced to play a multitude of baby shower games. Had it not been her own baby shower, she would have excused herself and hid in the bathroom. But watching Puck's family do pretty much anything turned out to be extremely entertaining and made even the most moronic baby shower game worth it.
During "Baby Bingo," Debbie and Nora got into a screaming match over who had called "Bingo" first. After Debbie called Nora a "psycho spinster" and Nora told Debbie that her hair looked like Barney the dinosaur's pubic hair, Miriam jumped in to break it up. Tammy, in all her animal-printed glory, then told her baby sister Miriam to mind her own business because Nora was clearly wrong. Iris, who was the oldest and usually tried to maintain order, told Tammy to shut her pie hole and respect her baby sister since they were all guests in her house. Before long, all five sisters were standing nose-to-nose, screaming and shaking their fingers in each other's faces. Rachel, Beth, Mercedes, and Quinn all sat on the couch, tears streaming down their faces from laughter. Puck's poor cousins looked horrified at the behavior before them (except for Leah and Alissa because true to Beth's word, they were stuffing their faces with Cheetos and didn't seem to notice the fracas unfolding in front of them.)
"Why do I feel like we're being Punk'd?" Mercedes whispered at Rachel, who was wiping tears from her eyes after listening to Miriam tell Tammy that her breath smelled like that of a decaying cat.
Beth, holding her stomach because it hurt from laughing, grunted out, "I feel like I'm watching The Jerry Springer Show!"
Puck's cousin Dina (or maybe it was Deena, Rachel couldn't tell), stood up and made her way over to Rachel at the couch. With a horrified look on her face, she said, "I knew it was a mistake to get them all together. This is why we haven't had a family gathering in years."
"Really, it's okay," Rachel said, wiping tears away again.
"No it's not," looking at Quinn, she said, "How 'bout we go in the other room and let Rachel open presents? When the five yentas over there finally stop fighting, they can join us."
Quietly, the younger group of women excused themselves, leaving the older women to argue until they either ran out of breath or one of them died.
By the time the five sisters finally worked it out that Nora had actually called "Bingo" first, Rachel had opened nearly all the presents in the next room.
Miriam walked in, looked at the wrapping paper and said, "Damn, why didn't we know you were opening presents?"
Beth rolled her eyes at her mother and turned back towards Rachel. Grabbing the small bag by her side, she shyly handed it to her. "Here, this is from me. It's not much…."
Rachel removed the tissue paper and pulled out a tiny, bright orange t-shirt that said, "Baby Puck" on the front of it.
"This is so cute!" Rachel exclaimed.
"Read the other side," Beth said with a smile.
Rachel flipped it over and her mouth dropped open. The back of the t-shirt said, "Badass in Training."
Sputtering, Rachel looked from the shirt to Beth and then back to the shirt. With a huge grin, she said, "Noah is going to love this!" Beth relaxed, basking in Rachel's compliment.
Finally, blessedly, Puck's family began leaving. As much as Rachel enjoyed meeting them, she was afraid their loud, grating voices and incessant swearing (and she though Noah was bad!) were going to permanently damage the baby. Plus she was pretty sure she was deaf in one ear after Nora, who apparently had an undiagnosed hearing problem that she compensated by yelling every word that came out of her mouth, gave Rachel a picture tour of the "14 babies" that were waiting for her back in Cleveland.
"Quinn, Miriam, thank you so much," Rachel gushed, looking at the massive pile of presents waiting to be taken back home as the rest of the girls all worked to clean up the house. There was very little food left (thanks to Puck's human-vacuum cousins) but trash littered Miriam's small home.
Miriam grabbed Rachel in a hug and then kissed her on the cheek. "Anything for my daughter and grandson!"
Rachel blinked back tears. Miriam was always calling her "daughter" now and it never ceased to make Rachel emotional. Having a mother after all these years was an overpowering feeling. Miriam may have driven Puck crazy with every word she spoke but Rachel adored her. She was how a parent was supposed to be: caring, accepting, loving, and concerned. If only her father would take lessons….
A few hours after she had left, Rachel walked back into the house she shared with Puck feeling happy and overwhelmed at her afternoon. "Noah," she called. "We need to drive the car down to your mom's to load up all of our shower gifts. You won't believe all the things we got. And after meeting your aunts and cousins, I think our child will need a full mental evaluation as soon as he's old enou…." Her voice trailed off as she stepped into the living room. Puck was sitting on the couch, bent at the waist, his head held in his hands. He was slowly rubbing his face back and forth.
Walking toward him, Rachel said softly, "Noah? Is everything okay?"
Puck said nothing. Rachel approached the back of the couch and saw an envelope and an unfolded piece of paper sitting on the cushion next to him.
"Noah," her voice was urgent. "What's wrong?"
Wordlessly, he grabbed the two pieces of paper and handed them to her. She turned the envelope over and looked at the front. "Mr. Noah Puckerman" was scrawled in small, scratchy handwriting that slanted downward across the white paper. Looking up to the return address section, Rachel's hand went to her mouth as she read:
"Ronald Puckerman
Kansas State Penitentiary"
Ronald Puckerman. Horrified, Rachel sucked in a breath. She heard Puck mutter "fuck" under his breath and her eyes immediately dropped to the back of her troubled husband's head.
"Oh Noah…your father…."