Disclaimer: No recognisable Glee qualities except for the character names. I have no ownership of those, just the weird and wonderful things that happen to them within the confines of my imagination.
A/N: I must remember to tell you that I have a fascination with tattoos, especially angels - I have a fair few of them myself and piercings, there may be more of those to come. Every time I've seen an episode featuring the gawjus Mr Salling shirtless, or a picture, I admit the first thought in my head is "what an amazing canvas to display some art that would be" *sigh*
The first of the stories given to Jacob Ben Israel during the first week back at school was making the rounds of the halls. People actually believed that Mike Chang had been arrested for dancing at the top of the Empire State Building while New Directions were in New York. Slowly over the next couple of weeks more and more ridiculous tales seeped out. Brittany had been 'abducted by aliens' during her summer holidays. Finn and Rachel had 'got married' during the summer. Sam had become an 'exotic dancer'. When asked to confirm or deny any of these stories they all vehemently denied them, stating that Jacob must be getting desperate to make up so many lies.
Puck was walking down the hall with Finn and Mike when a microphone and camera were thrust in his face. "Confirm or deny the rumour that you and a certain ex-cheerleader are expecting your second child." Jacob asked his voice excited.
"Wait, what?" Puck said, looking sideways at Finn and Mike. He couldn't remember that being one of the stories they'd come up with.
"Sources tell me that one Miss Fabray is in the girls bathroom as we speak, staring at a wand and crying." smirked Jacob. "Will you be giving this one away too?"
"Outta my way Jewfro" Puck ground out, pushing past Jacob and heading towards the bathroom that Quinn generally frequented. He walked straight in, not bothering to find out if there was anyone else in there. Quinn was stood by the sinks, her head down and her shoulders shaking. On the counter was an open box. Puck picked it up, it was definitely a home pregnancy testing kit. He nodded to himself, processing the information. He caught Quinn's eye in the mirror. She was biting her lip and crying but for some reason she didn't look unhappy. In her hand was the testing wand. She kept glancing down at it, bringing further floods of tears.
"Hey, you ok?" he asked softly, taking her in his arms. He wasn't sure exactly what he was asking but he could see that whatever the answer on the stick was, she wasn't devastated.
"Noah…" her voice broke, she started crying again, her arms round his neck, the wand held away from him. She brought it back to the front of her, holding it for him to see.
"Quinn, you need to translate this for me 'cos all I can see is two lines, I've no idea what that means." He picked up the box again and looked at the diagram on the side. He read out loud "One line - negative, two lines - positive?" his eyes moved slowly from the box back to her face, she still had tears rolling down her cheeks but she was smiling, really smiling. "Well," whooo, he blew out a breath, no idea what to say right at that very moment. "Well" he tried again.
"Noah, we're going to have another baby." Quinn smiled at him. She reached up and kissed him, then hugged him, "I'm so happy." she breathed.
Puck hugged her back, he closed his eyes tightly and felt his world crumbling away.
They were sat in his truck, both of them having missed some of their lessons. They needed to talk. "What?" he shouted, "you did what? Without even discussing it with me? Where do my feelings come in to this? This is my life too Quinn, not just yours. I thought we were a team Quinn. I'm going to football practice, I can't talk about this right now." and he jumped out of the truck, slamming the door behind him. He jogged through the lines of cars to get to the locker room. Finn was waiting for him. He could see that something was most definitely wrong with Noah Puckerman.
"S'up?" Finn asked, guy speak for 'I can see you're dealing with a huge problem right now, speak to me, I'm your friend'.
"God, this is déjà vu," Puck shook his head and let out a snort of what could have been a laugh but didn't sound a happy one, he closed his eyes and sighed, "Quinn's pregnant, she's keeping the baby." He walked off leaving Finn stood, gaping, trying to process what he'd heard.
Throughout practice Puck couldn't concentrate. He couldn't believe that Quinn had done this behind his back. Deliberately. 'No fucking wonder she bought all that underwear then, makes total sense now' he mocked himself inside his head. 'One look at that body dressed like that and you had no fucking chance, you fucked up again Puckerman. When are you going to fucking learn'. "Urrghh" he grunted loudly, he was laid on the grass after a particularly strenuous set of conditioning runs and exercises that Coach Beiste had them do. He was breathing heavy, not actually listening to Coach's instructions, just following the usual routine.
"PUCKERMAN" Coach Beiste shouted, "We keeping you from something important?" Puck opened his eyes to see everyone else on their feet and ready to practice throws and catches.
"Errm, Coach?" Finn said quietly, approaching her to talk to her, trying to smooth the way for his friend, knowing exactly how lost and frustrated Puck was feeling at this very moment. He knew, he'd been there. "Puck's just heard some major news, I think he might still be processing it."
"Is everything ok?" she asked Finn just as quietly. Shannon Beiste liked to look after all of her boys. Their welfare meant a lot to her.
"It's personal, it's not my place to talk about it. I'm sure he'll be fine tomorrow" Finn tried to shrug off the importance of Puck's revelation. He too had felt the sinking feeling of déjà vu, Puck using the exact words that Finn had used nearly two years ago.
All the way home Puck couldn't speak to Quinn. "Say something, anything" she begged, tearfully.
"Quinn, I honestly can't right now. I need to think about this. I still can't believe you would stop taking your pill to deliberately get pregnant. We're still in high school Quinn. Does the future mean nothing to you? I don't want to just get by, I want my kids to have everything. There's no way that can happen if I have to drop out of school to support you and a baby. I need to go to college, you need to go to college. We've talked about this before, after college, when we're married, kids straight away. That's what we decided." his voice was harsh.
"Well, for not being able to talk about it you sure managed a lot of words." Quinn replied, her tone waspish.
As soon as they arrived home Puck slammed up to their room, got changed then ran back downstairs. "I'm going out, I'll be back when I feel like it. There, that's me making a decision without asking your opinion." he said, then left, slamming the door behind him, his truck squealed off the drive and raced away down the street.
"What was that all about?" asked Esther, coming through from the kitchen. Quinn was still stood near the door, she hadn't moved from them actually arriving home. It had taken Noah all of seven minutes to get in, changed and get out again. Quinn's face crumpled, tears falling again. Esther took Quinn in her arms. "Aww, honey, it'll be fine. Everyone has arguments sometimes." she soothed, rubbing Quinn's back.
"Not about this though. He's really, really mad at me. I don't think he'll be able to forgive me." she whimpered.
"What's happened? Maybe it's not as bad as you think." Esther encouraged, leading Quinn to sit on the sofa. "Right, talk to me, tell me the problem, let's see if I can help."
"You're going to be mad at me too." Quinn said quietly, her fingers tangling with a loose thread on her skirt. She took a deep breath and blurted out, "I stopped taking my pill so that I could get pregnant. It worked."
"Errm, say that again….no, don't, I heard it. You're pregnant again?" Esther looked at Quinn, she nodded. "And you stopped your birth control because you wanted to get pregnant?" again Quinn nodded. "Should I take it from Noah's reaction he didn't know about this?" Quinn closed her eyes and bit her lip, she nodded again. "And he isn't very happy about it?" Quinn shook her head. Noah's mother was right on the money. Noah was not happy. At all. "Well, we'll just have to deal with this one day at a time. Nana Esther, hmmm" she mused with a wry smile, "a bit younger than I'd liked to have been but hey, you can't always get what you want."
Quinn, Esther and Sarah had dinner together. Sarah knew something was up but as usual no one was letting her in on the secret. Noah did not come home for dinner. By midnight he still hadn't come home. Quinn was beside herself with worry. Finally at 12.30 Finn rang her. "Hey, Puck's here. He's just fallen asleep. He's drunk. It's probably best if he stays here tonight, I just wanted to let you know he's fine. Upset but fine. Are you ok?" he asked.
Quinn let out a half laugh, "well, you know, upset but fine. I take it he's told you. Everything." she hardly dared ask. She didn't really want to know the answer.
"Yeah, yeah he has. I'm not going to ask what you were thinking, Quinn, it's not my business. He loves you, you know, he's just hurt at the moment." Finn told her quietly.
"I love him too." Quinn whispered. "Tell him I'll see him tomorrow."
Will they manage to overcome this?