Quinn sat facing the back of the choir room changing Lily's diaper using Finn's legs as a changing table. Vaguely she heard Sam, Puck, Artie, and Mike complaining to Mr. Schu that they wouldn't be able to play in the football game and how Brittany and Santana weren't rebelling enough against Sue about something and a bunch of other random crap while meanwhile Quinn was stressing about finding a permanent babysitter for Lily. Carole watched her during the day on Thursdays now and worked on Saturdays, but the rest of the week had to be played by ear. Burt would take her into the auto shop with him if it was a slow day, Quinn hated imposing that on him but for some reason he loved it. Mercedes's mom was willing to babysit at least once a week, too. So were Rachel's dads and Sunshine's mom, even though neither Rachel or Sunshine had ever gotten along with Quinn particularly well. The fact was, Lily was impossible not to love. For most people, anyway. The only person who refused to acknowledge that she even existed was her own Grandpa Fabray. Quinn's mom could only babysit if she could do it without him finding out, a fact that alone made Quinn want to avoid ever having Lily around her mother. What kind of a grandma was too cowardly to admit to her husband that she was spending time with their own grandchild?
"I know what to do," said Lauren suddenly standing up. "You still have four guys on the football team, right?"
"Yeah," said Puck.
"Now you have five," said Lauren. "I'm joining."
Puck's eyes practically lit up. "All right!"
Mercedes and Tina looked at each other. "What if we go out on the field too, but we don't do anything?" said Tina.
"We could try," said Mercedes.
"Oh, that sounds dangerous! Are you sure?" said Sunshine.
"We'll just be laying down," said Mercedes. "What do you say, boys?"
"I'm game," said Sam.
"Well, if we're just laying down, I guess I could, too," said Sunshine.
"Awesome," said Artie. "That makes one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight." His phone buzzed, and he read the text he'd just gotten. "Nine. That reporter dweeb will do it if he thinks he has a shot of getting into Sunshine's pants."
"He wants to steal my pants?" asked Sunshine with genuine innocence.
"Yeah, something like that," said Mercedes. "I think he must have a thing for short girls."
"One more of the guys just agreed to join," said Sam after checking his own phone. "That makes ten."
And suddenly, all eyes were on Finn. Quinn looked up. She could tell from the look on his face that even though she and Lily were his priority, he would die to have just one more chance out on the field. She understood. She secretly wished she could be on the cheerios again for just one more day. But that was impossible. Her body still hadn't bounced back from being pregnant, for one.
"Go for it," whispered Quinn as she picked up Lily and held her close.
Finn's face lit up. "I'm in, guys!"
Everyone cheered. "Are you sure?" asked Mercedes.
"He is," said Quinn, patting his chest. "You guys should go tell the Bieste what you're planning on doing."
"I'm still the quarterback, right?" said Sam.
"Of course," said Finn. He didn't need to be the quarterback. Just playing one more time was enough.
"Rachel, I'm wondering," said Blaine. "Did you really come along to hang out with us, or to look at random hot guys with big muscles?"
"Haha," said Kurt. "She has a boyfriend, you know that."
"Yes I do," said Rachel, flashing Kurt a grateful smile for apparently not having disclosed her feelings for Finn. "I love hanging out with you guys. It's so nice being around people who aren't obsessed with winning for once."
"Oh my gosh, Ms. Vocal Adrenaline diva," said Blaine, pretending to be horrified. "Are you implying that we don't take ourselves seriously enough for you?"
Rachel starred for a moment to make sure that he wasn't being serious. Then all three of them burst out laughing.
Rachel felt just a little homesick as she starred at the Glee girls right there with the guys getting ready to play the game of their lives. As sweet and energetic as the Warblers were, their team spirit was nothing compared to New Directions. Kurt knew that as well. He and Rachel glanced at each other and smiled sadly, both missing the same thing. Then he suddenly realized that Blaine had insisted on sitting at the end of the bleachers, leaving Rachel between himself and Kurt. Rachel looked at him as if to say "Want me to move over?" but Kurt shook his head. He and Blaine would get together soon enough if they were meant to be. He'd learned the hard way that there was no point in trying to force it.
"Hey, Kurt!" called Quinn. Everyone looked at her. She was looking exceptionally gorgeous with a purple winter jacket and a purple beret and with every blonde curl somehow tucked into place. She also held Lily in her carrier. Then she suddenly froze when she realized that Rachel was there, too. Rachel looked away. Quinn sat down quietly next to Kurt, placing the baby carrier between them to distance herself from the girl she was still surprised hadn't ruined her life by now.
The first half of the game went by in a big blur. Kurt tried to explain to Rachel what was going on, but all she could manage to understand was that somebody stood there belting out a bunch of numbers and eventually the ball got thrown and everyone would beat each other up trying to get it, what kind of a pathetic game was this, anyway?
"Are we the home team or the away team?" asked Rachel at halftime when it occurred to her to look at the scoreboard.
"We're the one getting clobbered," Kurt answered.
"I'd better go make sure Finn's alright," said Quinn. "Keep an eye on Lily, will you Kurt?"
"Sure," he said. Then he smiled at Rachel. "I'm the one who picks out her clothes. Can you tell?"
Rachel looked at the eight-month-old in her red velvet dress and maryjanes and had to smile. "Yeah." For the first time ever, she took a good look at the baby. "She looks exactly like Quinn," Rachel marveled. "Only with her daddy's hair."
"Isn't Finn's hair longer than that?" asked Blaine.
Kurt and Rachel both turned and gave him the look. "She's a baby!"
"I know!" said Blaine.
Suddenly Rachel realize that Blaine had just effectively referred to Finn as Lily's dad. She turned and shot Kurt a surprised look. "He doesn't know?" she mouthed. Kurt shook his head. Wow, thought Rachel. When he said that we wouldn't ever say one word about the truth, he wasn't kidding!Fortunately, she hadn't told anyone. Not even Jesse. But that was mostly because she didn't want him to start getting worried that something would ever happen between her and Finn.
Meanwhile, Quinn dashed back in the direction of the locker room and screamed when a blonde zombie stepped out and hissed at her. "Easy, Q, it's just me," said Sam with a chuckle.
"Not funny," said Quinn. "I'm looking for Finn."
"He went to go rescue Santana and Brittany from that cannon," said Sam.
"What?" said Quinn, getting more confused by the second.
"Sue's idea, of course," said Sam. "Finn's amazing. He's making me feel like a lame quarterback."
Quinn smiled. "Well, you did score the first point today."
"But you should've seen him in that locker room rallying all those other football players," Sam insisted. "He was like another coach or something. He actually managed to get everyone but Karofsky back on the team and willing to do the halftime show."
"Really?" said Quinn. "Are you serious? And here I came over to make sure that he was alright after the way you guys got clobbered."
"Well like I said, he's not here right now, but he's definitely more than okay," said Sam. "He's a lucky guy though." Quinn smiled. "My girlfriend isn't even here."
"She is now!" said Santana, marching in followed by Brittany and Finn, who's face was green.
"You ready yet?" asked one of the other players as he leapt out of the locker room and hissed at Brittany and Santana, causing them to jump.
"Would somebody mind explaining to me why you're all suddenly zombi-fied?" asked Quinn.
"You'll see," said Finn with a frightening zombie smile. "Just go sit out there and watch. But if Lily's awake, you might need to cover her eyes."
Too afraid to ask what they were about to do, Quinn turned and went to go sit back out on the bleachers. When she got there she saw that Lily was awake and Kurt had gotten her out. Quinn sat down and discreetly got out a blanket to cover herself and started nursing Lily. Fortunately, that meant her head was covered when all the football players and Santana and Brittany came out and started singing their Thriller/Heads Will Roll mashup.
"Quinn, why are you laughing?" said Kurt. "This is amazing!"
"I'm not laughing at what they're doing, believe me!" said Quinn. She was actually laughing because she was so amazed that Finn had actually gotten the football team to do this show.
"They're actually going to play the game in their zombie makeup?" asked Blaine when the football players all came back out.
"That's insane," said Rachel.
"No, it's brilliant!" said Kurt. "Can you imagine how much it would throw you off your game if you were out there and the other guy came at you hissing like a zombie with that makeup on? It would be like if you got up on stage at Regionals and suddenly found out that the only songs you were allowed to sing were screamo."
"Eww, don't even say that!" said Rachel.
"Oh my god!" Quinn squealed.
"Woohoo!" said Kurt.
"What?" said Rachel.
"Finn just scored a touchdown," Kurt explained.
"What's that?" said Rachel.
"It's when they score a point," said Kurt. "Wow, you really don't know anything about this game."
"Look, Lily!" said Quinn, removing the blanket from her daughter's head and propping her up on her leg. "Look what your daddy just did!"
Rachel looked at them and bit her lip.
A few minutes later, something happened that caused everyone to start cheering again. "Yay! Your Daddy did it, Lillian!"
More cheering. "Yay! That's him, that's your daddy!"
"That's your daddy, Lily!"
"That's him! That's your Daddy!"
By the end of the game, Kurt had his hand on top of Rachel's trying to keep her calm. He could tell by the look in her eyes that she was ready to pounce. He tightened his grip when the other football players lifted Finn up on their shoulders and Quinn jumped up snuggling Lily and yelled, "THAT'S MY BABY'S DADDY!" And it wasn't lost on either Kurt on Rachel that right after she said that, Puck darted off the field.
Forgetting the baby carrier, Quinn ran down the steps of the bleachers with Lily in her arms and out onto the field. As soon as Finn saw them he pulled them both into his arms and gave Quinn a peck on the lips, getting a bit of his blood red lipstick on her mouth. Lily reached her little hands out to Finn, apparently not even caring that he looked like a zombie.
"Don't you think he needs to know?" whispered Rachel, still sitting on the bleachers with Kurt.
"I'm not sure," said Kurt. At this point, he was almost beginning to regret the fact that he'd kept the truth from Finn. For one thing, as his ex-crush he may have had no business telling him, but as his brother he really had no business not telling him. For another thing, with the entire Glee club, Quinn, and Puck himself knowing, Kurt had expected it to be a few weeks or at most months before Finn found out. Not long enough for the baby to actually be born and become his daughter in every non-biological way possible. "I don't think he'd even want to know."
"I'm wondering, Finn, do you know?" shouted Puck. "Do you know what she's doing? Do you know what YOU'VE TAKEN AWAY FROM ME?"
His voice echoed off of the walls of the empty locker room as his fist landed on the door of Finn's locker, leaving a small dent. Ow, that hurt. He marched into the closet and grabbed out an old brown punching bag that hadn't been used in so long that it was coated with dust. "Aaaaaaaargh!" screamed Puck and he threw the punching bag against one locker, then another, then another.
"Damn you, Quinn! Fuck you! Why did you think it was okay to take my baby away from me? Why? Why?" That's when the punching bag landed on the floor and Puck punched it as hard as he could, falling down on top of it in the process, coughing from the dust that exploded in his face.
"So not attractive."
Lauren's voice shook Puck enough for him to look up and then pick himself up off the floor. "You don't understand," he said. "That's my baby."
"I KNOW," Lauren shouted. "And Finn thinks he's hers and you feel free to whine about it nonstop while simultaneously don't absolutely nothing about it. And you don't feel like you can, but the fact is that you can't NOT because this is taking over your life and you're thinking about her all the time. We have had this conversation over a thousand times. It's getting old. It's getting boring."
She marched up closer to Puck, leaned in, and whispered, "And it's getting pathetic."
Puck just blinked as Lauren took a step back and planted her hands on her hips. "You have two choices: you can either man up and show Finn and Quinn who's boss, or we're through."