Disclaimer: Ownership is neither claimed nor implied.
A/N: Secrets revealed...
"I don't know, Robyn, it seems a little mean," Beth sighed, she immediately heaved another sigh and then yawned and turned the page. "Ms Puckerman doesn't deserve that," she added, she needed to be sure that Robyn wasn't actually going to copy all of her own mother's nasty, vitriolic words and put them up all over the school for other students to read.
"Why is it mean?" Robyn asked, mystified as to why Beth would want to protect the woman who had discarded her at birth. Sometimes Robyn wished that her mother had discarded her. Unfortunately for Robyn, Sue Sylvester had kept her daughter, and she changed the identity of her sperm donor quite regularly, so no one had ever actually figured it out. Sometimes Robyn wished the donor would figure it out for himself and come and rescue her. Sometimes Robyn wished for miracles.
Beth knew that she couldn't tell, she couldn't betray her birth mother's secret, not yet, it would be obvious soon enough, but for now, the baby was still a secret, but Beth didn't want to do anything to upset Quinn, not now that she was pregnant, it would be cruel. Beth sighed once again. "It just is, that's why," she insisted. It was one thing for Robyn to bring the journals for Beth to read, they held details about Quinn, Puck and Beth herself in them, but Robyn really shouldn't pass them around for anyone else to...Beth shot upright as though someone had struck her with a cattle prod. Her mom and Puck? Seriously? Oh. My. God. Eww. "Have you read this?" Beth demanded, she felt angry, she felt embarrassed, she felt uncomfortable. Did Quinn know? Was that why she and her mom had only lived in Lima for a few months when she was really small? Was that why they went back to New York? Did Quinn know? And if she didn't, should Beth tell her? Beth wished, just for a moment, that she'd never set eyes on Sue Sylvester's journals.
"Quinn?" Beth said quietly from the classroom doorway, she glanced behind her into the hallway, just to make sure that there wasn't any students around. "Quinn?" she said a little louder.
"Beth, hi, sorry honey, I was in a world of my own," Quinn replied when Beth's voice eventually penetrated her thoughts. "How can I help you today?" she asked and sat a little forward in her seat at her desk, forced herself to concentrate.
"I just...I ermm, I think I would like to go with you," Beth stuttered nervously, "you know, to your doctor appointment, you know, the ultrasound one, the one where you get the picture taken?" she added, she was sure she wanted to go to that one, to see the baby when it was still inside, maybe then she wouldn't feel so...usurped. Beth got that it was ridiculous, to feel usurped like that, she did, she got it, she understood. She had known, for one entire week, who her birth parents were and the fact that they were expecting a second child was freaking her out when really, it shouldn't, she should just be glad that she knew who they were and that they weren't complete assholes. Beth focused again on Quinn.
"Beth, that's great, Puck will be so pleased, I am too," Quinn assured the young girl, and she truly was. Quinn had been scared that the discovery of the pregnancy would scupper the fledgling relationship before it could take wings and fly. It would have killed Quinn if that had happened, she had waited twelve years to be able to speak to her precious little girl, although to be honest, she would have waited a thousand, but she was so pleased, that it appeared at least, that Beth seemed to be accepting the unexpected appearance of a sibling. Time would tell if that was still the case after the birth. Beth gave a hesitant smile, a little nod of her head and backed out of the classroom. Quinn sighed with happiness.
"Babe, that's awesome," Puck replied when Quinn called him at lunchtime.
"I know," Quinn sniffed, she couldn't stop the little sob that escaped. "Sorry, sorry," she muttered, and wiped her eyes, "I can't seem to keep my emotions under control," she grumbled of herself. And God help her when she got blindsided by a Hallmark commercial, tears was not the word, flood was more like it. Puck was considering making a move like his name sake, he'd seriously thought about building an ark.
"Did you arrange the ultrasound yet?" Puck asked, he hoped that he could distract her enough to stop her sniffing. "And my mom dropped by the recruiting office today, she brought some of her barbecue chicken for you, she said to have it with salad, she brought some of that french bread that you like too, so dinner is already fixed, I'll be by around four to pick you up, ok?"
"Mmmm," Quinn sighed, she had to swallow, she was quite literally salivating at the mere thought of the delicious chicken. "And yes, the ultrasound is on Friday, after school is out for the day," she finally answered his question.
"I told Quinn today that I would go to the doctor thing with her and Puck," Beth announced over dinner.
"Ok," Shelby replied, not really sure how to answer, what she was supposed to answer. She glanced over at her daughter, she looked like she had something else to say. Shelby waited. And waited.
Beth sighed and then spoke again, she had to know. "Did you really have an affair with Puck?" she asked, her words ran into each other, her eyes were closed, she didn't want to see her mom's face.
"Oh crap," Shelby whispered and swallowed hard. "Beth, sweetie," she started to say, tried to say, God she didn't know what to say.
Beth opened her eyes and looked at Shelby. "You did," she hissed, shocked to the core. "Does Quinn know? Were they together? Did he cheat on her with you?" she demanded without drawing breath between questions. Beth wasn't totally sure that she actually wanted to know the answers. How would she feel if Quinn didn't know, Beth was quite sure that she would want to tell her, but would that ruin Puck and Quinn's relationship? Was she trying to find something to destroy it? Was she kidding herself that she had accepted that her birth parents were going to have a baby together, one that they were going to love and keep, going to raise together, with her just peeking through the window like an orphaned waif? "How could you?" she asked although she really, really did not want to know the answer to that question either.
"Beth, honey, it was...it was a one time thing," Shelby hurried to explain, "it wasn't a big deal, it just happened one time, I was upset, you'd been hurt and I'd had to take you to the emergency room, I went to pieces, Puck came and took control and I don't know what to say, I'm sorry," she finished sadly. "And he called out Quinn's name," she reminded herself silently, "I wonder if he did that with every woman he went with before he and Quinn finally got it together or if it was just with me, because of you?" she questioned in her head. "Either way, Puck didn't really want me, he wanted to be in your life, however he could be, he just imagined that he was in love with me." Shelby swallowed hard as she wondered exactly what she should tell her daughter. "I think I better call Puck and Quinn, I think this might be a group therapy session," she decided and sighed, her words left unspoken.
"She just came out and asked me," Shelby hissed, conscious that Beth may not yet have fallen asleep. "I didn't know what to answer, she's really concerned about you, she's worried that you don't know about it, she's worried that you do, her main concern is you," she explained to Quinn. "I think she's worried about the baby and the effect that all of this may have on it. And I'm pleased that she wants to go to the ultrasound with you," she added, because she truly was pleased. Shelby hoped that the appointment would open Beth's eyes to what Puck and Quinn had gone through to bring her into the world, how amazing the event actually was and she hoped that Beth would realise what a momentous thing it would have been for a couple of teenagers with little or no support so that maybe, just maybe, she would realise that Puck and Quinn had done the best thing possible for Beth, given her up.
"Where did she get this information from?" Quinn asked, completely at a loss as to where Beth's knowledge was coming from.
"From some diary or other, Sue something's diary," Shelby explained as she tried to make out the name half hidden in the weird drawings of a wild-haired man that was dangling from a scaffold, attached to a noose. "Whoever it is, this person is seriously disturbed, in my non-professional opinion," she added and tried yet again to read some of the incomprehensible, sadistic ramblings about what the author would like to do to the hanging man and his ginger spouse.
"I'll let Puck know, but do you think I could take a look at the diary?" Quinn asked. "I have a feeling it might be Sue Sylvester's," she added a second later when, out of nowhere, the idea popped into her head. "Wait a second, does it mention anything about waterboarding or hepatitis?" she asked, remembering some of the ramblings of Sue during her training sessions.
"It does, actually," Shelby replied, surprised that Quinn would even take a guess at those things, they were a bit random, a bit abstract.
"It's Sue's," Quinn sighed. "And I know exactly where Beth got it, or rather from whom," she announced. "Robyn Sylvester."
"Sue Sylvester the cheerleading coach?" Shelby asked incredulously, she vaguely remembered the woman from way back when she had briefly taken up a position within the walls of McKinley High School. Sue had been a scary woman then and if Shelby remembered correctly, she was actually pregnant at the time.
"Yes, that Sue Sylvester," Quinn answered with a heartfelt sigh. "And trust me, if there was dirt on anyone, Sue knew about it," she added and wondered what else was hidden in Sue's infernal journals.
"Crap," Puck groaned when Quinn told him the unfortunate news. "Well, what can we do about it?" he sighed a few minutes later. "I mean, we already told her that I was an ass and I couldn't be trusted to keep my pants zipped," he reminded Quinn.
"Hmm," Quinn hummed and gave Puck a rather telling look.
"I'm not like that anymore," Puck exclaimed and tugged Quinn into a hug. "I haven't been like that since before you decided that you would give us a real chance," he added and bent to kiss her. "Do you think it might be better for me to talk to Beth about it?" he asked.
"Actually, Shelby thinks we should get together and all of us explain," Quinn replied with a gulp. Quinn knew that, despite not being involved in the 'Shuck' affair, there had been things happening at the time that she wasn't particularly proud of. Quinn sighed heavily.
"Hi," Beth said with a smile when she answered the door. "Mom says for you to come in," she added and stepped back to allow Puck and Quinn to enter the house. "We're in the kitchen, mom's baking, which means she's nervous," Beth explained with a roll of her eyes. Her mom never remembered that she only baked when she was nervous.
"Hello," Shelby called as all three of them walked through the archway into the large, bright kitchen. "I'm just...just making a few cupcakes," she said then indicated the hundreds and hundreds of cupcakes that littered the counter tops.
"I can see that," Quinn mumbled and then couldn't help but smile, she remembered another baking session, where someone interrupted and said the same thing, she stole a glance at Puck, he grinned, he remembered too.
"Hi, but I think maybe there's enough there to feed Beth's entire school, so maybe this should be your last batch?" Puck suggested.
Shelby pulled a face and dumped the mixing bowl and it's contents into the sink. "I'll clean it up later," she said then turned back to the three people who were looking at her. "I think it's going to be easier to just get down to it," she sighed, because baking hadn't helped her to find an easier way of doing this. "So, ok, Beth, yes, you were right, Puck and I did have a fling," she confirmed, once everyone was sat around the table. "It was a one time thing, it was never going to be more than that," she insisted and risked a half glance at Puck, he barely reacted to that statement. "And the only reason it happened is because you had been injured and I fell apart," she told Beth, making her excuse.
Beth looked at Puck for him to confirm or deny her mother's words. "I agree, totally, it was a stupid, stupid act, it should never have happened," Puck said after a second, once he realised that Beth was waiting for him to speak.
Beth looked at Quinn. "What?" Quinn asked, she wasn't sure what Beth expected her to say.
"Did you know about it?" Beth asked.
"Yes," Quinn replied. "Puck left your mom and came to see me," she refrained from saying that he left Shelby's bed to come straight to hers, "and he told me all about it," she said. Quinn's hand sought Puck's under the table, her own hands were trembling. "We weren't actually together at the time," she thought it wise to clarify. "See, we had tried dating when we lived together when I was pregnant with you," Quinn decided that full disclosure might be better, plus she thought the intricacies of the Quick high school years might be enough of a distraction that Beth would forget what it was that she initially wanted to know. Quinn ploughed on, taking the story off on a tangent. "Well, we weren't actually dating, dating," she corrected herself. Quinn looked at Puck, he shrugged. "Ok, truth time. See, we told you before that we were both dating other people, right at the start, when we...when we..."
Beth interrupted. "Yes, we know, when he made you pregnant the first time," she said quickly and hoped that Quinn would explain things a bit better.
"Right, well, when I actually moved into his house," Quinn said and looked intently at Beth, "well, the house only has three bedrooms," she stated and then waited for a second. Beth said nothing. "Ruth? Rebecca? You met them the other day?" she reminded Beth. Beth still didn't get it. "Oh, I mean that, when I moved into his house with him and his family, we shared a room," she explained.
"And a bed," Puck added with a smile then flicked his eyebrows, covertly he hoped, as he thought back to how horny Quinn had been at that stage of her pregnancy, and the thought that he could still look forward to that part again, made the embarrassment factor just melt away.
"Oh," Beth cried, a little shocked, she got it now. "So you weren't dating but you slept together and had sex, obviously," she stated without any concession to anyones feelings.
"Yes," Quinn sighed, she might as well just go with it now. "So, Puck was always very...active in that area," she added delicately, she just couldn't make herself go into detail to a child, it was just wrong. "And a couple of weeks before you arrived, we'd been fighting, I moved out to stay with a friend and then, after you were born, my mom invited me back to live with her, so I didn't return to his house," she said and wondered why she had gone so far back into their history. Then she remembered. "So, through the summer, once it was possible for me to...to...," she stuttered, thankfully Beth nodded that she understood, "we did get together again, we still weren't actually dating, but we spent time together, did...stuff...together," she said and then cringed.
"You carried on sleeping together," Beth translated and watched Quinn blush and nod. Puck seemed to be trying to hide a smirk. "You can take over here," she offered him in a stern voice, he refused with a bigger smile.
"Yes, we did," Quinn agreed and felt a twinge of shame burn in her heart, she had never quite gotten over her mom calling her a slut and a whore when she found out that Puck and Quinn had continued their relationship. "Again, we didn't actually date, we never acknowledged in public that we were together, in fact, sometimes, it was a bit of a game to see who would hit on either of us, and if we felt like it, we took the other person up on it, sometimes we dated other people, but I for one, never slept with other people, not then anyway, it was only ever him," she said with a nod at Puck. "He did, he slept with other people all the time, which was why I would never have had a relationship with him, because he was always out screwing around somewhere," she told Beth in a harder voice. Puck cleared his throat to bring Quinn's attention back to the matter at hand. "Sorry, a bit too much information for you there," she admitted with an embarrassed laugh. "So, we were at the start of our junior year in high school, we had decided that a relationship wasn't for us, but we still liked to get together," she mumbled a little shyly, "and when Puck got into trouble with the police for doing something really stupid," she said and rolled her eyes, as ever, exasperated by the occasional stupidity of the man who was sitting beside her, "a new student at McKinley made a play for me and for once, I accepted," she told Beth. "It was quite innocent, I still didn't sleep with him, Sam, I really, really didn't want to, I mean, I still loved him," she said with a nod at Puck. "So, when he got out of juvenile detention," she added, making it sound as bad as she could, "I was already dating Sam, he began dating Santana again, because of her fake boobs" she almost growled, there was still some jealousy there.
"Wait a minute, did Sue Sylvester always call her Satan?" Beth asked, she shifted in her seat and pulled the journal out of her hoodie pocket. "Look, see?" she said and pointed at a drawing of a mohawked male and a female with enormous boobs with the word 'plastic' across them and Satan above her.
Puck laughed at the drawing. "Yep, that's Santana," he nodded with a grin. "Can I have a look at that?" he asked, he was interested in the whole journal, he wanted to know what else Sue Sylvester had known. Beth handed it over then returned her attention to Quinn, Shelby continued to sit in silence, only thankful that as it turned out, she wasn't Puck's greatest indiscretion, she'd been a mere blip, an aberration.
"So, we continued for a few months, up until Christmas time, right?" Quinn said and checked with Puck to make sure that she was remembering correctly. "I know that I was still dating Sam but I didn't want to be, and I know that Puck was still dating Santana but again, he was mixing it with a lot of different ladies," she said.
"Hey," Puck called. "It wasn't a lot," he corrected. "Just a couple of my pool clients," he pouted. "And you," he reminded Quinn. She glared, but she couldn't deny it. "We did, we still slept together nearly every night," Puck admitted, "either I would climb the drain pipe to her bathroom, she always left the window open for me, or she would come over to mine and I would let her in when my mom went out to work for her night shift. "We were always careful not to get caught," he said proudly.
"Except for the time my mom came in to my room very early in the morning and found us still asleep," Quinn remembered. Judy had not been pleased when she had seen her naked daughter wrapped up in the arms of the equally naked Noah Puckerman, the boy who had been instrumental in destroying her daughter's life. The only reason that Judy had not gone public with the information was that she didn't want anyone at church finding out what a slut and a whore her daughter actually was. In Judy's eyes, once was forgivable, repeated offenses were not. There was still the littlest tinge of animosity towards Judy from Quinn, she hadn't appreciated being described as the daughter of Satan, or a harlot, but Judy had gone to town with the insults until Quinn had left for a few days and stayed at Puck's. Judy had backed down so that Quinn would return home, but the relationship never fully recovered, although in truth, it had been struggling ever since Judy had showed up at Regionals to find Quinn standing in a growing pool of amniotic fluid, but at least while Puck had been out of the equation there had been a slight chance of a full recovery. Once Puck was part of the package, Judy couldn't take it, she blamed him, unfairly, for the total destruction of her family.
"Anyway, where was I?" Quinn asked, she had lost herself in her own memories and they were getting a little twisted in her mind. "Ok, so, after the holidays, once things were back to normal and we were working on Regionals and Nationals," she said, bringing the story back on track, "I was also thinking about prom," she remembered, Puck made a sound, a scoffing sound, it still pissed him off, the trouble that she'd gone to, just for a crown that she didn't even win.
"Yeah, that was about the time that we decided that we were bad for each other and broke things off, right?" Puck butted in, his voice was hard because he remembered, with some embarrassment, how things had gone for a while.
"Yes, you were exclusively dating Lauren Zizes at that point, weren't you? Round about Valentine's, right?" Quinn sniped at Puck, she still hated that part of their life. It had nearly killed her that Puck had preferred to be with someone who was so less than perfect, who didn't strive, every day, to make the best of their appearance, who was comfortable enough in her own abilities to allow the world to see every flaw and imperfection, when Quinn couldn't do that, she'd undergone surgery so that she didn't do that.
"How was it exclusive if I was still sleeping with you every night?" Puck demanded, he was getting just a bit pissed with Quinn's judgmental attitude. "Look, there was never a time when we didn't sleep together, except for when you had your accident and that was because you couldn't open your bathroom window and you couldn't drive over to my house," he stated, just to get it all out there. "I think we're really going off track here, the point is that, yes, there was one single incident, Beth, but it was meaningless," he said with a touch of cruelty. "And, I'm sorry Shelby," he apologised silently, "but if I remember correctly, it was Quinn I was thinking of the whole time, why else would I have shouted out her name?"
"I gave you a key," Quinn muttered and pouted as she sat back a touch. She remembered when she was confined to a wheelchair, unable to get around by herself. Judy had turned the den into a bedroom for Quinn, the adjoining bathroom was roomy enough to accommodate Quinn's wheelchair, it was more of a wet room than a shower stall, so that made things even easier. What else made things easier was that while Quinn was on the first floor, Judy was on the second and she never heard Puck coming and going, letting himself in once the lights were turned off downstairs and leaving at the crack of dawn. Quinn was quite sure that her mother suspected, but she'd never asked and Quinn had never told.
"Yes, I had a key and I kept it right up until you went away to Yale," Puck sighed. "Actually, that was where we finished, wasn't it?" he asked. "When you went off to college, that was really the first time in three years that we weren't really together," he mused, finally realising that for the whole three years, they had been a couple, they'd been a bit unconventional, but they had been a couple and skimming through Sue's journals, it seemed that she knew it already. "Oh my God," Puck whispered. "Listen to this," he said then read out a few sentences. "I see the Sperminator is still up to his old tricks with Lady Madonna, no idea when her mother will open her eyes to the fact that the girl is not even anything like a virgin," he snickered a little then read some more, "but maybe she should try to wake her daughter up earlier in the mornings," he read out. "So it was Sue who warned your mother," he concluded. Puck read out some more, some that he knew would surprise almost everyone at the table. "And he said no, how dare he? Journal, I felt sure he would agree, if only to keep her safe, keep her secret, what am I going to do now? I only have a small window of opportunity, I think I have to take drastic measures." Puck looked over the top of the book. "Sue asked me to be her sperm donor," he revealed. "She said that if I would agree, she wouldn't tell the world that you and I were together," he explained then sighed. "I still refused, but I think I know who did it," Puck sighed. "I think I know who Robyn's dad is," he said and looked around the table with surprise in his eyes. "Finn, I think Finn did it," he said with a gulp. "When he went off to college, and we shared a dorm for a while, he was sleep talking a lot," Puck said with an intensity that almost scared Quinn. "He was going on and on about not telling his mom about the baby, about Rachel not finding out, he kept saying that if Rachel knew he'd used her pictures to...to...well, oh," he cried, unable to say it in the crude way he would have with guys present or the more clinical way with his daughter present, "you know what I mean," he demanded of Quinn and Shelby, his eyes were pained.
"Yes, we know what you mean," Shelby agreed.
"I don't," Beth pouted and folded her arms across her chest, this was all running away from her and she didn't like it, she'd loved it when Quinn was telling her all about their story, because, as much as they'd initially said that it was a fling, just something that happened, it turned out it was a love story after all, it was a true romance, they just didn't see it because they were too close to it.
"We have to find out for sure," Quinn insisted, her interest was certainly piqued. "Carole needs to know about this," she decided.
"Quinn, you can't just wade in and get Carole's hopes up, what if we're wrong? What if the insemination was unsuccessful from Finn? What if she used someone else?" Puck asked, and all of his questions were more than reasonable. Puck glanced at Shelby, she seemed equally pleased that the focus had been deflected from both of them and on to Robyn Sylvester.
"I'm going to go and see Sue, I'm going to ask her straight out," Quinn announced with a firm nod.
"But not tomorrow," Puck reminded her. "We have the ultrasound appointment tomorrow," he said with a wink at Beth. "It'll be interesting to see if we can tell whether you're going to get a brother or a sister," he grinned at her, Beth grinned back, she was beginning to get excited about the prospect of a sibling.
"I have a question," Beth said carefully, she'd half raised her hand to get attention.
"Yes, sweetie?" Shelby asked, almost ready to give in to any reasonable demand from her daughter. Except for the skiing trip that she kept asking about for the week before Christmas. Shelby was quite annoyed that the school would even arrange such a thing for that time of year, when families all want to be together and life is so busy.
"I know summer break is a long way off," Beth started and shifted nervously in her seat, "but do you think I would be able to come and stay with you for a couple of nights? You know, after the baby comes?" she asked.
Puck swallowed hard, he glanced at Shelby. Quinn filled up with tears, she gulped and glanced at Shelby. No one spoke. Shelby worked hard to get herself under control before she spoke. "I think that is something we can discuss nearer to the time," she finally managed to say. Shelby had never felt so scared in her life, she felt like her baby was running away from her, turning her back on her, like, she'd found her blood kin and that was all she wanted.
"Mom, it doesn't mean I don't love you," Beth said and turned beseeching eyes on her mother. "I would just like a chance to be a real big sister," she explained with a shrug.
"Maybe," Quinn answered and reached out to Beth, she needed her to understand that the request was a wonderful one, but it was the adults that would need to come to terms with it, Puck and Quinn would love for Beth to take an active role in their family, both now and in the future, Shelby still had to work on accepting that Beth was going to want to be involved with her birth parents and her siblings. "Maybe, it's something we'll work on, right?"