Glee wide awake

Author's Note: The title comes from the song Modern Nature by Sondre Lerche: _The moment has come to face the truth/I'm wide awake, and so are you/Do you have a clue what this is? (I don't know)/Are you everything that I miss? (I don't hope so)/We'll just have to wait and see (Wait, and see)/If things go right we're meant to be._

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There are times when I stop and think about how we got into this beautiful mess. There are times when he's sitting next to me on the couch and I can imagine that we are a real couple and this baby is ours and I am much older than I actually am. I feel older. I feel like this baby has made me grow up so much that I can't possibly go back to the way I was before. I can only move forward and I know in my heart that he is the forward step. And it breaks my heart that no one can ever know it. I make excuses now. I hide and sneak around and when Puck asks me what I'm doing later I tell him I have a doctor's appointment or that my sister is worrying about me too much and he picks me up down the street from the school where no one can see and we get milkshakes and eat them in the parking lot.

"Quinn?"

I look up from where I'm sitting in one of the cheap, plastic burgundy chairs of the McKinley High choir room. It's empty, which was the point because I'm crying and I don't know why. This has been happening a lot lately and I've had to find strategic places around the school where I can cry and no one looks at me with that pathetic 'oh she used to be popular' look. All the baby books my sister bought me say this is normal, that its weird pregnancy hormones making me cry all the time. But I hate it. It's annoying and I don't want anyone to know. "Mr. Schuester…" I wipe at my face with a tissue I have balled up in my hand. I'm embarrassed. "I'm sorry, no one was in here…" I sniff a bit, trying to clear my throat and he walks over to the chair and kneels in front of me so I don't have to strain my neck to look up at him. He meets my gaze.

"Quinn, is everything okay? Do you need to go to the nurse?" His voice is soft, like he really cares. I shake my head.

"No… no, it should pass in a few minutes." He sits with me. He rubs my back. He doesn't ask any more questions and when I get up to go to back to lunch, he tells me he'll see me at Glee rehearsal.

A few weeks later, I'm standing outside the school alone. It's after practice and I've forgotten that my sister couldn't pick me up because she had a meeting or something and Puck has skipped rehearsal for some reason that I can't keep track of. He comes out and sees me standing there.

"What are you still doing here?" I turn to look at him, holding my science book to my chest and I'm sure I look like a child, even with this pregnant stomach. Before I even open my mouth, he offers. "Do you need a ride home?"

"Yeah… Yeah, I do, Mr. Schue. Thanks."

I sit on his couch with my feet on his lap and he paints my toenails while we watch movies and he tells me jokes and actually asks me about my day. All I want is for this to last forever.

"Ugh, my ankles are huge." He grabs one and looks at it like he's evaluating it against the size of every ankle he's ever come upon.

"No… come on, they are not that big, Q." I laugh, wiggling my toes at him.

"You're just being nice." He raises his eyebrows at me and my feet fall to either side of him and I forget about the deep turquoise color that's still wet on my toenails as he leans over me and kisses my forehead.

"You are beautiful, Quinn."

My days at school are spent tapping my pencils against my desk in the hours I spend in classes that aren't his. My heart starts to beat faster and faster as I watch the clock and it gets closer and closer to his class. But when I finally get there, we have to ignore each other. We overcompensate and sometimes he even yells at me for no reason. It hurts my feelings sometimes but I don't say anything because later he kisses me in his car and tells me that he feels like a teenager. But I don't know if that's a good thing or not.

Finn is by my locker when the bell rings and it's Friday and we don't have Glee practice.

"Quinn, what are you doing?" At first I don't even answer because I'm shocked by the fact he's even talking to me.

"What are you talking about?"

"I know it's none of my business anymore, you know, what you do with your life but…" He pauses, not looking at me while he leans with his back against the metal lockers. I clutch the strap of my bookbag. "You seem a little wrapped up in… Schuester lately and you're acting like Rachel or something." My hands feel clammy and I contemplate faking morning sickness just to get away from him. But that doesn't really work as an excuse anymore. I hate him for knowing me too well

"I still don't know what you're talking about, Finn." I give him a look that I hope is cold and uncaring, something I haven't used in a while. My face these days is usually blank. And I walk away quickly and outside he is waiting and I get in and I'm shaken up but I don't tell him what happened with Finn. That night, he sleeps with me for the first time.

I tell my sister I'm staying over with Santana and she says she's happy that I'm spending time with an old friend. I say that I agree, that it's been too long since I've hung out with her. But he picks me up down the block from my house and we drive to his apartment. I sit on a stool in his kitchen and we play music while he cooks for me. When a slow song comes on that I say I like, he takes my hand and we slow dance like we're at prom and he almost burns the chicken. He keeps the lights low in the dining room while we eat at the table, sitting across from each other. This is another moment when I take a step back and think about how we got here. He breaks the silence.

"Quinn?" I look up from my chicken and study his face in the dim light. There are a few candles on the table between us.

"Yeah, Will?" Saying his name still feels weird coming out of my mouth, but it doesn't feel right to call him Mr. Schuester anymore. He watches me for a very long time before he speaks.

"I don't want you to think… I've never cooked dinner for… one of my students before." Hearing him say that word makes me cringe and I can tell he noticed because he kept talking. "No, no… It's a good thing." He's holding his knife and fork in either hand and I realize I'm doing the same. Something important is about to be said and we've both paused to hear what it is. "I just… Quinn, you are so special. You deserve so much." Stupid pregnancy hormones start to pull tears into my eyes again. "Oh, Quinn, no don't cry…" Suddenly he has swept around the table and he's leaning over me, his hands in my hair.

"I'm sorry…" I don't want to cry, I really don't. Anything of any importance makes me tear up now and days. I look up and his face is right over mine and he looks concerned. It's very cute. "Will…" My voice is shaky but I don't stop to fix it. I need to tell him. "You scare me in the best possible way. What we have is so terrifying… I just… I'm so scared of losing you, I can't—" And my voice breaks off because I'm crying too hard to say anything else but he hugs me so I know I don't have to say anything else. I wrap my arms around him and age is nothing but a number and we are a cliché but it is wonderful.

Things change after he sleeps with me. Suddenly, things are serious. There is no hiding behind the blurring of lines that our relationship could've previously been seen as. We have reached a point where there is no turning back. At school, this is a bad thing. I don't come to his office and in class I don't even look at him. Sometimes I go to the nurse and she lets me take a nap through his class and I don't even see him until he's dancing around the choir room at Glee rehearsal. I just sit there, standing up only when Brittany grabs my hand and I dance as much as the baby bump will allow. And I can see him watching me out of the corner of his eye and I watch him too.

One Saturday morning I'm sitting on his couch reading a book and feeling very domestic. He doesn't let me drink coffee but he's brought me some fruity drink from Starbucks and I sip it while he watches TV and drinks his own coffee. I've spent the night under the guise of being over at Brittany's house and my sister doesn't expect me back until after lunch.

"What do you think of the name Regina?" I look over at him because he's been quiet for a long time.

"Regina?"

"Yeah, do you like that name?" I watch him for a very long moment.

"As in… George?"

"What?" Sometimes, he doesn't get my references. I don't like when this happens.

"Regina George… She's a character in Mean Girls." His face changes and he laughs.

"Oh! Oh, oh God no… I just mean…" Will clears his throat. I wait patiently. I'm very scared for what he's about to say. "For the baby."

"What do you mean for the baby?" He shrugs, like he doesn't know why I'm so angry all of a sudden. The other day I yelled at him for getting me teriyaki wings for dinner instead of hot wings, so I don't know what he expects. What he's asking me right now is to name the baby. My baby. A baby that I would love to raise with him and I know that I can't and this kills me and he still brings it up.

"When's your next ultrasound?" He's ignored my question. Sometimes he does this and it reminds me of being in his classroom.

"I don't know… in a few weeks?" He nods looking from the TV over to me.

"I want to go." I don't even know what to say to him. He looks back to the TV and it's like the conversation is over because he decided it is. And I'm too blindsided to know what to do. Why did he suggest a baby name to me?

One day, I fight with Puck in the hallway and it's very public and people watch. He yells at me and says that I'm lying and why won't I see him? Who am I seeing behind his back? And I tell him that I'm not seeing anyone. I tell him that I've been pulling away because of the pregnancy and how I need to be alone because it's been too much to handle and I'm scared he can never love all of my crazy. And I'm partly yelling at Will, too. But I run outside and away from Puck and I'm walking down the street, past my usual meet up spot and it's raining so Will drives up next to me and begs me to get in because I ignore him at first.

"Quinn… Quinn, what happened?" I hope he can tell that this crying is real and it's not pregnancy hormones and that I'm scared. And I know this makes me seem young and foolish but that's because I am.

"What are we doing, Will?" And that question hangs in the air for a very long time. Will pulls the car into a parking lot. I'm the next person to speak. "I can't… I can't keep doing this with you." He's still very quiet and that makes everything I've been thinking spill out of me. "I mean… I'm a teenager. I'm pregnant with Puck's baby. And you cook me dinner and sing to me and cuddle me when I'm exhausted and I can't do this anymore because it's too hard, Will. I can't keep this baby and when I'm with you all I think about is this dream I have that it's your baby and that we can just be together but that will never happen." I've been talking so much that I haven't even noticed he's grabbed my hands and when I look at him it's a look I haven't seen in a while. He's looking at me like a teenager for once.

"I'm so… so sorry that I've made you feel this way…"

He doesn't pick me up from school the next day or the day after that. I hang out with Puck for the first time in a month and I try to feel happy. I should feel happy with Puck because this is the decision I've made. I've already pushed Finn away. I can't do that to Puck because without Will, he's all I'll have. And I start to readjust to the idea that the little baby girl growing inside of me doesn't really belong to me and will never belong to Will like I had wished at some point that it should've. I watch Puck play video games and I let him kiss me and tell me how big my boobs have gotten. But he's a child. I can't go back.

The next time we talk I'm walking out of the doctor's office. I feel like the ultrasound technician hasn't gotten all of the weird jelly stuff off of my stomach and my dress is sticking to me in weird places. But he's there, sitting on the curb next to his parked car.

"Will… what are you doing here?" He turns when I say his name and scrambles to stand up. I automatically check the parking lot of the Lima Medical Center. We are out in public and this is very dangerous.

"How is she?" At first, I don't know what he's talking about.

"What?"

"The baby. How is she?" He takes a few strides until he's standing in front of me, his hands on my stomach. I silently thank God that I told my sister I wanted to walk home for the exercise. "I wanted to be here, Q, I wanted to see the ultrasound." I finally remember how I had told him about the doctor's and how I skipped Glee today to come here. And Lima only has one medical center. He grabs the sides of my coat and pulls me closer to him. I don't even look around. He has all of my attention.

"Please, Will… I can't—"

"I know. God, I know, Quinn… But I don't care. You can keep the baby, you can give it up, I don't care. You are wonderful. I'm tired of seeing you being treated so badly by these high school boys. I wanna be with you, Quinn…" And he kisses me. Right in the parking lot. And it is romantic and dreadful and I try not to think about the repercussions because I'm tired of thinking of them.


End file.

Glee, Hurt-Comfort, Romance