Author's Note: This is a one-shot that came to me after watching the "Beth" scene in Theatricality more times than I care to admit. And Glee Live was awesome, by the way. For a link to details and pictures, check out my profile because I've posted it there.

When Puck finally meets her, she's screaming at the top of her lungs and she's all red and covered in goop that turns his stomach for a second. But then she's cleaned off and the nurse says, "do you want to hold her, Daddy?" and his eyes are bulging and suddenly there's this squawking baby in his arms and he isn't really sure what to do. He looks down at her and she looks up at him and her cries subside and he feels his heart do this crazy thing in his chest because, for the first time in his sixteen years, he really knows what love feels like.

The doctors get Quinn cleaned and stitched up as Puck stands next to her, holding Beth in his arms. She holds her hands up timidly, like she's not sure she's comfortable with what she's doing, before she finally asks, "Can I hold her?"

Puck nods and gently places the squirming bundle in Quinn's arms. Quinn looks down at her before back up at Puck and then back down at Beth again.

"Hi, baby," she finally says. Beth looks up at her with clear eyes and her little fist shoots into the air as she stretches.

"Hi, Beth," Quinn corrects after a few seconds. She strokes her index finger over the baby's cheek as tears collect and fall from her lashes and she stifles a sob, lifting her arms so that Puck can take the baby back from her.

He carefully lifts Beth out of her arms and doesn't see the confusion on the face of the nurse, who has no idea what's going on and can just stare awkwardly at the young blond mother crying her eyes out into her blue hospital gown and the young father who is staring at the newborn with wide eyes, wet lashes, and a look of awe on his handsome face.

A few minutes later, they take Beth from his arms to get her situated in the nursery and as she leaves, Puck can only watch as the dark hair of his daughter disappears from view. He's gone from total love to heartbreak in a matter of moments because he realizes, as the last of the warmth that had collected on his arms from holding her small body dissipates, that he's held her for both the first and the last time.

He brushes Quinn's hair back from her forehead before gruffly asking if she needs anything. When she tells him that she just wants to be alone, he is happy to comply and he slips out the door. He goes to the nursery and stares through the glass, his eyes transfixed on the sleeping baby. He stands there for nearly an hour as she sleeps and then wakes up screaming. A nurse comes in and picks her up and Puck feels his jaw clench that he is unable to do that very thing. That's when he decides it hurts too bad to watch anymore and so he leaves. Quinn doesn't want him around and he's not allowed to be around Beth. He doesn't know what to do so he just climbs into his truck and drives.

29 hours after Beth comes into the world, she leaves the hospital with her new parents, Jeff and Jocelyn Buckner from Akron. Puck isn't there when they take her because he's not sure he'd let them leave the hospital with his baby. Instead, he buys a bottle of Jack from a 100-year-old clerk who takes his library card as photo ID and then he and his bottle are on the way to the lake.

Puck parks the truck under a tree and ignores the buzzing of the summer bugs as he makes his way toward the water. He sits down on an upturned old milk crate, screws the top off the bottle, and chucks it into the water. He angrily takes a swig while his mind is full of visions of the last year.

The night with Quinn.

The day he found out that she was pregnant and that she didn't want him to be any part of the baby's life.

Joining Glee club just so he could be around her and by extension, his baby.

Finn finding out that he'd been lied to by Quinn and Puck and that he really wasn't the daddy.

Telling his mother what he'd done and then her allowing Quinn into their house with open arms.

Sonogram appointments where he could see Beth so clearly that he already knew that she had his nose.

Feeling Beth kick.

Quinn going into labor just as the Regionals competition was happening.

And then he's right back to the delivery room yesterday when he got to meet the tiny human who had turned his life upside down and had changed him in ways that, as a sixteen-year-old boy, he would be unable to fathom for many years to come.

Soon, half the bottle is gone and he's walking up and down the deserted shore of the lake, kicking stones and muttering under his breath about fucked up lives and the fact that some other asshole is playing father to his baby, his Beth. He feels so fucking helpless and worthless that all he can do is drop to the ground and finish off the bottle. Once it's gone, he tosses it into the water, crawls into his truck, and falls asleep because he's way too hammered to drive.

Puck wakes up the next morning just as the sun is climbing over Lima and dew is still settling over his truck. He rubs his eyes groggily and fishes around in the seat until his fingers wrap around his phone. He's got four voicemails, seven missed calls, and two text messages. He thumbs down to the texts because he knows the missed calls and voicemails are just his mom bitching at him. When he opens the application, he sees that they're both from Rachel Berry. He stops for a moment, the hangover making his thinking fuzzy, and wonders why the fuck Rachel would be texting him. Then he reads:

[Noah, I know you're hurting right now. If you want to talk, I want to listen. Call me.]

He glances up toward the sunlight after reading and scowls. Why the hell would he want to talk to Rachel? Fuck her and her nosy prying. She probably just wants to lecture him on safe sex.

He flips down to the second message, sent about an hour after the first one, and reads:

[I know you're lonely and I hope you'll be all right…]

He recognizes the lyrics from the song "Beth" by KISS that he and the boys sang that day to Quinn and he feels like he's going to be sick. He feels so fucking useless. He ruined Quinn's fucking life and now he's got the stigma of being one of those douches who got a girl pregnant in high school. But none of that really matters because right now, in Akron, his baby girl is probably waking up, ready for her morning feeding, and he doesn't get to be the one to feed her. In fact, he'll never get to feed her, or change her, or rock her when she's sick, or see her off to school, or do any of those things that no 16-year-old boy ever imagines that he'd dream about doing until he's the one with a baby on the way. His life is utter bullshit and he wonders how the fuck he's supposed to go to school next week and pretend that nothing has changed. He's still a badass. He's still got dweebs to toss into dumpsters or spray with fire extinguishers. He's still got a reputation to protect. But now there's this little 7-pound baby girl out there that will never know him and never know that he loved her from the day he found out about her and that seems to make everything else that mattered before not matter much at all.

He looks back down at his cell phone, at his own words that Rachel has technically used against him, and he swears. He wants to tell her to fuck off. But he knows (and it fucking annoys him) that if he needs to talk, Rachel will listen. Sure, she'll interject a lot and go off on tangents that don't have shit to do with shit but when she's done and she refocuses on him again, he knows that he'll be able to talk to her about this. That's how it works with them. That's how it's worked ever since he stopped chucking Slushies in her face and actually gave her a chance. And, most importantly, he knows that even if he just wants to sit there and not say anything, she'll be okay with that and then she'll use some of her psychic mind-trick shit on him and be able to tell what he's thinking anyway and then she'll still start offering advice that he might want take.

He quickly types out [r u up?] and then waits. His phone beeps immediately with [yes. Couldn't sleep. Worried because no one has seen you. Where are you?]

After he tells her [b there in 10 mins], he starts up the truck and drives back toward Lima. He has no idea why he's turning to Rachel Berry but tells himself that sometimes, it's better to just not think at all.

When he pulls into her driveway, she's sitting on her front porch. She perks up when he puts the truck in Park and she's there by his door before he can even get out. As he slides out, she's suddenly wrapping her arms around his waist and pressing her head to his chest.

"I'm so sorry, Noah," she says softly. "I know you're heartbroken."

Instinct tells him to push her away and tell her that badasses like him don't get "heartbroken." Instinct tells him to say something rude and hurtful to drive her away because she's trying to get too fucking close again. But it's either the hangover or the warmth of her body that propels him, instead, to put his arms around her, drop his head against hers, and hold on tight. He closes his eyes and swallows a couple of times and he feels her shaking in his arms. His shirt gets wet and he realizes that she's crying for him. When she pulls away, she looks up at him with tears on her cheeks and then lifts up her small body to ghost her lips over his. He's a little stunned that she's just kissed him but he can't react because she suddenly has his hand in hers and she's dragging him inside the house.

Rachel orders him to sit down at the kitchen table and he does. They don't speak. In fact, she's busy cooking breakfast and he just watches her. She hums softly as she cracks some eggs into a pan and then pops some wheat bread into the toaster. Once everything is going, she turns and leans against the countertop. Her cheeks are flushed slightly and she says, "I figured you were hungry since you stayed out all night. Where were you?"

"The lake," he says softly. "Got too drunk to drive so I just slept in my truck."

He sees her eyes fill with tears again and he feels like shit because he didn't come here to make her cry. And it bugs him how emotional she seems to be over his bullshit. Why the fuck does she care? He knows that if he asks, she'll just tell him that she cares about all the members of the Glee club, even if they fail to reciprocate. But he doesn't want to hear that answer because it's bullshit. You don't cook breakfast for someone on a Sunday morning who looks like shit and feels worse just because you believe in team spirit. He knows – absolutely knows – that there's something more to it because he feels it. He's felt it for a long fucking time and he's pretty sure she feels it, too. But now, when it feels like his life is fucking ending, is not the time to discuss it.

Soon, Rachel's placing a plate full of eggs, turkey bacon, toast, and hash browns in front of him. He smiles for the first time in days as she pours him a glass of orange juice and hands him a napkin. She sits down next to him, egg whites and toast on her own plate, and they eat in silence. Puck can't believe she's not flapping those sexy lips of hers but she keeps quiet, chewing softly and watching him out of the corner of her eye.

Halfway through his hash browns, he realizes that his hand has slipped onto her bare knee over her hand and that his fingers are now linked through hers and that they're both eating one-handed. He doesn't know why he's holding her hand but he can't seem to let go. It feels…comforting.

When he's done, he sighs contentedly and pushes the plate away. Turning to Rachel, he grabs her other hand and clasps them both between his palms.

"Thanks, that was great."

She just nods and then lets go of his hands to get up and put the dishes away. He watches her move around the room, tidying and organizing like she hasn't a care in the world, and realizes that he's not going to get a lecture from her at all. She's not going to force him to talk about anything if he doesn't want to. Ever so often, she glances at him and their eyes meet and she smiles before looking away again. He knows that she knows that he's hurting. He knows that she knows that he wanted to keep that baby but knew he never had a chance. But he doesn't know that she spent the night in her bedroom, worried to the point of nearly being sick, after she got calls from Puck's mom and Matt and Mike all wondering if she'd seen or heard from him. He doesn't know that she went to the hospital yesterday morning and stood in front of the big glass nursery window, staring down at the bed marked "Fabray" and watched his daughter wiggle and scream before a nurse put a pacifier in her mouth and she drifted off to sleep. He doesn't know that she was in the room with Quinn when the Buckners came in, grasping baby Beth in their arms and with tears pouring down their cheeks, to thank Quinn for giving them a daughter. He doesn't know that Quinn sobbed into her shoulder and told her that she was worried about Puck and that she hoped that he'd be okay because, even though they weren't in love, he still mattered because he was the father of that baby girl who had just left her life forever. No, he knew none of that. All he knows is that Rachel fixed him breakfast and that she's there if he wants her to be there to listen.

When Puck stands up and walks over to her, she stiffens because she's not sure what he's going to do. But his arms go around her waist from behind and he presses into her, his head on her shoulder, as he whispers, "thank you" into her ear. And then he just holds her, his nose buried in her hair, and she feels some of the tension and stress and misery that was wearing on his face seem to ease out of his body and she knows that he's going to be okay.

When she turns in his arms and kisses him softly, he can't do anything but kiss her back. It's like she understands without him having to say a word and it does things to his insides that, in his hungover and pained state, he's not even going to waste time trying to figure out.

He drops his forehead against hers and their eyes meet and things start to make sense to him. He realizes that Rachel Berry could very well be an answer to a question that he hasn't even asked yet. He's not the same person he was a year ago, a week ago, or even three days ago. He's experienced things that men twice his age haven't even endured. That shit is life-changing. And as he takes Rachel in his arms and sits back down, pulling her into his lap, he figures out something pretty fucking vital. From the moment he found out about her, he was doing everything he could for Beth. Now, she's gone from his life but not from his mind or his heart. No, now he's going to make sure he does everything because of Beth. If that means he stops being a dickhead long enough to appreciate the big brown eyes currently reading his soul without him ever opening his mouth, he's going to be thankful for her. Beth may not be in his life anymore but she's already made more of an impact than he could have imagined. And when Rachel kisses him again, her arms going around his shoulders to pull him against her, he realizes that he's okay with all of it. Quinn's going to be fine. He's going to be different…better. Rachel's going to be amazing (as ususal.) And Beth? She's responsible for all of it.