Okay, so I wrote this ages ago, but I never got around to posting it. Better late than never, right? I apologize in advance for any tears that may be shed.

As always, reviews are love. Even if it's short or if you're yelling at me.

Warning: Stillborn/misscarriage. Other than that... Do I need to keep warning for character death or is it kind of clear since this is the Ghost!Puckverse?

As always, a reminder that the fics in this verse will be posted as independent one-shots. If you want alerts when a new fic is uploaded, add me to your Author Alerts. Adding this to your Story Alerts will do nothing and you will never get an email.

Disclaimer: Glee does not belong to me.

In The Arms Of The Angels
One-shot

She could hear them. Somewhere behind the sound of blood pounding in her ears and her own sobs, she could hear them. The doctors. Her mother. Santana.

"Again! Push!"

"Come on, Quinnie. You're almost there."

"Almost there, Q."

"That's it, Quinn. Just a little more!"

She could see Puck, standing off to the side of her OB, hands shoved in his pockets one second and then rubbing roughly over his head the next. He wasn't saying anything. He didn't need to. He'd been standing beside her when her water broke. He'd been there when the doctors couldn't find a heartbeat.

He'd been there when the doctor left her alone until the news could sink in that she was in labor with a baby that had already died.

Puck's form had dissolved into a mist, unable to hold his form, while she fell apart, curled up on the bed and cried for the child that had been okay yesterday.

She had been okay yesterday.

Quinn gave another push, listening as everyone urged her on. Let out another sob that didn't even sound human to her ears. She heard the doctor, shouting that he saw the head and telling her to keep pushing. She felt the pressure. The pain.

Then, it was gone.

She fell back onto the pillows, sobbing and exhausted as she stared at the little body in the doctor's arms before he handed her off to the nurse. Her daughter. Too limp. Too gray. Her daughter was dead. There was no coming back from that. She was never…

She couldn't breathe.

God, give her back her baby. Make her okay again. Please.

Her mother kissed her head as she cried for a grandchild she'd spent months ignoring the existence of. Santana left the room with a barely-contained sniffle and said she'd go update the others. All the while, Quinn kept crying, eyes glued to her baby. Her Beth.

This wasn't fair. Everything she'd been through this last year. Getting pregnant. Her parents kicking her out. Losing Puck. Wasn't that enough? Why did she have to lose Beth too? Why did she have to lose her when she'd finally decided to keep her?

She reached out, arms shaking, when the nurse brought Beth over. Her little girl, wrapped up in a pink blanket as if it was perfectly normal. God, this wasn't right. She was only a baby.

Her mother followed the nurse out of the room after the woman had taken Beth from her arms, and Quinn wasn't sure if she was grateful or devastated about it. This might have been her only chance to hold Beth, but it hurt to see her at the same time.

"I'm sorry."

She shook her head at Puck's whispered apology, his voice was clogged with tears. This wasn't his fault. It wasn't anyone's. The cord had wrapped around her neck. She hadn't gotten any air. There was nothing the doctors could have done for her by the time anyone realized. She was already gone. It wasn't anyone's fault. Somehow, though, she still felt like it was hers.

Puck was still standing in the corner of the room, but he wasn't alone anymore. Beth was in his arms, wrapped in a pink blanket the same way her body had been, but just as transparent as her father.

God, Puck was a mess. She knew how much he'd been hurting all these months because he wouldn't even be able to hold Beth when she was born. He'd wanted to hold her, but nowhere near this soon. Neither of them had wanted anything like this to happen. With everything that had happened this year, neither of them ever thought something like this could possibly…

She held her breath as he walked over, body shaking just as much as her own as he laid Beth on her chest. For once, she didn't notice the cold that she always felt when Puck touched her. She couldn't feel much of anything except the hole in her chest that had only been ripped wider.

Beth turned wide eyes to her and Quinn forced a smile on her face, because she didn't want her daughter to see her crying. Not now.

"Hi, Beth," she murmured shakily as her head dropped down and her smile wavered. "I love you. I-"

Panic seized her as Beth started to fade away, more and more until she was gone. Quinn sucked in a broken breath, tears springing back to her eyes as she looked at Puck.

"Where is she?! What happened?!"

"I… I don't know," he told her and she sighed. God, how could Puck know? He was still learning new stuff about this ghost thing all the time. "I think… Quinn, I think she might have moved on."

"How?! You haven't!"

"Because I'm fucking scared," he said almost in a snap before his voice softened. "She's a baby, Quinn. She doesn't know enough to be scared of what comes after this."

Maybe she should have nodded or said something to him, but she didn't. She just curled into a ball as tears overtook her again, body shaking with the intensity of her sobs so much that the bed shook.

Things weren't supposed to be like this. Puck wasn't supposed to be dead. He should have been there with her and Beth should have been okay. They should have been celebrating the birth of their daughter while she and her mother talked about helping her move out of Santana's and back home. They should have been arguing about trivial little things that would have been much more important in the moment.

But that wasn't how things were. Sure, she was still going to be moving out of Santana's and going back to her old house and her old room, but the other stuff… It would never happen. It was never going to happen and she was never going to get another chance.

Puck was dead.

Beth was dead.

She'd lost them both.

The End

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