Title - Let's Say Amen
Chapter - 1/1
Character/Pairing - Quinn, Quinn/Finn, hints of Puck/Rachel and Santana/Brittany
Length- Approximately 7, 000 words
Summary - Finn watches Quinn. He isn't bright, but he notices things.
Warnings - Angst - and lot's of it

A/N - Okay, so, I've been working on this one for a while. In fact, this is probably the longest I've spent on a fic. It just had to sit right. It's pretty angst-y, if I do say so myself - you've been warned.

Pardon me I must apologize
I've been this way for quite some time
I tried to be just a long time ago

Finn watches Quinn. He isn't bright, but he notices things.

He notices the way she quietly whispers to herself. The way she grips her stomach every time a slushy comes their way or when she gets pushed into a locker accidently (but these days, it's not always so accidently). He notices the way she closes her eyes every day, just for a little while – like she's trying to block something out.

"Quinn?"

Her eyes flash open. "Yes, Finn. I'm fine."

It happens every day.

She seems happy in Glee. She pours every little ounce of energy she has into songs these days, so much that she's left panting by the end. Mercedes claps and woops ('you go girl!') and Quinn sits down with a light smile and a breathy thankyou.

Finn grins and puts his hand on her knee encouragingly. It's what he's supposed to do.

He gave up on hating her. He's too in love with her, and it isn't fair. But he loves her.

He loves her.

He tells her every day.

She already knows it, and tells him so every day. He beams back every time, and she still can't believe he's with her. She still can't believe he didn't give up.

(He did for a while, but she doesn't know that.)

She can feel Puck's gaze burning holes through the back of her favourite purple-knit cardigan, but she ignores it. She has Finn. She loves Finn.

She has Finn, right?

One day she whispers something so quietly, that the only way he knows she's even opened her mouth is because it's absolutely freezing and he can see her breath swirling in the air. She shudders and looks away. He knows something is wrong.

But he's Finn. He doesn't say anything (except, I love you).

She smiles and kisses his cheek before gathering her books in a sloppy pile and heading back down the walkway.

He notices that this isn't normal. She didn't say'I know'. She just walked away.

He knows what she's saying now; in that ever-so-quiet whimper.

"Daddy, I'm sorry."

Puck is like a ghost. You can always feel his presence – especially near Quinn; especially near the baby. Finn doesn't get the things that go unsaid; the little looks in the corridor that apparently mean something. Quinn gets them, though. She tells him it's probably just the baby making a connection between them, but he doubts that. Babies aren't that smart.

She tells him that hers is.

One day, he sees Puck kissing a sobbing Rachel's forehead after she's been slushied and then drags her into the girls' bathroom to get cleaned off. He doesn't get it – since when does Puck care about stuff like that? Since when does Puck care about Rachel Berry when it comes to stuff like that?

He doesn't get it at all.

"I've never seen him like this before. What do you think she did to him? Maybe she bribed him or something . . . Maybe he's been put into some crazy trance by a hypnotist and tomorrow he'll walk in quacking like a duck . . ."

Quinn looks amused. "I was just another one to him. I was another blond, another girl, another virgin. The only thing that was different about me was that I was the unlucky one he impregnated with his devil spawn. Rachel . . . Rachel is crazy. She's like one of those plans - it's so crazy that it just might work. Well, she works on him. Excellently, might I add."

But he still can't help but feel like that should be their telepathy. That should be his baby, in her stomach, because she's his girlfriend. Yeah, sure, great for Puck, he's found himself a heart and a Berry. But what about Finn?

Quinn nods at Puck as he glances down the hallway, 'because of the baby' (yeah, sure, whatever). Finn drapes an arm around Quinn's shoulder and tells her he loves her.

"I know."

Sometimes it feels like there's just some big secret between every one, and he's been cut out of it.

Oh, and Puck cut was the one to cut him out, too. What an asshole.

(He knows it was never like that. He'd just really like to pretend he could hate Puck for more than just sleeping with Quinn, because in the end Finn won anyway. So that kind of cancels the whole thing out.)

So apparently, Rachel Berry can change a man like Puck.

Hoorah for her.

But still, the secret thing is still going on. He wonders where he fits into this anymore.

He watches her at Glee one day. She smiles and twirls and her dress flies around her. She's beautiful. She's his.

Puck doesn't watch her anymore. He watches Rachel. As much as he hates to admit it, he can't help but feel like Rachel wouldn't settle for a loser like Puck if he hadn't hurt her in the first place. But he's happy, and they're happy, and Quinn's happy. So it's all okay.

Quinn trips over Santana's foot, and usually this would end in a snappy remark from Quinn and then the continuation of the rehearsal.

But Quinn is carrying a baby, and things just aren't that simple anymore, are they?

She lands on her front, on her stomach, on her baby. There's a cold silence while Quinn lies there lifeless, before sitting up and turning over to staring at her abdomen. Suddenly, pandemonium breaks out. Rachel's shouting that Santana had better learn the choreography, and Puck and Finn are huddled around Quinn. Puck stares at her growing belly, while Finn stares at Quinn's face. She's staring at the ground, her eyes searching beyond the room – searching for something that might not be there.

Puck, with his almighty telepathy skills, takes her hands and gets her to her feet. He leads her out the door, and Finn follows right behind her. Quinn is still distant, still not aware of what is going on.

But the rest of the group, most of them with a hand slapped over the heart or mouths in shock, listen for anything. Mr Schuester moves to usher them out of the room, before they hear screaming.

"WOULD YOU TWO GET OFF ME? I'M NOT GOING TO THE HOSPITAL! Puck! Let go of me! Jeesh! A girl can't take a tumble without everyone freaking out? What's the worst that can happen? I'll get a scratch!"

"Quinn, just let us-"

"Finn! Holy Moses, would you back off?"

"But the baby!"

"Shut up Puck- What did I say? Let go of me! I'm not going anywhere!"

The two boys shuffle back into the room, followed by a fuming Quinn. "I just fell, okay?" she snaps at the shocked faces. "It's not the end of the world."

They exchange uneasy looks.

"Er- Let's carry on, then," Mr Schuester murmurs.

He knows she knows something.

Something no one else can feel; something no one else could guess.

It's kind of horrible, but he feels smug that even Puck hasn't caught onto this one.

So, he wishes he knew exactly what was going on.

She cries when she gets home (not her home, Finn's home) and lashes out on him. He figures it's her hormonal imbalance or something like that, but she just smacks him over the head.

"No, Finn, it's just that you're a great big IDIOT!"

He narrows his eyes and bangs his fist against the door. She runs back out crying and hugs him, but there's something more in her eyes, something he just can't understand.

She's speaking another language again.

He's wishing he was Puck again.

Things are normal for a while. Quinn is still 'unbalanced' sometimes, and he's still angry sometimes, and even though Puck didn't get the girl they'd been fighting over, he still gets to be happy, and how unfair is that?

She doesn't sing so loud in Glee are only a few claps. No heavy breathing. No breathy thankyou, no light smile.

No smiles at all, really.

Sometimes her face falls; sometimes when she's alone, she can't pretend anymore and her face scrunches up in agony.

He just asks if she's okay.

She says she's fine.

He tells her he loves her.

She says she knows.

The next week in Glee rehearsal, Quinn is hanging by the back and humming quietly like she always has, and Finn is out the front singing romantically with Rachel.

Quinn doubles over in pain with a sharp, ear-piercing squeal.

It's the other day all over again.

"Puck and Finn, if you don't remove your hands from me right now, I swear I'll use Rachel's rape whistle."

Rachel frowns. "Hey-"

Quinn snaps her head around to face the tiny girl. "Shut up." She whips back towards Finn and Puck again, looking like a force to reckon with. "I'm serious. Nothing. Is. Wrong."

The two boys step back hesitantly, partly because Mr Schuester is tugging them back towards the door so Quinn doesn't start having a fit. She stands up slowly before muttering that she has morning sickness (even though it's, like, three in the afternoon) and heads out the door.

Even Kurt doesn't start gossiping. The room is silent as Quinn's footsteps fade down the hallway.

He hears her whispering again.

"Just breathe, just breathe, just breathe."

So Finn watches Quinn. He isn't bright, but he notices things.

But he's still confused, because all these things have a meaning – a meaning he just doesn't get.

Two weeks later Quinn rushes into the choir room spluttering and choking her guts up, trying to swipe the tell-tale tears in her eyes away.

This time, she lets Puck and Finn drag her out into the hallways. The rest of the club is silent again, listening, but she drags them back towards an empty classroom. She doesn't want this to be heard.

"Oh God, I'm sorry," she cries, placing her forehead against the nearest thing to her (which happens to be Puck's shoulder, but Finn refuses to think it's anything but coincidental). "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

"Quinn?" they mutter in unison.

"I bled last night."

The words are a little confusing, and she would be embarrassed if she had any pride today.

She doesn't, though.

Puck gets it immediately, and he stares out the window – searching for something like Quinn had done. Finn doesn't get the big deal though. Girls bleed all the time – like, once a month.

"Are you sure you're not just, like, surfing the crimson wave or something?"

Puck lets out a small, harsh laugh and Quinn burries her head in her hands. "That's what my mother used to say – what my grandmother said."

"Dude, just don't go there."

"And are you an idiot? Do you know anything about pregnancy?"

"Finn, man, seriously."

He feels like this is all just a big, horrible prank to gang up on him. The two of them are staring at him like he's the biggest meathead they've ever met (maybe he is, he wonders, because obviously Puck isn't).

"Chicks don't have periods when they're with child, you douche," Puck grumbles matter-of-factly.

He didn't know that. Idiot.

Quinn takes a deep, heavy breath. But it's not the same happy, excited pant when she sings – it's painful, and sore, and bitter. She shakes a little, and suddenly Puck has an arm around her and he's steering her towards the entrance.

"Whoa, wait, where are we going?"

Puck narrows his eyes. "Sure you wanna' come, princess? Or are you going to make this difficult?"

Finn ignores him and swerves around to face Quinn, putting his hands on her shoulders. She looks terrified. "Quinn, please tell me what's going on."

She shakes her head as they storm over to Puck's truck. Finn jumps in the back, noticing the glance Puck and Quinn share.

Damn their secrets.

He waits for two hours in a hospital waiting room. He studies the white walls, the dark carpet, the other patients, the fish in the fish tank, the lights, a magazine left lying under the chair. He avoids anyone else's gaze.

"Who's the father?" a man in a white coat asked.

Puck glanced at Finn before jumping up. "I am."

Damn it.

So now Finn is here, waiting for a patient who he didn't even know there was something wrong with (well, he did, but not like, physically or anything). Every now and again, he can just get a glimpse of a guy with a Mohawk pacing outside one of the rooms. But it's too far away to read his face, and so he assumes there's nothing worth knowing yet.

(He's wrong).

That night she's laying in his bed, leaving a massive wet patch on his favourite blue sheets and crying in pain and agony and sadness. He strokes her hair, staring at the ceiling.

"It's okay, baby, its okay. Its okay, Quinn, its okay. It's all going to be okay."

She presses her hands to her empty stomach and sniffs quietly, eyes closed. They don't move for a long time, and he thinks about the baby that was never his, but he wanted all the same. He thinks about the angel next to him and the angel in the sky now and it all sounds so sad he thinks he might cry too.

"I love you."

She cries harder.

When they've lost track of time and reality, drifting in and out of dreamless sleep, he sees Quinn take the cross on her neck off and lay it on his bedside table. He's not sure if it's a dream, but he's pretty sure it means something.

He's too tired (and apparently, too much of an idiot) to even try and figure out what this one means.

She might be dead.

She certainly isn't Quinn Fabray.

For a few weeks, she tries desperately to do something (it's still unclear what). She wears her prettiest, nicest clothes. She reads a book every night before bed, even when she's exhausted. She reads twenty pages every night. Exactly twenty pages. She calls her Mom, but no one picks up. She doesn't leave a message. She bakes a lot of things and helps out around the house. She never looks down reassuringly at her stomach anymore (but sometimes, he catches her placing a hand where her daughter used to be). It's a mother's natural instinct, protecting the baby (the baby that isn't there).

One day, while she's in the bathroom (he pretends he can't hear her throwing up, or making herself throw up, or whatever), he pulls out the book she's reading and sees she's half way through the Bible. Underneath the Bible, though, is a little exercise book. He flips through it, reading prayers and poems and all the secrets she's hiding from everyone but God.

God,

You know, sometimes I think only you could love me. I slept with Puck. I slept with Puck, God, and Finn still loves me. I don't know why. I don't deserve him.

Don't you agree?

There's one that hits him the most though, one that makes his heart burn and his fists clench.

I killed her. I killed her. I killed her. I killed her. I killed her. I killed her.

Over and over, until the ink disappeared and only the pen's scratchy impression was left on the page.

He thinks she's given up on getting into God's good books when she wakes up one morning with her hair in a pigtail, wearing an old grey jumper and jeans. She smiles politely at everyone and says she's going out for a walk.

It's the first time she's gone out apart from school, so he sits on the edge of the couch and waits as patiently as he can. Finally, after an hour, his mother hands him the keys and he's in the car before she can call out his name.

He drives for five minutes before finding her in the playground down the road. She strolls past the slide and the sandpit slowly, brushing a fingertip against the flying fox's railings. She sits down on a swing gradually, like she's an old person and her bones might break when she moves.

He doesn't really know what to do when she plucks a long white rose from the shrubs on the side of the road, ties a ribbon around its stem and lays it on the edge of the sandpit. She walks over much more quickly, gets in the car, and asks if they can go home.

He finds her in their room later that night, scribbling madly in a book. This time, though, she has four spare pens lined up on the bedside table and her Bible peaking out from underneath her pillow. She's wearing her favourite, pretty white dress.

He walks away, because maybe she needs this, and maybe he can't handle this.

Her whispers have changed now.

"I'm sorry, God."

But he thinks it might be the same thing.

(Except God can damn her to Hell, and her Daddy can't. Not yet, anyway.)

The next day, he finds her little exercise book torn to shreds, almost like a dog got a hold of it. But Finn doesn't have a dog – not the last time he checked, anyway.

So every page is in a pile in her drawer of the bedside table. The Bible has disappeared. He thinks this might be a change – a change for the better – because she was getting a little obsessed for a while there.

He wakes up at three in the morning, lacking sleep and lacking a blond girl who usually sleeps next to him.

He goes to get a cup of milk wearily. As he turns the corner, he hears a shuffling of paper and the sound of sticky tape being cut. He peers around the wall, finding Quinn at the kitchen table, taping her exercise book back together.

When he trudges back upstairs, he opens her drawer. The Bible is back.

Sex comes up as a topic of one of their late night chats. She says she wants it, but he refuses.

She rolls over on top of him, and he's not used to the gap between their abdomens. Usually, there was a living, breathing baby separating them. Not now. "Why not?"

He knows that this is her motherly instinct – to try for another baby. But he can't do this again . . . Not after Puck. "Because you just want to be pregnant."

She stares at him for a minute before nodding slowly and crossing the room. Throwing a coat on, she walks out the door. "Quinn-"

"No."

The next time sex comes up, its six months later and she seems a little better (on the outside at least). It's the first time they've been close like this, and he's touched her like that and watching her back arch when he trails kisses down her flat stomach is excruciating and amazing all at the same time.

She stops him before he gets anywhere near third base, throwing her old t-shirt back on and bringing her knees to her chest. "I'm not ready."

It's the opposite affect this time. She's scared of having another baby – of going through this pain again.

"But you said-"

"I don't want you inside me. I don't want anyone inside me."

Her words bring him to a halt, because not only is she denying him sex, but she's also cutting him out. She does that all the time these days. She doesn't want anyone in her head. She doesn't want anyone to think the horrible things she thinks, to see the horrible things she sees.

Her eyes flutter shut and she sighs. "I think it's time I move out."

"No," he says, putting his hands on her shoulders. "No, please! We can make this work. I know we can."

She shakes her head, fighting tears. "I'll be gone by the morning. Lie down and sleep."

Memories of sonograms flash through his head as Quinn walks out the door. He opens up his old library books he forgot to return, opens Moby Dick and shakes out the pages until the DVD lands in his palm. The sonogram plays over and over all night until he falls asleep, crying like some wuss.

But he doesn't mind.

He wakes up to find her side of the cupboard empty, her suitcase gone and the bedside table ridden of her Bible.

Fuck his life.

She doesn't turn up for school for three days. Everyone is whispering and gossiping and taking guesses as to what happened.

He ignores it all. At least, he tries to ignore it all. But Puck and Rachel are always so close and cuddly and the sexual tension between them is like whoa. So yeah, he's jealous. But he also hates the way they give him sympathetic looks, like they know what he's going through.

To an extent, they do. Puck especially.

But Puck is still in trauma over the baby thing, because to be fair it was his kid. Finn hears him lashing out on Rachel one afternoon, which results in a lot of tears. But Puck says he's sorry, and they leave in his truck.

(It's the little things Finn notices. Like how Puck just got Rachel to ditch the rest of school, and he's never known anyone even able to say it to her face without a dramatic gasp on her part.)

His bed is all wrong now. Much too big, even for him. And whenever he rolls over, there's just a cold empty space (not a pretty, blond girl).

Quinn turns up to school the next day. She looks pale and sickly, and like she's been crying for a week straight (she has). But when their eyes meet in the corridor, it's only a moment before she can't take it anymore and she has to walk away.

He wants to say something to her; anything to her. I love you; come back; don't leave me.

But he's really late for Spanish, so he heads back down the other hallway.

He finds out she's staying with Brittany.

He can tell by the look on her face she has to put up with a lot of Brittany-and-Santana fun.

It might turn him on if he didn't miss her so much.

He doesn't realise how much of an affect she had on him until she's really gone.

He finds himself throwing a vase across the room in frustration one day when he gets into a fight with his Mom. When he has a gash across his left arm and there is a pile of crushed veneer on the floor, he figures this wouldn't have happened with his girlfriend (ex-girlfriend?) by his side.

His mother just pats his shoulder and walks away and what the fuck is that supposed to me?

He's being crushed by the Space Droids on level five when the doorbell rings. This game is pretty much a lost cause, and so he drops the controller carelessly and walks down the stairs.

There's a tiny little blond standing on his porch, and his body gets clammy just seeing her.

"Quinn?"

She looks up at him through those eyelashes (he's always loved her eyelashes – they're so pretty) and she walks in calmly and gracefully like a Fabray does. It's a cold, gray day, and she's shivering. Tightening her coat around her, she says weakly, "Hi."

"Hi."

There's a pause before either of them can remember what they are doing. "Um- So, I left some of my stuff here. I was hoping I could get it- If that's okay, of course. I can come back later, if you don't want . . ."

The sentence is left hanging there.

"I was just . . . In the middle of a game . . ."

But they can both hear the 'Loser! Game over!' blaring from his television, so she raises an eyebrow.

"I just need my coats and those red shoes, and a few of my books, and I'm gone, Finn."

He doesn't like the way that sounds. He doesn't want her to be 'gone'.

(She's been gone a while, though, and this isn't what it was.)

But he shrugs and follows her upstairs to his room. She flitters around his room delicately, and in only a few moments, she's packed and ready and watching him from the doorway. "Thank you," she murmurs. "For everything."

He's pretty sure he knows what everything entitles. Sorry for causing you and your family emotional pain, sorry for leaving you, sorry for lying to you, sorry for being a bitch, sorry for being scared, sorry for getting pregnant, sorry for losing the baby.

"Its- Its okay, Quinn."

No, it really isn't.

She wraps her arms around his waist and holds onto him tightly. Her breath tickles against his bare arms. He wants to say something – anything. But before he gets the chance, she's gone.

He can still smell her perfume in the air, so he flops onto his bed and wonders if its weird to try and inhale as much of it as he can.

When he gets home the next day, he finds Quinn with another bag full of her forgotten belongings, drinking a cup of tea with his mother.

"Quinn?"

"I just- I'm sorry, Finn! You're mother invited me in . . ."

"She needs someone to talk to, Finn," Carole says, rinsing her cup in the sink. "She needs family."

A look passes over Quinn's face, and he knows what she's thinking. She had family, but she killed it. (That's only in her eyes, though. He would never ever blame her for this – ever.)

"I have to go out," Carole announces. "Burt is taking me to watch a football game!" He still doesn't know what to think of her happy glow when she talks about him.

"Have fun, Carole," Quinn smiles. When his Mom has left, she turns to face him awkwardly. "She seems happy."

"She is."

"Are you?"

"I don't know. I don't really want to share a family with Kurt or anything . . . He'd probably try to have late night sleep-over's and manicures." He knows that's not what she meant, but that's the answer he gives anyway.

"I see," she replies with a yawn. "I haven't- Haven't been sleeping well . . ."

"Why?" he asks too quickly.

"Partly because of us," she says quietly, before rolling her eyes. "And partly because Santana and Brittany think its fine to get it on at two in the morning right next door. And she can deny it all she wants, I saw Santana jump out the window."

Finn chuckles slightly and sits down next to her. "Are you sure you don't want to move back in?"

"That's nice of you, Finn," she says, standing up. "But I'm more worried about you having to live with me than I would ever be about Santana and Brittany."

He's not sure what she means by that.

"I miss you."

She doesn't reply. She just leaves.

Quinn faints the next day in the choir room, and he wants to rush to her side.

But it feels all wrong when he sees Puck and Rachel and every other glee member fuss over her like some nosy grandmother. His brain waves must have disconnected from his body and all the little messages must have gotten mixed up with the air particles, whizzing right away from him. Because his mind is telling him to get over there and help that broken girl out that he loves, but he can't move.

Does he love her?

She gets up ten minutes later, slightly red in the cheeks and her dress askew. She looks him in the eyes, like, hello, Earth to Finn. But he isn't picking up, because the last time she fell over she lost the baby and had a breakdown and then she left him and now he's sad and he misses her and this is a lot to take in and he should really start breathing but he's not and he can't help that and is there any air in here at all and why is this all so damn difficult?

She walks out of the room, shoulders square and head held high. He wonders who she's trying to kid though – they all saw the tears in her eyes. Everyone is staring at Finn like he's the bad guy, and he looks at Puck like come on, man, help me out.

But Puck just shrugs and wraps and arm around Rachel, which is basically saying, "Get off your giant, dumb ass, Finn, and fix this shit."

Since when is Puck taking a degree in psychology?

And since when did these silent conversations start making sense?

He opens the door to Quinn one night. She's too weak to stand up, and he doesn't even know how she managed to get into her car, let alone drive all the way from Brittany's house to his. But she stumbles into his arms and he carries her upstairs, no questions asked.

He sleeps on the couch because when it comes to Quinn, he's always been a better guy or whatever (ask Puck, he'd probably know why now that he's all feminine).

(When Finn says that to Puck, he's pinned against the carpet within three seconds and Puck is seriously considering ripping that smirk right off his face.)

He stares at the ceiling for a few hours before deciding that the cushions are too lumpy and there's too bigger draft to sleep comfortably.

(It's a lame excuse, honestly.)

So he trudges upstairs and curls up next to Quinn, who's already out cold. He can feel her breath against his chest, and her hair fans out against his face. Instinct tells him to kiss her or wrap and arm around her. But his instincts have always been a little off, so instead he rolls over, back pressed against the wall. It doesn't help when she shuffles over slightly in her sleep so that she's in his arms again, except now he can't even move.

(He's not complaining.)

She wakes up in the morning to find him sitting up with his back against the wall, playing with a strand of her hair. She stretches, watching him watching her, and it wasn't weird at all. They just stared each other straight in the eyes (he forgot how pretty hers were).

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be."

"I shouldn't have come here . . ."

"Yes you should have."

"I was just overwhelmed, and I missed you. It was a mistake. I should go-"

"Don't."

"Stop making this difficult."

"Me?" he scoffs. "Quinn, this – we – can work! You know that and I know that. You're just scared because you lost the baby and you think it's your fault! That's it, isn't it? You think you're a monster or something? It could have happened to anyone-"

"But it didn't!" she cries, burying her head in her hands. "It happened to me. You said it yourself, I lost the baby."

There was a silence; he didn't know what to say to that. "I need you. You need me. And someday . . . Maybe, someday, Quinn . . . But not now. Not yet. Let's just sort us out, and when we're ready for it . . ."

"You need someone better than me, Finn," she mumbles to him, setting her elbows on the mattress. Her hair brushes his cheek, and he missed the scent of her shampoo like you would not believe.

"No I don't. I'm never going to deserve anyone else. Quinn, we've done some stupid shit in our lives. But that doesn't change this," he tells her bravely, hoping he's saying the right things because, honestly, he doesn't really know. He brushes his fingers against her jaw and under her chin, tilting her head up to face him. "I love you."

She shakes her head, fighting tears. So many damn tears. He was getting frustrated – why wouldn't she let him just take care of her? Why was she so distant? "Please don't."

He bangs his head against the wall as she gets up. "Wait," he mumbles, grabbing her wrist. She turns to him. "Please, just stay a while. Please."

She takes a shower without another word. At least she didn't walk out the door.

She stays. She doesn't talk to anyone or help out around the house or read her bible. She sits in his favourite pair of pyjamas (he doesn't mind, they probably look better on her) and watches the world go by out through window.

"They're too big for you, you know," he tells her one day, watching her pull up the flannelette pants in a huff.

"I like them," she replies. It's the first thing she has said in three days. "You're too big for me, you know," she says after a minute, gesturing up and down, "but I like you."

"You like me?"

"Yeah, you make me laugh. I don't know a lot of people who can do that – not a proper, real laugh, at least," Quinn shrugs (she doesn't mention Puck, though). "Maybe a bitchy laugh when Rachel gets a slushy to the face . . . But you know, that was a long time ago."

(In fact, last time Rachel got a cold one to the head, Quinn helped Puck get her cleaned up. She offered clothes, now that she wasn't wearing size six hundred anymore.)

He thinks this might be a start for them.

"Can I move back in?" she whispers into his shoulder one night.

"Sure."

"What do you mean 'acceptable to society'?"

He can hear Quinn yelling over the phone at her father, even from the next room over.

"No, Daddy, you listen to me for a second. I wasn't some pariah, okay? No one was going to judge you for helping your pregnant daughter. In fact, I'm pretty sure most people think you're just a big jerk. I'm not a kid! Don't play the I'm your father card, because you made it pretty clear that you weren't! That's what it all came down to, didn't it? That you thought people wouldn't forgive you for raising a girl who got knocked up."

Quinn paused while Mr Fabray spoke. "Daddy, God would have forgiven us. He forgave me . . . No, he really did! Hey, don't bring Finn into this! He'd make a better father than you ever were."

More silence . . .

"No."

Finn heard the beep, signalling Quinn had hung up. She runs into the room and flops onto the bed. "God forgave me, Finn. I just know he did. He doesn't hate me."

"Who could hate you?" Finn mumbles, lying down next to her.

"My father."

She's incredibly restless the next night. She rolls over all the time, mumbling in her dreams. Occasionally she squeals or yelps, but then it will all die down so he can hear her steady breathing.

He watches her roll over onto her back. "Are you awake?"

"Uh huh."

"I can't sleep."

"Same."

He watches her hair fall over her face, the street lights illuminating the blond curls. Her big, wide eyes are open, staring back at him too. It takes him a second to realise that he's leaning towards her, moving forwards so slowly and carefully it's straining his neck.

His lips hover above her cheek. "Is this okay?"

"Yes," she mumbles, almost breathless.

He brushes his lips against hers, his finger tips ghosting along her jaw line. He's trying not too break her, because he's well aware that she's breakable. He pulls away after a few seconds, watching her face, trying to suss out her emotions. She rolls over into him and falls asleep.

Her dreams are just a blur of dull grey colour, but at least there is sleep.

They aren't exactly perfect anymore. It's still awkward and difficult and sometimes it's painful.

But they're getting there.

Here I am in the graveyard waiting for a war
I'm here, I'm calling out your name
I've been here before