He was going to tell them. Finn was going to tell her parents that she was with child, and then they would- She didn't even know what. They would force her to marry the moron who didn't even know that you couldn't get a girl pregnant by making out with her in the backseat of a car fully clothed. The absolute idiot who didn't seem to understand that she only liked him when they were in school because they were popular and it was destiny and what was she supposed to do with him now? He wasn't exactly popular without a football team to lead, he was just some boy working in his stepfather's garage and hanging out with his stupid friends on the weekend, and she...well, she couldn't be popular if there was no school to go to, if she wasn't a Cheerio, if she was fat and pregnant and everyone in town knew.

This wasn't supposed to be happening. She was supposed to be prom queen, and be a debutante, and go off to college somewhere that her father deemed "appropriate for a young lady" but where she could get a degree and maybe do something interesting, instead of sitting at home with a screaming infant all day while Finn worked long hours at the shop and she pretended not to notice when he flirted with every pretty young woman who came in with a car.

If there was one thing she did not want out of life, it was what her mother had.

But instead she was standing on the front step of this tiny house and wondering where in the world she and Finn were going to live and whether her father was ever going to look her in the eye again.

Her father worshipped her. She kind of loved that, you know, who wouldn't? Her older sister was closer to their mother, always had been and especially after they bonded so much over planning her elaborate wedding a few years ago, but she...her heart had always belonged to daddy. He was so proud of her, even if he could never make it out of the office early enough to come to games where she was cheering. He had been talking about her coming-out for years, since she started high school really. Talked about what a beautiful, upstanding young woman she was becoming - not like those friends of hers, who didn't understand what it meant to be a lady.

She needed him so much, but he wouldn't-...he wasn't going to understand, she just knew it. And she couldn't tell him and ruin what he thought they had, couldn't see the look in his eyes once he knew his baby girl-

She had tried to tell her mother before they left the house. She wasn't sure if it would be better or worse to hear this from the boy that her parents had never particularly liked, but she had a feeling it would go over better if she told them instead of letting Finn's family say something first. And as she had gone to her mother's dressing room to ask if she could borrow a different bracelet...

Hers didn't fit. The one she wanted to wear, at least, the gold one they had given her for her Sweet Sixteen. Her hands were getting kind of puffy and bloated already, and her face too even if they pretended not to notice. She didn't want to think about how long it would take for them to notice her dresses didn't fit anymore. Probably would blame it on the fact that she didn't have Cheerios practice every afternoon anymore, suggest she find some kind of dance class to keep herself occupied, go back to taking gymnastics. Ignore it like they did anything they didn't want to think about.

...she had gone in there to ask if she could borrow the tennis bracelet that her mother never wore anyway. It wasn't traditional enough, a little bit too deco for her mother who liked to dress like a proper society woman from sometime before 1920 when "the wrong kind of people" infiltrated the high-end social bubble, and it would match her dress and her earrings and it was all entirely rational except for the part where suddenly Quinn had felt the words just bubbling up inside her, along with tears. She suddenly felt like if she didn't say something she would explode in a gush of tears and vomit all over the oriental rug.

I'm with child, Mom, and I don't want any of this and I'm so scared.

She couldn't do it. Simply clamped her mouth shut in a forced, fake smile that matched her mother's, nodded politely in response to her mother's patronizing questions about what type of dish it would be appropriate to have Esme package up to take with them. The way she said "casserole" made her feel faint.

Her parents had never thought Finn was good enough. His family wasn't good enough, and Lima was all he was ever going to be.

All either of them was going to be now, she realized.

She wondered how her parents could talk about Lima like they weren't part of it, like they were part of some better, secret community that just rested temporarily in Lima. They were all stuck in that town, not just people like Finn's family, or Puck's.

She had thought she would get out of there, she really had. She had honestly believed-

Her father was wearing a suit that she could about guarantee cost more than Finn's stepfather made in a month, and his stepfather did a lot better than his mother ever had. Small businesses did okay, and everyone who had a car needed it fixed sometime. And everyone had a car, so that helped.

It could be worse, she knew that. She could be honest about whose child this really was, and then where would she be? At least Finn would take care of her, would...would make sure there was a roof over their head, and food on the table, and wouldn't end up in jail for doing something stupid like trying to steal a lampost or something like Puck would do. And when he inherited the family business, because everyone in town knew Kurt was leaving and wouldn't want any part of it, they would be...they would be comfortable.

At least Finn loved her, even if she didn't really love him.

She wouldn't be happy, but at least she might not...she might not be some single mom slaving away in a secretarial job and hoping the boss made an advance so she could get a raise. Or working in a diner at the edge of town, or like that ancient waitress at Breadstix. If these were her options, then maybe...

She just didn't want to believe these were her only options yet. Not yet. She wanted another hour of picturing a life somewhere on a college campus with an entire sorority of blonde former-cheerleaders who were smart and pretty and had nice boyfriends and everyone wanted to be like. Another hour of feeling like she could be popular again just as soon as she got into a school setting instead of knowing her life as she knew it was over.

She just wanted more time was all.

The pleasantries exchanged when Carole answered the door were tight, forced, the sort of interaction where it was obvious that the parties had nothing in common including basic rules to govern the conversation. Finn's family didn't do much small talk beyond school, they didn't know art or literature, so anything other than discussions of local town affairs dissolved quickly into strained silence.

"I don't believe I've been here since shortly after you moved," Judy commented with a fake smile brighter than her yellow dress. "I...love what you've done with the living room. It's so...rustic."

Rustic, of course, meant 'It doesn't match and it came from a combination of low-end stores and secondhand shops' because most people - Quinn knew, in theory - weren't like her parents and didn't spend money to hire a decorator to furnish the entire giant house, then refurnish it a few years later with equally-antique, imposing pieces of furniture. Some people kept things like old chairs that meant something to a person instead of just having value to some auction house somewhere.

Some people didn't just shove away any bad feeling they had.

But Carole just thanked her politely with a forced smile as Burt offered pre-dinner spirits that Quinn knew her father would deem subpar but finish anyway.

Finn was wearing one of exactly two ties he owned - the blue one. The red one was the one he'd worn to the athletics banquet; he had almost strangled himself with it trying to get it off at the end of the night as they made out in the back of his car up at the lookout point. It would have been better if they couldn't hear Puck and Sandy moaning in the next car.

So many things in her life would be better if Puck hadn't been there, she thought with a pang of regret.

It was just the way he looked at her, like he actually saw her instead of just seeing the girl he'd always dated. Like she was something special, even if she knew she probably wasn't even his only girl that day. He was too charming for anyone's good, this was all his fault. If he wouldn't have-

Something people tended to find either refreshing or terrifying about Burt was that he didn't beat around the bush. He came out and said something if he thought it needed said, though he wasn't a man of too many words so people tended to listen. Quinn wondered if the words "We need to decide what we're going to do" were more frightening to her parents because they were being blindsided, or because they were being forced to talk about anything at all.

She shot Finn a pleading look, a look that begged him to stop this - to stop his stepfather from doing this, from doing it now. She would tell them eventually, she just- she couldn't now. Not yet. She needed more time. She needed them to stop talking because if she could just have more time, she could figure out what she was going to do and then she could just go do it instead of dragging everyone's parents into this. She could hatch a plan if only she had more-

"Do about what?" Judy asked politely as she swirled her stirrer in her drink, manicured nails just barely scraping against the glass.

"The kids'...situation."

She didn't know Finn's stepfather was capable of using euphemisms. He might be acceptable to her parents yet. Not even close, but the thought did amuse her a little.

"What situation?" Russell asked, and she felt herself wanting to sink into the couch at the tense tone in his voice. She didn't, of course; she had perfect posture, it had been drilled into her from an early age, but she did find herself wishing she could just disappear.

"Quinn-..." Carole looked at her. "Sweetie, you didn't tell them?"

She wouldn't be such a bad mother in law, she had always been sweet enough. Warm. Unlike Quinn's own mother. She might meddle, as the stereotype went, but she wouldn't be cruel about it. Might even be helpful when this baby was born and she had no idea how to raise it.

She couldn't answer. Maybe if she didn't answer, the entire conversation would drift into awkward silence and then be filled by something else, a conversation about a play the local theater group was thinking about doing. She bet she could talk about convincing Finn to go out for it - as long as he didn't actually, that would be fine. But they could get a good bit of conversation out of that, right? Talking about what Finn would do if he was cast as the Modern Major General and had to remember all those words?

"Tell us what?" She could practically hear her father's eyes narrowing, but her gaze stayed glued in front of her, at the edge of the frayed woven rug and the bottom of the tv stand.

"Quinn and I are-...I mean Quinn is, I'm not because I can't do that, but we're-..."

"Finn," Carole prompted gently.

"We're having a baby."

She halfway expected yelling, her father thundering about how could Finn do that to his little girl, her mother letting out a dramatic gasp like when a character in the movies gets really horrible, unexpected news. She didn't know why - that would require outward displays of emotion, and everyone knew the Fabrays didn't do such things.

There was a long, tense silence that probably didn't actually last more than a few seconds but felt like months. Finn reached over to grab her hand and she shook it away; they'd held hands in front of her parents before, but not often and now hardly seemed like the time, what with the mental image they had now of what the two of them had done (however fictional).

It was Burt who finally broke through the quiet to speak frankly, full of practicality and welcome forethought. Even if she wanted nothing to do with his plan, the fact that he had one was vaguely reassuring. He would be a stable influence, she thought slowly. Make Finn more stable, maybe. If they were doing this. If it had to happen now, which she supposed it did. "Finn and Carole and I've been talking, and we'll start looking for places this weekend - we can put together enough for a down payment, get the kids started a little bit." He didn't mention that her parents should chip in what they could afford which would be considerably more than he could, which was classier than Quinn expected. Her parents tended to react to people of Burt and Carole's "standing" with more than a bit of disdain, to act as though they were practically animals at the trough, but they weren't so different. None of them were.

She hoped so, at least. Teen mothers hardly grew up to become millionaires. Any dreams of a future that included the finer things in life were out the window now, weren't they?

She wondered if Carole had been through this, if that was why she was so calm and sympathetic. She wasn't sure if that was reassuring or not.

Burt was still talking. "Now, I dunno if you think there should be a wedding, or if you think that'll draw more attention to it all. Weddings are kinda for the bride anyway, so it's up to-"

"I don't understand what's going on here." Russell's voice was quiet but firm, strong, allowing no room for argument or interruption of his interruption. "Now, you invite us over here to tell us that my youngest daughter is pregnant, and you're talking about weddings?"

"How do we even know what you're telling us is true?"

Her mother's question made her want to scream. She had known, she had to. She knew, but was too afraid to say anything because if neither of them said it, then it wasn't happening. Quinn wondered if it was hereditary. No, she concluded; she probably learned it. She learned from her mother, who learned from her mother, who learned from her mother the Victorian edict of never asking questions if you didn't want confirmation of an answer you didn't want.

"Judy, why would Finn make that up? Why would the boy ever be the one to come forward like that?" Carole pointed out, and Quinn had to agree with that. Puck wouldn't have, she knew that much for certain.

"Sweetheart?" Her mother's manicured hand touched her chin, guiding it up to look her in the eye, and she almost lost it then - almost started sobbing because it was still all just so fucking much and she couldn't- She couldn't do any of this. Not a wedding, not a house, not Finn, certainly not this baby. "Is this true?"

She wasn't sure how she managed the quiet "Yes," but there it was, followed by another echoing silence.

This time it was Finn who spoke first. 'So are we, um. Mr. and Mrs. Fabray, I'm really sorry, I know this isn't, y'know, like ideal or anything, but are we-"

"Thank you," Russell said. Quinn looked at her father finally, and she wasn't sure she recognized the man she saw there. He looked nervous - her father never looked nervous. He seemed angry more than anything, which she supposed she expected, but he also looked scared and that was more unnerving because if her father looked scared? What in the world was she meant to do if he didn't even know? "But I think we better be going now." He stood and made his way to the front door.

"We still need to decide-"

"No." His voice left no room for argument. "I appreciate your sharing of the news, however blunt and...unorthodox its delivery, but this will be handled as a private, family matter."

"I hate to break it to you, but the kids are family now," Burt stated. "Maybe not the way anyone planned or would've liked, but the two of them and this baby-"

"She is our daughter. And as I said, this will be handled as a private, family matter." Before Burt could say anything else, Russell added, "Judy. Let's go."

Quinn knew better than to not follow.

It was all out in the open now.

Even though that was the last thing she'd wanted, maybe it was for the best. Maybe it was best because at least now there weren't any secrets. No more lies.

She just thought she'd have more time. She hadn't even gotten to the salad course.

* * * * *

Kurt wasn't entirely sure what the conversation in the car changed, but it certainly felt like it had changed everything.

On one hand, nothing was actually different. He still didn't know if Blaine liked him, he and Blaine were still friends and he hadn't been shoved from the moving car in disgust. He was still a Junior at Dalton Academy, a member of the Warblers a homosexual (hey, look, he was starting to think it almost regularly and without cringing)...if anything it seemed like the conversation with Rachel was the one that had changed things in the last 24 hours. Because now he had a girlfriend, and that was something tangible and strange and different. Something he would have to get used to.

He wondered if he was meant to call her as regularly as other guys called their girlfriends. That would seriously cut into his evening moisturizing routine, and he wasn't sure he liked her quite that much. Especially since their relationship was purely for show for other students' benefit, and none of the kids from McKinley were in Rachel Berry's bedroom at 9:00 on a Tuesday.

If they were, clearly she didn't actually need a fake boyfriend, did she?

At the same time, there was something about the world after the car that Felt different. Felt...brighter. Open. Lighter, like he wasn't walking around beneath the crushing weight of this secret even though there were exactly two people in the universe who knew - one of whom he didn't particularly want to know, but she had taken it upon herself to declare it anyway.

Things hadn't felt nearly as different after the conversations with Rachel. Confusing, yes, and they had an impact, but this was...

On one level, he supposed, it was validating. He'd been right that Blaine was like him, and it always felt good to be right. On another level, there was something powerful just in knowing that he wasn't the only one. That there were other homosexuals his own age and in Ohio - not just drifting out there in some fictional theoretical city, men in their 40s who worked at publishing houses and were known only by their case numbers. Not just in psychiatrists' offices where they tried to rid themselves of the only trait Kurt had in common with them. Right there, in the car beside him, so close he could reach out and touch Blaine the same way Blaine so often touched him - casually, without any particular meaning or agenda behind it. Just a reminder that he wasn't alone.

That neither of them were alone.

That was the real point, Kurt concluded. It wasn't just about relationship potential. Because even if it turned out that Blaine didn't like him or want to...do whatever it was that was the equivalent of dating if both parties involved were guys (he wondered if Rachel could supply him with that information; the relationship might turn more mutually-beneficial than he'd anticipated if she could start answering his questions or at least direct him to her father)...even as much as he didn't want to start thinking about that possibility - even if Blaine wasn't interested in pursuing anything romantic or...erotic (whatever that meat, he blushed at the thought) with him, at least there was someone else who understood. Someone else like him, who felt the way he did. Someone he could tell about his feelings without having to worry about who might think what.

Someone he could be honest with.

In a world where he constantly felt apart from everyone else, that somehow seemed so small and monumental all at the same time.

He was midway through his homework when Sam came in, bag slung over his arm, looking exhausted. He expected his roommate to go immediately to his desk as he usually did, but instead Sam flopped backwards onto the bed with less grace than Kurt would have expected from someone with Sam's build, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

"Should I bother asking how it went?" he asked sympathetically.

Sam glanced over at him. "Kind of okay, actually. I think. Maybe. It's hard to tell."

"What do you mean?"

"Well...okay, so I told them yesterday, right? My dad was around, we did some yardwork, came inside for lunch and I sat them down and told them what you said. My mom started hugging me like she thought I was dying or something," Sam grinned and rolled his eyes, but it was obvious the reaction had been better than he'd hoped for. "And I kinda expected my dad to be a jerk, but he...he wasn't, really. They let me go out with you guys - which was fun, even if I embarrassed myself. And today in the car..." He paused, like he wasn't sure how to explain it to someone who hadn't been in his family forever, then finally settled on, "They seemed almost...guilty or something. Like they should've known it wasn't my fault but they didn't know who else's fault it could be so I got the blame. I mean, I still don't think they know how hard I was working or realize it's why I quit football, but I was kinda expecting worse, I guess. I don't know. I feel kind of okay about it all. My mom's calling around to find out more about specialists and stuff, so maybe I'll actually get to have a life this year. And stay on the Warblers," he added, but the way his smile pulled awkwardly to the side gave Kurt the distinct impression that Sam thought that was still too much to hope for.

It shouldn't be, Kurt knew that, but midterms were coming up in a few weeks - right before Sectionals, how cruel was that? - and if he failed them then Sam would have to get all A's on the finals in January if he wanted to stay in. And as much as all the Warblers could try to spend extra hours helping him and commiserate over how unfair it was that Sam might get thrown out...that wasn't going to be enough to help. He had no idea what kind of waiting lists specialists had or how long their therapies would take to work, but it wasn't looking great.

Neither of them wanted to say it, and Kurt wasn't sure he could bring himself to lie. He'd never been good at that. So they let the remark just stand for a moment before Sam spoke again. "Anyway. They were cooler about it than I expected. Guess people can really surprise you, huh? Even parents."

Kurt wondered suddenly what his father would say if he knew about his...condition. Was it still a condition? He guessed so. Just not as bad of one as he originally thought, he supposed. Though the study with Man #16 did say that, if the fact that the people were homosexuals were bracketed, they showed no sign of illness: did that mean it wasn't actually an illness at all?

He should ask Rachel's dad. Or Blaine - Blaine would know if he was supposed to still be calling it an illness even though he knew it wasn't actually a problem. Kind of like...well, like Sam's dyslexia assuming he could find some kind of treatment that meant he could function. Only in his case, his 'treatment' was essentially a fake girlfriend to keep people from asking questions - it didn't change how he felt, what his natural proclivities were, just...meant that he could survive a little better in a world that didn't understand.

Would his father understand? Understand that he wasn't just theatrical, that he wasn't merely effeminate, that he really wasn't ever going to get married and have kids - give his father and Carole grandchildren? He supposed Finn would probably have that covered, but still, that wasn't the point.

His father would be kind to him, he thought. He always had been, hadn't tried to force him into sports like all the other fathers. Had never tried to tell him to tone down his clothes or stop walking the way he did or change the kind of songs he sang. And he was better than most men of his...demographic, shall we say, when it came to treating people who were different - not many people would have treated Mrs. Jones and Mercedes as well, Kurt knew that even if it did make him uneasy. In fact, he knew Mrs. Jones had tried to apply to work for other families before coming to work for them, and all of them had serious problems with her bringing her daughter along to play with their pure white children - as if that made some kind of difference. His father's response had been that it wouldn't be right to take her away from her kid to have her take care of his, so as long as the two got along he didn't see why not. That wasn't typical, that was surprisingly progressive, which meant maybe-

...but his father wouldn't understand this. No one in town would. Treating people the same regardless of their skin colour was a hard enough concept for people to grasp, but at least his dad had a point of reference: they were both parents. They were both trying to provide for their families and wanted as much time as they could get with their kids. It was a small thing, but it was enough to...what? See her as human? He didn't even really know, he'd been so young then he didn't remember and wouldn't have understood whatever he heard at the time anyway.

But this? Not wanting to kiss or date or marry a girl, wanting to do all those things with boys instead? How in the world was his dad going to understand that? Relate to that? Feel any kind of compassion toward that? Let alone-...it was a disease. According to laws, at least from what he could gather from the article about the bar in Columbus, it was considered by a lot of people to be more than unusual but downright immoral, which he really couldn't understand.

What if he tried to tell his dad, and his dad decided it really was a disease, it really was a sickness, and tried to send him for one of the horrible treatments he'd read about? Because even though there was the study that said he and others like him weren't sick and didn't need to "get better," that didn't seem like the view most people held, even within the medical community. Especially within the medical community. What if he said something-

He swallowed hard and shook his head. No. he wouldn't tell him. There was no reason to, right? After all, he had a girlfriend. A girlfriend he would take to whatever this mysterious family event coming up was.

Hopefully the girlfriend would not spend the entire event making doe-eyes at his brother. She said she was over that, but he couldn't always guarantee Rachel was being honest about things like that. His only consolation was that she was generally such a bad liar that he could tell if she was making something up.

He hoped her powers of deception were better when it came to telling people about their faux-relationship.

"So what about you?" Sam asked. "How was your trip back? And what's going on with you and that girl - Rebecca?"

"Rachel," Kurt corrected.

The thing was, he wanted to tell people. He wanted to just start telling everyone he saw, for two reasons. First, it felt so good to tell people, once the initial terror wore off. it had felt good knowing Rachel knew as soon as he was sure she wasn't going to use it as blackmail material. It felt good knowing Blaine knew and shared the feelings. It made him feel lighter. Less isolated.

Which led heavily into the second reason: If he told more people, he could find more people like him. Like Blaine. Like Rachel's father. So far every person he'd told (okay, all two of them) had resulted in finding another person out there. He'd gone from thinking there were maybe 3 dozen in the entire country to knowing three within one degree of separation. For all he knew, Sam was a homosexual, too - after all, he didn't chase after girls as much as Jeff or Nick or any of the other guys, and he did bleach his hair (with Jeff, with a big bottle of peroxide in the bathroom, even though Kurt wasn't meant to know about that), and he didn't look at Kurt like he was that weird like other boys always had. He was kind to him, like Blaine was, and maybe that meant-

...he did spend most of the night chasing after Quinn, though. Which meant he probably wasn't-

He shouldn't risk it.

He pasted on a bright smile. "We're dating. She's my girlfriend."

"Oh, really?" Sam looked surprised, a little wistful, like it was great that his roommate had a girlfriend and all but he wished he could be that lucky.

"It's new," he added, as if that explained it all away. "We've known each other awhile, but we just started dating."

None of it was lying, but it felt like it was. He supposed it would have to do for now, at least around most people.

But around Blaine, he could be honest. That somehow made the rest of it feel a little better.

* * * * *

Quinn was mad at him.

Finn wasn't sure exactly why, except he guessed for that part where he wasn't supposed to tell anyone she was pregnant and then his mom and Burt found out. But that wasn't totally his fault and she would know that if she would answer his calls. Or would listen when he talked in the first place, but he didn't think that was gonna happen.

He didn't really get most of this romance stuff, usually he just took the girl out and was kinda not a jerk to her and she thought he was great because he was better than Puck or Karofsky or one of the other guys on the team - and even then he hadn't really dated anyone except Quinn in awhile so he didn't have much to go by. But. He was willing to learn, and one thing he knew always worked with his mom was if Burt brought home flowers. Even though they all knew Kurt was the one who picked them out and probably the one who told Burt to buy them, it still made the fight end sooner. His mom said it was something about how it was a sign that Burt saw her and valued her or something. He didn't get it, but if he and Quinn were a real couple now - like, an about-to-be-married couple, not like just she had his ring...then he was gonna have to learn.

Because he did value her. He loved her. Even if he didn't want to marry her right now, he really did want to be with her. And he really was sorry all this was happening.

So he went to the flower shop and got a bouquet. He didn't know much about flowers, and Kurt couldn't go with him, but they looked kinda like the ones on her corsage at the spring dance last year. He thought so, at least. He'd spent awhile staring at them because they were pinned on top of her boobs and, well.

He got them in blue and pink - like the baby, 'cause he didn't know if it was going to be a boy or a girl, but he'd be okay with either one he guessed - and took the bouquet to her house. She should be home, she wasn't really doing anything this year. For a couple weeks they thought she was going to have to go to one of those private schools with the uniforms, but her parents thought the thing with McKinley would be over by now so they didn't send her.

Her mother answered the door and stared at him like she wasn't sure why he could be there. "Hello, Finn."

"Hi, Mrs. Fabray. I know things didn't go so well last night, but I wanted to apologize- is Quinn here?"

"No." She looked...not really sad, she was too put-together for that, but not exactly happy either.

"Oh." That threw a wrench in his plans. He held onto the flowers a little tighter - they should still look nice in a couple hours, right? "Okay. Um, do you know when she'll be back?"

"She won't be."

"Okay, I'll stop by-" Her words finally caught up with him. That didn't make any sense, why wouldn't she be back? This was her home, she couldn't just like leave and not come back. "Wait. I...what?"

"She left this morning for boarding school." Mrs. Fabray sounded completely calm, like she was saying Quinn went to the mall with Brittany or something.

"What the hell is going on?"

"Language, young man," she scolded him.

Scolding him now? Didn't she realize what she was saying? What- it wasn't like this was some normal set of circumstances, not if what she was saying was actually true. "I'm sorry, but this is really not a good time to-...what do you mean, she left?"

"Her father and I decided that this closure business had gone on too long already. Clearly she's had too much time on her hands, you know, and if she wants to go to a proper institution next year she can't get too far behind."

"Yeah, but she just...left? Didn't even say goodbye? What about the baby?" How could she sound so calm? Quinn just left, she was gone, she up and vanished on him without even telling him - or telling anyone, and her mom was sounding like everything was fine? Like this was something everyone knew about. What was he supposed to do now? And what about the baby, was she going to come home when it was born? Because that would be a lot more missing school than anything else. Unless...was it maybe not due until the school would let out? He didn't even know. Was she coming back? Maybe-

"Finn." Mrs. Fabray put her hand on his arm and looked him in the eye. "She's gone. You need to move on." She gave him a fake smile that made him want to kick things, then slipped back inside and closed the door in his face, leaving him standing on the stoop with a fistful of pink and blue flowers and no idea where the mother of his child was.