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Third
Puck wakes up before the alarm, which is something he’s done more often than not since the football season officially ended and ‘all’ they have to keep up is strength and conditioning, plus classes. Like a lot of mornings, Finn’s arms are around him, and his face is more or less smushed against Finn’s neck, and like every morning for the past few years, and especially since they got to Terre Haute, Puck knows it’s a pretty good place to be.
Puck opens his eyes enough to check the light level and confirm that it’s before the alarm, then closes his eyes and listens. No Beth sounds, probably because she went to sleep late, so excited about her birthday the next day. Because it’s the middle of the week, they aren’t doing much, just cupcakes at her daycare and dinner out with the three of them at her new favorite restaurant, with plans to have a bigger party on the weekend, when Carole and Burt will drive down, and they’ll Skype with Kurt. Still, it had been at least two hours past her usual bedtime before she calmed down and went to sleep, so Puck’s doubly glad that she’s not awake yet.
“Finn?” Puck whispers, and then when Finn doesn’t move, Puck smiles a little. He’ll wait a few more minutes and then start to wake Finn up. Neither of them have a test, and Finn doesn’t know it, but Puck made sure they both had someone to take notes in their classes. They probably won’t be able to do it always, and probably not even for every year of college, but Puck figures that since they’re near the end of their freshman year of college, doing it relatively successfully, they can take Beth’s birthday off. Puck’s plan is that they take Beth to the childcare center, have the morning to themselves, join her for lunch and cupcakes, and then sign her out early, giving the three of them the rest of the day off.
Another five or ten minutes pass while Puck thinks over their first year at Indiana State, and then Puck can feel Finn’s arms move just enough to let him know that Finn’s going to be awake soon. Puck grins to himself and starts kissing Finn’s neck. If they’re quiet, Beth won’t wake up for at least another twenty minutes.
Fourth
Puck stares in the mirror on the morning of Beth’s fourth birthday and sighs heavily. “Two years,” he whispers to himself. “Get through the next few weeks, and then it’s just two more years of this.” They aren’t skipping class, because both of them have tests in the morning, and they’re barely going to make it to Beth’s class in time for cupcakes.
Freshman year had gone so smoothly, right up into the summer and the start of football practice. So smoothly that they’d been all the more thrown by what Puck calls ‘the terrible threes’ and mornings where it took hours, or felt like it, to get Beth just dressed and out the door, followed sometimes by more tears at the childcare center. By November, he and Finn had abandoned drawing straws and decided each night who would take primary shift the next morning, based on who could best afford to miss a workout or a class. Football season ending had brought some relief, and then the winter break, but January and February had been nearly as bad, once classes started again. Only in the few weeks leading up to Beth’s birthday had they finally begun to see her turning the corner towards four at last.
The worst part about their tests falling on Beth’s birthday, though, in Puck’s opinion, is that it’s her first birthday since the adoption was finalized. Neither he nor Finn had said much about it, but Puck had still somehow thought it would have been nice to at least been able to take a skip day. Instead, they’re taking tests and Puck has a lab after cupcakes.
“Daddy!” Beth’s voice calls through the door, accompanied by a knock. “Fada says pancakes are ready!”
Getting up early so they could have pancakes was something of a compromise, since they won’t be in time for lunch with her, and they don’t have time to go out to dinner until two days later on the weekend, when their family arrives. Puck rubs his hands over his face a final time as he turns from the mirror and opens the bathroom door.
“Happy birthday, Beth!”
Fifth
Puck meets up with the rest of his class in front of the childcare center, amused that this week for developmental psychology, they’re going to be observing preschoolers. He could tell them plenty about one particular preschooler, anyway, but he doesn’t say anything, not as everyone else arrives and then talks quietly, waiting for their professor.
Their professor comes out of the building three minutes after class is supposed to start, waving them in and dividing them into groups as they walk through the door. Puck had thought about letting his professor know that Beth is one of the kids at the childcare center, but he didn’t want her to think he was asking for special attention or anything, and they’ve made it this far without having to tell their business to everyone. Puck raps the doorframe absently when he thinks about the fact that every time Beth’s been sick, even if he or Finn have had a test, the other hasn’t.
“Okay, this group, follow Ms. Abernathy, please,” his professor says, gesturing to one group. “Use your observation handout when you arrive at the room.” She sends another with the assistant director before one of the interns takes Puck’s group, the professor tagging alone. Puck shakes his head a little when he realizes they’re heading towards the prekindergarten rooms. The advantage in Puck’s mind about having class at the childcare center this particular day is that he knows he won’t be late for lunch, but Beth’s going to think they get cupcakes early if she sees him through the door.
Instead, though, the intern leads Puck’s group straight into Beth’s classroom, gesturing for them to line up near the cubbies. As soon as the door closes, though, all of the kids turn to look at the group, and then Beth grins, running for Puck.
“Hey, Bethie-girl,” Puck says, scooping her up. “Where’d you get that crown?”
“Because it’s my birthday!” Beth says. “Is it time for cupcakes?” She looks around and then frowns at Puck. “Where’s Fada?” Puck grins, because even though he’d sort of expected Beth to change her name for Finn, at age five, it’s probably well-entrenched.
“This is my class. I’ll stay after class for lunch and cupcakes, and Fada will get here after his class,” Puck says. “We’re supposed to observe you.”
“What?”
“Watch you,” Puck explains.
“That’s silly!” Beth wriggles a little, and Puck sets her down so she can run back to her friends. He starts to pull out the observation sheet, and then realizes that all of his group, plus the professor, are looking at him.
“That’s Beth, my daughter,” he says finally, and someone snorts.
“Well, yeah, she looks just like you,” someone else says, and Puck’s professor keeps studying him, like she can’t quite make sense of the football player having a kid, or maybe it was the references to Finn.
“How do you have a four year old?” one girl in Puck’s group asks. “I thought you played football.”
Puck laughs as someone else says “Are you older than the rest of us?” and then shakes his head.
“Beth was born at the end of my sophomore year of high school,” he says with a little shrug. “Today’s her fifth birthday. We play football ‘cause it pays for college.”
Their professor shushes all of them then, gesturing to the observation sheets, and Beth mostly ignores Puck’s presence during the remainder of the class. Once their class period’s usual ending time passes, the professor collects their observation sheets and gestures for them all to follow her into the front hallway.
“I’ll post a summary of observations along with the article to read for next week’s class,” she says once all the groups return to the front, and then dismisses them. Puck doesn’t leave, instead waiting in the front for Finn, and his professor stops before she leaves.
“You know, I’m sure most of your professors would be more lenient with absences and such if we knew about your family situation,” she says, smiling slightly.
“If Beth’s sick, usually one of us can miss at least one class,” Puck says. “We’re busy enough that explaining our lives would take too much time, mostly.”
“I assume that’s part of why you knew so much about it being a primary caregiver, rather than the mother per se?” the professor asks, referring to their discussion about attachment several weeks earlier, and Puck grins.
“Two primary caregivers, in our case.” He lets his smile fade. “Beth’s mom died on the day she was born.” He blinks a little, startled. “So five years ago, today. Amniotic fluid embolism. I spent about a week the summer before freshman year Googling it and everything about it, finally convinced myself it really wasn’t my fault.” He looks out the window and sees Finn approaching, and grins a little. “But yeah, between the two of us, she’s been very well-attached.”
“I could see that.” She pauses, studying Puck again. “Well, don’t forget that you can let on if necessary,” his professor says, looking where Puck’s looking and apparently seeing Finn, because she smiles a little more and then leaves. It looks like she says something to Finn as she passes him, and Puck shakes his head, picking his backpack up and putting it back on.
Time for lunch and cupcakes.
Sixth
Puck wakes up late on Sunday, just like he does most Sundays, then grins to himself when he remembers that it’s Beth’s birthday, and part of Beth’s birthday treat was spending the night in the hotel with Carole (and Burt). They’ll be back for brunch, but for once on Beth’s birthday, there’s no classes or tests to worry about, and more than that, they only have a few weeks left of undergrad. Sure, they’re going straight into master’s programs with their final year of eligibility, but finishing one degree is a good milestone, Puck is pretty sure.
Puck grins to himself, face against Finn’s neck like it usually is when he wakes up, and he starts kissing Finn’s neck slowly, wiggling one hand between them so he can slowly run his hand up and down Finn’s side.
“Finn,” he whispers. “Wake up. There’s no Beth here. It’s just you and me.” He keeps kissing Finn’s neck, slowly moving up Finn’s jaw. “Wake up, let’s take advantage of it.” He laughs in Finn’s ear. “Which could mean a lot of things.”
“Could mean more sleep,” Finn says.
“It could,” Puck agrees. “It could mean eating without getting our food stolen by little girl fingers, too.”
“We should probably work a little harder on the table manners thing, huh?” Finn asks, rolling towards Puck. “Happy Beej Day.”
“Six,” Puck says. “And she’s almost finished kindergarten. Go us.”
“Can we send out kindergarten graduation announcements?”
“Probably,” Puck says after thinking for a moment. “She’s so old now.”
“You’re so old now!” Finn says, pulling Puck in closer.
“You’re not that much younger than me!” Puck says. “Maybe we should have another one before we get too old.”
“Yeah? Where do people even get babies?” Finn asks.
“We could use a surrogate or something, right? Probably not at Babies ‘R Us,” Puck says jokingly.
“Is there a website for that?” Finn runs his hand down Puck’s back. “Finding a surrogate?”
“Probably. We look like good upstanding people on paper,” Puck says. “On screen. Whichever.”
“I bet it’s expensive.”
“You can’t buy babies, though, right?” Puck shrugs and kisses Finn. “We can check.”
“Yeah, I’d like that,” Finn says. “Hey, so, if we had another girl, we could name her after my mom.”
“What’s her middle name?” Puck asks. “And if it was a boy, we could name him after…” Puck trails off. “I don’t know, actually.”
“We could name him Indiana,” Finn says.
“Sycamore,” Puck says, grinning a little.
“Maybe just something really normal like Steve.”
Puck makes a face and shakes his head. “Our names aren’t even that normal. Maybe Jack or Johnny. Then at least he’d have a song.”
“I like Jack,” Finn says. “Maybe we could name him that.”
“Beth and Jack sounds good, right?”
“Yeah, it does,” Finn says.
Puck grins. “We’re having a really productive morning so far.”
“Want to see how much more productive we can make it?” Finn asks.
“Absolutely.”
Seventh
“We should wake Beth up and tell her happy birthday,” Puck says, looking down at his phone, which says that it’s definitely just past two am on Beth’s birthday.
“Somebody should get some sleep tonight,” Finn says. “Might as well be Beej.”
“It’s not going to be us, is it, Jack?” Puck says, picking up the bottle and giving it a final shake before handing it to Finn.
“Jack doesn’t believe in sleep,” Finn says as he takes the bottle, somehow managing to get it into Jack’s mouth without stopping the bouncing that keeps him from screaming.
“Jack doesn’t believe in anything except screaming and car rides,” Puck says, shaking his head. “He gets it from his uncle.”
“He didn’t get it from me, ‘cause Mammy Carole says I was an easy baby,” Finn says.
“She said you were a fat baby,” Puck says with a tired laugh. “That’s not the same.” He watches Jack suck furiously at the bottle, still in motion in Finn’s arms. “If we could just figure out what he’s so mad about, we could maybe make him less mad.”
“What if he doesn’t like us?” Finn asks. “Maybe he’s just really pissed off he got us as parents.”
“Who wouldn’t like us? We’re great. Maybe he just hates being hungry. Or cold. Maybe he’ll like summer better.”
“I hope he’s not this angry by the time he’s two,” Finn says.
“Or three.” Puck grimaces. “You want to try lying down?”
“Yeah. Get the paci ready so we can quick-swap.”
Puck nods, picking up the pacifier and lying down with his hand poised while Finn carefully maneuvers himself and Jack onto the bed, and as Jack drinks the last of the formula, Puck slips the pacifier in its place. “Take it, take it, take it,” he mutters.
Jack’s face wrinkles up briefly, and Puck and Finn both hold their breaths, but then Jack starts sucking placidly on the pacifier, eyes still closed. Finn sighs and lets his head drop back onto the pillow.
“It’s a Beej Day miracle,” Finn says, in the quietest voice possible.
Puck exhales quietly and nods. “We’ll buy that game she wants after all, maybe. You think Beth could keep it up for more than one day?”
“Never doubt the awesome power of the Beej,” Finn says. “I’m not remembering this wrong, am I? She really wasn’t this hard as a baby?”
“No, remember the day after the end of sophomore year? You slept in? No way you could have slept through Jack-screaming,” Puck says. “Beth was way easier. Thankfully. Otherwise we would have been high school dropouts.”
“He’s what the mall doctor would call a ‘high need baby’,” Finn says.
Puck laughs. “Yeah, so we should probably be smart attached moms and go to sleep, so you can wake up in time to make Beth’s pancakes.”
“Mmhmm,” Finn says, eyes closing. “Somebody ought to write him about changing that on his site. Some high need babies have two dads.”
“Remind me to do that when I’m well-rested again,” Puck says. “So probably around the time Jack turns two.”
“Two’s a good age. Good number of kids, too,” Finn says.
Puck nods, carefully putting his arm across Jack so his hand is on Finn, and he closes his own eyes. “Yeah. Party of four.”