Author's Note: This is chapter 1 of 4 (with the potential for more depending on how everything goes). It is a collaboration between myself and PoliticsandProse. This chapter is all me, but the next chapter will be written by her :)

I've known about you for a while now
When he leaves me he wears a smile now
As soon as he's away from me
In your arms is where he wants to be

He's gone again. He's always gone this time of night, or at least it feels that way lately. I'm not stupid, I know by now that there's someone else.

Why does he need more? We've only been married three years this past April, and we have a perfect, chubby, six-month-old baby boy. But I guess it isn't enough. I guess Hunter and I aren't enough. Because night after night, he disappears.

Granted, it's not every night. Not anymore. In fact, it's been nearly three weeks since he's crept from our bed when he thinks I'm asleep, (I'm the mother of a six month old, does he really think the tiniest noise doesn't rouse me?) but nonetheless.

It's really an insult to my intelligence, if you ask me. I've been with the man since I was eighteen; I think I know him better than anybody by now. And I especially know when something's off about him.

If I have it figured correctly, he started up with this….well whatever she is… around the time Hunter was two months old. I can even pinpoint the day it began. He'd said he was going out with a client and that he'd be home by eleven at the latest. Eleven o clock turned to midnight, and midnight became one am, and finally he'd come stumbling through the door at two fifty-three, reeking of whiskey and coconut. I'd been deliriously tired, but even in my exhausted state, I knew something was off-kilter.

Who knows, maybe it's my fault. I'm the one who insisted that the new roof was more important than buying him a new wedding band when he lost his. Then again, who the Hell wears their wedding band in the shower at the gym?

He's such an idiot sometimes.

When we got married, he promised me the world, the moon and the stars. I should have known it was too good to be true. What I do know is that I'm too young to be alone in a cold bed while my husband's off doing God-knows-what with God-knows-who. I'm only twenty-six, still as pretty (I think) as I was when I was eighteen, and yes I'm still carrying some of the twenty pounds I gained during my pregnancy, but I have a six month old, God damn it! I'm a full-time mother and most days I don't have the energy to do the yoga DVD that Noah so helpfully bought me for my birthday. So sue me.

Sometimes I think it'd be different if Noah had been the one to stay home with Hunter instead of me. It seemed like the logical choice, me staying home. I was the one who'd be breastfeeding after all. But day after day I regretted it more and more. As much as I loved that little angel sleeping on the other side of the wall, his father would never have met her had it not been for my decision to be a stay at home mother. Because he had to have met her at work, right? When he wasn't at work, he was home with me and Hunter. Or at the gym, but even I know Noah doesn't pay attention to anything but his workout at the gym. And it's not as if he'd fall for our ditzy college-aged babysitter. He likes his women sharp as a tack. Like I used to be before Mommy brain took over.

Now half the time my brain is either mush from being up all night with Hunter, or focused on things like diapers, or formula, or Mommy and Me classes. I know Noah misses our 'grown-up time', but what can I do? Sure, we haven't had sex since Hunter was born, but we have a child, our lives aren't the same. Of course I miss sex, I'd be crazy not to. Noah was my first (and only) lover, and he's certainly never made me regret that. It killed me to know that the lack of spark in our relationship lately had caused him to seek comfort in the arms of another woman. Especially because spark had never been something that was lacking in our relationship. At least, not until recently.

We met the first day of college, orientation really. I was instantly taken in by his cocky demeanor. One flash of that sexy smile and I was a goner. At eighteen, he was my first taste of real love. Yes, I'd had boyfriends in high school, but I was too much of an overachiever, too focused on myself and my goals to let any of them get serious. But that all changed the moment Noah Ezekiel Puckerman strode into my life.

He used to say that the sun shone a halo over my head the day we met. He says those things sometimes, I'm sure you know the kind. Those impossibly sweet things that make you melt into the floor. Well Noah Puckerman was a master of sweet talk; then again it never felt like sweet talk. It never felt like he was feeding me lines, he just has a way of saying the exact right thing at the exact right time.

I suppose you could say we clicked instantly. By junior year we were living together. The architecture major and the interior design major. A match made in heaven.

Or so you would assume.

He proposed the day of our graduation and I was over the moon. The perfect man, the perfect job lined up, everything was falling into place. And a year to the day later, we were married. As cliché as it all sounds, my wedding day and the day my son was born were the two best days of my life.

It hurts me really, to think how happy we were. Our wedding was the most beautiful ever. Naturally the designer in me went a little crazy, but the outcome was nothing short of magnificent. The perfect mixture of Christian and Jewish traditions. I'd refused to convert, naturally, so he had to settle for having a half-Jewish, half-Christian wedding. Not that either of us minded compromising. We were too busy staring into each other's eyes all day to mind. So young. So full of love, and hope, and dreams of the future. It felt like nothing could touch us. What a cruel joke.

But it wasn't all amazing. Noah and I both have explosive tempers and things haven't always been smooth sailing for us. But that was one of the things I always loved about him. Even when we were screaming in each other's faces, I knew that he was the only person I ever wanted to have these types of fights with. And the angry and/or makeup sex that came afterward was always a nice little bonus.

I hear Hunter fussing over the baby monitor, snapping me out of my pathetic nostalgia. Normally I'd let him self-soothe a little, but not tonight. Not when my mind is racing. When it's taking everything in me not to picture Noah in the arms of another woman. Not to wonder what she looks like, if she's prettier than me, if he loves her. Because he couldn't. He can't. He's my husband, the father of our child for God's sake, and that should mean something to him.

"Hey Honey Bear," I murmur, looking down at the chubby infant now wailing in his crib. He looks awful, much more miserable than he normally does when he's crying. I drop my hand to his forehead, and just as I'd feared, he's burning up. "Oh baby," I whisper, scooping him into my arms, hating Noah in that moment. Of course he disappears when we need him the most. Of course he's with her while Hunter's burning up with fever, holding his ear like a volcano exploded in it. "Shhhh sweetie, it's okay. Mommy's gonna make everything better," I promise, cuddling the screaming child tight to my body. "We need to get you to the doctor, don't we?"

Thank God it's only September, so I don't need to bundle him up before rushing out to the car. After he's safely fastened in his car seat, I take out my phone, making a frantic phone call to Noah. I try to remain calm, but how can I really, when my little boy is screaming and crying and obviously in pain? I take a deep breath when he answers, regaining composure. "Noah, I am on my way to the ER with our son right now. Our son who has a blistering fever, and an ear infection, I think. So you better meet me at the ER with baby Tylenol, and you better have a damn good reason for not being home with us tonight."

The words feel like poison on my tongue, because despite everything I do still love him. I love our family, and when he's actually around, I love our life together. But tonight I have to be strong. Not just for me, but for Hunter. The tears will no doubt come later, but right now I need to focus on getting my very sick little boy the medical attention he needs. And that means I need his dumbass of a father, who just so happens to have the insurance cards in his wallet. More than likely right next to the condoms he uses on his mistress.

Noah somehow makes it to the hospital before us (really, where does this woman live?) so I don't have to worry about waiting for Hunter to get care. By some kind of miracle, the ER is relatively quiet tonight so he's able to be seen right away. I leave Noah to deal with the insurance stuff, taking my poor little man into the cubicle. The doctor quickly confirms what I already knew (ear infection), prescribes him some antibiotics, and directs us to the 24-hour pharmacy.

Once we're home with Hunter's medicine, and he's been given his first dose, things start to calm down. Noah's been nothing but sweet to both of us since we emerged from the emergency room (though how he can kiss his son after he's been with her is beyond me), and I bite back a snide remark when he offers to sing Hunter to sleep (really Noah, the child has an ear infection). It can wait. At least until Hunter's asleep. Which he soon is once the medicine kicks in, and I rock him a little in his chair.

I nearly laugh in Noah's face when he climbs in bed next to me. How dare he? "Don't," I say, flinching as he tries to wrap his arms around me. "You still smell like her. How dare you try to climb into our bed and act as if I don't know where you've been?"

He recoils at my words, mumbling to my back. "I'm sorry baby. I love you so much. It's-it's done. I won't see her anymore."

I try not to let his words be a comfort, because really, how do I know if he's telling the truth. "Don't do me any favors," I spit. "And please, shower. I'm getting sick just smelling her on you." It's cruel, I know, but well-deserved. How he can even try and touch me right now is simply appalling.

It's always confirmed he's been with her when he comes home smelling like cheap coconut tanning oil. I mean really, you'd think he'd at least find someone who didn't smell like they were lost at the bottom of a bottle of Malibu.

He disappears then, and I hear the shower in our bathroom running. Within ten minutes, he's back, standing in front of me in nothing but a towel."Fuck, Quinn, will you at least look at me?" he whisper-shouts, and even with my eyes buried in the pillow I know his eyes are pleading. That's one of the things you learn about someone over the course of eight years, all their many looks.

"No," I insist, finally letting a few tears flow. "Do you have any idea how much you've humiliated me? I've given you eight years of my life, Noah. I've given you a marriage, and a child, and all the love I have to give. And how do you repay me? With an affair. You're twenty-seven, Noah. We've been married three years. If you're already cheating, I'd hate to see the rest of our life together. In fact, if you're already cheating I don't think I want the rest of my life with you anymore." When I finish my speech, I roll over, sobbing into my pillow.

I hear him shuffle out of the room, clearly defeated. Not much he can say though, is there? Only three years into our marriage and he begins an affair, and while I'm not sure I'll be able to follow through on my threats of not wanting our life together anymore, I know that this is a step in the right direction. For too long I've sat idly by, letting my husband make a fool of me. Quinn Fabray was never a pushover, and Quinn Puckerman can't be either. I've finally stood up for myself, and now Noah has two choices: he can ditch his mistress, and spend the rest of our lives (or at least the next few years) making it up to me, or he can lose both Hunter and I.

When I'm all cried out, I curl around my pillow, deciding it'd be silly of me not to catch a few hours of sleep while Hunter is semi-peacefully sleeping.