A/N: Hi, it's elphiefanatic. I promise I haven't given up on my other fics, I just had this idea floating around and needed to write it down before I forgot about it. This chapter is mostly just to give you a background for the Shelby I'm trying to portray.

Shelby Corcoran was never one for tears. She believed that tears were not productive and prevented progress, which resulting in losing, which resulted in tears. And Shelby didn't lose. If there was ever a time for tears, she knew she would work harder than ever to make things right for everyone. In her own way, Shelby was the most caring woman ever. Her harsh, workaholic demeanor prevented tears. When Shelby was 8, her dog was killed. She had come home from school to find her father preparing his gun. When she asked about this, he had said that the neighbors might press charges if the dog came into their garden. They hadn't said anything, and the dog had never gone outside of the picture-perfect white picket fence that so described Shelby's life, but as her parent's repeatedly pointed out, they didn't become that rich by letting potential lawsuits run around in the backyard. So Shelby put on her poker face and changed into a leotard with gold stars across the top. When the gun went off in the backyard below Shelby's window, she was too wrapped up in her singing and dancing that she never heard the gunshot. On Shelby's 10th birthday, her older sister Cara, who her parents adored, gave her her used bike. Her parents hadn't given her anything. Shelby put on an act of being delighted, and spent her entire summer cleaning the bike, making it look brand new. That winter, she sold it for 3 tickets to see Wicked on Broadway. She couldn't get the fourth. When she announced this to her parents, they were so disappointed that their "inferior" daughter had given away precious Cara's bike that they didn't even let her go see it. They went with Cara, leaving Shelby to walk to school in the snow, cook her own dinner, and keep the house tidy. It may have hurt any other girl to see their birthday present wasted on two people she didn't like and a sister she couldn't like, but Shelby wasn't any other girl. Her family made a total of one call, and that was just to tell her they were extending their visit to New York for the rest of the month, and they had already talked to Cara's teacher, so there was no need for that.

Shelby spent that month learning. She emptied a binder for herself and put the songs she wrote in one pocket and recipes she had learned in the other. Different choreography routines she had designed went in the three holes, in front of her sketches for costumes that were designed for practicality and looks.

The stab to her heart came on her 15th birthday. Her parents and Cara had been off on vacation again, and Shelby was still home. They had come back early, clearing irked at having to do so. Cara told Shelby to pack her stuff - they were moving. Shelby said that she didn't want to move. Cara got annoyed. They had grown apart over the years, Cara focussing on her goal of becoming a lawyer to impress her parents, Shelby focussing on her singing, dancing, and designing. Her parents, upset that Shelby had upset their golden child, had yelled at her, saying that they wished she'd never been born, and why couldn't she be perfect, like Cara? Cara didn't pursue silly dreams! Shelby was never going to get onto Broadway, so why couldn't she learn something productive? They finally decided that they should never have come back for her and left. That was the first night Shelby ever cried.

The second night was when Cara came back. Shelby was pregnant with a gay couple's child, and the look on Cara's face was just so... so disgusted.

"I can't believe you," Cara had said, her beautiful face twisted into an expression of utter horror. "How could you do such a thing? You're such a disgrace."

Shelby had started to cry. "Cara, please, I needed the money, please understand!"

"I don't. You were my sister. I loved you. Now... I don't know you."

"Please, Cara, it's still me, I'm still Shelby, you still love me, please!"

"This is sad," Cara had remarked, twirling the end of one of her blonde curls.

"You were wrong," Shelby had said quietly.

"I what?"

"You were wrong. You said you loved me... you didn't. You treated me like crap, Cara."

"I did not!"

"You can dish it out, but you just. Can't. Take it."

"Shelby..."

"I needed you, Cara. I needed a sister, but you were never there."

"I was!"

"Wicked? You moving? Me getting-"

"Don't. Say. It." Cara snarled suddenly. "Don't say I was never there. I was. I gave up my life for you."

"Oh, please. Do you know what I do for fun?"

Cara was silent. Shelby spilled her entire binder onto the floor, showing her sister stage designs, costumes, props, swatches of materials, lyrics from songs she was writing, stacks of discs she had burned of herself singing songs, everything.

"Shelby..." Cara said again, touching Shelby's shoulder. Shelby let out a soft noise like a strangled bird and began cramming everything back in their respective folders, nearly tearing several papers.

"You were right, you never should have come back, I'm such a terror, wasting my life, I mean, gosh, I'm 18 and pregnant and I don't know what to do, that's why I'm so awful, I have no life, I have no life plan, and I'm scared!"

"I'm sorry," Cara whispered.

"For what?" Shelby asked, hot, angry tears tracing her face.

"For everything. For nothing. For this." And with that, Cara turned and walked away.

Yes, Shelby had decided - tears were bad.