A/N: Well, another story starting in childhood. Some similar themes to my previous story, but some different as well. With more appearances from the rest of the Glee crew (though in various AU reincarnations).
The story is AU, but hopefully not tooo much out of character for anyone (though obviously some different life experiences will shape people's personalities differently – Nurture AND Nature here people, stay with me!
Anyballs, here we go! Oh, and if it moves you to review know that I enjoy it immensely, but I will not be holding anyone/thing hostage just to get them. I WILL be waiting with baited breath though...just sayin'.
Disclaimer: If I owned it, I'd be writing for FOX, not FANFIC...I'd also be writing from somewhere on a warm sunny island...ideally my OWN island...which would have it's own smaller island within it. An island within an island people...imagine the luxury.
Chapter 1
Shelby sighed as she put the last article of clothing in her bag. She took the polaroid off the over-bed table staring in disbelief at the tiny face looking back at her. She carefully placed the image in her purse and walked out, closing the door behind her. They both had a new lease on life now.
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Hiram and Leroy were overjoyed. They'd been registered with the adoption agency for 5 years and heard nothing. When prospective parents were approached, they had all said no to the interracial gay couple. Hiram kept comforting Leroy by saying that eventually the world would catch up to them, and their family would grow. That time had finally come. They had a daughter. They looked into her warm brown eyes, and decided to name her Rachel. (Sometimes the only thing that kept them going when the sadness became overpowering was Friends marathons on TBS, they felt they needed to honour this somehow. Rachel Greene was there for them when few others were).
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Rachel's young childhood was filled with hugs, giggles, love, and music. Her father's loved music, and they encouraged her to express herself in any way she chose. This was most often singing. She was forever humming under her breath, repeating jingles from TV, singing the words to the Motown songs her Daddies would sing her to sleep with, or sing to each other when they were being silly. She would even make up her own songs with rudimentary rhyming words. Her Daddies told her that she would one day be a star of stage and screen. They even nicknamed her Stella both for her star qualities, and for the fact that she had a small star-shaped birthmark on her lower back.
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However, one day all of that was to change. Looking back Rachel would be unable to remember specifics. She would see only disconnected flashes, in vivid detail. She was at the neighbour's house waiting for her Dads to come home with dinner (they were pretty committed to take out as a family). She could remember the warm autumn light filtering through the cream coloured curtain, she remembered the soft brown carpet and the pink indentations they left on her knees. She remembers Mrs. Williams crying uncontrollably and gathering her in her arms. A whirlwind of hushed adult voices whispering around her like a hurricane with her at the eye. Next, figures in black and the smell of fresh earth and newly mown grass. Finally, she remembers the cold, wet palm of her Uncle's larger hand closing around her own. Looking back over her shoulder at the blue front door she'd always known, at the woman with the pointy shoes standing in it readying her briefcase to go, her job over, a vague encouraging smile on her face.
Rachel liked to think back on that as the end of her childhood. She was not yet five years old.