A/N: I generally don't post things before they're complete, but I'm feeling impatient today, and it seems like I've been working on this forever. It's fourteen chapters now, and I expect to write two or three more. I'd love to hear what you think!
He isn't exactly surprised when she shows up at his door one night, though he doesn't really know what to make of the sort of shell-shocked look on her face.
"Can I come in?"
See, she and Finn broke up like, a month ago, between prom and graduation, and the chick always ends up in his truck or his house or with her tongue in his mouth when she and Finn break up. And it's always a shit storm. He thought maybe it wasn't gonna go down that way this time because the breakup was mutual and she and Finn are still friends and whatever, but he doesn't mind being wrong.
He ignores the hell out of the looks his mom is shooting the two of them from the living room and follows Rachel up the stairs. She's wearing these little denim shorts that look pretty good, but he's far enough behind her that he'd be able to see her panties if she was in a skirt, which would definitely be better.
"What's up, baby?" he asks, pushing his door shut once they're in his room.
She turns around to look at him, and now that she's in his room instead of just under the porch light, he can really see how weird she looks. Her eyes are wider than usual, her lips parted, her chest moving up and down a little more than it should be as she breathes. He takes a step towards her. "Rachel."
"My daddy is sick," she blurts, inhaling sharply after the words are out of her mouth. She can't believe she just said it like that, without warning him first. She isn't really thinking clearly right now though.
He doesn't know what he expected to come out of her mouth, but that definitely wasn't it.
He has no idea what to say, but he's not sure that she needs him to say anything. She's sort of looking through him when she says, "It's cancer." She already hates this word.
"Fuck."
She sits heavily on the edge of his bed, and it's fucking stupid that he's glad that he made it when he got up this morning. It's a stupid time to think it, when she just told him that her dad has cancer. "What kind?" he asks quietly.
"Pancreatic," she whispers.
He sits down beside her. He doesn't know a lot about cancer, but he knows that's bad. Like, cancer is never good, but he knows that's one of the worst, remembers his mom talking about it when Swayze died. He thinks she's sort of sitting here telling him that her dad's going to die.
"I can't go to New York," she says after a long time, her voice just louder than a whisper. She's been thinking it since her fathers told her what they sat her down in the kitchen to tell her, but this is the first time she's said it aloud. This makes it real. "Not right now."
Fuck.
"I'm going to make the calls tomorrow," she goes on, looking down at her lap. She's toying with her car keys. "Register with OSU. Defer NYU."
God. New York and NYU and Broadway are all this girl's talked about for the last year, seriously. And that doesn't count the like, two years before that when she brought it up every half hour instead of every five minutes. And maybe it's an awful thing to think, but he wonders what's worse for her: losing New York or losing her dad.
Yeah, it's awful, and he feels like a bastard for thinking it.
He should say something, he knows, but he doesn't know what. 'I'm sorry' is basically the most worthless thing in the world for something like this, and the only other thing he can think is how much this really, really sucks. He knows her dads from temple and through glee club stuff, and he hates the idea of her black dad being sick. (Maybe it's wrong, but that's how he thinks of them, as the big black dad and the little Jewish dad.)
"I don't even know why I'm here," she says, standing abruptly. "I have to go."
He realizes that she's in shock, and even though she had to have driven here, he's not letting her drive now. "No, you don't," he says gently, wrapping his fingers around her forearm and pulling her down to sit on the edge of the bed again.
"Yes, I do," she insists, clutching her keys when he tries to take them from her. He wins, but she isn't really fighting that hard, which sort of freaks him out. Rachel doesn't just give up.
"Rachel."
She lets out a little breath and looks over at him. She doesn't feel anything. "Noah. My daddy is going to die."
Her eyes are huge and as sad as he's ever seen them, but they're still dry. With the exception of his sister, he doesn't think he's ever known someone who cries as much as Rachel, so it kind of freaks him out that she's not. He doesn't know what to say to her, still, so he just wraps his arms around her, pulling her until she's sitting across his lap and is wrapping her arms around his torso.
"You can't think like that," he murmurs against her hair. "You need to be positive and stuff."
She doesn't say anything, even though there are a million things she could say to that, just lays her head on his shoulder and tightens her arms around him. It scares her that she doesn't feel anything, that her heart doesn't hurt over this. It scares her so much that she starts to feel tears prickling at her eyes. It's completely absurd, crying over the fact that she can't feel anything, but once she's started, she can't stop the big, silent tears from slipping down her cheeks.
He doesn't even realize she's crying until her tears soak through his shirt. "Don't," she whispers when he says her name.
"Okay." He shifts his body a little, turning so he can pull his legs up onto the bed and lean back against the headboard. He starts pulling his fingers through her hair gently, listening to the rhythm of her breathing - or lack of rhythm, since it's all messed up with the tears - because it's the only sound in the room right now.
Her grip goes a little slack when she falls asleep. She never actually stopped crying, so she must have just worn herself out.
He really, really needs to figure out what he's supposed to say about this, her dad being sick and her dream being put on hold or whatever. (He can't imagine that her dads asked her to stay, but he can't be sure of what exactly is going on.)
He's kind of dozing off when his phone vibrates on his bedside table. It comes up as an unknown number, which he usually ignores, but he just feels like he should answer it. "Hello?"
"Hello, Noah, this is Andrew Berry." Rachel's daddy, the one who has cancer. "I know it's late, but I was wondering if you've seen Rachel tonight. She ran out earlier, and she isn't answering her phone."
Puck glances at the clock and realizes that, yeah, it is late, and he's been dozing for longer than he realized. "She's here," he answers simply. "She fell asleep."
He hears Andrew let out a sigh of relief. "I was worried that after what we told her..." He trails off, and Puck feels really uncomfortable. "I assume she told you."
"Yeah. I'm sorry."
"Thank you, Noah. Don't wake her, but will you let her know that I'll expect her home in the morning?" His voice is soft, like he gets that Rachel's freaking out. Well, he is her father, so Puck figures he probably does kind of get it.
"Sure."
"All right, good night."
Puck has never, ever had a girl's dad straight-up give her permission to sleep in his bed, and if he was a complete asshole, he'd think this was a waste. Except this has nothing at all to do with sex and everything to do with the fact that Rachel's completely fucking freaked out right now.
She really did exhaust herself crying, because Puck basically moves her around like a doll for a good five minutes, shifting until they're under the blankets on his bed even though they're both still wearing all of their clothes. She just ends up curling closer to him in her sleep, her breath warm against his chest and one hand fisting in the front of his shirt.
The last thing he's thinking about before she falls asleep is why she came to tell him all of this.
She remembers exactly where she is when she wakes up. It's a ridiculous time to think it, but she thought that she was supposed to be confused when she woke up in a bed that isn't her own. She's in bed with Noah, though, the blankets pulled up to her chin as she presses her face into the side of his chest. Her throat is dry, and she can feel how swollen her eyes are from crying.
She bolts upright when she realizes that she never told her fathers where she was going and then stayed out all night. She didn't even remember to grab her phone when she ran out of the house.
"S'a'matter?" Noah mumbles, sitting up beside her and catching her upper arm in his hand.
"I have to get home, Noah. My dads-"
"Called last night," he interrupts, blinking at her blearily. "'S'fine, they know where you are."
"They called?" she repeats. "Why didn't you wake me up?"
"Told me not to." It's so early that the sun is barely peeking through his open curtains, so it's kind of hard to read the expression on her face. "Rachel." Fuck, he feels like he should say something, but he has no idea what to say to her right now, and not just because it's the ass crack of dawn. He just legitimately doesn't know what to say to her.
"They found out before graduation," she says softly. She isn't actually sure why she's telling Noah this, but it feels important. "Daddy said he didn't want to ruin it for me, so they kept it a secret for a week and a half." Noah's just watching her, the windows at his back leaving his face in shadow. "I can't decide if I should be grateful or angry about that."
"You should feel whatever you feel," he says, and he isn't totally sure that he's not talking out of his ass, except that sounds pretty good.
She tilts her head a little and looks at him, watches his eyes as she considers what he said. "I'll try." She means it. There have been times in her life - a lot of them, in fact - when she thought that maybe she felt too much, too strongly. She needs to feel this.
"I should go," she says after a long moment. He nods and watches as she climbs out of bed, tugging at her hopelessly wrinkled shirt before grabbing her keys from where he left them on his bedside table.
"Hey," he says, sitting up and making her stop when she starts toward the door. "Let me know if you need anything," he tells her seriously.
She nods, the corners of her mouth turning up a little. It's almost a smile. "Thank you. For everything."
It doesn't take long to get home from the Puckermans'. It's early, and with school out for the summer, there aren't many people out and about this early. It's a short drive through a residential area, and Rachel makes a point of noticing the peonies blooming in a few of the yards along the way. It just seems important this morning.
She isn't surprised to find her dad standing in the front hallway when she lets herself in the house. He's dressed for work, and his favorite green coffee mug is in his hand. "Hi," she says quietly. She knows that her daddy is upstairs getting ready for the day. She wonders how long he'll keep up the pretense. How long he'll be able to.
"Are you okay?" he asks. She nods even though she's actually pretty sure that she isn't okay. Quite the opposite. "Please don't do that again, Rachel. Run out." He lets out a sigh, looking down at the floor for a moment. "I know you're an adult, and I'm not going to stop you from doing what you want, but don't make me worry."
She feels awful, because she didn't even think about her fathers until she woke up this morning, and even then, she forgot about their worry as soon as Noah mentioned her daddy had called. "I'm sorry," she whispers. She feels so selfish.
"Oh, angelfish." He steps forward and wraps his arms around her, squeezing her tight until she returns the gesture. "I'm not mad. I know it's hard." She squeezes her eyes shut tight as he talks, one hand rubbing up and down her back. "Do you want to talk about anything?"
She shakes her head, pulling out of his grasp. "I'm just going to get some sleep." She didn't say anything to Noah, but she slept restlessly. It was that sleep that you don't wake up from, but isn't restful, the kind you wake up from still tired. She knows that she was dreaming, and even though she doesn't remember any specific details, she remembers feeling lonely.
He nods. "We'll talk tonight, all right?" He kisses her forehead before she turns to go upstairs.
Rachel moves as if on auto-pilot, splashing cold water on her face, brushing her teeth mechanically, and changing into a pair of sleep shorts and a tank top before climbing into bed. The room is too bright, the open shutters on her windows allowing sunlight to stream into the room, but she doesn't bother to close them. She doesn't know that she'll actually be able to sleep. She just isn't ready to talk about any of this yet, because she doesn't know how she feels about it yet.
She knows there are things to do, and she's already making plans. Plans equal control, control she doesn't actually have over the situation. (She'll take the illusion, frankly.) She needs to contact NYU and explain why she's deferring for a year, then contact OSU to assure placement in student housing and an orientation seminar. She knows she can't not go to school - her fathers wouldn't hear of it - but she also knows that she can't be in New York when her daddy is here in Lima going through all of this. Columbus is only two hours away, and most of her credits should transfer when the time comes.
She needs to sit down and do some research on her own. Her fathers gave her some basics last night, but for all of their talk about her being an adult and wanting to treat her like one, she knows that they were holding back, trying to protect her from the bad news. She needs to understand this disease, understand what Daddy's treatments are like, what his prognosis is. She needs to know these things to have some sort of control over the situation even if, rationally, she knows that the cancer has all the control.
Her phone vibrates on her bedside table, where she left it last night before her fathers called her down to the kitchen, and it occurs to her that they probably tried other friends before they called Noah. Kurt and Mercedes, certainly, and probably Finn. Instead of answering or checking her messages, she just turns the phone off and tugs the comforter up over her head.
She still feels numb. She's going to blame it on the lack of sleep, but she knows she's making excuses. It frightens her, that she doesn't feel anything, just like it scared her last night. But then, maybe she doesn't feel anything because she just isn't ready to. Maybe her mind is protecting her heart.
"Rachel spent the night."
Puck just lets out a sigh when he walks into the kitchen and his mother states the obvious. He knew he was going to have some form of this conversation the second he let Rachel in the house last night; this morning, after Rachel left and he heard his mom moving around downstairs, he knew the conversation was going to suck more.
"Yeah," he says simply, going straight to the counter to pour himself a cup of coffee. He doesn't drink the stuff habitually, but it's just that kind of morning.
"Noah, if you're dating Rachel..." his mom says, trailing off with some unspoken threat as she stacks the plates she's rinsing in the drainer. He doesn't even know what she's getting at; his mom thinks Rachel's pretty cool. A little intense, she says, and too optimistic for her own good, but she likes her, and she's sort of crazy over the fact that Rachel bakes, randomly.
"We aren't dating." He scoops sugar into his coffee directly from the canister on the counter next to the flour. As far as he's concerned, coffee should be dark and sweet. "She got some crazy news last night, and I think she just needed to get out of her house."
Marlene dries her hands on a dish towel. "Didn't she and Finn already break up?"
He barks out a laugh, because even though nothing about this situation is funny, that shit is hilarious. Fucking small town gossip. The Finn and Rachel breakup was news. If it wasn't annoying, he'd probably think it was funny that she knows that Rachel always comes to him when she and Finn get into it or whatever.
"Not about Finn, Ma." He leans against the counter and slurps his coffee, letting out a sigh when she turns to look at him expectantly, hands on her hips. "Her dad, Andrew, has cancer," he says quietly. "They told her last night."
Watching his mom like, deflate in front of him completely sucks. "Oh, Noah. That's terrible."
He just nods, then turns around to go back upstairs before she starts asking questions that he can't answer. Like why Rachel came to him when she found out that her father was dying.
The first thing Rachel does when she wakes up is turn on her phone. She can delay actually sharing the news of her father's illness, but she knows that her friends will be worried. She can at least reassure them that she's alive and well and there's no need to worry.
Thirty-seven text messages, thirteen missed calls, seven voice mails.
Good lord.
She doesn't bother reading any of the texts before she empties her inbox. The voice mails are from her fathers, Finn, Mercedes, and Kurt, which is exactly what she expected. She is surprised when the last message is from Santana, full of snark about making people worry about her. She finds it strangely endearing.
She sends the same text message to the four of them, a quick lie about a dead battery and overprotective parents that she's completely aware probably doesn't make sense. (She adds a quick I'll explain later to avoid further questions.) She doesn't know what her fathers said to her friends exactly, but she assumes that they mentioned that she'd run out of the house. She knows it's only a matter of time before they all start questioning her, but she just isn't ready to talk about it.
She needs to get things together first, including her own head, and she's glad that her fathers are at work so she can get started.
She doesn't bother to shower, just gets dressed, pulls her hair into a ponytail, and starts making phone calls.
"You did what?"
Rachel takes a slow bite of brown rice, chewing carefully before swallowing. "I deferred my acceptance to NYU and registered at OSU."
Andrew Berry gapes at his daughter across the kitchen table.
"Why would you do something like that? And without discussing it with us?" David asks, clearly cutting off his partner before he can say whatever he's thinking.
Rachel shrugs, faking nonchalance. She hates this conversation. "I'm an adult, and it's my decision."
"Why didn't you say anything?" David looks at his daughter like he already knows the answer, but still has to ask.
"I knew you would try to stop me," she answers honestly. "Now it's done."
"Rachel," Andrew says sharply, making her flinch. "Explain yourself right now."
She drops her fork with a clatter, glaring across the table at her daddy. "I'm not moving to New York while you're sick!" she shouts. The startled look on his face isn't nearly as satisfying as it should be. "I'm not leaving Ohio until you're better."
None of them says what they're all thinking: Or until you're gone.
"You didn't have to do that," David says softly, diffusing the tension in the room. Their family has always been like this, Rachel and Daddy at one another, Dad doing his best to keep either of them from going too far. It's impossible to imagine that dynamic changing.
"I know."
She doesn't elaborate. She doesn't think that she has to. If something happens with her daddy's health, Columbus is just a two hour drive, while getting a flight from the city and then driving back to Lima could take an entire day. She would never forgive herself if something terrible happened and she couldn't get back in time, and she's just not going to put herself through that.
No one says anything else for the rest of the meal. It's not quite right to call it a meal either, since all three of them are just pushing food around their plates.
"Dude, have you seen Rachel this week?"
Puck just shrugs at Finn's question, even though the answer is yes. He kind of wants to know where the question is leading before he says anything about Rachel spending the night in his bed four days ago. He's still waiting a little bit for the other shoe to drop with the whole Finn and Rachel thing because that's how that shit always goes, and her in Puck's bed will piss Finn off. Besides, that was sort of a strange situation, so it probably (definitely) doesn't count, and he hasn't seen or heard from her at all this week.
"Her dad called me at like, 12:30 on Monday night because they didn't know where she was, but I haven't heard anything from her since then," Finn says, his eyes trained on the TV as he blows some video dude's head off.
"You didn't find out if they found her?"
"She texted me Tuesday morning, so she's not dead or whatever, but still."
The word makes Puck sort of sick. "Nah, dude, I haven't seen her."
Really, he just thinks it's weird that Rachel hasn't told Finn what's going on. Sure, they broke up, but it was on good terms or whatever, and Puck knows they're still friends. Rachel had them on a fucking ridiculous practice schedule for the duet they did for Nationals, which was after their breakup, and they obviously made it out of that alive. Plus, Finn gets along with her dads and stuff. It's just...weird.
He waits until Finn goes home for dinner (seriously) to pick up his phone and call Rachel.
"Is there a reason you're keeping this thing a secret?" he asks when she answers. He doesn't bother with any of the small talk bullshit because it's exactly that. Life is easier when you just get to the point, especially when you're taking to Rachel Berry. (That last bit he's learned from experience.)
"What do you mean?" She sounds tired, but he knows she isn't stupid. It's kind of annoying that she's pretending that she is.
"Finn was over here today and asked if I'd seen you this week because he hasn't heard from you since your dads called him the other night."
Rachel lets out a little sigh and lowers herself to sit on the chair in the corner of her room. She's been basically hiding out in here all week, avoiding her phone and the internet and anything else that might force her to talk to Finn or Kurt or anyone else. "I don't know how to tell people."
"You told me," he says gently. He really doesn't want to be an ass, but he really doesn't get it.
She actually laughs. "I was in shock. I don't think it counts."
She probably has a point, but that doesn't mean she can like, keep this a secret. It's a small town, so people are going to figure shit out. Besides, she's going to have to explain why she's suddenly decided to go to OSU instead of moving to New York and never looking back, and that's going to come up pretty quick. "Finn worries about you."
"Yeah, well. I'm a big girl."
"Rachel."
"No, I know." And she does. She worries too, and that's why she doesn't know how to tell people. For most of them, it's just going to be a sad, 'poor Rachel' sort of situation, but Finn loves her daddy, and she knows it's going to bring things up for Kurt as well, thinking about losing his mom and when he almost lost his dad. "I just don't really want to talk about it, you know?"
"Yeah." He thinks of something and laughs a little. "Just tell Tina and Mercedes. They'll make sure everyone hears. Then you won't have to deal with it."
Rachel has to laugh in spite of herself. It's a terrible idea, but he's absolutely right. As soon as she starts telling people, she's going to have to tell everyone. They're all insatiable gossips, even when the gossip isn't fun. Maybe especially then. "I wish I could."
In the end, she kind of tells everyone at once, and definitely not the way she'd planned.
Brittany has everyone from glee club who just graduated over for a barbecue, which is ironic or something given that she's going to be a fifth-year senior next year. (Even help from Artie and Santana couldn't get her through senior year. Puck's sort of worried about how she's going to do without either of them there to drag her along, but it's not like there's anything he can do about it from Columbus.) They're all sitting around the giant picnic table in the Pierces' back yard, eating food that Puck and Sam cooked, when Finn looks over at Rachel and starts talking with his mouth full. "Where have you been all week?"
"Yeah, you totally bailed on our shopping trip," Kurt says from beside her.
She pokes at the veggie burger on her plate. She wasn't particularly hungry when she sat down; she didn't really want to come to this gathering at all, but she knew she'd get grief from everyone - her fathers included - if she didn't attend. "It's been a rough week," she says after a moment, setting her fork down. She can't bring herself to look at anyone when she says, "I found out that Daddy has cancer."
Considering that she spoke quietly, she doesn't really understand how everyone at the table seems to have heard her. They're completely silent, which never, ever happens, and she'd swear she can feel everyone's eyes on her. "I'm not ready to talk about it," she says quietly. She knows that at least some of her friends will understand the unspoken implication, to please start talking about something, anything else.
Mike Chang is the one who catches up first, and Puck thinks he might love the dude when he starts talking about planning a group camping trip. Rachel is uncomfortable; he can see it written all over her face as she pretends to eat her dinner. It doesn't take long for Kurt and Sam, who she's sitting between, to drag her into a debate about whether camping is awesome or terrible. Sam's falling back on things like sleeping under the stars, while Kurt babbles something about blow dryers Puck already knows is stupid. It works though, a little, because even though it isn't quite getting to her eyes when she smiles, she's at least enough herself to act like she's engaged in the conversation.
She insists on going along to the next appointment with the oncologist. She's been doing research on her own (terrifying herself, making herself feel sick), but she feels like she needs to hear these things from someone with an M.D. behind his name.
She's also hoping, a little bit, that perhaps the reality of the situation will finally set in, that she'll finally start to process all of this information on an emotional level rather than just an intellectual one. She isn't scared by her lack of emotions any more, but she meant it when she told Noah that she'd try.
She gets more information from Dr. Whitesell about the surgery - procedure - her daddy will have, the potential risks and probable side effects. He'll then undergo chemotherapy, provided he actually recovers from having surgery at all; Rachel knows it's risky and often unsuccessful, but she also knows that the majority of people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer are already too ill for surgery to even be an option, so she's trying to embrace the positivity of her father's situation in that regard.
While she sits in this office holding her daddy's hand and pressing her knees together so tightly that her bones hurt, she tries to remember what Noah told her about being positive. Yes, there is a chance - however slim - that her father will recover from this, that he'll actually be okay. She tends to bounce somewhere between being an optimist and a realist, and it's absurd that right now she's having to force herself to have optimistic thoughts.
The internet is a blessing and a curse for this, frankly, and if she thought she'd be able to stick to it, she'd forbid herself from googling anything related to her father's condition. The temptation, however, is overwhelming, and even just hopping online to check her email and Facebook puts her in this wormhole of information: patients' stories, detailed descriptions of possible symptoms and side effects of treatment, memorials.
Those are the worst.
The three of them go out to dinner at their favorite pizza place, the one that has amazing flatbread for Rachel and the best house-made mozzarella in Ohio (says her dad).
"I only have so many nausea-free meals in the foreseeable future," Daddy says, chewing his first bite.
Rachel fights the urge to glare at him, biting down hard on the inside of her cheek, but really? That's the sort of thing he wants to say right now?
"Something wrong, Rachel?" he asks pointedly, looking at her with his eyebrows raised. She notices the way Dad sighs.
"I don't think it's appropriate to joke about that," she tells him honestly.
Daddy nods, wiping his lips with his napkin before laying it back in his lap. "I think I'm the one who's undergoing treatment for a likely terminal cancer, so it's entirely appropriate for me to say whatever I choose."
He might as well have reached across the table and slapped her.
"Andrew," Dad admonishes, looking between his partner and his daughter with wide eyes.
"No, David-"
"It's fine," Rachel interrupts. She hates watching her parents fight, and it's ridiculous for them to argue about this, about her. "You're right. You should say whatever you want." Maybe she's entitled to her own opinion, but her daddy isn't required to listen to her, and he's certainly entitled to handle his feelings about his illness however he wants. "I'm sorry."
He watches her for a moment, appraising. "It's fine," he finally says, looking at her carefully. "Give me a piece of your flatbread, we'll call it even."
And just like that, the tension if diffused and she's laughing. That's how she and her daddy are, always have been, getting at one another and then getting over it without really discussing anything or apologizing.
He's standing outside temple after services, texting Finn about plans for later while he waits for his mom to finish gossiping with whoever, when Rachel comes up and bumps his hip with hers gently. "Hey."
"I didn't even know you were here," he tells her, sticking his phone in his pocket and looking down at her. She's got a little gold star of David around her neck, resting just beneath the hollow of her throat. He likes it.
"We got here late," she says. They're always late, even though Dad is always trying to rush around and complains, every single time, about sitting at the back of the room just so they don't disrespect the rabbi. "We were sitting in the back."
"You here with your dad?"
"Both of them."
"Really?" Rachel's black dad has only ever come to temple for holidays and special occasions. He remembers asking his mom, when he was about eleven, why he had to come every week if Andrew didn't. He remembers her answer, too: She told him not to be a smart mouth, then explained that Andrew wasn't even Jewish, but still came to temple because it was important to his family, 'and it just breaks my heart to think that you don't take your faith any more seriously than this, Noah.'
Yeah, epic Jewish mom guilt trip is what that was.
"Rabbi Greenburg called the house to invite Daddy specially when he heard that the surgery was scheduled for Monday," she explains, struggling not to roll her eyes. Rabbi Greenburg has never been openly disapproving of her father, but the man can't completely disguise the fact that he's not necessarily supportive of an 'alternative lifestyle.' It just doesn't feel genuine to her, this sudden concern for her (non-Jewish) Daddy's health. "They're talking with him now."
He grins a little at her obvious contempt for the whole thing. Organized religion looks a little different now than it used to, to both of them, but it makes sense that she's more bothered by all of it than he is, with her dads and Kurt.
"Rachel!"
Abby comes running towards them, throws her arms around Rachel and pulls her into a tight hug. It's actually kind of funny, because even though she's only eleven, Abby's kind of tall for her age, and Rachel's almost a midget, so they're standing basically eye to eye.
"Hi!" Rachel laughs when Abby finally lets go. The girl loves her, just from spending time together at temple and the handful of times Rachel babysat because Puck wasn't able for whatever reason. The feeling is mutual; Abby's a smart, sweet little girl, and it's hard not to love her, even if she does occasionally sound far too much like Noah.
That's the end of the interaction, because Abby runs off with Sarah Johanson.
"Noah, go get her," Marlene says, walking up behind the pair of them. "She'll try to talk forever if I let her."
He walks away with a smirk, muttering something under his breath. (Rachel thinks it's sound suspiciously like, 'you know all about that,' but she can't be sure.)
"Rachel," Marlene says gently, using a tone she's already learning to hate. "How are you."
"Fine," she answers honestly. She's neither good nor bad, so she's fine.
Marlene nods, a knowing look on her face. "You let me know if there's anything you or your fathers need, you hear me?" Rachel nods, a little amused at the woman's suddenly brusque tone. "And you are always welcome at our house," she adds, a bit softer. "If you just need to get away."
It seems a strange thing to say, but Rachel just nods and thanks the woman before she walks awy. Honestly, as much as she disliked telling everyone about Daddy's illness, she thinks she hates the pitying looks she's getting - especially here at temple - even more. She almost - almost - wants to stomp her foot and shout, 'he's not dead yet!' at the top of her lungs.
Instead, she just walks to the car, leans against the side of it and exchanges text messages with Blaine while she waits for her fathers to finish their conversation with the rabbi and take her home.