Hi everyone,
So, this is my first attempt at Glee fanfiction. I'm toying with a few ideas for some stories I wanted to post on here. I was listening to Coldplay's Paradise (where the title of the story comes from) and suddenly this idea blossomed and flourished before I could really stop it...not that I actually tried ;)
Rachel has always been my favourite character (which is why the story is about her) and I've recently come into Puckleberry fandom (which is why any drabbles relating to Rachel's romantic conquests will ultimately be Puckleberry).
This is an alternate universe fic which will borrow from canon where I see fit. All major Glee characters will be included.
I do not own, nor am I in any way affiliated with Glee.
Enjoy the story!
When she was born, it was after a forty-two-hour long exhausting, tiring, gruelling, emotionally draining and extremely painful labour. Rachel Berry's entrance into the world predicated her status as a diva; she arrived at 11:59 p.m. on December eighteenth, 1994.
When she was born, she came into the world with a thick head of jet-black hair and a healthy set of lungs (like she had realised while still in the womb that her future on Broadway was contingent on her ability to reach notes no newborn before her ever had). Her dads were tearful as their slightly shaking hands both grasped the small scissors that would cut the umbilical chord and with it any remnants of a connection with her birth mother.
They had all decided, the three of them together, that it was for the best if the woman the two men had screened and ultimately decided as the perfect surrogate for their perfect child, that it would be best if she did not hold the child after the birth. It would be easier that way, better.
But it hadn't easier and it hadn't been better. Not for her, anyway.
After they had thanked the woman for the umpteenth time and informed her the agreed upon price would be in her account before she left the hospital, the couple followed the nurse that was wheeling their daughter towards the nursery crying and gushing at how perfectly beautiful she was. She wouldn't doubt the baby was beautiful but she would never know for sure having only glimpsed a small head before she was bundled up and taken away.
She watched them disappear from the room and her life. She had spent the better half of two years with the couple, getting to know them before agreeing to do this thing for them and then living with them as they took care of he throughout the pregnancy. They were extremely attentive of her needs and made sure she was as comfortable as she could be.
They had formed a strange little family and even though she knew in her heart that it was a family of convenience that would be destroyed as soon as the child was born, she really liked them, had grown to love them.
As she sat alone in the hospital bed, subconsciously rubbing her belly, consciously missing the tiny human that not a half hour ago had resided inside, she didn't realise she had been crying until the midwife gently wiped the tears from her face and whispered you did an amazing thing and they'll never forget you for it before squeezing her shoulder and leaving the room.
'Goodbye my little star,' she whispered, the tears gaining momentum as she remembered the late nights spent singing to the foetus in her belly, telling stories, sharing dreams, acting out scenes from her favourite musicals. And singing, again, always, forever singing.
She had tried so hard to ignore the feelings of love and affection when they began to surface.
For the first three, almost four, months she couldn't stand being pregnant. She spent most of her days in the bathroom and could stomach almost nothing the father's Berry gave her. They had rushed her to the hospital four times before their doctor finally told them that if they were to return before their next scheduled appointment without a real emergency in play, he would be forced to resign his position as their doctor and they would need to find someone else for the job.
And because the father's Berry only wanted the best that money could buy, they finally agreed that yes, saltine crackers and small sips of water did indeed quell the stomach. And that spending a week in the cabin, away from the smog and surrounded by fresh air did in fact relax the nerves and clam the pregnant woman.
But then, late one night, as she was nearing the end of her fourth month, she sensed a fluttering in her stomach and she knew she loved this baby that she would never know. She cried that night, her heart tearing in pieces as she sung a soft lullaby to the baby (it was no longer simply a foetus).
She couldn't ignore the love that was steadily growing with each passing minute. She couldn't put her emotions down to her raging, crazy hormones. She couldn't pretend that every time she felt the baby move or kick her heart wasn't seizing with joy and pain and dry sobs were threatening to escape her lips.
But she did it for the couple because it had crossed her mind almost hourly that she should just pack up and runaway and screw everything she should just keep the tiny human growing inside her. And then she would feel guilty because the tiny human was theirs, too, and so she would pretend, to them, that she was ok with her decision.
And at night she would weep and her body would sometimes shake as she tried to stop the tears and her heart would always break as she thought of the moments she would never get. So she would sing so that the baby would know her voice even if it was never to be heard by the child again.
The nurse came back a few minutes later with a contraption that she had already familiarised herself with but that now brought about a level of fear and desolation that had settled deep in the pit of her stomach. Her empty stomach; she stoically blinked back the tears and listened in numb silence to the nurse.
We'll need to express more milk. The child (her child, dammit!) was lost to her forever; she was hollow. So when she saw the milk dripping steadily from her breast into the bottle that would be used to feed the tiny infant she felt herself, she felt the very life in her, slipping away. She couldn't find comfort in the knowledge that her milk would be the sweet nectar of her daughter's life for the next few weeks (they would wean her onto formula soon).
She only felt remorse that she would never hold her close to her chest, her heart (where the baby would forever reside no matter how badly the mother tried not to want it) as she affectionately nursed her. A rubber teat would replace her.
She didn't miss the sympathetic look the nurse threw her as she left the room, carrying away the final connection she would have with her daughter. The tears were already clouding her vision and spilled only when she realised that she would never even know her daughter's name.
I couldn't help but wonder how Shelby felt the day she gave birth to Rachel so when the line "when she was born" found itself staining my blank screen, it only seemed fitting to have this be Shelby's thoughts.
The next chapter will be about the same situation but this time we will hear from the fathers Berry.
I hope you enjoyed. Reviews and constructive criticism appreciated. If anyone has any requests or ideas, let me know (I will credit what does not come from my own mind) :D