Disclaimer: I don't own anything, just my ideas and my creations.
Part I
She sees him for the first time, since he's back, in the hallway. There's a rather big group of students around him. She knows he must be telling stories about Juvie. As she passes him and his groupies she hears a bit of the story he was telling.
"… And the fucker had this kind of knife and he was trying to freakin' stab me with the thing, so I tried to defend myself and kicked the guy's ass, and all the guards went ballistic and they took us to some weird kind of cell…"
She didn't worry about his safety when he was in juvenile hall; she knew he would be alright. In physical terms, that is. It was his mental health that worried her.
More than anything, it was his emotional health what worried her constantly.
*/*
After Shelby had given her to her dads, when she was only a baby girl, she had stuck around. For nearly two years, her fathers allowed Shelby to be with her. "Babysit" her in a way. One day she phoned, she said she wouldn't come by that day, neither the next. She never did come back. Her fathers burned all of the pictures she had with Rachel and completely erased her from Rachel's life. Until she was sixteen.
Shelby did some kind of twisted scheme to get in contact with her. They met.
They didn't bond enough for Shelby's desires.
Jesse betrayed her (and egged her).
Shelby adopted another baby.
She told her dads about all that and, after they hugged her for hours, they admitted her that Shelby had initially stuck around. And all hell broke loose, because it was then that she realized that she was truly alone. Finn loved her, but she really wasn't in any emotional state to love anyone. She didn't have any real friends who cared about her, besides a boy who claimed to love her but that had the emotional intelligence of a rock.
She felt sad, abandoned, lonely, misunderstood, miserable and the worst of all: she felt like her light had died. Like a star that had stopped shinning.
She didn't sing that summer. She didn't cry. She just… breathed and tried to ignore the pain of being abandoned and tossed aside once more.
She went out with Finn, she eventually learned to live with that pain and understand that there were only two people who might possibly be as miserable as her.
Those two people hated her and, in a way, she resented them so much that she wouldn't have been able to talk to them anyway.
*/*
If there was something that bothered (more like, infuriated) her, were the people that presumed of being better than anyone else without having reasons to.
She had a reason to say that she was more talented than anyone in that school, because she was.
She never hated Quinn for claiming to be the most beautiful girl in school, because the blonde obviously was the most gorgeous girl in the whole city of Lima.
She never hated Adam Lang for saying he was a smarter than her, because even thought they both had straight A's, she knew he understood Math in a way she never would.
She hated those who bullied her because they believed to be superior to her without really having a reason.
She hated Noah Puckerman for years, because he forgot that she was also a person with feelings and (a broken) dignity.
She also hated the fact that he often said he was badass, when in her eyes he was much less badass than a regular student (even her).
*/*
She dated him because she thought that it would make Finn jealous. (It did.)
After that week, they never spoke again, unless Glee made it necessary.
(Except for an occasion where she needed him to make her more popular. It didn't work.)
They obviously never talked about neither Shelby nor Beth. But he continued to make snarky or/and sexual comments like if nothing had happened. Everyone assumed he was fine.
She seemed to be the only one to notice the broken look in his eyes, the fact that he started to brood even more than before, or than he was much more irritable and violent than before.
She asked constantly to Finn about his best friend's well being, to the point where his look became suspicious and accusing. He even begin to ask her if she wanted to get together with Puck. She realized that she had crossed a line and stopped asking altogether.
*/*
He came back from Juvie even cockier than before. He swore he was the more badass guy in the whole planet, or that he was Glee's savior because they couldn't win without him (which they couldn't.)
It pissed her off to no ends.
One day during Glee, he told her to shut up. She sent him an annoying look and continued her speech about the club's need to practice more complicated dance moves.
Surprisingly, Mr. Schue and nearly the whole club agreed with her and decided to go to the stage, so they could have more space to practice dance moves.
Mr. Schue gave her, Puck, Mike and Brittany a break because they were the best and he needed to focus in the others. The last two went to grab some food, and left her alone in the backroom with Puck. She leaned over to her bag, to look for her bottle of water.
"Hey Berry, thanks a lot for makin' us work even more"
"Considering the fact that Mr. Schue let you have a break, I would say you dancing abilities are superior and it doesn't take a lot of effort from you to perform advanced dance steps."
"Geez Berry, how can you talk so much? What do you do at night, read a thesaurus?"
"I read a lot at nights, and weekends. But not a thesaurus or a dictionary."
"Totally not badass, if you ask me…"
"I actually didn't ask."
He sent and angry look at her before he spat: "Well, that why you're such a loser!"
*/*
"Hey freak, do you know that some of us have better things to do than listening to whatever you gotta say?"
She closed her mouth and didn't even start the encouraging speech she had been thinking the whole practice when she noticed how difficult dancing was for some of her teammates.
They all left, including Finn who had to run an errant for his mother and promised to come by to her house later in the afternoon. Soon, she was left alone with Puck. She stared at him while he gathered his belongings, when he saw her standing there, he almost shouted,
"What do you want, Berry?"
"You're not badass."
"What do you know about being…"
"Take it from someone who has been through as much crap as you, maybe even more, and has never needed to bully others to feel worthy. You need to put others down to feel superior and you can't get over the fact that life took some thing from you. That's not very badass."
He looked at her stunned, and then she turned around and left without any other word.
*/*
Over the curse of the next weeks, nothing about him changed, except that sometimes she would catch him looking at her with a estrange expression that she couldn't describe.
One day, she's alone at her house (her parents are on a trip) studying when she gets a call from an unknown number. She picks up anyway.
"Hello?"
"Hi Rachel."
"Shelby?" (She almost called her mom, but then she remembered she really wasn't.)
"I know that we haven't talked in months…", Her voice sounded nervous and desperate, like if there was something extremely urgent that she needed to say.
"Are you alright?"
" …Yes, I'm alright." , an then another tense pause.
("Me too, thanks for asking, mother.")
"And Beth?"
"She's good too."
Long Pause.
"Shelby"
"Rachel"
"Why did you call?"
"I need a favor."
(She tries to ignore that feeling in her heart; Deception over the fact that she didn't call to check out on her daughter.)
"Of Course. What do you need?"
"Can you babysit Beth? I wouldn't be asking you if it wasn't real emergency. But I need to do something important and… I can't take Beth and I don't really have anyone I could ask this…"
"Yeah, sure."
Shelby came to her house and left her with Beth and all the necessary stuff. She had taken care of her younger cousins and really didn't have problems with babies.
Their reencounter was awkward, to say the least. She came in, didn't even asked her how she was, told her that if Beth cried too much she could sing to her and then she left.
She couldn't even ask her what the emergency was.
(She couldn't even ask her how she knew where her house was. Of course she knew why, but she wanted to see if she had the courage to tell her that this wasn't the first time she walked away.)
Beth was very quiet. She left her in the middle of her bed with a pillow wall around her and the baby's stuffed bear. She cried once and she feed her, the second time she cried, Rachel assumed it was because she wanted some mother's loving (she constantly repeated to herself that her fathers had given her all that too) and took the baby girl in her arms and started to sing to her.
Shelby arrived later at night; she answered all of Rachel's questions vaguely and without really saying anything. Then she asked her if she could do the same thing on Friday. (Later, she realized Shelby had left a few dollars on the table, like a common babysitter.)
She should've said no. She had plans with Finn.
But she said yes and said goodbye to her birth mother and her (other) daughter.
It took three glasses of water to scratch that sentence from her mind.
*/*
Noah eventually stopped looking at her like she was Ghandi and started to ignore her/piss her off all over gain. More than once she felt tempted to tell him that his daughter looked so much like him that it scared her.
Shelby kept asking her to babysit Beth. She pretended to ignore the fact that Shelby avoided her questions and used her acting skills into make her believe that she believed all her pathetic excuses. She did learn that her "grandmother" and "grandfather" had died a couple of years ago, with not much distance between their deaths. She had no "aunts" or "uncles" that could help her birth mother in this situation. Whatever problem Shelby had, she obviously didn't have anyone close to her to take her of her daughter and Rachel thought it was her duty to help the women who gave her life.
She successfully achieved her emotional goal of not feeling anything about the fact that Shelby kept treating her like a paid babysitter instead of a girl who was just looking after her little sister. Her dads had been worried about how it would affect her to take care of Beth, but after she showed no sadness, they let it go.
Finn, tired that she was constantly blowing him off and ignoring his questions, finally asked her why she was pulling apart and if she still wanted them to be together. Her lack of reaction to his ultimatum was all the answer he needed.
She couldn't honestly say why she seemed so…. Unaffected by their break up. She just knew that it didn't felt like the world's end or anything like that. Everyone assumed she was destroyed and treated her more nicely than before.
Except for one person: Noah Puckerman. If anything, he treated her worse because his ex-best friend was no longer protecting her.
She was pretty sure that if she told him she knew his daughter better than him, she would destroy him.
*/*
"Why?" She demanded. She had had enough, she deserved some answers.
"I already told you, I just can't pick her up from the daycare anymore. But if you can't do it either…"
"I don't have a problem with picking her up; I'm asking why you can't"
"I don't have time" responded Shelby, effectively avoiding her gaze.
"Why?"
"Work" Yet another lie, she had being doing a lot of that lately, when asked about her schedule.
"That didn't kept you from picking her up before"
"Rachel if you have a problem with this, just tell me"
"For God's sake, I just want you to tell me what's going on!" She didn't mean to shout and, scared to wake up Beth, she kept her voice low the next time she spoke, "...Well? Are you going to speak?"
"I'm sick" Admitted Shelby, longingly looking at a sleeping Beth in Rachel's arms.
"What? Is that why you can't have any more children?"
"When I had you… There were complications and I couldn't have anymore children. But that has nothing to do with this. Rachel, I have cancer… and it's very advanced…"
"How …God, I don't know what to say… Can it be cured?"
"I'm planning a trip to Columbus in a few weeks, but Beth…"
"I'll take care of her, don't worry."
That night, as she sits in her bed, all alone, she tells herself not to think about her mother's sickness, about the fact that she hide it for so long, the fact that she doesn't trust her enough to tell her that information, and the fact that she still thought that she had to pay Rachel for babysitting her sister when her mother needs it. She tries to ignore all the pain this causes.
It takes so many glasses of water to not feel it, that she losses count after the fifth.
*/*
The following weeks, she and Shelby plan the schedule they will follow when she's on her trip. She leaves for four days and when she comes back, she doesn't have good news.
After that, water becomes her best friend. It becomes the best comforter.
Now that Finn is no longer her boyfriend, people start to bully her even harder. The nicknames, the slushies, the backhanded comments, the isolation starts to become too much. Being with Beth, who always looks at her with love and a smile, becomes some sort of relieving thing.
The only problem is that with school, Glee and taking care of Beth she starts to get very tired. Then again, water starts saving her, it gets her all healthy and gives her energy, she doesn't even need to eat all that much.
The bullying becomes so much that she can barely take it. One day, she was in class and requested permission so she could go to the bathroom. She was on her way back when Azimio pushed her against a locker. When she confronted him (she called him a bastard for hurting a woman), he grabbed her arm and told her to 'fucking shut up or I will kill you and your faggot fathers, got it?'. Now she understood how Kurt felt all this time.
It took galleons of water to not cry in the middle of the hallway.
*/*
Over the course of the next weeks, Shelby starts chemo and radiation. She's commonly sick and more than once she had to go to her house and take care of her as well.
Her home was a one-storey, yellow house. It had two bedrooms and only one bathroom. It was so full of Beth's pictures it hurt her to the very core. She thanked water for numbing her pain, once again.
However, one day, she felt so much joy that it was impossible to not feel and make a happy dance.
"Do you feel better now?" she asked Shelby while tucking her in bed.
"Yes, thank you"
"No problem"
"I'm sorry that I have to put you trough this…All the throwing up and nausea…"
"It doesn't matter. Do you want me to stay? Like that I can watch over Beth and you can rest…"
"But you have school tomorrow"
"It wouldn't be a problem, really"
"Thank you, thank you so much"
"I'll be on Beth's room; you try to sleep some…" she starts to walk to the doo.
"Rachel?"
"Yes?" she looked at Shelby, all weak and sleepy eyes, looking at her with the slightest of smiles.
"You really are the best daughter a woman could ask for."
It was weird, because even thought she felt so much happiness, she still drank a whole bottle of water within a spare of a few minutes, because she felt so thirsty that she was sure she was gonna pass out from dehydration anytime soon.
*/*
When she suggested Shelby to shave her head, she kicked her out of her house, told her that she didn't needed her and that she was stupid and selfish for wanting to leave her bald.
She called five minutes later to apologize.
After that, thing get strained, and everything is filled with silence.
Sectionals are coming up, and they don't have Kurt, so a new girl joins but she nearly can't sing. So they have to work harder and harder to make something decent.
When Shelby admits to her that she won't be there to see her but she knows Jesse is in town and will probably go (she tells her the freaking day before), not even water gets her out of that stupid depression that leads her to give up her solo and the duet with Finn. Only when Santana says that she stole her boyfriend's virginity and her solos, she admits that right night now, 'water numbing' is not working.
Everyone smiles at the fact that she finally shared the spotlight, except for Noah.
Friday arrives. Sectionals come and go, they win (it's a tie with the Wablers, Seriously? Aren't three judges supposed to avoid that?) And, for a second she sees a familiar flash of gorgeous hair, but it quickly gets missed in the crowd.
When she realizes that she wasn't invited to the after party, she goes home, calls Jesse and, when she confirms he's back in town, asks him if he wants to go out.
She goes to his hotel room with wine coolers and bear (she asked a guy outside the store to buy them for her), he tells her he wanted to hear her sing her solo, before admitting he only had eyes for her the whole performance and that was the only reason he came was to hear her sing.
She loses her virginity to Jesse St. James, the guy who egged her heart, in his hotel room around twelve pm.
(She tells her fathers she spend the night at Shelby's. She doesn't talk to Shelby at all for the rest of the weekend. Instead, she spends the following afternoon and Sunday's having sex with Jesse and drinking water until she was sure she broke a record.)
*/*
After a few months pass, chemo ends and Shelby prepares for surgery. She and her doctor are as optimistic as you can be in a situation like this.
Just like Shelby's mood improves, her worsens. She's tired. She's tired of her constant headache and dizziness, nausea included, She's tired of being bullied, she's tired of being alone, she's tired of not being Shelby's daughter, and she's simply tired of being.
Her parents notice and tell her to slow down, to eat more (she has lost five pounds in the last six months), they try to spend more time with her but , as weird as it may sound, being with company only makes her feel even more lonely.
They get another duet competition, but this times Mr. Schuester chooses their partners.
When she gets paired up with Noah Puckerman, she's sure she'll die. But it turns out they barely practice at all, only in free periods, which she thanks because if they had to work after class, then he'll probably found out about Beth.
She thinks he's very talented and has much more potential than many kids in the school, if only he worked harder and remained focused on his future.
"Listen Berry, I don't like you, you don't like me. There's no way we're gonna have some sort of singing chemistry and this is probably gonna end up shitty. So… don't get your hopes very high, ok?"
Their performance is way below 'Rachel Berry standards' but she doesn't even bother to care. When Artie and Mercedes win, she just takes a sip of water and keeps smiling fakely.
*/*
Shelby will be hospitalized for a long time. It not just one surgery, they are like, four. And she will have more chemo and radiation in between. Cancer is a bitch. The worst thing? You obviously can't be pessimistic around a patient, but you can't get too optimistic either.
Her parents get their guest room set up for Beth. They give people in the daycare her number so they can call her if anything happens. They plan a rip to Columbus after Shelby's second surgery, close to Beth's first birthday, so she can see (both) her daughter (s).
As Regionals come closer, their choreography gets better, mostly because they practice like, three times a week. She hates this, because it honestly worns her down and, even with her parents help, made it nearly impossible to take care of Beth.
Friday arrives, is the day of Beth's birthday, she wakes up and takes the little girl in her arms. The hazel-eyed baby girl starts cooing and smiling that perfect little smile of hers.
"Hey baby, do you know what day is today? Yes, today is your first birthday! You're a year-old baby girl…. Can you believe that? A few more years and you'll be going to preschool." Beth held up her hands and Rachel brought her up so she could hold to her neck while sucking her thumb. They sang Happy Birthday with both her dads before they left the house. They left her at the daycare and then took her to school, arriving just in time.
It was the end of the week and she was so tired she could barely keep herself awake. Beth had been crying a lot lately, clearly because she missed her mother, so Rachel had to wake up a lot to sing to her and get her to sleep. She skipped lunch to sleep in an empty classroom (she hasn't been hungry lately, anyway).
She starts to consider if maybe cancer is actually contagious, because she's never felt this bad before, and it's been happening since she found out about Shelby's illness. Then she remembers it's actually genetic, but if she thinks about that, she's never going to stop crying. (She tries not to think abut all the emotional baggage this whole thing has brought to her.)
Later, when the bell rings and she going to their extra practice for Regionals, whit people either ignoring her or insulting her, she gets a feeling something's wrong. She ignores it and goes to practice anyway.
Mr. Schue had just come in (he hasn't even started his pep talk) when her phone rings, everyone's still talking loudly but she can feel it vibrate in her skirt's pocket. It's the daycare, and since Mr. Schue is still talking to Brad, she decides to pick up anyway.
"Hello?"
"Ms. Berry? This is Stella Robinson, from Sunbeam Daycare. You're listed as Beth's second emergency contact…"
Time stopped for a few seconds as she realized that she had failed to her mother, she hadn't been able to properly take care of her daughter.
"Oh God, is she okay?" she said in a frantic tone, raising her voice and making her teammates stay quiet.
"She presented troubles for breathing and is now being taken to St. Rita."
"Oh God, Oh God, What am I suppose to do? Her mother is in Columbus! And I'm not even… Oh God… I'm going, I'm on my way!" she finished the call and, while standing up and ignoring her peers questions she called her father, who answered after only one ring.
"Hi star, how are…" he didn't even get to finish the sentence before Rachel got hysteric and started to ramble, sob and shout at the phone at the same time.
"Daddy… daddy… they had to take her to the hospital….Beth! Who else damnit! They… they…they had to take… her…. there because she… she… couldn't breath and… and I didn't bring my car… and Shelby is… so far way and… Daddy do something!"
Suddenly the phone was snatched away from her hands and before she knew it, someone was pulling her by the arm. Within two seconds she was in Puck's truck, crying like a little girl.
*/*
His knuckles were white as they gripped the steering wheel, concentration and confusion written all over his face.
After her sobs had stopped, the ride had become quiet and awkward. (She needed her bottle of water, now.)
"Rachel"
"Yes?"
"How long have you been taking care of my daughter?"
"For months now"
"Why?"
"Because… Shelby's sick. Cancer."
Silence. They're a few minutes from the hospital.
"I'm sorry"
"Yeah, me too"
*/*
Sometimes she wonders if hospital workers are pathologically insensitive. No, they can't tell her anything because she's not direct family. When Noah says he's the father, they tell him that, since he's not listed as family either, they can't tell him anything.
She gets loud and demanding, in typical Rachel Berry fashion, and the receptionist is this close to kick her out, until her daddy (the doctor one) finally shows up and calmly explains the situation to the receptionist.
Two hours later and a raspberry allergy confirmed, she's walking out of the hospital with Beth in her arms, and Noah looking at the girl with something she has never seen in his eyes.
Love.
*/*
Her daddy's night shift starts in two hours so they have dinner with Noah (her dad is in Cincinnati), and the whole situation is explained. Her daddy tells Noah that, as someone who adopted a baby himself, he's very proud of his decision, since he knows it must have been hard to give up Beth.
Rachel knows that perhaps Noah never had a parental figure who told him they where proud of him, so she looks up to see his reaction. It's the first time in months that she sees him smile an honest smile.
Her daddy goes to work and she's left alone with her sister and his biological father. (Who she used to "date".)
She offers him to stay the night if he wants to. He agrees. He lulls Beth to sleep and the girl never cries in the whole time she spends with her father.
Breakfast it's awkward, but he seems happy to feed breakfast to his baby girl. He needs to go back home, but he says he'll come by her house later.
When he's leaving, he thanks her and kisses her cheek.
She smiles for the first time in months.
*/*
She called Shelby and told her what happened to Beth. She didn't call yesterday because she didn't want to worry her.
She also asks her if it's alright for her if Noah comes to see Beth. She thinks about it for a second before saying yes. She reassures her that the only thing that will happen is that he will come visit her, he won't take her to his house or anything like that.
Shelby sounded exhausted and something in the tone of her voice told Rachel that she was having one of those days… days where she got depression and nausea and all that.
Noah comes by after lunch to spend the day with her and Beth (and he phrased it that way) and she makes a horrible companion. It's just that she can't get out of her head the way in which Shelby talked, like if every word she spoke left her without a voice and left her out of breath.
He's sitting in the floor tickling Beth, he brought a teddy bear (birthday present, she figured he would remember in which day she was born) and desert for both of them. She's just sitting on the sofa, drinking water and reading The Catcher in the Rye.
"What's wrong?", He asks suddenly
"Uh?" , She's looking out the window, trying to avoid his gaze.
"You're like, very quiet, that's not normal."
After thinking for a moment she realizes that she might as well tell him the truth, since they're going to be sharing much more as of now.
"It's Shelby".
"You didn't…. You guys didn't got in to a fight because of. ..Me, right?"
His worried expression makes her melt, because he seems to understand that this new agreement doesn't only have repercussions on his relationship with Beth, but on other's relationships too.
"No, actually she agreed very easily. That's what worries me."
"Why?" He looks very confused, brow furrowed and all.
"It's just that, she's terribly insecure about Beth, it's very weird that she agreed so easily into this."
"Yeah, but it's not like if Quinn is asking her to share custody, I'm just the father who's asking some time with his daughter."
"I see your point, but it still affects this whole…thing."
"Why do you think she agreed then?"
"Because… I think my mom is dying"
He looks at her with an 'I'm sorry' expression and goes back to play with Beth.
She just keeps drinking water.
Tbc…
P.s.: If you find any mistakes, please let me know.