Hey everyone! Sorry it's been a while. I'm in college and school has this way of draining me of any inspiration and motivation. Imagine that. It was bad enough I couldn't even make my deadline of September 21 (start of Glee) to get this published, but two days late isn't bad I suppose. And let me tell you, I'm thrilled to be back.

But this is it; this is the end. Well, this is the first chapter of two because it was too long to be a one-shot, but with the conclusion of this story comes the conclusion of my Shelby series. The poor girl needs some closure. The next part is still just in my head, but with the right motivation (reviews? feedback? delightful writer/reader communication via ff.n? 0:D ) I hope to get it out and give all of you wonderful readers who have been following along (and, of course, any new ones that are more than welcome to join the sobfest that ended up being this series) some closure as well. :)

Shelby Corcoran was aware of her tendency to think way too much about everything.

It was part of the reason she became extremely frustrated when she couldn't solve problems, which was something she was currently experiencing in trying to put together the baby mobile she had bought earlier that week. She had it assembled but for whatever reason she couldn't get it to spin like it was supposed to. It wasn't a good omen, she decided in frustration, throwing the colorful device back into its packaging on the floor and kicking it aside.

Apparently the noise from her small outburst startled the week-old baby in the crib at the end of her bed, and it was with a self-frustrated sigh that she stood from her seat on the edge of the mattress to walk over to check on Beth. The baby was whimpering, too little to really cry, and Shelby reached a hand down into the brand-new crib to stroke the soft skin of the newborn's head. From what she knew, Beth had been born three or four weeks early, which explained why she was so much smaller than the other babies had been in the hospital. After a few days of supervision and tests, doctors were able to assure Shelby that the little girl was perfectly healthy, much to her relief. When Rachel had been born, she had seemed so big in comparison to the calming baby in front of her, Shelby suddenly remembered, her brow furrowing slightly. But maybe that was because at the time, to Shelby, there had been nothing else in the room but Rachel. As for the sixteen years in between that moment and this one, it felt as though someone hit the fast-forward button on her life: all of the insignificant moments were there to see, but they were blurry and trivial compared to this moment right now.

The last week was a blur in particular. Since the Regionals competition last Saturday, Shelby felt like she had been running nonstop. Her mind had been working 20 hours a day, first trying to make a responsible decision about the abandoned infant at the hospital then thinking about everything a typical woman in her position has at least nine months to worry about, all the while dealing with finals at Carmel and preparing Glee Club for Nationals. But when she picked up the child from the hospital the afternoon before, she had no regrets, not even about her trip to see Principal Geoffrey Lancaster earlier that day. She had walked in with a pile of paperwork and dropped it haughtily on his desk, explaining that in the stack of folders was everything that the substitutes would need in order to give final exams to all of the students that hadn't graduated that Thursday night as well as the information her replacement Glee advisor (a list of potential candidates was provided) would need to guide the self-reliant group of teenagers to Nationals next month. He had been so shocked at her quasi-resignation that he couldn't even speak as she explained that for the first time in her life, she was putting her personal life before her work and he wasn't going to change her mind.

Even though she told him she would be back next school year to teach (she suspected that he would have passed out if she told him he also needed to find a replacement for the classes she taught, since she taught both vocal classes as well as the general music classes, something that couldn't often be done by one person in Lima, Ohio), the next three and a half months belonged to her and Beth. For the first time in a long time, Shelby was doing something for herself. The sweet baby that was relaxing at her new mother's gentle touch and soft reassurances was hers and only hers; Beth was something she always wanted but was never ready to have until now.

A week before, not only did Beth not exist in the world as an individual, she did not even exist in Shelby's mind. But since that moment her gaze found the nameless baby on the other side of the hospital glass, her world had turned upside down. She had very, very quickly gone from terminal bachelorette to a mother – no, a mom, she corrected with awe – and she had yet to wrap her mind around it.

Shelby did not love the little girl yet. She was mesmerized, grateful, and content, but love was still a way off, especially for someone like Shelby who had been alone and distrustful for so long. But in looking at Beth, so mild and pretty with her creamy skin and her surprisingly bright blue eyes, she felt like she was jumping off of a cliff: it was inevitable for the upward momentum – and the fear and excitement that accompanied it – to stop when the grip of gravity took her over and she would fall uncontrollably and tremendously to infinite depths. She just wasn't sure when she would hit that crest, but she didn't want to know. She was just eager to experience it.

In analyzing her feelings for Beth, Shelby was also stumped in trying to comprehend how she had come to love Rachel as much as she did. But love was something that is so illogical and uncontrollable that she was better off trying to learn how NASA built their spacecrafts piece by piece than trying to find some element of reason to it. One thing she did know was that her feelings for Rachel were only holding her back from giving Beth everything a child deserves from her mother. She had walked away physically from her biological daughter but not emotionally, and she was still holding onto something she knew very well wasn't doing her any good. What was that one important commandment that she should have been living her life by? Oh yes, Thou shall not covet thy homosexuals' daughter. It was closely associated with a couple other commandments that she had struggled to but successfully upheld throughout the years: Thou shall not steal the fruit of thy loins and Honor thy bitch of a mother and aloof father.

And because of that broken commandment, she was living with a stomachache that was haunting her relationship with Beth, a little girl with whom she would spend the rest of her life. And it was quite frustrating to watch her sleep in her crib and have her mind constantly invaded by thoughts of Rachel. It certainly wasn't fair to Beth.

It didn't seem fair to Rachel either that she had adopted a little girl so soon after they had met and she had essentially blown her off without a true explanation. God, she certainly had a way of screwing things up, she thought with a subtle grimace, her hands curling tightly around the crib's wooden rail. But Rachel did not yet know about her decision, and she had no desire to let Rachel find out the hard way about her mother's new, rightful daughter. She would be the one to tell Rachel. In fact, there was no one she wanted to tell more, and if it wasn't simply because the teenager was the most important person in her life and those with that label were usually the people with whom good news is shared, it was to relieve this burden of shame from her shoulders. Shelby was an honest person by nature and she felt like she was keeping this big secret from Rachel. That was not her intention.

She glanced over her shoulder at the clock. It was a quarter 'til 8 in the evening and if she hovered over Beth any longer, she knew more time would pass before she would realize it. Before too long, she needed to grow a spine and tell Rachel the truth. The resident cynic in her head that barraged her conscience with constant commentary reminded her that she was under no obligation to share her life with Rachel, but she wanted to. She had always wanted to. Just because she has settled on the decision that Rachel would be better off with her at a distance didn't mean that her desire to have a relationship with her daughter had completely perished.

But Beth would come first now. And she needed to set the record – as well as herself – straight on that.

The infant was finally asleep once more. Shelby was careful when she pulled her hands away from the frame of the crib, unwilling to jar the still child from her sleep. The last 24 hours had been quite difficult in that respect; even though the little girl's brain was still developing, she was probably cognizant of her new environment and the unfamiliar person hovering around her. In time, Beth would come to realize that this was her home and that this was a safe place, but meanwhile Shelby expected that she would endure more sleepless nights in which the child whined at every new sound. She didn't mind, really. After all these years of yearning for a child, she couldn't complain about such trivial things that were part of life.

Shelby carefully walked away from the slumbering baby, careful not to trip over the mobile packaging she had left on the bedroom floor, and grabbed her cell phone from her bedside table before slipping out of her room completely. By the time she had gotten to her living room (which had a few other packages and shopping bags of baby stuff that she had yet dealt with in spread out throughout the area), she had made up her mind that she was going to use this phone to call Rachel. Even if Beth slept through the night, she knew she wouldn't be able to rest until she put her racing mind and conscience at ease.

Tapping the phone against her empty palm, she took a deep breath, preparing herself for what she was about to do. Despite what Rachel probably thought considering the last couple of times they talked to each other, Shelby didn't want to hurt her. How many sleepless nights had she experienced in the last couple of months in which she stared at the ceiling, trying to figure out what could be done to make things happy for herself? She wanted Rachel but she couldn't have her. That was a fact. Ignoring that Rachel had two parents who loved her and ignoring how Shelby had been absent from her life until now, Rachel was 16 years old. Hell, she'd be an adult in less than two years; by then, she could be living on her own, going off to school somewhere, surrounded by friends and admirers alike. No matter if she was present in Rachel's life at all or not, Shelby was going to be a bystander anyway.

Not that she had a choice in the matter anymore. She had made the decision – the mature, responsible, stupid decision – to walk away and there was nothing she could do to change that now. On the bright side, considering the status of their relationship, she didn't have much to lose if Rachel did hate her for adopting Beth. She rolled her eyes at herself; any optimism she had was clearly as corrupted by her resident cynic as she was.

After getting a fresh pot of coffee brewing, she grabbed a strawberry yogurt and spoon from the kitchen and treaded back to the dining room where she plopped down in her favorite chair, putting the Blackberry to the side for a moment. There was only just enough room for her forearms as she ate her pathetic meal since most of her table looked like a baby bomb exploded over it. Printouts that discussed the pros and cons of breast milk over formula, over a half dozen unread baby books and a couple others that had various Post-its with notes sticking out of them, receipts for the dozens of purchases she had made in the last week (such as baby clothes, diapers, a car seat, that shitty mobile she couldn't get to work, and of course, breast milk since she was convinced it was worthwhile based on her research), adoption papers, and finances covered most of her tabletop. Between the various piles were cold coffee mugs, half of which were leaving coffee rings on her tablecloth, and dirty plates documenting her various meals from throughout her stressful week. While she normally would have been bothered with the mess, she was too preoccupied to give a damn. She would worry about it later, at the very least when she was done putting her relationship with Rachel on the line.

Navigating the Blackberry with one finger, she pulled up Rachel's contact information but didn't dial immediately, needing one last moment of stillness and sameness before she tossed shit into the fan. Putting down her finished yogurt, she sat back in her chair, crossed her legs in front of her and fiddled with the frayed knees of her jeans. She brooded for a moment about how Rachel would never know her as anything other than the nicely dressed, lonely career woman. It was such a little thought, even a little vain, but once it crossed her mind it continued to evolve: it had been years since anyone had seen anything but Coach Corcoran. Even when she had men or guests over, no matter how much she tried she couldn't stop being all-business all of the time and it made her disheartened. Part of her had hoped that she could come to know her daughter enough that she would have someone she could be comfortable with for once. But in a curious twist of fate – or rather, a scratch of a pen against a brand-new contract – she now had a different daughter who would come to know her for exactly the woman she was.

Had her internal monologue wanted to run off on a tangent, she would have pondered at length about the ease and nuttiness of people signing their babies away and filling out papers to get one of their own, but that would have been both draining to philosophize on and demoralizing as she had done both in her life. Not to mention, at that moment she had a phone call to make.

Hitting the call button and pulling her phone to her ear, her eyes shut tightly in apprehension as she heard the digital ringing in her ear. She was a bit annoyed with herself; she didn't used to be so scared, but back before she saw a beautiful young lady croon Barbra Streisand at a Sectionals performance there was little to make her nervous. Now she was second-guessing herself at every turn about making the right decisions that before had come so naturally to her. And, embarrassing as it was, that worry-wart that had recently made itself comfy next to her internal pessimist was pleading for Rachel to not pick up so she wouldn't have to disappoint the girl yet again.

"Hello?"

Surprisingly, it was nice to hear Rachel's voice, despite her initial fears. She felt herself loosen up slightly.

"Hi baby, it's—" She stopped herself, frowning at how she had almost slipped and introduced herself as her mom. It was something she expected out of Rachel, not herself. Perhaps she could compromise and be very politically correct about it: It's your biological, surrogate mother who, by all intents and purposes, has basically shown that she doesn't want you. "It's Shelby."

"Oh hi Shelby! Can you hold on for a moment?"

"I—… Sure," she said, wondering why being put on hold at that critical moment shocked her at all. Somehow Rachel always violated her expectations just enough that she was pulled from relentlessness of her own mind. On the other end of the line, she could hear clinking and shuffling around of what sounded like more than one person. She felt self-conscious and when Rachel announced her return she rushed out, "Is this a bad time? I could call back or somethi—"

"No, it's perfectly fine! My dads and I were just cleaning up our dinner."

"Oh, okay. Good."

"Shelby, are you okay? You sound different." Shelby was about to respond when she heard a muffled voice of one of the Berry men on the other end talking to Rachel, and she tried to decipher what was being said despite the fact that Rachel clearly covered the mouthpiece with her hand. "Papa wants to know if you're drunk."

"What? No, I'm not drunk!" It didn't matter that the last time she randomly reached out to Rachel she had been smashed nearly to the point of drooling, giving her dads a good reason to ask— if she were the same woman she was 17 years ago, she would have had Rachel tell her dad where he could stick his tactless nosiness. But she wouldn't have her daughter to tell her father such a thing simply for the sake of her pride, especially since the Berry men weren't her friends anymore and it would be just as rude as asking her about her alcohol intake. "I just haven't been sleeping much."

"She's just tired, Papa! …No, I don't know what why she called. Are you going to let me find out or are you going to keep standing there?"

At this point, Shelby's nervousness was being suppressed upon hearing her daughter speak so casually, and while she was slightly amused, the aching was still present in her gut. Rachel was about two seconds away from asking her why she called. She decided to save her the trouble. "I just need to tell you something. Do you have a few minutes? You're not busy are you?"

"No. We were just going to watch this movie on Lifetime about this woman who finds out that her husband is cheating on her with his best friend so she—"

"Rachel."

"Oh, sorry. Anyway, Daddy can TiVo it. Go on Papa, I'll put everything else away." Shelby heard the deep voice of Thomas Berry fade away in the background before it became silent, and she suspected that Rachel was waiting for her to speak next. But the words weren't coming out. A good twenty seconds stretched before finally Rachel spoke up in a lower, more emotive tone, "What did you want to tell me?"

"Just that…" Shelby sighed, bringing a hand to her forehead as she deliberated her words. She had so much she wanted to say, and at that moment nothing seemed right, even the most obvious choices. In the end, she could be man enough to admit that she chickened out at that moment. "Just that I wish you had won at Regionals."

"Oh," Rachel said, her voice communicating wished she could see her face, but no doubt if she had to look in Rachel's eyes she would feel worse than she already did. "Well, I guess in the end the better team won. Good luck at Nationals."

She sounded bitter. Shelby couldn't blame her, really. But she was going to try to be candid, even if it continued to upset the teen. "I'm not going to Nationals. I quit."

"You…what?"

"I quit Glee."

"But…you can't quit Glee! You're the best! Talent like yours shouldn't be wasted!"

Shelby sat quietly while Rachel wrapped her mind around the news. She had already explained how she felt about Glee back at the competition, among other things, and she suspected that Rachel hadn't taken her seriously. But Rachel was too young and full of life to understand how weary she was becoming of the monotony, demand and hollowness of show choir after so many years of both participation as well as advisory.

In a moment of sad remembrance, she was reminded once again that Rachel never came to know her very well. She was the chic, nationally ranked coach of Vocal Adrenaline who had years previously fostered an embryo, but beyond that Rachel didn't know her. She probably could not have imagined the woman she had known so briefly sitting in the disaster zone that was currently her house, or have pictured in her mind the loose-fitting jeans or the faded "It's the economy, stupid" t-shirt she was wearing, or even have known what Shelby looked like without makeup or with her hair thrown up in a messy ponytail. Rachel didn't know that her favorite color was green, that she knew how to ride a unicycle, or how she hated bananas. And she probably had no idea how badly Shelby wanted to be a mother. To have a daughter.

"I'm sorry Rachel," she said to a girl she had given birth to but could never have. "It was just something I needed to do. But that's not why I called." If Rachel was upset over her quitting her job as lead of the glee club that had just beaten her small team at Regionals, then she could only imagine how well this next bit of news would go over. "I adopted your friend's baby."

Shelby's eyes were crammed shut, her bare toes curling into the carpet as she waited for the Rachel to start screaming. But all Shelby heard was the high-pitched clinking of silverware being showered across Rachel's kitchen, no doubt from the girl's dismayed clutches, in the otherwise deafening silence.

"No."

That word, that utterance, was so simple, but it carried the heavy weight of their terrible relationship with it. Up to this point, Rachel had been relatively patient and calm, even in the worst moments, and judging by the sound of that one syllable Shelby was certain she was lucky to have received such generosity from the young diva.

"No. You can't adopt Quinn's baby. You just can't."

"It's done. I took her home yesterday."

"But why? Why did you have to pick her? Why now? Why are you doing this to me?"

As Rachel's questions became more and more hysterical, Shelby sighed in frustration. She had already known that she shouldn't expect Rachel to be happy for her, but it didn't stop her from wanting it and being disappointed that she had been right in her pessimism.

"I can't believe you would do this to me."

"This isn't about you," Shelby responded coldly, annoyed.

"Then what is it about?" the teenager snappily rejoined.

Her lips were pursed and her nostrils were flaring, but she realized she wasn't mad at Rachel. Out of all the things she had to be mad about in her life, the way Rachel was as a person, her thoughts and her feelings, were not among them. She couldn't say the same for herself. "This is about me. I'm almost 40 years old. I'm sick of the fact that the only substantial things I can claim as my own are goddamn trophies and titles, as if that's supposed to mean anything to me."

"S-so you just went and got some baby, like it's going to make everything better?"

"You can't just get a baby, Rachel," Shelby said. "It's not like you can wake up one morning with the desire to want a kid and pick one up at the local baby store. It doesn't work like that. It's a long legal process that involves counseling, evaluation regarding the adopters' health, background, and finances, and homestudies to make sure that they're fit to be parents. It can take months, and in some cases years."

"And you've done all of that?"

"A long time ago. I just…wasn't ready then. I am now."

"But I don't understand."

Shelby sighed once more, perfectly aware of the fact that Rachel couldn't understand because there was so much Shelby couldn't muster up the nerve to explain. Rachel was a smart enough girl to realize that loneliness wasn't enough of a drive to jump through so many complicated hoops. But this phone call was meant to allow Shelby to tell her the truth, or at least as much as was necessary so Rachel could accept her choice.

"Rachel, honey, you need to know something," she said, listening to the sound of Rachel's unsteady breathing through the earpiece. She took a deep breath of her own before she made the plunge. "A few years back I started getting sick. It started out as simple back aches, but it wasn't long before I was experiencing other problems too, like heavy, agonizing periods and pain during intercourse." She was too old to be embarrassed about that but it wasn't easy telling her daughter something so incredibly personal. "Doctors called the tumors growing in my uterus 'fibroids.' By the time they had figured out what was wrong with me, surgery was the only option."

"So you're saying it's difficult for you to have any more kids? So you're just giving up?"

"It's not difficult, Rachel, it's impossible. I had to have a hysterectomy. You're it for me, babe."

It was with an uncontrollable desperation that she wished she could know what Rachel was thinking in that moment.

"Then…then why aren't I good enough?"

"Oh sweetie," Shelby murmured, her heart throbbing with shame upon hearing the emotion Rachel's voice held. She didn't want Rachel to blame or think less of herself, not when Shelby was the one responsible for the many shortcomings in her own life. But the fact was, Rachel had a point: She wasn't good enough for her. And because Shelby had not fought for her when she had the chance and when it mattered most, it was really was too late for them. "I need you to understand some things. Being tired of Glee wasn't the only reason I had to turn down your request to come teach at your school. I've spent most of your life watching you grow up from a distance, and to see you an hour or two a day and never touch you or truly have you in my life would have driven me insane. I don't know if you realize how wonderful I think you are. I couldn't have imagined anyone better, and I've spent years thinking all about what kind of girl you would grow up to be. If Beth grows up to be half as beautiful and smart and talented as you, I'll feel like the luckiest person in the world."

"You named her Beth." It was a statement, not a question, and Shelby wished she knew what it meant.

"Yeah, I did," Shelby stated. Despite her confessions, their situation hadn't changed; Shelby wondered if Rachel, with all of the knowledge that she had been hiding from her up until now, was now plagued with the quandary regarding their relationship that had tortured her own mind for so long. She exhaled miserably. "I know you probably don't understand why I adopted Quinn's baby, but it was important to me that you know the truth. And I hope you don't hold anything against her, because in a way" — a very convoluted way — "she's your sister."

She heard soft sniffles and thick exhalations, and with that Shelby knew that Rachel was crying. It killed her to listen to it and to know that she was the cause of it. It was just more confirmation that Rachel was better off without her, and no doubt Rachel was figuring that out at that moment as well.

"I'll let you go. I've got to call my folks now and tell them the, um, happy news."

"I'm sure they'll be thrilled for you."

She scoffed softly, mumbling, "I wish."

Their conversation became quiet once more, and without anything left to say Shelby knew that sitting there, holding onto the connection to her daughter by staying on the line, was just selfish. She felt like she did the last time she was about to say goodbye, but this time there was no song to sing and no bittersweet embrace. This time it was really just goodbye.

What could she say? "See you later alligator"? "Don't be a stranger"? "Talk to you soon"? No, of course she couldn't. But she did the best that she could without really saying farewell or admitting this may be the last time for a long time. "I hope you have a good night. Say hello to your fathers for me."

"I will. Good night, Shelby."

"Good night," she whispered.

The call ended.