DISCLAIMER: I do not own, or claim to own, glee or any of the characters or songs mentioned in this story.

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One last thing: As you may notice, English is not my first language. So, if you find any grave errors in my stories, especially ones I make regularly, I'd be glad if you informed me so I don't do it again.

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"The art of mothering is the art of teaching the art of living to children."

Elain Heffner

Of Mothers And Mums

- Chapter 1 -

Old Truths

Beth knew something was wrong the instant her Mum hugged her. Shelby had felt unnaturally stiff, and she'd released her from her arms way too soon. But she'd ignored it, at first, had played it down. Maybe what her Mum was struggling with were Mum problems, nothing she should care about or could even understand. That's what she'd been telling herself. At first.

Then, after she'd said goodbye to everyone, she'd gotten into her Mum's car on the passenger seat and waited for Shelby to say something. It was not like her Mum was a quiet person, and they had definitely something to talk about. Apart from the strange hug, Shelby had made no attempts to congratulate her so far, when she definitely should. This was what her Mum had wanted her to do, the thing she'd always been most supportive about (though there would have been no need of pressuring Beth into it – she genuinely enjoyed it).

From the day she had been born, Shelby had been her very private vocal coach. She'd also shown her dance moves, given her valuable advice on how to present herself and basically just done everything that would help her once she would take a stage. And Beth had. Today had been her first performance with her glee club in a competition, and they'd won. She'd even had been given what could count as a tiny solo, which meant she'd sung two lines in the group number, but that wasn't exactly the norm for a freshman who had only just joined the New Directions, a glee club that had, more often than not, made it to Nationals in the last decade and that had a significant number of trophies stored in its showcase. She'd definitely risen fast enough. And she wanted, definitely wanted her Mum to be proud of her.

Yet there they were, with an awkward silence filling the air between them. Beth watched Shelby's knuckles become increasingly white as her mother's grip on the steering wheel got tighter by the second. That was when she decided to speak up.

"I know something's going on, you know." She said solemnly.

Shelby let out a long, heavy sigh. "I know."

"But you won't tell me." Beth did not phrase it as a question, because she knew her mother. She did not expect an answer, and she was surprised when she actually got one.

"You reminded me of someone. Up there." Shelby made a gesture in the general direction of the area in front of them, as if she could still see the stage Beth had performed on so recently.

Beth just nodded, savoring the tiny piece of information Shelby had just given her. She assumed that her Mum had referred to the father she had never known. The one that had, apparently, left them when Beth had still been an infant. So I look or act like him., she thought, and eventually ended up whispering the words, carefully testing them on her tongue. Did she want to be like her father?

She didn't know. Her Mum had been very evasive whenever she'd tried to ask her questions about him. Sometimes Beth thought she had a memory of him, a very distant one. In these memories, she always heard a voice singing to her, and sometimes a guitar. And sometimes she thought there was the voice of a girl or a woman, a woman that was not her Mum.

That must have been his girlfriend. , Beth thought. The reason he left us.

When this thought hit her, she swallowed hard. She definitely did not want to be like her dad when it came to the whole leaving-his-family stuff. But she wished that she could meet him, just once. That she could see what he looked like, what he was like … And what if I'm really more like him than like Mum?

No. That was not possible. Shelby was her mother. She'd raised her for more than fifteen years. That must have had some influence on her.

I am not my father.She thought. At least I am reliable and responsible, two things he proved he wasn't when he left me.

She was pulled out of her thoughts when Shelby parked the car in front of the house the apartment the two of them lived in was in. Beth got out of the car, followed her Mum up the stairs and, telling Shelby good night, went straight to her room.

She woke up early the next morning, and, as if her intuition told her she had to, rolled of her bed and got dressed instantly.

Her mother was already waiting in the kitchen, leaning heavily against the counter. She motioned for Beth to take a seat, while she started pacing the small room. Beth sat down, waiting for her Mum to collect herself. She had rarely seen Shelby in this state. When they had talked about sex, for example, or when her mother had told her that she had a half sister, Rachel, whom Shelby had been a surrogate to. So she knew that it would be futile to interrupt her mother's pacing or pressure her into talking by asking questions. She just waited.

"I need to tell you something." Shelby finally said, meeting Beth's hazel eyes with her own slightly darker ones. Beth just nodded calmly, giving her Mum time to phrase whatever she was trying to say. She certainly was not prepared for what Shelby blurted out next.

"I am not your mother."

Beth shook her head, trying to grasp the words Shelby had just said. "Wait, that doesn't make any sense. You are my Mum! You raised me, you taught me everything, you gave birth to me-"

"No! I did not!" Shelby cried out, cutting her off. "Beth, listen. I am not your biological mother."

Then, suddenly, Beth stopped shaking her head and closed her eyes, trying to listen to the turmoil that was going on inside her. There was only one thought that was clear in the middle of what was a jumbled mess of thoughts and emotions, and she barely dared to ask the question.

"Then who is?"

"Her name is Quinn Fabray. She was only a teenager when she got pregnant from Noah Puckerman, also a teen, and she knew she couldn't raise you right, so she gave you up for adoption and I –"

"Don't." Beth said, not wanting to hear all the facts her mother – no, Shelby Corcoran - was telling her faster then she could possibly grasp them. She couldn't hear them, not right now, not when everything she had ever believed to be true, the very foundations of her life, shattered. Then she got up, and, without any more words, slowly walked towards her room.

The woman she had believed to be her mother did not try to stop her.

Beth had been lying on her bed, concentrating solely on her breathing, for what felt like hours. Then she'd started to think again, trying not to let everything flood her mind at once, because she didn't think she could remain sane any other way.

So Shelby was not her biological mother. Did that mean she was not her Mum?

She raised me. She loves me.

Beth wanted to believe that. Why should anyone adopt a child if he didn't want one? But then again, the thought of adoption felt so strange, even in her mind.

Shelby adopted me. She is not my mother, not when it comes to blood. But she is my Mum.

I wonder whether it was my mother or my father I reminded her of yesterday. Or both.

"Quinn Fabray and Noah Puckerman." Beth said in a numb voice. The names didn't mean anything to her, but these were the names Shelby had given her. These were the names of her parents.

She didn't exactly know why she did what she did when she walked over to her laptop and typed the two names in a search engine. Sure enough, she found something. It was an article about the New Directions from McKinley High about thirteen years ago. She clicked the link and read:

McKinley High's glee club takes Nationals for the first time since 1993

Below the headline and a short paragraph there was a picture of the New Directions of 2012, with all of their names written underneath it. Quinn Fabray and Noah Puckerman were amongst them.

She recognized Rachel immediately and felt a weird twist in her gut when she thought that Rachel, unlike her, was really Shelby's daughter. Maybe all I am is a replacement for the child she gave up.

She tried to push that thought away as she attempted to identify who might be Quinn Fabray and Noah Puckerman.

Rachel was wrapped in the arms of a really tall guy she'd definitely ask her half-sister – who was not technically her half-sister, Beth realized, but tried not to let this thought shake her up again – some questions about later. There were two boys hugging each other and grinning into the camera like crazy: one of them looked really cute and pale and breakable, as if he was made of porcelain, the other one had a grin on his face that really screamed dork at her.

Beth smiled at the thought, wanting to believe that the numbness that had been lying on her like a thick blanket ever since Shelby had broken the fifteen-year-old news to her would fade if she kept thinking funny things like that and generally looking on the bright side. That thought, again, had her hum the song from the classic Monty Python movie The Life Of Brian.Well, maybe it worked.

Then there were some girls that really seemed unlikely to be her biological mother: a black girl with a diva attitude that practically seeped out of the picture, a Latina that looked kinda badass and a cute Asian girl who was being held in the arms of an Asian boy.

That left three white girls. One of them was a brunette sitting on the lap of a boy in a wheelchair. The other two were blondes. One of them, a really tall and slim girl, held hands with the Latina. The last one was rather normal in size, but definitely strikingly beautiful. She stood next to a guy whose dreads almost seemed to reach the floor.

To Beth, each of them could have been Quinn Fabray.

So does that mean my Dad is either in a wheelchair or a hippie?

Apart from the hugging boys, the wheelchair guy, the Asian boy, the tall guy who probably had been Rachel's boyfriend and the hippie (which had Beth giggle, even though it might be a shallow and unfair description), there were a boy with brown hair who seemed to melt into the background, a blonde guy with an abnormally large mouth and a well-tanned guy with a mohawk.

Beth would have gone for the blonde one, but he seemed to be involved with the black diva. As for the other ones, she did not know.

Might as well ask her., she thought with a sigh, stood up and carried the laptop to the living room where she knew she'd find her mother. Shelby always watched DVD productions of Broadway musicals when she was depressed or nervous or anxious …

"I found a picture." Beth said in a matter-of-fact voice and sat down next to Shelby, leaving a lot of space between them, though. She put the laptop down on the table in front of them, turning it so that her Mum could get a clear look at the screen. "Who are they?"

Her Mum straightened up from the crumpled position she'd been half-sitting, half-lying in and pressed a button on the remote control of the TV. Instantly, the screen went black. Then she studied the photo, and a smile tucked at the corners of her lips.

"What is it?" Beth asked.

"I was a teacher at that school back then. I knew all of those kids." Shelby said as if she was lost in good old times.

Yeah, and one of them was your daughter. A part of Beth's mind whispered, but she didn't voice the thought. Instead, she repeated her initial question. "So, who of them are my biological parents?"

Shelby pointed at the petite blonde Beth had noticed as strikingly beautiful before. "This is Quinn. And Noah is …" She trailed off, searching the picture. "..over there." Shelby finished the sentence, pointing at the guy with the mohawk.

"A mohawk? Seriously, that's my dad?" Was the first thing that came to Beth's mind, and, naturally, she blurted out the thought.

"Yes, that's your biological dad." Shelby confirmed, clearly trying to keep the conversation as calm as possible. "He did babysit you a couple of times back in the day, you know, but that contact faded when he took off to go to college."

Beth swallowed. "Could I contact them now, if I wanted to? I mean, do you have an address or a phone number or something?"

Shelby nodded. "I have their addresses. I've been sending them pictures of you every month." She paused. "Do you want to write them?"

"No. Yes. I don't know."

Shelby reached out and put her hand on Beth's shoulder, feeling incredibly like a Mum. Automatically, Beth leaned into her. "That's not a decision you have to make right now, you now. They won't go away."

Beth let her Mum – for that was what Shelby was – pull her into a hug and let herself take comfort from the touch.

That evening, she sat in front of her desk, trying to start a letter that was incredibly difficult to write.

What will they think? Will they even want me in their lives?

Well, soon I'll know.

So, that's it for now. If you enjoyed the first chapter and want to read more, please press the story alert button. If you don't have an account on this site, you can also follow me on twitter (teebs_teebs) or add me on facebook (Teebs SingerWriter) where I will post a tweet/status update whenever I add a new chapter and/or story.

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