Hello again everybody! I just wanted to take a minute to thank you all for every review/follow/read. It means a lot I really appreciate it.

Quick heads up, I will be on vacation until the 23rd so that's why I pumped the first couple of chapters out quickly cause it will be a couple of days before the next ones up.

Thanks again. Hope you enjoy!


Chapter 3:

"Remember, if you see clumping in your palate that means that the antibodies that you are adding to your blood sample are reacting to the antigens on your blood cells and you possess that particular blood type. No clumping indicates that you do not possess the antigens and therefore, you do not have that blood type. If you do not see clumping in either blood type that means you are type O."

The next day in biology class, Rachel is zoning in and out, hardly paying attention as her teacher explains the ins and outs of a lab exercise they are doing on blood typing to conclude their unit on genetics. Instead, she glares at Quinn. The blonde is sitting next to her pretending she doesn't notice Rachel staring at her, but she is sitting at her desk a little too attentively to be convincing.

Rachel knows that Quinn hadn't exactly been the one who had humiliated her in the cafeteria yesterday, but her friends had been, and Quinn hadn't exactly done anything to try to stop it or make her feel better afterwards. In Rachel's eyes, that made Quinn just as accountable.

On the table in front of Rachel and Quinn are all the materials they will need for this lab. It includes a small needle plunger that they will use to prick their fingers with so that they can determine their blood types. Rachel stares at it with a small sense of satisfaction. Quinn may not have been responsible for what happened in the cafeteria yesterday, but Rachel can think of a million other things to hold over the blonde's head and quite frankly, Quinn has been a pain in her ass lately, so Rachel is looking forward to an opportunity to stab her even if it is only in the finger with a tiny needle.

"Ow! What the hell Berry?" Quinn reels when Rachel finally gets her opportunity and plunges the needle as hard as she can into the middle finger of Quinn's right hand. That felt better than even Rachel thought it would and the brunette just shrugs like her harshness had been some sort of accident even though they both know better.

"Sorry," Rachel apologizes emptily. Quinn glares at her for a moment but even she knows she probably deserved that, so she says nothing as she squeezes her pricked finger, allowing the droplets of blood to collect in the plastic reservoirs she had been given in order to conduct her assignment.

"Nothing is happening. What does this even mean?" Quinn sighs after a moment, sliding the finished project in front of Rachel who glances down at it.

"Were you even paying the slightest bit of attention when Mrs. Hunt was explaining the assignment?" she asks. Admittedly, Rachel herself had been daydreaming but at least she was focused enough to be able to read the instructions on the handout and still be able to figure it out for herself.

"Of course not," Quinn groans like this should be obvious and Rachel rolls her eyes so hard that it gives her a headache.

"You're hopeless," she tells the blonde, flipping through her handout so that she can interpret Quinn's results for her.

"Just tell me what it means, Berry," Quinn snaps at her partner, ignoring their neighbors who have started to turn over their shoulders to stare, wondering if it is possible for Quinn and Rachel to do anything without it ending in an argument.

"It means your blood type is O negative," Rachel bites back at her. "Congratulations, Quinn, you're a universal donor and an isolated recipient."

"Typical," Quinn mutters but does not linger on her own results before picking up a clean needle and turning towards Rachel. "Okay, it's your turn now."

Rachel retreats. "There is no way I am letting you stab me with that thing. Hand it over, Quinn. I can do it myself."

"Like hell you can," Quinn argues, grabbing Rachel's wrist and forcing her hand towards her. "You almost pushed that stupid needle through my damn finger before, Berry. This is revenge."

"And they call me the drama queen," Rachel mutters but her snide comment turns into a shriek when she feels Quinn depress the needle into her finger with a sharp pinch. The blonde hadn't been kidding. That did hurt.

"Ow!" Rachel shouts, pulling her bleeding finger out of Quinn's grip and tight into her chest. "There's no way that I did it that hard for you!"

She looks down to survey the damage. Despite the pain, the prick was minimal and is only leaking a few drops of blood so that Rachel knows she will have to move quickly or else risk Quinn having to prick her again.

"Drama queen," she hears Quinn mock her but ignores her as she starts mixing her blood diligently with the antibodies just as Quinn had done before. Rachel watches as clumps immediately start to appear in all three of her slots and feels Quinn staring over her shoulder.

"Why is yours so much more interesting than mine?" she asks Rachel dejectedly.

"Because I'm AB+ apparently," Rachel answers. "My blood reacts with all of the antibodies. You're O-. Your blood doesn't react with any of them."

"Mine was boring," Quinn sighs, sinking down into her chair.

"Well, you can blame your parents for that," Rachel shoots back.

"Just another thing to add to the list, I guess," Quinn rolls her eyes in a gesture that Rachel returns almost naturally at this point.

"How about we just don't talk and finish all of our lab questions so we can get out of here," Rachel suggests. She doesn't have the patience for yet another unproductive conversation with Quinn Fabray. She is not in the mood to face the brunt of her teenage angst today.

"Fine by me," Quinn agrees and slides her lab worksheet in front of her. "First question. What is your blood type? Answer. The world's most boring one."

Quinn scribbles in her answer with sloppy handwriting. Rachel glances over her shoulder. For a moment, she's afraid that that is actually what Quinn has written down but is satisfied when she sees that Quinn had actually provided the real answer.

"Question two," Rachel chimes aloud when she is finished writing down her own answer. "What does your blood type indicate about your parents' possible blood types?"

"That my parents suck and couldn't even manage to give me good DNA?" Quinn asks.

"It means that your parents can be pretty much anything," Rachel tells her but Quinn only laughs.

"You're giving them too much credit."

"I'm talking about their blood type," Rachel corrects. "The O gene is recessive. So is a negative Rh factor. That means that they can either be O- like you or they can have one copy of the dominant allele that is expressed and one copy of the recessive one that isn't but was still able to be passed down to you."

"Thanks Einstein," Quinn mutters but Rachel notices that she still writes down her answer almost verbatim.

"Einstein was a physicist," Rachel corrects. "This is biology class."

"Whatever," Quinn rolls her eyes. "What does yours mean?"

Rachel hesitates and looks back down at her blood smear. Normally, she wouldn't think twice about a technical question regarding her parentage but with Shelby so near the idea of it makes her a little bit uneasy.

"It means that one of my parents has to be either A or AB and the other has to be either B or AB. At least one of them has to be Rh positive." Rachel answers Quinn's question, forcing herself to put aside her own insecurities for the sake of an A on the assignment.

"You're better at this than me," Quinn sighs. If she had noticed Rachel's sudden discomfort, she doesn't mention it as she scans quickly through the remainder of the questions before sliding her paper in front of Rachel with an air of frustration on her face. "Can you just do mine for me?"

"Of course not," Rachel scoffs at the idea that Quinn would even think to ask and pushes the assignment back in front of the blonde.

"You're the worst Berry, you do know that right?"

"And I liked you a lot better when you weren't showing up to class, Fabray," Rachel throws back to her.

"At least I keep things interesting," Quinn shrugs and at this, Rachel actually manages a small smile towards the blonde, forcing a joke.

"Says the girl with the world's most boring blood type."


Rachel works through lunch to finish her lab assignment. Once again, she finds herself utilizing homework as an excuse to keep her distance from not only Finn, but from Quinn and her band of Skanks as well.

While her and Quinn have grown accustomed to one another in private settings, such as Biology class, when the blonde was around that group she became somebody entirely different. Rachel is trying to lay low if only to avoid another incident with them like the one that had happened yesterday. She had finished her homework some time ago but finds herself staring down at the piece of paper throughout the duration of her lunch period, buying her time. That second question is popping out at her again and the more time she spends reading it, the more it seems to be mocking her.

What could her blood type tell her about her parents?

Rachel wishes that it could tell her everything. She wishes that it was as simple as a high school biology project to prick her finger and be able to determine why she hadn't been good enough in Shelby's eyes, why she still wasn't, and why she would likely never be.

Rachel is thinking about Shelby so much today that she sees it as almost fate when she has the woman as a substitute in her French class for the last period of the day. Rachel hasn't seen Shelby aside from a couple quick passes in the hallway since that first day of school. She knew that with Shelby employed as a substitute teacher at her high school, it was only a matter of time before their paths crossed in this manner but still, Rachel finds it pretty ironic that it had to be today of all days.

As it turns out, Shelby does not speak a word of French so all she does is shut the lights off and put on a movie for the class to watch. Rachel wishes that she could have the distraction of a lesson. She finds it difficult to stop her mind from wandering when she has nothing else to pay attention to.

"Rachel?"

The girl blinks and when she comes to she realizes that Shelby is crouched down in front of her, staring into her expressionless eyes with a look of concern.

"Are you okay?" the older woman asks nervously. Her tone sounds worried. If anybody else had been around to hear it they might even consider it maternal, but there is nobody else.

With a sharp inhale, Rachel forces herself back into focus, blinking rapidly in an effort to clear the fog from her eyes. The classroom lights are back on now. The television that had been playing a movie last Rachel remembers is off and the classroom is empty save for her and Shelby. The bell must have rung without Rachel even hearing it. The girl wonders if she had fallen asleep but she doesn't remember doing that either and she hates that Shelby's presence has her questioning everything.

"Um… yeah. I'm fine. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do… whatever that was." Rachel scrambles, her cheeks flushing red with embarrassment of having been caught in such a precarious position in front of the woman that she was trying so desperately not to think of as mom.

Rachel grabs all of her belongings, rushing to shove them inside of her backpack so that she can leave.

"Rachel, wait."

It takes a moment for Shelby to find her voice to stop Rachel. The girl glances up at her. Shelby looks as frazzled as she feels, and it comes with a semblance of satisfaction that Shelby seems to get just as flustered in front of Rachel as Rachel gets in front of her.

Rachel swallows but nods her head at Shelby. She stills her frantic motions and relaxes slowly inside of her chair, silently giving Shelby permission to continue even though everything inside of her is screaming that this is nothing more than a trap.

"You just... you seemed a little bit off today," Shelby finally tells the girl after a moment. "I wanted to check in on you. I wasn't sure if something was wrong or if... if you were just upset that you had me a substitute today. I didn't know that you were in this class. I would have turned down the offer if I did."

"I appreciate the concern, Ms. Corcoran but it's not necessary. You don't have to worry about me." Rachel keeps her voice tight and professional despite how desperately she wants to scream. In the end, her self-control seems to be more satisfying because the hurt look that Shelby gives her in response to her tightly polished script feels even better than yelling would have.

"You know Rachel, you can call me Shelby when we're not in class," the woman swallows, extending the offer hesitantly.

"We are in class," Rachel points out and Shelby sighs.

"You know what I mean."

Rachel scowls for a moment, considering the woman. "Thank you, Ms. Corcoran, but I'm not looking for any special treatment. Not from you and not from anybody else, either."

Shelby sighs and glances down at the floor with a nod of her head that indicates that she has heard her estranged daughter loud and clear.

"For the record Rachel, I would do this for any one of my students if I caught them zoning out in class," Shelby insists but realizes that it is the wrong thing to say the second that Rachel's face falls.

The smaller girl doesn't understand why it is so hard for Shelby to recognize that she is not like any of her other students. She certainly doesn't want any preferential treatment at school, but she doesn't understand why Shelby has to constantly pretend like she means nothing to her, either. The concept did not seem so hard. She wonders how Shelby could have been acting as the adoptive mother to a child for a year and a half now and still has absolutely no idea how to act in front of her own flesh and blood.

"I'm sorry," Shelby scrambles to correct her insensitivity, cursing her seeming inability to do anything right whenever Rachel is in her vicinity. "That's not what I meant."

"I know what you meant," Rachel tells her coolly. "Now, if you don't have anything else for me, I have a lot of homework to do tonight."

Rachel grabs her backpack, stuffed to capacity with none of its usual organization and precision and slings it over her shoulders. She wants to slip quietly out of this classroom before things between her and Shelby can get even more awkward. She is more than certain that she could make it. Coming up with the right thing to say at the right time was hardly Shelby's strong suit.

"I'm just worried about you Rachel, that's all," Shelby calls after the girl and much to her surprise, Shelby manages to stop her in her tracks.

"Don't lose sleep over it," Rachel mutters, slowly turning back around to face Shelby. The last thing that she needs right now is this woman's concern of all people's. "I'm fine."

Shelby frowns, her arms crossed tight over her chest as she examines Rachel carefully. The girl looks exhausted. There are dark circles under her eyes and her face is paler than usual courtesy of all the stress she has been under. Shelby cringes, unable to help but to feel a sense of responsibility for this.

Rachel grows quickly uncomfortable under the woman's cautious glare. She tells herself to slip out of here, but her feet feel frozen. Being under this much scrutiny is starting to make her brain spin. It has already been working overtime this past week. This is not helping.

"Do you have a headache?" Shelby asks and only then does Rachel realize that she is wearing a grimace as she rubs her left eye with her fist, trying to press the pounding in her skull back into oblivion.

Rachel shrinks, cursing her lack of self-control as she forces her hand to drop back down to her side. Her headache hasn't diminished. If anything, it is only pounding even harder.

"Rachel?" Shelby presses, probing through the girl's apparent discomfort when Rachel says nothing.

"I told you, I have a lot of homework to do," Rachel swallows but her voice has lost its usual bite. She needs to get out of here. Now. She makes another rush for the door but this time, Shelby is ready for her. The older woman shortens the distance between them and reaches out to grab onto Rachel's hand to stop her. The smaller girl retracts as though Shelby's touch has physically burned her, but Shelby's grip doesn't falter.

"If you wanna talk…" Shelby offers airily. Her tone is persistent, but soft. It doesn't escape Rachel that this is the most natural the woman has ever sounded when speaking to her. The idea forces Rachel's eyes to tilt up to meet her mother's. Shelby's eyes are greener than hers, Rachel notices for the first time. It is probably the most dramatic difference between their physical appearance. Otherwise, they seem nearly indistinguishable.

"It's nothing," Rachel finally says, pulling her eyes away from Shelby's and towards the floor. She knows that she cannot afford to be sitting here making physical comparisons between her and Shelby. Doing so would only lead to further heartbreak when the woman inevitably left her again.

"If it's nothing then why won't you answer me?" Shelby is being uncharacteristically persistent. Rachel can't help but wonder where this side of the woman has been hiding her entire life.

"That's not fair," Rachel accuses, finally pulling her hand out of Shelby's. The older woman looks disappointed by the loss of contact but not surprised as she nods her head softly.

"You're right, I'm sorry," she apologizes. "I just... This doesn't seem like you, that's all."

"How would you know?" Rachel asks her softly, trying and failing not to make her voice waiver. "You don't know me."

Shelby frowns but nods indicating that this is a fair thing for Rachel to say. Her daughter's words hurt but both women know that Rachel has a point. Despite their biological connection, they don't know each other. They don't know each other at all.

"I guess that I'm just feeling responsible for the way that you're feeling right now," Shelby admits. "I keep thinking about your Sectionals performance your sophomore year. You had every card stacked against you and still, you shined. Every time I see you now, you look a little bit duller and I'm afraid that I have something to do with that."

Rachel glances up at her mother. Her honesty is a breath of fresh air despite the context.

"It's been a week and you've hardly even looked at me," Rachel feeds off her mother's insecurities and admits to her own. She feels tears start to swell underneath her eyes. The harder she tries to convince herself not to cry, the harder they threaten, and Rachel can't help but wonder how weak Shelby probably thinks she is.

"You told me that you wanted your space."

"I didn't mean it!" Rachel erupts and even she seems surprised by her outburst. "What I wanted space from was you acting like I don't exist. I wanted you to be able to see the truth like mothers are supposed to do. I wanted you to reach out to me, to tell me that you actually give a damn about me. I wanted you to tell me that you didn't just come to teach at this school because somebody offered you some money just like I wanted you to tell me that that's not the reason that you decided to even have me in the first place!"

Shelby sighs and looks down at the floor. She takes her time, sinking into one of the empty desks. Rachel hesitates but ultimately decides to follow the woman, sinking into the seat directly in front of her. It does not go unnoticed by either of them that this is the exact arrangement that they had been in when they first met in that dark auditorium at Carmel High School.

"I guess that I'm bad at this," Shelby breathes after a long time. "But for the record, Rachel, I do give a damn about you. I always have. That and a whole lot more."

Rachel hangs her head to her chest, staring down at her lap, suddenly embarrassed by her temper.

"I wanted to be a mother so badly," Shelby continues after a moment when Rachel says nothing. "My parents, they weren't great. They gave me everything that I wanted but they never had the emotional capacity for parenthood. I thought that if I had a child of my own, I would be able to break that cycle. So much for that, huh?"

Rachel takes a deep breath. The subsequent silence is starting to make her uncomfortable. She doesn't know what to say. She doesn't know if Shelby is looking for comfort from her but then she remembers that that is not her job and decides to move on.

"I heard that you let Puck and Quinn see Beth."

"I extended the offer," Shelby confirms. "Quinn hasn't seen her yet. She's not ready. But giving them that opportunity was part of the reason that I decided to come back here to Lima. Things like this take time. They take patience."

"I thought that the only reason you came back to Lima was because you were getting paid," Rachel glances over her shoulder towards Shelby, echoing the excuse the woman had given her when Rachel had confronted her on the first day of school. Shelby nods tensely, indicating to Rachel that she understands that the girl is giving her one more chance and one more chance only to get her explanation right.

"The money was nice," Shelby admits with a shrug. "But what was even nicer was having that opportunity to reach out to Puck and Quinn. And to you. Rachel, you have to know that I came back here for you too."

"Could have fooled me," Rachel sighs, turning back to face front as she sinks further into her seat.

"Al Motta called me in the middle of the afternoon on the Sunday before the first day of school," Shelby continues, ignoring Rachel's quip. "I drove here all the way from New York. I had to make sure that I would make it before the first bell rang the next day, so I moved quickly. I didn't pack anything aside from Beth's diaper bag and a duffle full of clothes. I've been living in a hotel since I got here. I figured that with the money Mr. Motta offered me, I could afford to hire somebody to pack all of my things in New York and bring them here to Lima for me." Shelby smirks and laughs gently to herself, looking down at her fingers as she begins to play with them gently.

"Do you know how long the drive between New York and Lima is, Rachel?" Shelby asks after a moment of silence.

"Nine hours and twenty-three minutes," Rachel answers without pause. She has looked it up a million times before. Shelby smiles and nods at Rachel as though she had somehow been expecting nothing less from Rachel then an exact answer.

"I drove all night and the entire time, all that I was thinking about was what I could possibly say to you to make up for everything that I did." Shelby pauses, shaking her head gently. "Nine hours and twenty-three minutes and I couldn't come up with a damn thing."

Rachel tightens her lips together and presses them closed. She doesn't know what to say to Shelby but that hardly seems to matter because now that the woman has started talking, she finally seems to have found the words that she has been searching for this entire time.

"There are so many things that I wanted to tell you, but I was so afraid that you wouldn't understand. I was afraid that I would only make you angrier. I'd already hurt you so much, Rachel, I didn't want to hurt you even more. So instead, I reached out to Quinn first because I knew that I could identify with her. It would be a hard conversation to have but it would be easy in the sense that I already knew exactly what was going to happen. She is going through the same thing that I went through after I had you. I knew what she wanted to hear. When I saw you, I realized that I had no idea. I only saw the pain that I caused you and it made me want to crawl in a ball and hide. It still does. The unknown factor of all of this terrifies me. I don't like not being in control. It took me a long time to realize that this isn't about me anymore, it's about you and I couldn't do that to you. Not again. That's why I'm here."

Rachel risks turning over her shoulder. She glances at Shelby who is looking not at her but straight ahead, focused on the whiteboard at the front of the classroom with glossy eyes. Rachel doesn't say anything because she wants Shelby to keep going. This is the most honest that Shelby has ever been with her and despite the pain in her mother's eyes it makes Rachel feel good to finally hear the truth. It had taken a year and a half for it to finally come out. Rachel is afraid that if she interrupts Shelby now, she may never get this opportunity again.

"I walked into this school that Monday figuring that I would just have to wing a conversation with you when we inevitably saw each other. I had so many things planned and then you came to me and you had fire in your eyes, kid," Shelby smirks at the memory but her face remains sad. "Everything that I thought I might be able to say was suddenly not good enough. For some reason I am always still expecting to find you as that little baby who would believe without a doubt that anything a mother says must be true. Something is starting to tell me that maybe you were never like that."

"I used to be…" Rachel whispers at Shelby who turns to meet Rachel's eyes with a sad smile.

"Until I came along?" Shelby asks, and Rachel thinks to be polite and tell her that it has nothing to do with her but she ends up nodding her head anyway.

"I'm still angry," the younger girl admits and Shelby nods as though she had been expecting this much. Shelby had left a lifetime of wounds implanted inside of her daughter's heart. Neither was expecting a single conversation in the back of an empty French classroom to change that.

"And you have every right to be," Shelby nods. "But you're not yelling at me this time so I am going to consider that an improvement."

Shelby cocks an eyebrow, looking for a confirmation that Rachel gives to her in the form of a shallow nod.

"Does this mean we can stop pretending there isn't anything between us now?" Rachel finally asks after a moment. Shelby thinks about her answer.

"That's up to you," she says after a moment. "And your fathers."

Rachel raises an eyebrow. "Why them?"

"They're your parents, Rachel," Shelby sighs. "And I undermined their authority the last time that I was here and look where it got us. I want to get things between us right this time. That means doing it the right way."

Rachel nods, appreciative of the gesture. "I'll talk to them. But maybe until then we can start things slow?"

"I'd like that," Shelby smiles at Rachel and this time it is a real one. Rachel nods at her but she senses this conversation ending so she stands up from her desk, this time without the urgency of escape that she had displayed before. She moves slowly, draping her backpack over her shoulders. Shelby does not try to stop her as she silently makes her way towards the door.

"I guess I'll see you tomorrow then," Rachel calls to Shelby from the doorway.

"I'll see you tomorrow," the older woman reciprocates with a satisfied nod.

Rachel pushes the classroom door open. The hallways are crowded with students. School has only been out for a couple of minutes and most were still gathering their belongings and chatting with friends in the hallway, buying their time before all of their extracurriculars started. Rachel hesitates. Not quite ready to join them, she turns back towards Shelby.

"Shelby?" Rachel calls to the woman from the doorway. She uses her first name purposefully. She figures that seeing how Shelby had given her so much today, the least that she could do was return the favor.

Shelby turns over her shoulder towards Rachel. She looks relieved to hear her name coming out of her daughter's mouth and not the formidable Ms. Corcoran that seemed to indicate that there would never be room for them to formulate any level of a personal relationship.

"Can I ask you something?"

Shelby nods. "Sure."

"What's your blood type?" Rachel asks with a smirk. She knows that it is a bizarre question but she had started this afternoon with that stupid lab report on her mind wondering if she would ever have the opportunity to get close enough to Shelby to know something so personal. She wasn't so sure that she wanted to know earlier but now she is confident that she does and maybe by asking Shelby this, the knowledge will become a symbolic stepping-stone for the exact baby steps that Rachel was talking about.

"What?" Shelby asks, raising a confused, yet humored eyebrow, unsure that she had heard Rachel correctly.

"I have to do this lab report for my biology class," Rachel explains and Shelby just shrugs her shoulders and asks nothing more of it.

"I'm A-," she answers her daughter who nods appreciatively.

"Thanks," Rachel expresses her gratitude before turning out of the classroom disappearing out into the crowded hallway with the thought in mind that maybe Shelby being here wouldn't be as bad as she had previously expected.


What does your blood type indicate about your parents' possible blood types?

Rachel stares at the question on her biology assignment and reads it over and over and over again.

She doesn't know what keeps on attracting her to it. Actually, she does. The defense mechanisms in her brain had convinced her that she had asked Shelby the question earlier with no intention other than to get a little bit closer with her mother. Then, she had revisited her biology homework, attracted to it like a moth to a flame and realized the implications of what her newfound knowledge held.

According to the laws of genetics that Rachel has been meticulously studying for the past two weeks now, if Shelby's blood type was really A- then that meant that whoever her biological father was would have to be either AB+ or B+. Her biology teacher had mentioned that these two blood types were among the rarest in the United States. Chances were that only one of her fathers would possess it. It wouldn't be hard to figure out which one of them was her biological father after that.

The only thing that is holding Rachel back from asking flat out is the fact that she knows it would be a hard hit for her dads. They were already wounded by Shelby's return. If they knew that Rachel was inching towards the truth about her paternity as well it would devastate them.

It's not that Rachel thinks that the knowledge of which one of her fathers she had received her DNA from would make her feel any differently about them. Rachel loves both of her fathers equally and no biology lab would ever change that. Rachel thinks that her fathers would understand this but they always told her how special not knowing made their family and the timing was just all wrong for her to admit to them that she has always held a morbid curiosity about where she came from.

Enhanced by Shelby's sudden reemergence into her life, the questions about Rachel's parentage that have always been circulating in the back of her mind were suddenly feeling overwhelming, like a black hole that was sucking her in with no possibility of escape. Was she supposed to think that it was a coincidence that the universe had chosen now of all times to give her an opportunity to find out the truth?

She is supposed to talk to her fathers tonight about the gradual implementation of Shelby back into her life as Rachel and Shelby had discussed earlier but now she realizes that before she does that, she is going to need some answers first.

"Rachel?"

There is a gentle knock on Rachel's partially ajar bedroom door and Rachel slams her biology textbook closed like she is afraid that she is going to be caught reading the chapter on genetics and her father is going to immediately realize that she is not studying but is hatching a plan to figure out the identity of her biological father based on information that she had received from a high school lab project.

She watches her Daddy LeRoy raise a curious eyebrow at her. If anything, the thing that is making him the most suspicious is the strange way that she has been acting ever since she had come home from school today.

"What are you doing in here?" He asks her, stepping further into her bright yellow bedroom. Rachel sits a little bit straighter inside of her desk chair and tries her hardest to look innocent.

"Just finishing up some homework, Daddy," she tells him, offering up the smile that historically has always gotten her out of trouble with both of her fathers.

"Well, dinner is ready downstairs," he informs her softly. The smile had worked, just like it always does. "How about you take a break from all of that homework and come and eat. Even Barbra ate dinner in between rehearsal time you know, Rach."

"Okay Daddy," Rachel forces another smile and pulls herself reluctantly up from her desk so that she can follow her father down the stairs and into the dining room where her Daddy Hiram is just placing the last of the serving dishes out onto the table.

Rachel sits down in her usual chair, scanning her fathers closely. She is looking for any signs of familiarity, trying to make assumptions about their features compared to her own so that she would not be surprised when she finally did uncover the truth. This is not the first time that she has done this but tonight, everything feels different. The chances were 50/50, Rachel knows but she has expectations that she struggles to suppress out of fear of being caught off guard.

"You seem distracted tonight, Star."

Rachel looks up at the sound of being addressed and realizes that while she was dozing off into outer space, a significant amount of time must have past because both of her fathers have almost completely finished their meals while meanwhile, she has barely touched hers.

"I just have a lot of homework tonight, Daddy," Rachel insists, telling her Daddy Hiram the exact same thing she had told her other father before in her bedroom.

"Anything interesting?" he prompts through a bite of food and Rachel has to swallow the lump that has formed in her throat. She feels her heart start to flutter inside of her chest. She realizes that if she is going to ask them, it has to be now or never.

"Actually, I was working on a paper for my AP Biology class about the frequencies of blood types in the United States. We're all going to collect information about the blood types of people we know and then compare the data to see if they match the population frequency."

Rachel hates how easily she is able to lie to them and wonders if maybe she is spending a little too much time with Quinn lately. What keeps perpetuating the lie however, is the reminder that she can't tell her fathers the truth for fear of hurting them. That is why when her fathers beam at her with pride that their little girl has managed to grow up to be so smart, Rachel just smiles.

Her father's ping-pong back and forth, praising her achievements for a long time. They have always been Rachel's biggest fans which is why she starts to feel awful after too long. Neither one of them is considering the fact that she is lying to them. They have no reason to think that she would. After a while, their compliments make her start to feel like she had swallowed a rock. She considers stopping here and not pursuing her hunt for answers any further but now that she is this close she feels like if she does not find out the truth, her heart will literally explode out of her chest.

"So," Rachel asks softly, holding her breath. "Do you both know your blood type?"


Biology class is the last place that Rachel wants to be the next morning, but her muscles move independently from anything that her brain is telling her and she makes it to class anyway. Not that her brain is telling her much. Rachel feels as though it has been shut down ever since last night.

She sits down in her usual spot next to Quinn. The blonde is already staring at her like she can tell that something is wrong. Rachel has a look on her face like she had just seen a ghost and who knows? Maybe she had.

"You don't have to look so happy to see me," Quinn tells Rachel. It is her subtle way of asking the brunette what's wrong. She stares at the girl, waiting for her to retort with something obnoxiously typical of Rachel Berry but it never comes, and Quinn feels her brows furrow with concern.

"So, you're giving me the silent treatment now?" Quinn asks her and then rolls her eyes. "Listen, is this about what happened with the Skanks the other day? Are you waiting for me to apologize? Fine, I apologize. Are you happy now?"

It doesn't sound entirely genuine, but Rachel knows that when it comes to Quinn this is as close to an actual apology that the blonde is willing to give to anybody.

"It's not about the Skanks," Rachel finally speaks but her voice is distant and biting as she struggles to resist the urge to remind Quinn that not everything has to be about her all the time.

Quinn looks distressed by Rachel's distance. Usually, Quinn is the one playing hardball but as terribly as the blonde knows that she has been treating Rachel lately, the brunette seems to be the only person on the planet who is not pushing her away because of her attitude and if she loses Rachel now then Quinn does not know what will happen next.

"What is it about then?" Quinn asks. "Because I know that I haven't exactly been pleasant to you Berry, but it... it isn't about you, okay? I've just been dealing with a lot of stuff lately and now with Shelby being back-"

"I get it," Rachel cuts the blonde off, grinding her teeth. She doesn't want to talk about Shelby right now. The woman had fooled her yesterday into believing that she wanted to start being open and honest with Rachel but after what she had found out last night, Rachel realizes that Shelby was still lying to her. And she wasn't the only one.

"I figured you would," the blonde nods. "Shelby is the only person on the planet who can make somebody as peppy as you walk into class looking like somebody just killed your dog."

Rachel raises an eyebrow at the blonde. "I don't have a dog."

"It's a figure of speech, Berry," Quinn rolls her eyes. "What I mean to say is that you look worse than you usually do and, for the record, that's saying a lot."

"Thanks Quinn," Rachel sighs.

"So?" Quinn encourages. "Spill it."

Rachel turns to look up at Quinn. The blonde is staring at her with that same deep, hazel expression that she had seen on the very first day of school after Rachel first confronted Shelby. Rachel recognizes that Quinn is likely the only other person on the planet who can understand what she is feeling right now. Besides, there is just something about those eyes that seem to pull the truth right out of her.

"I talked to Shelby yesterday," Rachel admits and Quinn's face glows with realization.

"Ah," the blonde comments with a slanted smile. "Say no more."

"Her blood type is A-," Rachel continues without prompting and Quinn raises two curious eyebrows.

"You guys had a weird conversation."

"My Dads… they never really told me much about how I was born," Rachel continues, ignoring Quinn. Quinn looks startled by the direction that this conversation is heading. She knows that Quinn had walked into all of this unsuspectingly but she's the one who had asked, and Rachel has been holding onto all of this since last night. She feels that if she doesn't get it all out soon, it will explode inside of her like a supernova. "The only thing they ever told me was that they put an ad out in the newspaper for a surrogate one day and Shelby responded. They did everything with at-home remedies."

"Sounds very technical," Quinn comments. It is a quip, but she sounds interested despite this.

"They were an unmarried gay couple living in Ohio in the early nineties," Rachel snaps. It is not that she is mad at Quinn for saying so as much as she is mad at the fact that she doesn't seem to understand this anymore than the blonde does despite it being her life. "They didn't have the luxury of technical."

"Whatever Berry," Quinn rolls her eyes at Rachel's volatility. "Just get to the point already."

"The point is that they always told me that nobody knew which one of them was my biological father. Everything was supposed to have happened at random."

Rachel closes her eyes and tries to control her breathing as it quickly grows irregular in her distress. She knows that she should not be taking this much merit into a conclusion formulated from a high school biology project but the results that she had received yesterday were only the tip of the iceberg. Now that the idea is in her head, she can't get rid of it and the more that she thinks about it, the more that she realizes that everything that her fathers and Shelby have ever told her regarding her birth just didn't seem to add up. This new information was the latest piece to a puzzle that her parents had only ever given her half the pieces to.

"They claimed that they just mixed their sperm together so that it would be random," Rachel sighs. "I always had an idea of which one was my biological father but now I'm not so sure anymore."

"You think it's your other dad then?" Quinn asks. Her forehead is furrowed in the center. Rachel's obvious anxiety over the situation is starting to make even her worried and she feels her face display this in front of the brunette before she can remind herself that she is supposed to be pretending not to care.

"Shelby told me yesterday that her blood type is A-," Rachel reiterates shaking her head. "That means that whoever my dad is has to be either B+ or AB+ in order for me to be AB+. I asked my dads last night. I told them that it was for a biology paper on the frequency of blood types."

"You lied to them?" Quinn asks. It is not accusing, mostly just surprised.

"Who cares, Quinn," Rachel hisses, trying desperately not to allow her voice to elevate above a whisper. "Don't you get it? They have been lying to me this entire time."

"What do you mean?" Quinn swallows, watching Rachel shake her head at the blonde slowly.

"They were both O-," Rachel breathes. "Neither one of them is my biological father."