A/N: I do not own Glee nor Life Unexpected. And I also don't own The Secret Circle, otherwise I would have kept Britt Robertson there for another season.
Disclaimer: I know, I'm mad at myself, it shouldn't have taken me so long... I guess life keeps getting in the way: essays, exams,.. the usual
Chapter - 8
Lucy walks through the corridors, following a nurse, to the room where her mother is recovering after taking several pills. She is dragging her daughter along, clinging to her hand like it was a lifeboat.
Judy Fabray kicked her out when she was a sixteen year old pregnant girl. She welcomed her back into her house when she gave the baby up, but never really tried to mend the broken relationship. Obviously Lucy didn't induce her into drinking nor did she make her divorce her dad. But still, she feels guilty for everything that's happened. If only she could go back and never get pregnant...
However she looks at the hand in hers, at her brown eyes. No. Lux has nothing to do with this. She was a blessing, someone that God sent to make Lucy see who she was and stop pretending for them. If Lucy hadn't disappointed her parents by getting pregnant, she would have done so when choosing her major.
They stop at the door of a room and the nurse reminds them that they'll only have limited time and that she probably would be sleeping. She walks away and Lucy turns around.
Lux can see that she's crumbling, fear is sweeping through her cool features. The wall the blonde had built for her emotions is falling down and the realization of what could have happened is washing over.
On instinct, Lux drops her mother's hand and puts both arms around her head. Lucy rests it over Lux's shoulder and cries silently.
It feels awkward calming down her mother now when so many nights as a little girl she wished for someone to hold her and do the same.
She squeezes her shoulders and pushes her to stand again. Her hands travel automatically to the hazel orbs and weep the tears falling from them down her marble cheeks. Lux smiles and finally a watery smile lights Lucy's face. This time is the younger one who takes her mother's hand and pushes her through the door.
They stop just as they pass the door. There's a slim figure on the bed. She is visibly weak and asleep, as the nurse told them she would be. In the blink of an eye, Lucy is by her side, grabbing her hand, careful not to hurt her.
She methodically brushes her hair back, trying to smooth it. The caress awakens somehow Judy and she opens her eyes.
"Hey." Lucy says in a whispers. She can read the alarm in her eyes. "It's ok. You're going to be ok. You... got a little carried away taking pills. But the doctors say you will be ok." She explains. "You scared me very much." She is almost losing it. Lucy gives her a weak smile and kisses her forehead.
Judy tries to speak, but her throat is sore and dry. Lux looks around and finds a glass of water near the bed. She reaches it and passes it to Lucy.
"Thanks." She smiles.
Judy widens her eyes, still unable to speak. Lucy helps her sipping a little bit of water and she tries to speak again.
"She looks... is she...?" She coughs.
Lucy helps her to drink a little bit more and nods to Lux.
"I..." She starts. "My name is Lux, Ms. Fabray. I'm... kind of your grand daughter... biologically."
Lucy chuckles at her formality and looks again to her mother. Her eyes are wide open right now. She is visible tired, but still she manages to bore her eyes directly to hers, enquiring.
"Yes, mom." She concedes, quietly.
Judy looks at Lux from head to toe, then she stares right into her eyes, reading her. She closes her eyes and gives a watery smile in her direction.
After a while she realizes that Judy seems almost to have frozen in that position. She looks at the monitors and chuckles.
"She fell asleep." She tells Lucy.
"Well, you can't blame her. She must be tired." She rounds the bed and comes to a stop just beside the blonde girl. "She's happy, though. I can tell."
Lux is still looking to her grandmother. Grandmother... wow. "She smiled at me." She smiles herself. This is still a little overwhelming.
"Yeah." Lucy is visibly more relaxed now that she's seen her mother. She is also capable of seeing the distress it's caused Lux. She bites her lip and moves her hand up and down Lux's arm. "She's asleep now. What do you say if we go find Rachel?"
"Sure." Lux mutes.
As they step out the room, they almost bump into a tiny figure. "Not again, please." The brunette covers quickly.
"Oh my gosh, Rachel, are you ok?" Lux is quickly by her side. "How are you?" She examines her nose, slightly swelled up.
"I'll be fine. Now it just hurts." She says for both of them as she pouts a little bit making Lux pout too.
Lucy stands by for a minute and smiles again at how much Rachel and Lux have taken each other in. The brunette loves her to death, already. She sighs. Finally she's sure her daughter is in a good place. Better late than ever, she hopes. Maybe there's a place in Lux's world for her, she keeps hoping.
Rachel spots her. "What happened, Lucy? They told me you came in with your mother. I can't believe we are meeting again in a hospital." The brunette takes a step forward and grabs Lucy's hands.
"My mom. She was unconscious when I came back from the coffee shop." She just says and the pout appears again in the brunette's face. It really is a little funny seeing a pout appear under a huge kind of band aid over her swelled up nose.
"Is she going to be ok?" Rachel asks with true worry.
It really is cute and Lucy can't hide her smile, so she takes their joined hands and gives the brunette's a light kiss. Very intimate, now that she thinks it through, but comfortable. "Yes. She's just going to stay tonight in observation. But she already woke up, right, Lux?"
"That's right. And she fell asleep a couple of minutes after." She smiles.
Now, Rachel is looking back at Lucy. She squints a little bit her eyes and looks for a second towards her daughter, then goes back to Rachel and raises her eyebrow a little bit. The brunette just nods.
"Your silent communication sucks." The teenager mutters.
Rachel chooses to ignore her. "What are you going to do, Lucy? Are you going home now?"
"I guess. They told me I couldn't stay much here. She's in observation, it's not like she has her own room. And she'll be sleeping almost the whole night, so..."
"You came in the ambulance with her, right?" Lux asks, innocently.
The blonde shrugs. "Yes. I'll take a cab."
"Nonsense. You're going to drive my car." Rachel commands and Lucy raises her eyebrow in disbelief. "They gave me some good stuff for the pain and I can't drive. If you drive us to your house, we can walk home. It's only two blocks away." She shrugs. "That way Bug doesn't have to drive my car and come back from his bike." She explains to Lux.
Lucy stays silent for a while, pondering. "There's really no point saying no, right?"
"I don't think so." The brunette shakes her head.
"Okay. But I'm dropping you off at your house." She turns back. "Just... wait a minute, ok? I'd like to say goodbye."
"Sure." She nods.
Lucy excuses herself and goes back into the room. Rachel doesn't wait a minute and faces Lux.
"Hey. How was everything?" She tries nonchalant.
Lux arches her eyebrow much like her mother. "I feel like I should be the one asking that question."
"You'll get your chance to hear that story. I'm more interested right now in how you are feeling." She puts a hand over her shoulder. "I thought maybe it was too much meeting both your parents in such a short time. Today you had your first day in your new high school and it ended meeting your grandmother."
"I see your point. I'm... fine." She shrugs.
"You have to talk to someone. I don't care who it is. You know you can talk to me if you want to. You could talk to Bug or Tasha. Maybe Lauren? Or even, if you'd like, you could go to a family therapist. This is way too complicated and I'm scared that you'll end up with all of that bottled up, creating a huge trauma." She worries her lip. "It really is a serious thing."
Lux stays still for a few seconds and then she just nods slowly. "I'll think about it."
Rachel knows that she has to do some internal debating about who is she going to trust with everything that's going on her mind right now. The brunette slides her hand down Lux's chin and brings up her face, so she can look at her in the eye and seemingly into her soul.
"I just want what's best for you. I don't want you to be overwhelmed." She says gently.
Spot on. Lux thought.
"If you feel that it's too much, just tell me and I'll make it stop for a while, until you are ready, ok?" She pauses and it eventually sinks in that she's talking about pushing away from Lucy for her, even though she isn't sure yet who was more excited to meet her again.
"I might have an idea of how you are feeling." That gets Lux's attention. "When I found a tape - yes, it was very long ago - of my mother's voice, I resisted listening to it at first. I wasn't ready at the moment."
"It's not the same." She knows. She read about it on the internet. Her mother was a subrogate who was paid for having her and then vanished. She knew what she got into when she got pregnant.
"I know. I'm just saying..." A nurse comes by.
"Mrs. Berry? This is your prescription. You should take one as soon as you start feeling pain and then wait at least 8 hours and take it if you feel pain again, ok?"
"Got it. Thank you." She smiles. The nurse goes away. "I actually am in pain right now..." She bites her lip. Lux shrugs and Rachel takes one pill with a sip of water from a bottle in her bag.
There's movement and finally Lucy comes out of the room.
"Everything ok?" She asks.
"Yes." Rachel smiles innocently first and then nods slightly. "Your mother's still sleeping?" Rachel adds.
"Yes. It seems she's out for the night." She shrugs. "I'll come back early in the morning. So if you're all ready, we can go now."
"Sure. Let's go."
Rachel grabs Lux's arm and leads the way outside. When they reach the waiting room, they immediately spot Bug.
"Hey." Lux calls. He is on his feet in a heartbeat, retrieves his things from the chair next to him and meets them.
"Hey." He stands in front of Rachel and hands her a little teddy bear with a heart saying 'get well soon'. "I'm really sorry. How are you feeling?"
"Aaw." She takes the teddy bear. "Thank you, Robert." Lux turns to Rachel, Bug widens his eyes but doesn't say a word. "Oops!" She laughs.
Lucy chuckles by their side, thoroughly amused. "Nice drugs, huh, Rach?"
"Very." She closes her eyes and hums contently. "I like it when you call me Rach."
Lucy blushes and cuts her. "I think the drugs are really kicking in now. Lux? Robert?" She says his name with too much formality. She drops the mocking tone, though. "Maybe we should get her home."
"Yeah, right. Guess it was too soon to take that second pill." Lux steps in. "Let's go."
They walk towards the parking lot and Bug gives her car keys to Lucy, then turns to Lux. The blonde puts her hand over his cheek and gives him an apologetically smile. Rachel stumbles to the back seat of the car.
"I'll follow you home. Go with them." He gives her a brief kiss and walks to his bike.
Lucy is in front of the door to the back seat, staring at the brunette. When Lux comes by her mother's side, she sees that she's lying down the whole back seat.
"That won't do." Lucy shakes her head.
Lux nods. "I'll go to the other side, you stay here. We'll make her sit down and buckle her." Lucy nods and Lux walks to the other side. "Also, I think it'll be best if I ride back here."
"Yeah, ok."
Lux pushes her gently to a sitting position and Lucy helps buckle her up. As the car finally start, Rachel starts humming with the radio.
"They said it was going to hurt. I was very scared about the pain. But I only see little lights."
"Yeah, they gave you awesome drugs just in case..." Lux mumbles and that makes Rachel snap her head in her direction.
The brunette fixes her eyes on her and stares for entirely too much time at her. The blonde is starting to feel uncomfortable, actually.
"You're so pretty." Rachel finally speaks. Lux bites her lip and widens her eyes. She does what she can to hold her laugh. Lucy is doing the same if the look in the rearview mirror is any indication. "Seriously, Lux... you are so beautiful."
The petite girl extends her hand and after two tries, she brushes her hair. Lux is totally bewildered and Lucy can't hold it anymore.
"It must be the gens, because you are as beautiful as your mother." The older blonde stops abruptly and blushes and the younger one chuckles. "Lux... Lucy..." She says slowly. "Lux, Lucy, Lux, Lucy." She chants and starts to awkwardly dance. "Isn't it funny your names start the same way?"
"Actually, her name is Elizabeth. I chose it." Lucy says from the driver seat.
"I thought it was Puck who named me?"
"He wanted to call you Beth, but I liked Elizabeth better. Still has Beth in it and it's beautiful, royal. We agreed." She comments.
"Huh." Lux acknowledges.
"But you go now by Lux. We didn't choose that one."
"Yeah. I know. They told me a nurse gave it to me. It means 'light'. You know?"
Lucy looks at her daughter through the rearview mirror and smiles. "I like it. You're like a ray of light."
It's an intense moment. They can tell. "Woah, the sky is so pretty." The brunette interrupts and takes a chuckle out of both blondes.
"I don't know much about the relationship between you and Rachel in high school, but... didn't she ever tried to make you name me Barbra? Or Fanny?" She laughs.
"I don't remember... but would you have liked been named that?" Lux scrunches up her nose and shakes her head. "Or are you asking that just to see if I tell you something more about that time?" Lux bites her lip.
Lucy chuckles. "Let's see..." She thinks. "Rachel and I weren't actually best friends. I was head cheerio and she was the annoying tiny girl who wore animal sweaters and was captain of 8 out of 10 clubs in high school. She used to irritate me."
"She started getting more annoying when my boyfriend, Finn, joined Glee club and she started chasing after him." Lucy parks in their driveway, stops the car and looks at Rachel, who is still looking out the window. "Most of it was jealousy, you know?" She chuckles. "She already was very talented back then and her determination to get what she wanted was outstanding." Rachel moves slightly and Lucy wonders if she really is still out of it. She sighs. "Anyway, we practically spent our whole high school years fighting over a knucklehead. Only at the end we seemed to have come to a sort of friendship. And it was only because of her sheer determination to get to know me and be my friend."
"It sounds like you were pretty guarded in high school." Lux muses.
"It wasn't easy for me. It has taken me a long time to come to where I am now." She stares at Rachel, who is paying all the attention she's capable of while still looking through the window. "But the walls are lower now."
Lux raises her eyebrow and then watches the tweak of a smile in Rachel's lips. "Come on. Help me get her to bed." The blonde unbuckles her seatbelt and then the brunette's. She goes around the car and pulls her door open.
They manage to put her to bed and the brunette falls quickly asleep.
"Thank you for helping us." Lux says, standing awkwardly in the living room.
"Thank you for coming with me to see my mother."
"Yeah. I hope she gets better." She nods as she hugs herself.
Lucy opens and closes her hands, making them into fists, and... finally can't contain anymore and envelopes her daughter in a hug out of impulse.
"I'm sorry." She apologizes as she retracts.
"It's ok." Lux says, but her eyes are anywhere but on the older blonde. It makes Lucy tear a little bit, seen her daughter so conflicted.
She vows to give her all the stability and all the answers to her question she can muster, when she's ready for it. "Take care, ok?"
"Yeah."
Bug comes around and gives her a sandwich. "I thought maybe you'd be hungry. And... I helped myself."
Honestly, she hasn't thought about it, but... yeah. "Thank you." She smiles tiredly looking up to him. Just behind his head, she can see the clock. "Oh, Bug... you've to go. It's so late."
He shrugs, letting the plate on the counter. "Come here." He wraps his arms around her little frame and feels how she lets go. Lux closes her eyes as Bug presses a kiss to her temple. "I'll text you when I get back. And I'll see you soon."
As Bug leaves, the landline starts ringing. Lux grabs the cordless phone.
"Hello?"
"Oh... eh, hello. This is Will Shuester. You must be Lux, right?"
"Um, yeah, Principal Shuester..."
"How was your first day at our school?"
"Fine." She just says. "Listen, Principal..."
"Call me Mr. Shue. Most of you kids do, anyway."
"Oh, okay, Mr. Shue. Listen... Rachel and I just came back from the hospital. We had a little incident and she got hit in the nose. She's on very heavy pain medication."
"Oh, my... so it's true."
"Excuse me?"
"Oh, I just had Quinn Fabray calling me up and saying the same thing. It was actually pretty weird. I haven't heard about her since she graduated."
Lux chuckles. "Yeah, well. Apparently she's my mother, maybe you'll hear some more soon."
"Woah, just woah..."
"Imagine how I feel."
"Yeah, all right. So... tell Rachel to not worry about tomorrow. Quinn told me she will be giving you a ride to school."
"Oh, did she?" Lux whispers.
"And I just want you to know that if you need it, you can talk to me or my wife Emma, the guidance counselor at McKingley. I understand it might be overwhelming..."
"Yeah, ok. Thanks, Mr. Shue. See you."
"See you at school."
Lux grabs her sandwich and wonders towards Rachel's room and sees her breathing slowly on her bed. She feels drained for the day but knows she won't be able to get to sleep. Rachel tosses and turns.
"Hey, you." She says quietly. "Come here."
The blonde hesitates a moment and Rachel makes space in her bed. Lux gets into the brunette's bed and she kisses her head gently.
"You are okay." Lux closes her eyes hard, trying to believe it. "Whatever happens, you are not alone. So whatever may come, we'll face it, ok? Together."
