A/N: Over 300 reviews? You guys are seriously amazing. It makes me happy every time I get one, and it makes me write faster. On that note, I'm sorry it took so long to update, but I'm pretty sure this chapter is longer than the last to make up for it. My Glee muse seemed to abandon me for a few days, but luckily it came back. I really want to know what you guys think of this chapter, especially Leroy and Hiram, so click that review button at the bottom of the page when your done reading.

Happiness

"Hello?"

Closing her eyes and swallowing down her fear Shelby answered, "Leroy Berry? This is Shelby Corcoran calling." There was silence on the other end of the phone for long enough that Shelby began to wonder if she had been disconnected. "…Hello…?"

"Shelby? Is that really you?" He sounded like he couldn't believe his own ears. He had probably never expected to hear from her again. "What…Why…?" Her partially rehearsed response was on the tip of her tongue. She was ready to explain everything, but something stopped her before the words could leave her lips. "Is everything ok?" It was a standard question, but hearing those words triggered long buried memories of the handsome African American man who had held her hand all throughout the pregnancy, always concerned about her own well being as well as the baby's. She couldn't have this conversation with him over the phone. He deserved better than that.

"Yeah, I'm fine…" she replied automatically, as though this was just another one of his calls to check up on her and the baby that had long since left her belly. "Um, actually, I was wondering if you would have lunch with me?" She knew that she probably should have prefaced that with something, but she was completely off-script now.

"You're in Lima?" he finally asked, confused and surprised.

"Yes. Look, I know you're probably busy and all, but it's really important that I talk to you…today." She could sense his reticence through the phone and she didn't blame him. "Just name the time and place and I'll be there." There was silence again on the line.

"Shelby," his tone told her he was going to try to come up with an excuse.

"Leroy please," she cut him off. "I promise I'll explain everything to you when I see you, but it's really important that we talk."

"You can't just tell–"

"No. It needs to be in person," she repeated adamantly, knowing that if he pushed her to tell him over the phone then she would give in. She had given him no reason to agree to meet with her other than the pseudo-friendship they had formed over a decade ago when she was carrying his child, but apparently that was enough.

"Alright," he sighed. "Can you meet me in 30 minutes?" He asked, giving her the address to a restaurant across the street from the hospital where he worked.

"Absolutely." She would have to cancel Vocal Adrenaline's practice for the afternoon and probably break a few traffic laws, but in this case that was perfectly acceptable. "I'll see you there." She told him gratefully.

"Yeah…" There was awkward silence in which a hundred questions went unasked. "Goodbye." Shelby silently thanked him for his restraint as the line disconnected and she deflated like a balloon into her chair. She should have prepared for this better. She'd gotten so caught up thinking about Rachel and her feeling that she hadn't given a second thought to what she would say to the girl's fathers. She rubbed a hand across her forehead in exhaustion and looked over at the clock. There was no time to sit here and come up with a plan for what she was going to say. She would have to wing it and hope for the best. She hurriedly took out her cell phone and sent out a mass text to all of the kids in Vocal Adrenaline, telling them that practice was canceled for today. Almost immediately her phone started buzzing with replies, but she didn't bother to check any of them. Complaint or confirmation, she really didn't care either way.

It took her 35 minutes to get to the restaurant. She hated being late, but in this case there had been no avoiding it. Walking into the restaurant it only took her a few seconds to spot Leroy sitting at a corner table near the window. He looked exactly the same as she remembered him, and she fleetingly wondered if he would think the same of her. He glanced over at the door, catching sight of her and causing her to unstick her feet from the carpet and move towards the table. He rose from his chair as she approached, ever the gentleman. "Leroy." She said in greeting, a fond smile pulling at her lips despite the circumstances. She stopped beside the chair opposite him, neither of them quite sure how to greet the other.

"Shelby." He finally settled on simple returning her greeting and nodding his head towards the chair beside her, indicating that she should sit. "You look great. Did you keep up with the diet?"

Shelby laughed, relieved to feel a bit of the tension between them eased, "God no." As soon as she had officially become pregnant they had put her on a very strict diet which precluded most of the fatty foods she loved to eat at the time. As she got older a lot of it had been replaced with healthier items, but she was still nowhere near as good about her nutrition as Dr. Leroy Berry thought she should be. It had become a running joke throughout her pregnancy that she never would have agreed to be a surrogate if she knew they were going to force her to be healthy. "You look good as well. How have you been?" she asked him seriously, part of her genuinely curious while the other part was still trying to figure out a way to broach the topic they had come here to discuss.

"Great. Everything is great. I removed a brain tumor from a nine-year-old girl yesterday, Hiram is up for a promotion to partner at the firm," he said proudly, more willing to boast his husbands accomplishments than his own, "And Rachel is…doing well." The strain from earlier descended on them like a thickening cloud, blocking out the sun and ending the light portion of their conversation. "When did you get back to Lima?" he asked, sensing where this conversation was headed and attempting to change the subject.

She allowed the distraction, "Actually, I've been here for a while now," She looked down at the table, "A little under five years." There was honest surprise on his face, but that was expected. She'd bought a plane ticket to New York the day after she was released from the hospital, after giving birth to Rachel. The Berry's hadn't seen or heard from her since.

"I thought you were going to go and rock the theater world forever. Why did you come back?" It was a loaded question, but Shelby decided to answer it honestly.

"As often happens, life did not work out as planned. I made it onto a couple of off-Broadway shows, but none of them ever went any further than that, and my career never picked up the way I'd expected it to," she admitted with a shrug. There was acceptance in her tone that didn't dull the ache in her heart.

"I'm sorry," he told her with sincere regret in his voice and his eyes. He knew, probably better than anyone else, how much she had wanted the life of a Broadway star. Enough to give birth to a beautiful baby girl and then give her away, just for the chance at perusing her dream.

She nodded her head in acceptance, "Anyway, around five years ago my dad got sick and needed my help, so I moved back here," she tried to keep her voice light and even. There was no point in getting worked up about something that she had laid to rest a long time ago.

Years of medical training prompted him to ask, "Sick?"

"Cirrhosis." Shelby explained tiredly. Her father had owned a bar in Lima, Ohio, since before she was born. He had always been a drinking man but after her mother died when she was 18 he had started drinking more heavily. As it turned out, her mother had been the glue that held their family together and without her to balance out their stubbornness Shelby and her father had quickly become estranged. She hadn't told him when she agreed to become a surrogate for the Berry's, she'd barely stopped to say goodbye the night before she hoped on a plane to New York, and beside the occasional birthday or holiday she didn't speak to him for nearly ten years. The only reason Shelby had even found out about him being sick was because Charlie Harrison, the man who had been helping her father run things for years, called and told her about his diagnosis. She had been pissed. At her father for not calling and telling her, at herself for not keeping in closer contact with her dad, and at Charlie for being closer to her dad than she was. She had been pissed at all of them, and pissed at the world, but that didn't stop her from quitting her job, selling her apartment, and moving back home. In truth it hadn't really been all that hard, leaving New York. Ten years in that city and she'd had next to nothing to show for it. Nothing that she felt was worth staying for at least. Nothing that was more important than her family. "He died a few months after I got back." As hard as it had been Shelby knew that she wouldn't trade those last few months for anything. Despite their stubbornness they had been able to reconcile most of their differences by the time her father passed.

The only things that still tore at Shelby's conscience was the fact that her father had died without ever knowing that he had a granddaughter. At the time she had told herself that it wouldn't be fair to tell a dying man that he had a granddaughter he would never get to know or see. Hell, Shelby hadn't even known her little girl's name at the time. Rachel. Rachel was her name. Rachel was the reason she was here. She pushed away thoughts of her past and focused, "So, like I was saying, I moved back here about five years ago," she forced the words out quickly before she lost her courage, "And I got a job teaching…at Carmel high school." He stared at her, frozen in surprise with a glass of water hovering halfway between his mouth and the table, forgotten. She waited, allowing that news to sink in and the pieces of the puzzle to fall into place. It was out there now in the ether. There was no taking it back.

He really did have the bearing of a doctor, Shelby realized. She suddenly felt like she was sitting in a waiting room, awaiting devastating news that she was almost certainly unprepared for. Shelby tried to steel herself to whatever his reaction might be. He brought the cup back down to the table, withdrawing his hand from it slowly. "You met her?" he asked quietly, the look on his face unreadable.

"She was in my music class about an hour ago," His heavy expression didn't change, and she tried to reassure him, "I didn't tell her anything…and she didn't recognize my name." They obviously hadn't told Rachel anything about her, which hurt a little, she had to admit.

Something akin to relief crossed his face, "Thank you," he told her, and Shelby felt her stomach twist into a tighter knot.

"But, she did approach me after class." Shelby added quickly, "I coach the school's show choir, Vocal Adrenaline, and Rachel asked me if she could join. She seemed really eager," relief was replaced by worry on Leroy's face. "I told her that she would have to wait until Wednesday to audition. I wanted to give you and Hiram time to figure out what to do."

"Right…" he said softly, staring down at his hands and obviously trying to think over his options. After a few seconds of silence he looked back up at her distractedly, "Don't worry, we'll pull her out –"

"No!" Shelby exclaimed a bit too loudly. Leroy looked startled and Shelby pitched her voice lower as people around them glanced over at their table, "What I meant to say is, that's not necessary…" she tried to cover her outburst, "from what I could tell Rachel seemed really happy at Carmel, I mean, she's already started making new friends, and she has her boyfriend, Jesse, and she seems to be adjusting well to the new environment. I don't want her to have to switch schools again, because of me," she told him reasonably.

"What other choice do we have?" He asked her, confused about what she was implying, "I mean, we can't ask you to quit your job." Shelby was glad that he thought that idea was just as ridiculous as she did.

"Right. Absolutely not," she agreed that wasn't an option, "But…Rachel…" she tried to order her thoughts into grammatical sense, "it seems to me that Rachel is a very smart girl. Mature. Good head on her shoulders." Leroy nodded his head in agreement. "So…why not let her make the decision for herself?" she asked lightly, watching Leroy's reaction closely. He paused, realization lighting his eyes before he looked away from her uncomfortably and glanced out the window. She could see the denial forming on his lips so she pushed on, "If there is one thing that I've noticed in my time working with teenagers it is that more often than not they are underestimated. Their parents expect them to act like adults, lay ton's of responsibility on their shoulders, but whenever any significant decision about their lives need to be made they are once again treated like children, told to sit in the corner quietly and let the grownups handle it. It's why they constantly feel so powerless and unhappy with their own lives. By keeping them in the dark, not letting them at least attempt to make their own choices, you do them a disservice."

"Rachel doesn't need more upheaval in her life right now," he said, rejecting the idea without further consideration.

"And you think forcing her to switch schools twice in as many days is going to reduce that?" she asked him, using his own logic.

"Shelby,"

"She a smart kid, you said that yourself," Shelby reasoned with him, trying to get her point through, "Do you honestly think she isn't capable of deciding what she wants in this situation?" She knew that she was showing too many of her cards, but she didn't imagine her intentions were all that difficult to figure out in the first place. "I mean…if she's happy with her life the way it is, with not knowing who I am, then you know I won't interfere, but if she's not – " A sharp beeping cut her off mid sentence, and Leroy pulled a pager out of his pocket, glancing down out the screen and then back up at her.

"I have to go," he told her, with an unmistakable hint of relief in his voice. Shelby had no doubt that he was happy to get away from this conversation, knowing how uncomfortable it made him to be in a position where he had to tell someone something they didn't want to hear. It had been part of the reason why she had chosen to talk to him instead of Hiram. He pushed back his chair and stood up, "Thank you for coming to me with this," he told her awkwardly, "…Hiram and I are going to have a lot to talk about."

"Leroy…" there was so much left to say, arguments to be made. It felt like she had only just begun the conversation, and already her time was up.

He rested a hand on her shoulder. "It was good seeing you again Shelby," he told her with a tight smile, before walking out of the restaurant, leaving her sitting there.

She closed her eyes, slumping down in her chair. It hadn't gone as badly as it could have, there was no yelling or accusations, but it hadn't exactly gone well either. Over the past few weeks she had convinced herself that Rachel needed a mother figure in her life, but apparently Leroy didn't agree. What if he was right and this was all just her being selfish? Foisting her own needs and longing onto Rachel, when the girl was perfectly content without her. Even if Rachel was told the truth and given the choice to stay at the school her mother worked at, Shelby wasn't certain that the girl would choose to stay or chose to reach out to her. When she left McKinley she hadn't signed on for this. And there was always the chance that Rachel was genuinely better off without her. Without the added drama of having to figure out a relationship with the woman who had given her up as a child. What did Shelby really have to offer? As much as she wanted Rachel in her life, the one thing she wanted more than that was for her daughter to be happy. Even if that didn't include her.

Leroy walked back across the street to the hospital, not seeing the road beneath his feet and hearing nothing but the conversation he'd just had with Shelby Corcoran playing over and over in his mind. Shelby Corcoran. A woman he never thought he would see again. The woman who had given him and his husband a beautiful baby girl and then quietly vanished from their lives forever. She was supposed to be off following her dreams. She was supposed to fade away and become a distant memory, a fairytale for them to tell their daughter when she asked about her mother. Instead she sat in a restaurant not 30 feet behind him, and apparently worked at the school that Rachel now attended.

He had been shocked to hear her voice on the other end of the phone after 15 years of silence. The last time they had spoken had been in the hospital room just after she had given birth to Rachel, and even then he had been too distracted by his brand new daughter to say more than a few words to the woman who had just given birth to her. The next day he went to the maternity ward to discovery that she had checked herself out of the hospital, without a word. He had assumed that it was her way of gracefully bowing out of the picture, and he had been grateful for it. She had given him and his husband the baby they had always wanted, one who was finally theirs and theirs alone, and the 30,000 dollars they had paid her so she could go pursue her dreams in New York seemed like the least they could do for her. That is part of the reason why he had agreed to meet with her. That and curiosity.

Her revelation about working at Rachel's school had been entirely out of left field. Whatever he had been expecting her to say, it hadn't been that.

Shaking his head to clear his mind he went upstairs to the third floor in order to check up on his patient and talk to the nurse in charge before retreating to his office. He found himself pacing back and forth, unable to sit still for more than a few seconds. Rachel had met Shelby. She didn't know that Shelby was her mother, but still. Rachel had met Shelby. He wondered what she would think if she knew the truth. If they told her that Shelby Corcoran was her mother what would be Rachel's reaction? He would like to pretend that the thought had never occurred to him before, but there had been moments when he and Hiram felt completely out of their league when he had wondered if Rachel wouldn't be better off with a mother figure in her life. If maybe she would be happier if she had a mom instead of two dads. It wasn't something he thought about often, or for long periods of time, but it was the type of lingering thought that would hit him every time he heard his daughter up in her room crying about something with which he had no experience. But all parents had doubts like that at one point or another didn't they? The only reason he was even considering these things now was because something that Shelby said had struck a chord with him. She'd said that if Rachel was happy she wouldn't interfere. If Rachel was happy…normally it wouldn't have bothered him, but after being exposed to the sort of bullying Rachel had faced at McKinley for the first time that weekend he wondered exactly how happy Rachel really was.

He had always thought of his daughter as a happy and well adjusted girl. She had her quirks, he realized, and he knew very well that she was unusually driven for someone so young, but with a lawyer and a doctor as parents who wouldn't be? She was a member of half the clubs in her school, she'd known what she wanted to be when she grew up since she was four, and she got excellent grades. Perhaps it was because he was her father and he couldn't imagine anyone not liking his little girl, but he'd always figured that Rachel had plenty of friends at school. He knew that there were bullies of course, and kids who wouldn't like her on principle because she had two gay dads, but she hardly ever complained about being picked on, and when she did she made it sound as though it were no big deal. His perspective had shifted when she showed them her locker, covered in hateful slurs and degrading terms, not just about him and Hiram but about her as well. Then she had begged them to allow her to transfer to Carmel High School and he fully realized that this was not just a onetime thing. His daughter was strong willed, thick skinned, and incredibly loyal. For her to ask them to allow her to switch schools, even if it meant abandoning her friends and her glee club, then he knew that it must be serious.

Over the years he had tried not to worry about the fact that he didn't really know Rachel's friends. He had, at times, wondered if was because she was a little bit embarrassed about her fathers being gay, but he knew that was ridiculous. Rachel loved her parents and was very proud of Leroy and Hiram both. He convinced himself that the real reason he hadn't met any kids from Rachel's school was because he spent most of his time working at the hospital, and it didn't really matter anyway because he and Hiram trusted Rachel to decide who she should and should not associate with. Now he wondered if Rachel's relationships at school were really all that close to begin with. She spent a lot of time with the kids in her glee club, but the only ones he had ever met were the dopey football player, Finn, whom Rachel had been infatuated with, and the other dopey football player, Noah, who Rachel had also briefly dated. However, she showed no hesitance at the idea of leaving them both behind. So what did it say about his daughter, that she had no relationships at McKinley important enough to her to give her pause when she decided to leave? Was Rachel happy?

Leroy knew that he would run himself into the ground thinking about this if he stayed in his office, so he paged a friend and asked him to cover his patients for him, claiming that he had a family emergency to take care of, which wasn't exactly a lie. Walking out to his car he called his husband and asked the other man to meet him for lunch at a quiet little sushi place he knew was Hiram's favorite, which probably immediately tipped the other man off that there was something going on. Once they had been seated and served Leroy toyed with his food, covertly studying his husband in a way he hoped was subtle, but apparently was not.

"What's wrong," Hiram finally asked, putting down his chop sticks and looking up at Leroy as though he had been waiting for his husband to break the ice but couldn't take the staring any longer.

"It's…" Leroy tried to think of a way to raise the subject, but he still hadn't figured one out, "Nothing," he finally decided, ducking his head and pretending to take a great interest in stuffing his mouth with food.

"Clearly it's not 'nothing'," Hiram said, trying to get him to spit it out. When his husband continued staring at his plate, and subsequently ignoring him, he pressed on, "Do you know how I know it's not 'nothing'? You called me in the middle of the day, which is not in itself strange, but then you demanded that I come and have lunch with you, which is also not entirely unprecedented, but once you add to it the fact that you chose one of my favorite restaurants – one that you hate, by the way – and I begin to think that there has to be something going on. Then we get here and you say a whole lot of nothing, which leads me to believe it's a big 'something' that you think I'm gonna react badly to, so you're trying to figure out a way to tell me." Leaning back in his chair he folded his arms. "The evidence speaks for itself."

Staring at him with an exaggeratedly dreamy look on his face, Leroy told him "I love it when you talk all lawyer-ly to me."

"Leroy," Hiram tried to sound stern which only encouraged his husband to mock him some more.

"No, really, Matlock has nothing on you,"

"Have we stepped back into the 80's?" Hiram asked, unfolding his arms.

"Move aside Sherlock Holmes, Hiram Berry is on the case."

"Sherlock Holmes wasn't a lawyer."

"But he would kill to have you skills of deduction."

"Does it frustrate you to constantly aim at humor and miss so dramatically?" Hiram asked, unfolding his arms and picking his chopsticks up again.

Leroy shrugged, "Not really."

"Leroy."

"I got a call from Shelby Corcoran today," he blurted out quickly in defeat, realizing that there was no other way to say it than to just say it.

Hiram stared at him blankly, snapping his mouth closed when he realized it was hanging open. "Shelby Corcoran?" He asked dumbly, as though the name didn't register in his mind. "Our surrogate, Shelby Corcoran?"

"How many people named Shelby Corcoran do you know?" It really wasn't all that common of a name.

"What…Why did she call?" Hiram asked with confusion.

"Well, as it turns out, she works at Rachel's school," Leroy said calmly, as though they were discussing the weather or something.

Hiram just blinked at him for a few seconds. "…She works at Rachel's school?" he asked uncomprehending.

"Apparently she's been back in Lima for a few years now," Leroy revealed, "Things in New York didn't quite work out, so she came back here and got a job teaching music at Carmel High School." As he spoke he saw the shock wearing off and realization dawning in his husbands eyes.

"She's Rachel's music teacher?" he exclaimed, "They've met?" his raised voice was starting to attract attention, so Leroy moved in closer, lowering his own voice and trusting Hiram to take the hint.

"Rachel doesn't know who she is yet," he reassured his husband, "She's thinks Shelby is just a teacher."

"We have to pull her out of that school," Hiram said adamantly, echoing Leroy's earlier sentiments, "This is a complete violation of the contract."

"No it isn't." Leroy tried to calm his husband, before he went into lawyer mode for real, "Rachel suddenly turning up at the school where she works is not something she had any control over." He said reasonably.

"She was supposed to be in New York." Hiram argued.

"You can't ban her from Lima."

"I don't see why not." He said stubbornly.

Leroy rolled his eyes. "Hiram."

He sighed, "I wasn't suggesting that we ban her from Lima," he admitted, eating a bit of his food to give him a moment to think. "You're sure Rachel doesn't know who she is?" he asked finally.

"Yes."

"So she's gotta switch schools again." Hiram concluded, staring down into his plate tiredly.

"…yeah." Leroy agreed after a brief pause, nodding his head to himself.

Hiram looked up at him, hearing the uncertainty in his husbands tone. "What?"

"Nothing." Leroy answered quickly, shaking his head and taking a bite of his own food.

Hiram let it pass, deciding that Leroy would tell him if it were important. "Now we just have to figure out what we're going to say to her."

"…right." Leroy said with a sigh, shifting in his seat unconsciously.

"What is it?" Hiram asked again, sensing there was something more.

"It's just that," he shrugged taking a deep breath, "she seemed so happy last night when she talked about moving to Carmel, and that Jesse kid goes there," Hiram gave a disapproving look, "and according to Shelby she's already started making new friends…"

"Well, what can we do?" Hiram asked with resignation.

"Maybe…" Leroy hesitated to suggest it, "Maybe, we could let her stay?"

Hiram looked at him like he had sprung two heads. "At Carmel, with Shelby as her music teacher?" Hiram asked just to clarify. Leroy nodded. "You know Rachel takes after me in the deductive department…she'd figure it out within a week." He explained, as though Leroy hadn't realized that yet.

"Right," Leroy agreed cautiously, talking slowly as though he was speaking to a five year old, "So, maybe we should tell her?"

"Tell her? That Shelby Corcoran is her mother?"

"Yep." Leroy said simply.

Hiram opened his mouth, and then closed it. Then repeated the process two more times, attempting to regain his wits, "that…that….that is a really bad idea," he said severely.

"Why?"

"Why?" he repeated incredulously, "She's sixteen! She can't handle this right now."

"How do you know?" Leroy asked him, hating this discussion but feeling that it was necessary to have it anyway. "Rachel can handle a lot of things. How do you know she can't handle this?" Hiram opened his mouth to retort but Leroy cut him off, "I'm not saying that she should stay at Carmel. I'm just saying that maybe we should talk to her about it before we just suddenly force her to change schools."

"And say what?" Hiram put on a falsely cheerful voice, "'hey, sweetheart, you know your new music teacher? She's actually your mother!' how do you think she's going to react to that?"

"I don't know," Leroy admitted, honestly having no idea how Rachel would take the news, "That's the point. I have no idea if Rachel would react. I have no idea if she…wants a mother in her life. Do you?"

Hiram ignored the question, "And what about Shelby? You expect her to suddenly want to play mother to our daughter?" He asked skeptically.

"I'm fairly sure she wouldn't mind it." Leroy said mildly.

"Why do you say – "

"Because she basically suggested it," Leroy paused to let his husband digest that. "Hiram, I've been trying to come up with reasons not to let Rachel decide for herself, but for some reason they all seem to have a lot more to do with us than they do her," he admitted tiredly.

"We're her fathers."

"Yes, we are." That wasn't an excuse.

"It's our job to make decisions like this, so that she doesn't have to." Hiram said resolutely.

"And you don't think…" he trailed off, shaking his head.

"What?"

"You don't think that we're doing her a disservice by making this choice for her? Underestimating her abilities?"

"This isn't about Rachel's abilities."

"Then what is it about?" Leroy asked, frustrated at himself and Hiram.

Hiram looked away, just as frustrated. "We're her fathers," he restated.

They were both silent for a moment, mulling over their own thoughts. "We have to tell her," Leroy said finally.

"This is a bad idea." Hiram repeated quietly, without any of his previous energy. Leroy didn't respond, allowing their conversation to lapse back into silence.


Rachel drove home at around 8 o'clock that night with a happy grin on her face and a contented feeling in the pit of her stomach. She had spent the afternoon with Jesse after he'd gotten a text message saying that Vocal Adrenaline's rehearsals for the day had been canceled. She'd like to claim that she had spent her time productively, but in all honesty they had spent good portion of the afternoon making out in his bedroom. They had both been eager to make up for lost time, but she had been sure to stop things before they got too far, steering their activities back towards the reason she went to his home in the first place.

Jesse had the sort of insider knowledge that would guarantee her a spot in Vocal Adrenaline, knowing her voice well enough to suggest songs that would be perfect for her while also being well acquainted with the songs that would earn her no favor with her new teammates. Due to a general lack of originality amongst her classmates, there were a small number of very popular songs that were sung every time Vocal Adrenaline held auditions. She would have to bring the house down singing one of those songs to have any chance at all of getting on the team, and although Jesse had confidence in her, Rachel wasn't willing to push her luck during such a pivotal audition. She simply took note of the riskier songs and then went through Jesse's music collection, listening to everything from the extremely obscure, wonderfully sung, and incredibly disturbing 'Eve was Weak' by Betty Buckley (Rachel hadn't even known 'Carrie: The Musical' existed), to the more recognizable songs like 'Mama Who Bore Me' from Spring Awakening and beloved classics like 'People' by Barbara. Jesse even tipped her off to a few of Shelby's favorite songs that she might try. By the time they were done Jesse's advice and his collection had helped Rachel to form a much better idea of what she might be singing on Wednesday, to the point that she didn't mind when their song search devolved into a Broadway trivia competition, or when it further devolved into the two of them dancing around Jesse bedroom and singing duets. Time flew by and the two of them took no notice of it until Rachel looked outside of his bedroom window and saw how late it had gotten. There had been nearly an hour between the time she posed the theory of leaving and the time when it actually became a reality, because Jesse kept tempting her with 'just one more song'.

As she turned the corner and drove down her street Rachel marked today's date down in her mind with a gold star next to it, denoting it as one of the best days of her life. She couldn't remember the last time she'd felt this happy, and she didn't search all that hard for the memory, choosing instead to focus on what she was feeling right now.

Pulling up to her house she saw lights on inside and rushed into the house to see which one of her parents were home. She was surprised when she walked into the kitchen to find both of them, with actual homemade food cooking on the stove, but it only served to further cement the awesomeness of this day.

"Papa!" she said, walking up to her nearest father giving him a hug and placing a kiss on his cheek.

"Hey sweetie," Leroy said happily as she walked over to greet her other father in a similar fashion.

"What are you guys doing her?" she asked them curiously.

They shared a glance before Hiram answered, "We live here."

"Yeah, I recall paying the mortgage once or twice," Leroy agreed easily. Rachel simply rolled her eyes at her fathers' comedy routine and grabbed herself an apple. "You're going to ruin your appetite," Leroy warned.

"I thought apples were like garlic to your kind," Rachel responded, brandishing the apple in front of her and watching her father hiss and cower away like a vampire. Hiram plucked it from her hands and placed it back in bowl.

"Dinner is almost ready," He said with an amused smile as Leroy got his revenge by advancing towards Rachel with his hands raised in claws and his teeth bared. She giggled and scurried to the other side of the island in the middle of the kitchen as Leroy reclaimed his seat. "So, sweetheart, you seem to be in a good mood today." Hiram mentioned, and Rachel took that as her cue to tell them all about the day she'd had.

"Oh, well after you guys left my councilor came back with my schedule and gave me a map to help find my class. I went looking for my second period, because first period was basically over, and I got a bit turned around in the hallways…" she did her best to recall every detail, but left out most of her dramatic reunion with Jesse. No matter how supportive her fathers were of her and her romantic relationships she was sure that they preferred not to know the details.

Out of the corner of her eye she noticed little glances passing between her fathers, a silent conversation going on that she wasn't supposed to be aware of. There was a definite tension in the room that Rachel didn't understand, but she did her best to ignore whatever weirdness was going on between them since they were putting so much effort into convincing her that everything was fine. She could always tell a show choir smile when she saw one, and that was what both of her fathers were wearing right now.

When she reached the part about her music class Hiram interrupted to say it was time for dinner, and asked Rachel to set the table. Obediently she left the kitchen to set plates out on the dining room table, leaving her fathers alone in the kitchen, presumably to bring out the food. When they came into the dining room Rachel was sure that something had happened between them, but she didn't dare to ask what, preferring to stay ignorant of whatever spat her fathers were having.

They all sat down around the table and once everyone was comfortably eating Leroy asked Rachel to continue with her story. She didn't miss the glare that Daddy shot at him, but he ignored it and so did she. Rachel picked up the story where she left off, telling them about meeting Coach Corcoran and how the woman had directed her music class so adeptly. She left out the parts about how she completely froze up the moment she walked into the classroom and Ms. Corcoran had to greet her at the door in order to snap her out of it, and how painfully awkward she had become every time the woman had so much as glanced at her. Instead she skipped to the part where Shelby had given her permission to audition for Vocal Adrenaline, and her excitement about potentially joining one of the best show choirs in the nation. She could barely sit still thinking about her upcoming audition and both of her fathers seemed to note her excitement.

She was just starting to tell them what songs she had chosen for Wednesday when Papa interrupted. "Sweetheart," Leroy said lightly, putting down his fork next to his mostly untouched food, "There's something Daddy and I want to talk to you about."

Rachel looked back and forth between them, noticing that Hiram had a similarly untouched plate in front of him and wondering what was going on. "Ok," she said cautiously, setting down her cutlery and looking at her parents expectantly.

Leroy asked gently, "Rachel…do you ever wonder about your mother?" Although his voice was light and calm Rachel felt the full gravity of the question, and finally began to understand what the tense atmosphere in the room was all about.

Caught off guard, she looked back and forth between them, noticing her Daddy's unusually blank face and Papa's strained levity, she knew that this question was important for some reason. They never spoke to her about her mother, choosing instead to pretend as though she only existed in the fairytale-like form they had given her when Rachel was a small child. She knew that they would know it if she outright lied, so she simply downplayed her feelings, "Um, sometimes," she said, reaching for her glass of water, "I mean, I do get curious, but not that often."

She brought the glass to her mouth and took a sip to stop herself from rambling, which she knew would be a dead giveaway to either of her parents.

What she'd just said was actually pretty close to the truth. She used to wonder about her mom all the time, a constant barrage of question lingering in her mind that would break free with even the slightest provocation. When saw other girls her age at dance and music recitals with their mommy, or when she saw other children with their moms on the playground, or on television, or walking down the street. There had been a time when any display of motherly love would trigger questions about her own mother, until finally her dads had simply come up with the fairytale-like story about her mother, a kind woman who had happily agreed to help them when she found out that they couldn't have children. She'd carried their precious baby girl for them in her belly until the time came for their little star to be born and then the woman had handed her over to her new daddies, knowing that she was leaving her daughter in the hands of a family who would love her and care for her the woman went off to make more dreams come true. It was vague and obviously not the whole story, but it had been enough for her at the time, and as she got older she was able to push most of those questions about her mother out of her mind, instead focusing on the family that she did have. It had gotten to the point where Rachel could go whole days at a time without wondering what her mother would think about something, and her longing for a motherly attention only manifested itself when she was at her most emotional.

"Why do you ask?" she asked them nervously, wondering what had brought this conversation on.

Leroy seemed to hesitate, looking to his husband for permission. Hiram stared back for a moment before taking a deep breath and turning to Rachel. "Papa got a call from Shelby Corcoran today…" Rachel looked at her parents with mystified confusion. Coach Corcoran had called? Why? And what on earth did that have to do with her mother?

Leroy took his husbands brief words as consent to tell their daughter the truth and picked up the explanation when his husband trailed off. The pieces of the puzzle clicked in Rachel's mind a second before her father said it aloud, "Sweetheart, Shelby Corcoran is your mother."


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