Rachel's POV:
The following morning I was nearly tackled by Santana when I walked into school which was not fun being as I only had a few hours of sleep due to that stupid paper.
"What is your problem Santana?" I asked trying to steady myself but honestly too tired to hear her response.
"Is it true?" She asked with a hand on her hip while her other hand grabbed my arm to keep me from falling.
"Is what true?" I asked confused about what she was saying, more so than usual.
"Are you and your mother like on good terms again?" She asked glaring at me.
"Not entirely. Why do you even care?" I asked walking away from her.
"I care because this deep routed hatred that you had for her was suppose to win us sectionals and then regionals carrying us all the way to nationals."
"Look just because I am giving her another chance does not mean that I am not still upset with her..." I said before a yawn stopped me from speaking.
"Okay why do you look like hell?" Santana asked eyeing my outfit which was thrown together with little to no care this morning.
"I went to bed at two and woke up at four thirty, you tell me."
"Really Berry? Please tell me that there is a good reason for that and if it has to do with Finn please spare me the details."
"It's not anything like that, I was just working on the assignment I have in english."
"You stayed up for school work?"
"I'm failing that class right now so yeah."
"Failing? Did I hear you right?"
"Yes I am failing. Remember that paper I blew off? Yeah it was worth a hundred points and this next paper is worth the same so I really need an A on this paper."
"Hasn't she given you other assignments?"
"Yeah but nothing that has brought my grade out of the F area."
"What will it be if you get an A on this paper?" Santana asked while fixing her lip gloss.
"Still not passing but it will put my grade in the D range."
"That sucks."
"Tell me about it. So is there anything else or can I go now?" I asked looking around for Finn.
"No that was it." Santana said in an overly chipper voice as I rolled my eyes and then walked down the hall until I saw Finn talking to a group of guys. When he saw me he broke away from the group and walked over to me and gave me a hug.
"Hey Rachel." He said kissing the top of my head.
"Hey." I said burying my face in his chest while closing my eyes.
"You look rough, what's up?" He asked pulling my away from his body as I protested.
"I didn't sleep well last night. After going on that website I had to read the book which meant that I was up until all hours of the morning which means I got no sleep."
"That's rough. So did you at least finish the paper?" He asked and I shook my head.
"No, I have no idea what to write about. There is nothing great about Gatsby..."
"What are you talking about? He is rich, he gets away with organized crime, the dude would have been a legend if he didn't die..."
"That is so not the point of this assignment Finn, although I would give you a solid C, the point is all of those things makes him a loser. He is only rich because of bootlegging alcohol, he in pining after a girl who clearly doesn't love him, and then he dies. He is a loser if I ever saw one..."
"Hey I pined after you and we're dating now!" Finn said with a smile.
"Again not the point."
"Why don't you write about how not great he was then? I mean if you don't agree with the topic she gave us then write why you think she is wrong." Finn said and if I wasn't so tired I would have kissed him for being a genius.
"That is why I love you. I have to go." I said pulling away from him and heading towards my first class.
My goal for the day was to make it through school, write the paper in all of my classes and then make it through glee and crash as soon as I got back to Shelby's.
Writing in my first class was easy, I was at least a day ahead of the rest of the class and even while I was writing the paper I was able to raise my hand and answer the questions that were being asked, unlike half of the kids who were actually paying attention, or who claimed to be paying attention.
By the time the bell rang signaling the start of second period, I had the introduction paragraph and the first body paragraph done which meant that I would have the paper finished before my free period which meant that I could type it in the library and print it.
It was while I was sitting in my third period that disaster struck, I had been writing the last sentence of my paper when I was hit with my wall of fatigue. I scribbled something down and then rested my heavy head in my arms. My arms made the bright lights of the class room disappear and with that my eye lids closed, next thing I knew Kurt was waking me up.
"Diva, get up we have to get to lunch detention." He said shaking my shoulder.
"What? Where am I?" I asked looking around the room.
"Come on." I felt someone wrap their arm around my waist and help me up while Kurt got my things together and carried them to Shelby's room. I looked and saw Blaine helping me down the hallway.
"I think I got it." I said as we stopped and I stood on my own. I took my things from Kurt and then the three of us made our way into Shelby's room where a few others were waiting.
I took a seat at the back of the room and Kurt and Blaine sat next to me so that they could keep me awake which seemed like it was going to be an impossible task. I took out a piece of paper and a pen and then waited for the sentence to be written on the board, instead what we got was Shelby walking into the room holding our papers from previous days.
"Okay Rachel can go. She has written all her sentences that I have assigned." She said looking at me and I didn't need her to say it twice. I grabbed my things and went to the library so I could get my paper typed and then print it. By the time I had finished those task Finn was just exiting Shelby's room from lunch detention.
"What did she make you do?" I asked as he shook his hand out.
"She made us re-write all of our sentences, we have to finish tomorrow and if we don't we have to finish on Monday."
"That is rough." I said as I gave him a kiss.
"Yeah, at least I am close to finishing. Puck and Santana are no where near finished." He said with a smile. "You still look terrible." He said running his hand through my hair and then resting it on my cheek.
"I feel horrible, but I finished." I said holding my paper in front of him.
"I knew you could do it." He said kissing me again. "I think you should go to the nurse though. Tell her you don't feel good and she will let you sleep in her office..."
"And call my dads who aren't home which means Shelby would find out. No thanks, I will just suffer through it."
"Don't you mean power through it?" He said with a smile.
"Yeah that's what I meant."
"Have you at least eaten?" He asked and I thought about it.
I had been in a hurry this morning and I worked through lunch. I guess the last time I had something to eat was at dinner but I wasn't that hungry so I lied.
"Of course."
"Alright. When you get home get some sleep."
"I will." I said as he walked me to my fourth period class.
I stayed awake by some miracle during that class which meant I only had to power through Shelby's class and then I could take a nap before glee. thought that was proving to be harder than I thought it was going to be. She was lecturing on something that made no sense to me and what made it worse was that she was showing it to us on powerpoint which meant she had to turn off the lights. I don't understand teachers who think that it's a terrific idea to mix boring subject and no lights. Honestly it is like they are begging their students to take naps.
Doing what I could to stay awake, I propped my head up on my hand and forced my eyes to focus on the presentation. Unfortunately, it was about ten minutes into her presentation that I felt my eye lids flutter shut. I forced them open quickly and then looked over at Puck who was texting someone under his desk.
"Puck." I whispered and he turned to look at me.
"What?"
"Keep me awake." I said giving him a pathetic look.
"How can I do that? The only reason I am not passed out is that I am texting someone."
"Please?" I begged in a last ditch effort and he took pity on me, or maybe it was because we both know that he was doing more than texting someone and he knew that I would be more than happy to share that information.
"Alright, but you asked for it." He said and then put his phone away, clearly the messages had died down in the last few minutes.
I tried again to take notes like Shelby asked us to but I couldn't, I was too tired to try and force my hands to move. Worse yet I never did get to even sleep being as Puck would punch me under the table every time my eyes closed.
"Ow that hurts." I hissed after the tenth time he did it.
"Stop falling asleep then." He returned and then we looked back to the front of the room as the lights came on right before the dismissal bell rang.
"Oh thank God." I said gathering my things to leave.
"I know I felt bad for hitting you." Puck joked.
"Joke now Puckerman but I think I have a bruise." I said rubbing my thigh where he had punched me.
"Yeah well you asked for it, literally." He said as he walked through the row of desk and exited the room.
I was right behind him when Shelby called me.
"Rachel, can I see your notes?" She asked and I groaned.
"You could...if I had any." I said mumbling the last part but clearly she still heard it.
"That was what I thought. What class do you have next?" She asked pulling out a pad of paper.
"Independent study." I said not thinking about what I was saying. I was really starting to curse my non-brain function at the moment. Never again was I going to not sleep for an entire night and then try to function, this was for the dogs.
"Wait so all those times you rushed out of my room saying that you had to go somewhere you were going to independent study?"
"Yes. Can I go?"
"Sit." She said pointing to a desk in the front row and I sat down.
"You can't punish me for lying." I quickly said and she nodded.
"No I can't, but you are going to copy the notes like the rest of the class did while you and Puck were goofing off." I groaned as she handed me the hard copy of the power point, but I had to laugh being as she had no idea what was really going on. She thought that Puck and I were messing around? I guess she never noticed that over half the class was asleep by the time she turned on the lights. Had I of known that she wouldn't have noticed I would have napped and gotten the notes from Puck later. On second thought I would of gotten the notes from someone else in that class.
As unbelievably boring as I remembered taking notes, or lack of taking notes, was the first time, the second time was pure torture. It was worse when I thought about all the sleep that I could have been getting during my free period but here I was sitting in Shelby's classroom copying the notes that I had no energy to copy the first time. I had just finished copying the notes when the bell rang meaning that I had to go to glee rehearsal. I handed her the hard copy back and then got my things together and made my way down the hall and into the choir room where there was arguing going on.
"Mr. Schue we talked about this last time. Us guys don't feel comfortable doing a Madonna number. I mean we like girls and all but it's weird." Puck said to Mr. Schue.
"Guys but what about the contest?" Mr. Schue pleaded but Ms. Holiday took over for him.
"Look if you don't want to do a Madonna number that is totally fine. We understand. Right Will?" Ms. Holiday said addressing him.
"Yeah I guess..." Mr. Schuester said trailing off.
I walked past them and took a seat next to Finn who wrapped his arms around me and let me lean into his chest.
"I guess you didn't get to nap during your independent study?" He asked grabbing my hand.
"No I had to copy notes." I said as I closed my eyes only to be woken up by Mr. Schue making us stand up and do vocal warm ups.
Rehearsal was a blur and when I finally made it to Shelby's car I felt like I was going to collapse.
"So how was rehearsal?" She asked as we pulled out of the parking lot.
"Fine." I said mustering a smile while sitting up straight in the seat. For some reason she picked today to be talkative which meant I couldn't close my eyes and nap on the ride back to her house like I had thought about doing since rehearsal started today.
When we pulled into the garage I grabbed my things and ran up the stairs and collapsed in the bed not taking the time to pull off my shoes or anything else. I just fell on the bed and closed my eyes not wanting to have them open a moment longer than necessary.
Shelby's POV:
When we got home Rachel took off into the house. I tried to remember if I had said something that had upset her but I couldn't think of anything, then again she wasn't really talkative this afternoon on the way home. Maybe she was mad because I made her copy the notes she was suppose to have gotten during class during her free class, but that was her fault. Had she of paid attention during class there would have been no need for her to stay behind. When I walked into the house I found her bag lying on the counter not too far from where Beth and Blair were but other than that there was no trace of her anywhere.
"Where did she go?" I asked and Blair pointed to the stairs. "Thanks. I think I have it from here." I said with a smile and Blair nodded and gathered her things while I took Beth up to see where Rachel went. I only had to look into her room to see that she was passed out on the bed.
I walked over to the bed and pulled off her shoes and then took Beth down into the kitchen. I put her down on the ground and she teetered off into the living room while I went to move Rachel's things causing them to spill out all over the floor. I sighed as I bent down and picked up her things. I could not understand why the girl wouldn't just keep her bag zipped. I mean it was easier to get to things when she was in a hurry but it wasn't practical for after school when she left her bag open to tragedies like this. As I was cleaning up the mess her bag made I came across the essay she had to write for my class. Being the teacher that I was, I glanced at the essay and was rather impressed. It was a really good essay but I didn't remember her typing it, she had misspelled her name, and she had not grasped the entire topic, but it was going to be better than half the crap I was going to get. I guessed that she had typed it last night when she was on the computer so I took it into the other room and turned on my laptop and tried to find the paper to no avail.
I then opened the internet to search the history to see if she had maybe emailed the paper to herself which was when I found what she had been doing the previous night. Spark notes was not technically cheating but it hurt me to see that she didn't put the effort into the paper that I had asked her too. I didn't expect that much of my students, I just wanted them to read the book and understand this great piece of literature. Sadly, I closed my computer and then grabbed Beth who had followed me into my office and went to wake up Rachel to ask her what this was all about.
"Rachel." I said shaking her until she woke up.
"Go away..." Was all she mumbled before turning over.
I put Beth in her crib and then went back to get Rachel up being as this was going to take more of my attention than a toddler would allow me to allot to Rachel.
"Rachel!" I said messing with her feet which caused her to sit up.
"What in the world?" She said rubbing her eyes.
"You used spark notes?" I questioned as I held up her paper and she got quiet while avoiding my eye contact. "Rachel?" I asked again as she licked her lips and then looked up at me.
"Yes I did but then I actually read the book."
"When?" I questioned crossing my arms.
"Early this morning, which is why I am so tired." She said lying back down. "How do you even know?" She asked sitting up again.
"I know everything. We will talk about this tomorrow, right now get some sleep." I said and she laid down on the bed again while I went to get Beth again.
I wanted to be mad at Rachel for using Spark Notes but she just seemed tired and yelling at her wouldn't have done anything. So instead of being upset I took Beth down into the living room and played with her until I had to make dinner. When I was done cooking I fed Beth and then ate some dinner myself before I bathed her and put her to bed. With the toddler now done for the night I woke Rachel up so she could eat something so she wasn't starving in the morning..
"Rachel." I said messing with her feet knowing that she would get up if I did that being as it worked like a charm earlier.
"Not again." She said sitting up. "What now?"
"You need to eat something." I said and she just shook her head and then fell back on the bed. "Rachel..."
"I'm not hungry. If I get hungry I will get something." She said with her face in the pillow and I decided to just let her be. She was more stubborn than I was when she was tired and I knew that there was no way that I was going to make her eat if she didn't want to so I left her room and got ready for bed.
It was strange not hearing the door alarm outside of Rachel's room go off before my alarm clock but I guessed that she had slept through her morning run which she had become accustomed to. I got out of bed and got ready and then walked over to her room and saw that she was still in bed. I rolled my eyes and then walked father into her room and pulled the comforter off of her.
"Rachel, you need to get up for school." I said tossing the comforter on the floor.
"I'm not going." She adamantly said as she rolled over.
"Rachel." I said playing with her feet which led to her shoving them in between the bed and the wall so I couldn't mess with them. "Rachel get up. You still have to pack to go home, unless you really want to stay here for another night." With that she sat up.
"I'll be ready in ten minutes." She said sliding out of bed.
"That's what I thought." I said turning and walking out of her room.
I grabbed Beth out of her crib and changed her as for usual and then took her down into the kitchen where Rachel was sitting dressed, packed, and ready for school.
"That was fast." I said as I placed Beth in her high chair.
"Yeah well all I had to do was get dressed and then throw my stuff in my bag." She said as she shoved a mouthful of cereal into her mouth.
"Do you have everything for school?" I asked and she nodded.
"Double check, I spilt the stuff out of your bag last night when I went to move it. Speaking of which, zipper the bag for goodness sakes!" I said and she shrugged me off.
"I will." She said to placate me as she got up and placed her empty bowl in the sink.
"Wash it." I said pointing to the sink and she sighed and washed her bowl and then checked her bag.
"Everything seems to be in here. I have my english paper-"
"That you used spark notes on." I teased grabbing the Cheerios box out of the cabinet.
"And then I read the book. Spark notes was just my starting point and I felt terrible when I used it." She said zipping her bag, finally, and then placed it on the floor with the rest of her things.
"Alright well no more spark notes." I said flatly and I got myself a bowl of cereal after pouring some for Beth.
"How would you know if I used it anyway?" She teased and I rolled my eyes.
"Like I said I know everything so don't try me."
"I'm sure." She said leaning against the counter. "So really how did you find out?" She asked with a smile.
"I will not reveal my secrets. There are somethings that you don't need to know." I said as I sat down at the table with the rest of me cereal.
When Blair knocked on the door Rachel went to get it while I finished eating my breakfast. I then put my bowl in the sink and waited for Rachel to grab her stuff. We walked out to the car and when we got in and I drove to the school.
When we got there Rachel bounded into the school while I slowly made my way to my classroom. The day passed fairly quickly and before I knew it Rachel was running out to my car after rehearsal.
"So I used Finn's phone and I called my dads and they got home like thirty minutes ago so you can just drop me off." She said as she pulled on her seat belt.
"I know. I talked to your dads too, but I'm not just going to drop you off Rachel. I actually have to talk to them about a few things before I just leave you there."
"I don't see why you have to. I mean they are my parents, not you." I gave her a look and she shut her mouth.
I pulled into the driveway behind Rachel's car and put my car in park. Rachel grabbed her bags out of the back and then we walked up to the front door only entering the house after Rachel found her keys and unlocked the door.
"Dad, Daddy. I'm home and I brought a guest!" Rachel yelled as she walked into the living room. It was a few seconds before Leroy and Hiram walked into the living room to greet us. They both gave Rachel and big hug and then turned to me.
"Thank you Shelby. Would you like to take a seat?" Hiram asked gesturing to the couch and I took a seat as Rachel went to sneak out of the room.
"Not so fast Diva." Leroy said guiding her to a chair.
"So lets talk." Hiram said as he and Leroy took a seat on the couch across from me. "We know about the drinking of course but there are a few details that we need explained still."
"Shelby when did you get back into town?" Leroy asked and I took a deep breath.
"Just before the school year started." I said confused about where this conversation was going.
"Convenient." Leroy said looking at Hiram.
"I'm sorry but what does this have to do with Rachel?" I asked getting slightly annoyed.
"I'm sorry my husband, the conspiracy theorist, thinks that you just moved back here to try to steal Rachel away from us."
"I moved back here for my daughter Beth. I teach at Rachel's school to support Beth and I had no intention of being Rachel's english teacher it just happened." I said as I looked at the men as the information was revealed and saw their jaws drop and then I turned to Rachel to see her look away from us. "She didn't bother to tell you that I was her english teacher did she?" I asked looking at Rachel as she turned to look at me once again.
"No, no she didn't. Look Shelby I'm sorry about what I said..." Leroy started and I just held up my hand.
"It's fine. I need to go. Beth is waiting for me at home and I need to grade papers." I said as I got up from the couch and walked out the front door. I was digging in my purse to find my car keys when Hiram caught up to me.
"Shelby I think we should talk-"
"Listen, we can talk later but right now I think you should deal with Rachel. She clearly hasn't been very honest with you guys and I don't need to be getting into the middle of all of this."
"Shelby please just talk to us. How was she this week?"
"Fine. She was fine. I have to get home to my daughter. Tell Rachel I will see her on Monday will you?" I asked opening my door and climbing in. He nodded as I started my car and pulled on to the road letting the tears streak down my face.
A/n: So I am in the process of changing things so its taking more time than I thought but the next few chapters are fine so I am going to try to get those out soon.