This is a shift day [see above]. There was another upload this morning: The Big Game.
"The Ties That Bind"
10. Ten
When Shelby had told them to 'wait here a minute' while she left the room, they knew. Puck and Quinn looked to each other, a mix of emotions coming in all at once. He'd given her a nod, told her without a word that everything would be fine. She let out a breath, looked down and then to Rachel.
"How do I look?" she asked, hope and fear in her eyes.
"You look great," Rachel kindly promised, putting aside her thoughts of her mother show support to her friends. Just then Sam returned with Nell in his arms and Panda at his heels.
"She just went next door," he reported and there was an intake of breath from Quinn. Panda bypassed Sam when he saw Rachel, barking and wagging his tail as he trotted up to her.
"Hi," she brightened, crouching to scratch at his ears. "Oh, you're precious… Panda, hi Panda," she read the tag.
"Maybe he sees the resemblance with Shelby. He thought Nell was Beth," he added.
"You saw her?" Puck asked.
"Through the window, with the neighbors, yeah." He left out the neighbor girl's abrupt exit. "She looks like you," he told Quinn, and again she breathed in, stopped herself from crying.
They heard the back door and everyone stopped. Puck and Quinn stood, waiting. Rachel looked up to Sam and all he had to do was give a small nod and his message was clear: "Are you okay?" She gave something between a nod and a shrug.
"Everyone…" Shelby's voice drew their attention, and they now found themselves in the presence of a much larger group than anticipated. Behind Shelby was a man and a girl a few years younger than them, and in Shelby's arms there was Beth… Puck and Quinn of course only had eyes for her. Rachel found herself looking at the girl behind Shelby, as she was already staring back at her. Sam, not unlike Emmett, looked across different faces, seeing things here and there. "This is Emmett Tepley and his daughter Joanie, from next door. Emmett and I are, well, Emmett and I…" she explained. "And Joanie," she wasn't going to leave her out, looking back to her. Joanie could see exactly what Emmett had told her, about Shelby. She could also see how, in this present situation, laying out the state of their relationship might be hard.
"I help," she declared, and Shelby smiled approvingly.
"Emmett, Joanie, I'd like you to meet Beth's birth parents, Noah Puckerman and Quinn Fabray, their friend Sam Evans and his daughter Nell, and this is my daughter, Rachel Berry," she made a point to look to each of them as she made the introductions. On Rachel, the attention she gave and the words she chose did not go unnoticed.
"Nice to meet all of you," Emmett was the first to speak.
"We met briefly, earlier," Sam nodded to Joanie, "Waving at the window."
"Yeah," she responded with a smile.
"Can we…" Quinn asked Shelby, motioning that they wanted to come closer. Shelby looked down to Beth, found her looking up at her. Everyone looked ready for this, and yet now it was her who was having trouble letting go.
"Yes, of course," she finally said, and Puck and Quinn approached, not too fast. They'd taken no more than four steps when Beth looked back down and it seemed her eyes fell on them. They smiled to her, still careful. Her eyes followed them until they were at an arm's length. Shelby turned to give her a better line of sight.
"Maybe we shouldn't crowd her…" Quinn looked about to back away again.
"Would you like to hold her?" Shelby suddenly decided, like it was time and she knew it now. Quinn looked to her. "It's okay," Shelby promised. It was what she wanted, what she needed, even if she'd already made her peace with the thought that it might not happen. She took a step forward, started with presenting a finger, within reach of the small hand's grasp. Beth observed the finger and a moment later took hold of it. It was all it took to liberate a smile from her young mother.
"Hi, Beth," she spoke, softly brushing her thumb against the back of the baby's hand.
"Here…" Shelby nodded after a moment, and Beth was handed to Quinn properly. She hadn't let go of her finger, and Quinn didn't take it away from her.
"Such a good girl… yes…" Quinn spoke in a humming whisper, hoping not to disrupt anything that would take away from this moment. She had not held this girl since the day she was born, and already she had grown so much… She remembered how she'd looked at her, as captivated with her as Quinn was with her… She remembered, but Beth wouldn't, and yet with the way she looked at her now, she could almost delude herself into thinking she did. She looked happy, calm and yet open… she had a good life, and that was all Quinn had ever wanted, for her to have what she deserved.
Puck had been watching, as Quinn held her. He knew that, like him, the moment when she might get to hold their daughter in her arms was one she'd looked forward to with still an amount of fear, like it could all go wrong, if it ever happened. "Be calm, she'll feel if you're stressed," they'd tell each other. The moment would be different for him though… It would be the first time he ever held her at all. And then Quinn was looking at him and he knew the time had come. He allowed himself a breath, in, out, as he reached at the hand where Quinn's finger was still trapped. For a moment their three hands were joined; it would grow to be a cherished memory.
"Want to come say hi?" he let her see his face, as Quinn passed her along, resting her hand to Beth's back for a moment as the hand off was made. Beth's head turned back to Quinn for a second before looking back to Puck and then she spotted something and pointed with a ramble. "You like my hair?" he bowed his head and soon he felt little fingers in his Mohawk. He could hear some chuckles, but all he cared about was the girl in his arms. "Cool, right?" he asked, starting to lift his head, but then he heard a squeal and immediately lowered it again. "Sorry, sorry," he told her as she resumed playing with his hair. Without moving his head his eyes turned sideways to find Quinn's and he knew she felt it too… It had not turned to disaster as they'd feared and was in fact nothing short of perfection.
Quinn looked back to Shelby, with so many things to tell her, so many things that all came to mean the same thing: thank you. Shelby looked on, finding it hard not to look on the scene, as heartwarming as it was, without feeling for a moment like they were a family and all these months couldn't surpass that. It would pass, she knew, and Beth wouldn't suddenly deny her as her mother. But at the same time she began to think about the future, for her and for the two of them as well, in one capacity or another. And then there was Rachel, her Rachel, who had to have come for more than this, she knew, but who had said nothing on it so far. But the future was the future, and today was much more precious.
TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)