Respect

Chapter 21

I DO NOT OWN!

The day of Regionals was bright and sunny. The New Directions had managed, somehow, to get back to a point where they could all work together without killing each other. Rachel had, a bit reluctantly, agreed to do the duet with Finn. Their Journey Melody had been worked to perfection, they all knew that.

Now they just had to prove that they could beat both Vocal Adrenaline and the other school. They needed to place or they were done. All of their work, all of the drama, all of the bonding they had done, it wouldn't matter.

Rachel glared at the speaker, placed far too high for her to reach even by jumping. She couldn't shut it off and the boys were all as depressing as the girls were. They didn't need to be listening to this! So what if the school from Indiana was pandering to the judges? That just meant that they felt they had to do so in order to have a thought of winning. They didn't need that!

Mr. Schuester reached over her and turned off the speaker. He gave one of his little speeches, getting them out of their funk. Rachel fumed a little, going to sit beside Quinn. They wouldn't listen to her, but they would listen to their teacher?

Where had their efforts towards friendship gone? Rachel looked up when she felt something strike her.

"Stop pouting Berry," Santana told her. The girl had thrown a ball of wadded up paper at her. "Where's your little shpeal on not letting them get to us?"

Rachel smirked at her. "Here I was, planning on letting you and Noah terrify them into running away…"

"Nah, to easy," Puck replied, tossing himself down beside Rachel. "I'd rather see St. Douchebag's face when they hand us the first place trophy."

"Exactly!" Rachel nodded, eyes gleaming. "We're going to win this! No matter what the other teams are doing, we're doing something that can and will defeat them where they stand!"

"Then let's go blow them away, shall we?" Quinn suggested, getting to her feet.

Rachel was there in an instant to steady her. "I'm ready."

"So are we," Artie told her, grinning widely.

Rachel and Finn detached, leaving Artie and Quinn to lead the others backstage. Rachel still wasn't entirely certain about this duet. She'd rather be doing it with Quinn, but as the blonde had told her, it would look better to have a 'normal' set up for their first go. There was always next year to mix it up in.

"Good luck," she told him with a smile.

"I love you," he blurted out.

Rachel didn't have time to react as the music started. Instead, she steeled herself to join Finn as they sang Faithfully. She did not feel that way, not towards him, but she didn't let any of that enter into her voice as she sang. Instead, she made certain to connect her eyes with that of the shorter blonde on stage.

They wasted no time in jumping into Any Way you Want it/Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin'. They relaxed for hardly a beat and then once again she and Finn started them off with their third and final song Don't Stop Believing, which Rachel felt reflected the glee club as a whole and what their goals were. She had no doubt that every single one of them was going to get out of Lima in some way and leave the town behind them in their dusty tracks.

They finished and swept off the stage. Fully energized and excited, they all knew what Rachel called out. That they were, indeed, going to win this. Not just place.

"Quinnie," Quinn stopped, the last one of the group at the door way to their green room.

She turned. "Mom," she didn't know why the older blonde was here. She was shocked, especially since neither of her parents, nor any of her blood family for that matter, had had any contact with her since her mother had allowed her father to kick her out.

The younger blonde felt Rachel come up behind her, curious and concerned. Quinn reached back and took Rachel's hand as Judy Fabray apologized and told Quinn that she had kicked Russell out of the house and was in the process of divorcing him.

Judy Fabray was lost and rapidly losing hope that her youngest daughter would ever be able to forgive her as Quinn didn't respond.

"Quinn?" She tried again, wanting the conversation to be over with so she would know if her daughter had lost all hope in her as a mother.

"I think my water just broke," was all Quinn could think of to say.

Well, that was something Judy knew how to deal with. Rachel was even quicker, however, as she alerted Puck and Mr. Schuester that they needed to get to the hospital. She was right beside Quinn until Mr. Schuester took her aside and told her that as captain, she needed to stay behind as a representative.

Rachel was stunned. It was her girlfriend going into labor! Why not leave Finn behind, or just stay himself? Why didn't both of them stay and leave her to go with Quinn? Quinn wanted her there.

She sat down heavily on the couch as she was left behind, everyone else too caught up to notice that she'd been made to do so. Rachel felt lost. Surely Mr. Schuester couldn't leave her here by herself without a chaperone, right? This was a competition, the faculty advisor and representative needed to be there.

Unless he felt that Coach Sylvester counted. Which, since she was one of the judges she didn't. She couldn't be seen showing favoritism by babysitting Rachel while the rest were at the hospital. Idiot male probably hadn't thought of that.

A knock on the door made her look up. Shelby was standing in the doorway, looking at her. Rachel blinked, wondering what the older woman could want now.

Shelby didn't know what to say. She really didn't. After all, she'd already told Rachel 'no' to a relationship. She'd given into her fears and abandoned any hope that Rachel wanted anything to do with her. Even after what she had discovered, she didn't know what to do. Rachel didn't deserve her anger.

"You all performed very well," she said instead. Her own glee club was performing. They didn't need her watching them. She knew they would win because that was what they did. She did, however, have no doubts that New Directions would place at least second. If they won though, Shelby would be happy for them. Happy for Rachel.

"Thank you," Rachel replied. She could do this. She could have a civil conversation with the woman who had given birth to her. After all, Shelby had no way of knowing how much Rachel had wanted to meet her or wanted her in her life.

"Where are the rest of your friends?" Shelby asked, not having seen them hovering anywhere in the audience. She didn't know how to touch upon the subject of Rachel's fathers. Shelby also didn't want to put Rachel into a position where Rachel would feel she had to lie or that Shelby and her friends were butting into something that was none of their business.

"They went to the hospital," Rachel replied, "Quinn's having her baby." She burst into tears.

Shelby reacted, striding over to the couch and wrapping her arms around the crying girl. "Shh, she'll be alright."

"I know, but I should be there!" Rachel told her, using every bit of voice control she could to keep her voice even through her tears. "She's my girlfriend! Mr. Schue had no right to tell me to stay behind." What if because Rachel wasn't there Quinn changed her mind about keeping Beth?

After that, it all came out. She told Shelby about the girls ganging up on the boys, Quinn moving in, the both of them finally deciding to explore the feelings they had each revealed for the other. Rachel wasn't entirely certain what she was babbling about as her mother held her, but she knew that Shelby was listening. That was the most important thing to her, one of her parents was finally listening.

Shelby felt her insides freezing over in renewed anger. That arrogant prick! After what he had said to her about making certain she was as dedicated to forming a relationship as Rachel was (which undermined her already shaky decision to pursue a relationship in the first place), he lets people walk all over her baby girl? Maybe Shelby couldn't honestly call Rachel that, but just because she hadn't raised Rachel didn't mean she didn't love the girl. Maybe it was more of an idea of who she thought Rachel was, but she hadn't given either of them a chance to change that, had she?

Now she understood Santana and Brittany's visit even more. Shelby had to ask herself how people had missed this kind of thing. How did educators justify treating students like that or allowing other students to do the same thing? How did parents who had wanted a child so badly justify abandoning said child.

Hell, if either of the two men had contacted her and said 'do you want her back', Shelby would have come and collected the girl herself. There was no justifiable reason to abandon a child, not to Shelby. The older brunette vowed then to fix it any way she could no matter how long it took her.

"Do you want to go to the hospital? I can drive you." Shelby offered.

Rachel shook her head. "No, someone does need to be here to represent New Directions. It should be Mr. Schue, since Mrs. Fabray, Quinn's mother, was here to go with her and those that wished to go." Carefully, she sat up and dried her tears with the tissues Shelby handed her. "Thank you, Brittany or Santana will keep me informed, or Noah will if he doesn't faint watching his daughter come into the world."

"Quinn's having a little girl?" Shelby asked, wanting to be part of her daughter's life and figuring this was as good an opening as any other.

Rachel nodded, feeling a pang of hurt. She remembered her mother's words, how she wanted a child she could raise.

"Yes, Noah wants to name her Beth and Quinn agreed." Rachel explained. "She's going to keep her," she said in a quiet voice. "But now, with her mom coming back, I don't know what's going to happen. She won't need me anymore."

No, Judy Fabray coming to make peace with her daughter, telling her she could come back home, even offering to make room so that Quinn could keep Baby Beth, was pretty much along the lines of what Quinn had wanted. Rachel knew the blonde wanted to be back with her parents, to know they still loved her and wanted her.

Rachel couldn't fault her for wanting those things. She wanted to, she wanted to be angry at Quinn for wanting those things, for actually being able to think about things and having an actual hope that they might come to pass. She couldn't, not even when she looked at her own house and saw the absence of her fathers'. Would they even care if her and Quinn's positions had been reversed? Rachel wanted to tell herself that they would have, but she didn't think that was true. Would she have told them was another question she didn't know the answer to.

Shelby had spent the last sixteen years with one single, ongoing regret, and that was not getting the chance to know her daughter as she grew up. She didn't regret having Rachel in the least bit, but she wished she hadn't been so stupid as to cut off contact and sign the contract that forbid her from seeking Rachel out before she was eighteen and then Rachel had to make the first move at that. This was one of those times where she wished that she had opted for something closer to open adoption, then maybe this wouldn't be so awkward. Then again, not chickening out the first time would have helped.

"She'll still need you Rachel," Shelby told her. Well…now was as a good as time as any…or at least she hoped it was. "It's up to you, but I would like to…amend what I told you before." Slowly, she would have to do this slowly. If Rachel really was anything like her as a teenager then Shelby couldn't force it. Rachel had to come to her on her own terms.

"What do you mean?" Rachel asked, squashing down the rising hope she felt in her chest. She wondered if she was dreaming. It seemed like it would be likely.

"I want to get to know you," Shelby told her. "I want to at least try to be friends, even if we can never have the traditional mother-daughter relationship." Shelby would take anything at this point just so she knew that Rachel had someone there for her.

Rachel smiled. "I'd like that," she replied, "I'd like that a lot."