Guest: This was great, can we see a chapter where someone actually gets quote aggressive with the moms in front of Rachel, causing Cass to be very defensive.

A/N: Rachel is 10. This may be a bit more aggressive then you had in mind, and it is more than I had originally intended, to, but I just let my fingers type and this is what happened, so… I hope you like it. This didn't come out EXACTLY the way I wanted it, but I wasn't sure how to add to it, so if you have any ideas for prompts about this one, i'll add parts to it like I have to other ones. In any case, tell me what you think!

With love always, Hayley

Ignorance

Cass and Shelby walked hand in hand down the street, heading towards the clothing store to get Rachel some new back-to-school clothes. They were accompanied by their good friend, Holly, Santana, and of course, Rachel. They usually didn't hold hands in public. Or at least, when Rachel was younger, it wasn't something that they often did. But they were slowly getting used to the tiny little public display of affection. It took Cassie a while to be able to warm up to the idea. Especially since after the Crazy July incident, no matter how hard she tried not to, she worried about what people thought of her.

As they were walking they were laughing about something Holly had said. Before they could continue on, a couple of men scoffed as they passed. One of them shouted out, "DYKES!"

Shelby rolled her eyes and Cassandra nearly growled, tightening her grip on Shelby's hand. Shelby mumbled to her, "Just don't listen, Cassie. Just ignore them."

"What you're not going to acknowledge us?" One yelled as the girls kept walking. Rachel stayed close to her Aunt Holly, and gripped Santana's hand. She hated when people did this. Why couldn't they all just be left alone? Freedom of expression and self?!

The third and final man jogged up towards them and Cassie's heart pounded. Shelby wasn't sure she'd be able to hold her back, and wasn't positive that she actually wanted to. Both cast worried, furtive looks at Rachel and Santana. The two young girls didn't need to be in the mix of this. Maribel put Santana in their care and there was no way in hell they were going to let her or their daughter be a part of this.

Two men stood in front of Shelby and Cassie, forcing them to stop. The third took Cassie's arm in his hand and pulled up close to her. "Hello sweetheart,"

Cassie clenched her teeth. "Let GO of me."

"You two are the hottest dykes I'VE ever seen," the one in front of Shelby said, licking his lips. Shelby dry swallowed. She didn't know what to do, and she was afraid. What if these men had guns? What if they got to Rachel or Santana or Holly? All because she and Cassie had decided to hold hands in public. Her heart pounded rapidly against her chest as the man closest to her slid his hand up her arm and grabbed her shoulder, tightly.

"I bet I can change your mind," he whispered roughly into her ear.

"Back OFF." Cassandra growled.

Shelby nearly let out a gasp. His grip had slid down to her forearm and got tighter and tighter and it was really hurting. She worried about what the other one was doing to Cassie. Cass, against her better judgment, let out a short, quick breath. The one close to her had a tight grip on her waist. When she caught her breath, she said, hurriedly,

"Holly, take the girls and go,"

Holly was conflicted. She didn't want to leave Cass and Shelby alone. But Cass was right, the girls didn't need to witness this. Rachel's eyes had started watering and Santana looked like the Incredible Hulk got pissed off. Nobody messed with Rachel's Mommies! But she was smart enough not to say anything—she knew they'd try to hurt Rachel and Holly and her, too. Holly bit back tears of her own as the third man tried to grab both Shelby and Cassie at the same time.

"HOLLY," Cassie's voice was a loud warning as Shelby tried twisting out of the man's grip. She heard a snap and nearly screamed. It felt as if part of her arm was broken.

Scared for everyone, Holly did what she was told. She ran with Rachel and Santana up to the nearest store. Her plan was to use their phone to call the police. It took her way too long to explain the situation to the clerk so she decided to just shove past her and call 911. Santana and Rachel still had each other's hands, tightly. Rachel had soft tears falling down her cheeks.

"It'll be okay, Rachel," Santana promised, giving her a big hug. "They'll be okay. The police will come and beat the bad guys up and your Mommies will be okay."

Rachel cried on her best friend's shoulder, thankful that Santana was there with her.

Meanwhile, Cassandra's eyes widened at Shelby's half-scream. She had heard the snap too. "Shelby?" tears threatened to fall from her eyes but they stung as she forced them back. Forced them to stay at bay. If she cried, they won.

She thought up a battle plan. The first thing she needed to do was make sure Shelby was safe. Then she would worry about getting herself out of the situation. The man drew himself closer to Shelby and Cass didn't even think, she just forced her knee out. The man doubled over so she knew that she had succeeded in hitting her target. She knew that she and Shelby were small and likely to be hurt easily, but they were strong. Cassie knew she was tiny—she had a dancer's body—but that meant she could dodge between them.

Shelby spun out of the man's grip (the one Cass had just kneed) and elbowed the other guy. She couldn't believe she was free. She moved her right arm to grab Cassie, but she realized she couldn't move it without excruciating, agonizing pain. "AHH!" she let out a scream she hadn't meant to let slip.

Everything was happening fast. It wasn't any of that slow-motion serious-situation bullshit.

It hadn't been 5 minutes since the men had first spotted them. Though time seemed to have stood still.

Cass knocked her head forward and succeeded in breaking the one who had ahold of her waist's nose. She stumbled backward and fell onto the ground but scrambled back up and took Shelby's non pained arm. "We need to get out of here now," she panted.

Shelby nodded and they ran off towards the store they saw Holly and the girls run into. As they made it through the front doors, they heard police sirens. They knew they were safe. They were panting, their hearts beating fast. They had gotten into fights over this before, but never one so violent. Both women were pretty badly shaken. Holly guided them over to some seats and had them take slow, deep breaths. Rachel was still crying, and she wanted to run into her Mommies' arms, but was afraid they were hurt. Santana held on to Rachel, a couple tears of her own falling.

"Let me," Cassie breathed in and out. "Shelby, let me see your arm."

Reluctantly, Shelby turned her body and showed Cassandra her right arm. She couldn't move it over towards her. She knew it was bad.

Cass let out a gasp. "Oh, my god, Shelby,"

Her arm, right above her wrist, was swollen and red and starting to bruise fast. It didn't look normal, and Cassie was worried it might be broken. Very, very carefully, Cassie tested the waters and lightly set her hand under Shelby's arm. Shelby bit her cheek and let out an un-human like growl. With wide and concerned eyes, Cassie shot a glance up towards Shelby. Shelby had tears in her eyes.

"Okay, we're getting the two of you to the hospital," Holly instructed. "I can call Maribel and see if the girls can stay over there until—"

"NO!" Rachel protested, "I want to go with you!"

Santana saw the fear in Rachel's eyes and then saw the pain and fear in the eyes of both of her moms. She swallowed and took Rachel's hand tighter. "I want to go, too," she said.

With a slight nod, Cassandra went to stand. She drew in a sharp breath. While they were running, adrenaline was pumping and she hadn't felt it before. But now she could tell there was something seriously wrong with her rib cage. She could hardly breathe without yelling out.

"Are you okay?" Shelby demanded.

Cassie nodded again. "Don't worry about me, Shelbs. We need to get your arm looked at."

"I DO worry about you," Shelby insisted, standing. "We need to get your torso looked at, apparently. Why didn't you tell me you were so hurt?"

"When did I have the time?" Cass was tired and in pain so she got snappy. "I'm sorry," she amended immediately. "I didn't notice until now."

"Okay," Shelby said softly. Finally, it was as if the reality of the situation was just sinking in. She let a few tears fall. "I'm so sorry, Cassie."

Cass widened her eyes. "For what? You have ABSOLUTELY nothing to be sorry for." she promised, placing a soft kiss on Shelby's cheek. Even though they were still in public. "This isn't your fault, sweetheart,"

They very cautiously walked outside, where police officers were waiting to talk to them.

"But I'm the one who talked you into being a bit more public about-"

"Stop, Shelbs. We shouldn't have to hide who we are from the world and if a few ignorant MEN are going to freak out and hurt us over it, that isn't our fault, it's theirs. Okay? I mean it."

Shelby nodded slowly and once they had talked to the police officers were escorted to the emergency room, where, after waiting for a couple of hours, they were finally taken back and examined. As the doctor was ace wrapping Shelby's arm, (and Shelby clenched the hell out of her jaw and squeezed Cassie's hand to the point of it almost breaking itself), he explained that it wasn't broken, just badly sprained and horribly bruised. He said it would be better in a couple of weeks before turning to Cassie. Shelby nursed her arm in her lap.

Holly and the girls had heard the story when Shelby and Cass told the police what had happened. Holl looked at Cass, ever the warrior, as she forced out a slow breath and lifted her shirt so the doctor could examine her torso. He winced, and she winced, and grabbed Shelby's good hand. Santana wiped away a few of Rachel's silent tears.

"I didn't know you knew how to do all of that," Shelby admitted, trying to get Cassandra's mind off the fact that the pain was torturous as the doctor had her lie down and he pressed on her breast bone to see if she had any fractured ribs. She screamed, "AHH! SON OF A-" Shelby stopped her from yelling by distracting her by kissing her lips softly. The doctor smiled at the technique (many couples did something like that to distract from pain) and decided to ace wrap her too, to prevent extreme movement. He told her that she had a fractured rib and that deep breathing would be very painful. She needed a lot of rest and relaxation, no working, absolutely no dancing for six weeks.

Shit, Cassie thought. Carmen's going to fire me. I can't not work for six weeks. No way in hell am I going to NYADA in a wheel chair to a dance class and there's no way in hell Shelby will let me walk in there against the doctor's orders like I'm totally fine. I'll have to video teach or something...

He prescribed them both a pain medication and told them they had very high tolerance for pain-most people who had fractured ribs or arm injuries as bad as he'd seen Shelby and Cassie's threw tantrums and cried and cried. He'd seen like two tears from each woman and the occasional forced out breath with the exception of Cassie's almost-curse.

Once he was going to get their pain medicine, Cass answered, "I didn't know I could do that-either. It was-all instinct." talking kinda really hurt, too, considering you had to breathe to talk.

Shelby kissed her again. "My savior." she whispered.

Cassie smirked. "You didn't do too bad for yourself, Shelbs. That elbow was brilliant-he couldn't get back up. You probably-fractured more ribs on him-then he did-on me." her words were staggered.

Shelby smiled softly, just so thankful that they were both okay. No more PDA, for a while. "Rest, Cassie. Don't speak anymore, okay?"

Rachel wiped up her final tears and moved to hug Shelby, now that she knew that she could. "I'm so sorry those men were so horrible, Mommy," she just started crying again. She was terrified. She wasn't sure if her mommies were going to be okay when she had to run away from them. She didn't understand why anyone could be so cruel. Her mommies hadn't done anything wrong!

"Shh, shh, Rachel, sweetheart," Shelby soothed. "Don't be sorry, baby, it's all over. Mama and I are fine. I promise. I'm sorry you had to see that."

"Not all of it," Rachel reminded her.

Thank god for small miracles.

"I'm sorry you-had to see-any of it," Cass said, sitting up and cringing as she did so. Rachel sniffed and looked over at her.

"I don't want to hug you 'cause I'll hurt you," she said.

"How about a-kiss instead?" Cass smiled. "My face isn't fractured."

Shelby and Holly and Santana laughed and Cassie refrained from doing so due to the fact she wasn't really about the whole yelling thing. Rachel gave her a kiss. "I love you, Mama." she looked at Shelby. "I love you too, Mommy."

"We love you too, Rachel." Shelby told her as Santana ran up to her and hugged her tightly.

"I love you too, Shelby," Santana told her. She had been absolutely horrified about all of this (especially since recently she had been having these feelings about Rachel and she certainly didn't want something like that to happen to THEM) but knew she had had to be strong for Rachel. After hugging Shelby, she kissed Cass on the cheek. "And I love you, too."

"We love you-too, San," Cass smiled at her, weakly. She had a pounding headache and she felt faint. Like she could pass out at any second.

After this it was Holly's turn. She hugged Shelby and wiped a few tears. "You scared me shitless," she muttered into her ear. "Thank god the two of you are okay."

"We were pretty scared shitless-too, you know-Holl," Cass said, trying to stay awake as Holly gave her a kiss on both cheeks. Holly watched as Cass nearly fell backwards. Holl put her hands behind Cassie's back to hold her up, carefully.

"Are you okay?"

"Dizzy," she mumbled in response.

The doctor came back into the room a few minutes later and explained that dizziness and exhaustion were likely a side effect from the fractured rib. He said that BOTH Shelby and Cassandra needed to relax and sleep and take the medication as necessary. They agreed and were sent home.

Santana stayed the night with them, as well as Holly, to make sure things were okay (she could be so protective sometimes). Shelby used her good hand to move Cassandra's hair out of her face as she kissed her wife's temple.

"I love you so much, and I'm so very thankful that you're okay, love, because I could never EVER live my life without you. I'm sorry people are so ignorant and rude and horrible in this world."

"I love-Love you too, Shelby," Cassie smiled but didn't have the strength to open her eyes. Her drowsiness mixed with the pain medication was heavy on her eyelids. "Don't apologize for the way the world-is. I love you-so very much-and couldn't live without-you either. I wasn't sure-what to do today-but I knew you had to-come out alive if-if it killed me-"

"Shh, Cass," Shelby placed a soft kiss on her wife's lips, which Cass reciprocated. "Please don't think like that. I love you. We both need to sleep."

"Okay."

"Goodnight, love."

"We're alive, Shelby." A small, thin smile spread across Cassandra's lips. "I'd-say it's a pretty-good night."