A/N- Boom. Three weeks. Not too shabby. Enjoy!
Rachel's fingers clutch onto the seams of Noah's grey t-shirt, pulling him even closer in towards her as though she's trying to meld their bodies into one. He's sitting in the desk chair in her mother's office and has her straddled over his lap, his arms wrapped tightly around her waist just the way she likes it.
She needs to feel him, to latch on to the sense of security he provides and to remind herself that she's finally back with him. He's kissing her so deeply that she almost feels as though his tongue is trying to memorise every crevice of her mouth. She lets him do it willingly, but that's not what's really dominating her thoughts.
She's just missed him. It's the way he doesn't say too much, or ask too many questions, especially if she doesn't bring anything up first. She's missed how he never pries. She's missed how he likes to remind her that he's there with all kinds of physical gestures - a protective arm slung over her shoulders, or the way he captures her chin in his hand before he kisses her. She's missed his body in how it envelopes her own, like he's pulling her into his cocoon of safety. It's hard and strong and stable, but Rachel always sinks into it like they're two clouds over a lake on a warm summer's day.
It's the most comforting place she can think of - Noah would never let anything bad happen to her while she's resting against him. Everything's been so precarious and the tightrope is swinging and thoughts are swirling around her head so fast that she can never get a proper grip on them, let alone start to understand where she's supposed to go from here. Noah fixes that. She leans up against his chest, presses her mouth onto his, and it's like everything else disappears.
"God, I missed you so much," he mutters when he pulls away for a moment. He meets her eyes and lets his thumb trace over her swollen lips. "You're amazing."
And then he's trailing kisses along her jawline and down her neck. She finds herself grinning maniacally. She's amazing. It's a compliment that isn't out of familial obligation, or a bargaining tool used to reduce her defences so that somebody else can get what they want. He's saying it because he believes it, and, just for a moment, it means that she can believe it too.
Noah's hands slink down her back, reaching up under the hem of her sweater and caressing the bare skin of her waist. Instinctively, she leans in closer to him and nudges his head back up, rejoining their lips. She closes her eyes and allows herself to relish in his hunger for her, his delirious desperation to feel every part of her.
Rachel has spent her whole life knowing that she's special and trying to figure out how to get everyone else to see that. Her dads always made her feel like she really was the star that they'd chosen from the heavens to create their perfect family. She lost them and the sparkle disappeared; she was no longer a shining star, burning bright with passion and vigour. Instead, she was just burning out. Noah gives her fuel. He looks at her with those dark eyes and she knows she's once again being seen as a guiding light of hope and excitement.
When she'd once tried to explain this to him, he'd frowned in confusion, but said that it reminded him of the Hanukkah story his mom tells him every year. Rachel hadn't minded being compared to a miracle of that magnitude at all.
This time, she pulls away and smiles shyly up at him, drinking in every inch of his face.
"I've really missed you too, Noah," she whispers. "I… Everything's just been a lot recently, and you know that's when I always need you the most."
He nods as he mulls over her words, his face turning bitter. "It's not fair that she's keeping you away from me. I mean, she hasn't even met me."
"I- I'm not sure that she is," Rachel says tentatively. "Not in the way you're thinking. We haven't really got around to having that, you know… That type of discussion yet."
She can feel the blood rushing to her cheeks and ducks her head. It's been months now and she's still terrible at verbalising the intricacies of their relationship. It seems to sully it, somehow.
"But she knows about me?"
"I- I think so."
Nobody's brought it up for sure, but she can't imagine that Jesse didn't jump at the first opportunity to tattle to her mother about him. She doesn't dare say that now, though. She loves that Noah's bigger than her, stronger than her, and always chivalric enough to defend her honour, but none of this gives her much confidence that she would be able to prevent him going after Jesse if he wanted to.
He sighs as he moves one hand from her waist to her leg. Her plaid skirt has ridden up slightly, allowing him more room to trace his calloused fingers over her thigh.
"The whole thing seems so unfair to you, Rach," he says. She's sure she starts to glow at his concern. "Your mom who didn't give a crap for all this time comes back and suddenly your whole life has to change? It's fucking bullshit. You deserve to have people around you who really know you and care about you. Like me."
She'd been about to interrupt him - to point out that his version of events is slightly skewed in that she'd already been forced to move schools before even meeting Shelby - but she's glad she didn't. She needed to hear that.
As she's trying to fall asleep each night, she attempts to lay out the rational facts for herself. She knows in her heart of hearts that Shelby does love her, and is trying to help her in whatever way she can. But there's another feeling - one that sits below that, right in the pit of her stomach. It feels like a ticking bomb and, with every beat of her heart, it throbs with its unwavering insistence that she's doomed. There's no mutual coexistence between these two feelings, either; they launch stealthy attacks on each other all day long, pushing and pulling the frontline up and down her body. Her head can hardly keep up.
Sometimes, she feels as though she barely knows herself these days. How, therefore, could her mother know anything about her? All she's ever really seen is whatever flickering projection of herself Rachel's managed to summon up that day. Her secrets are swelling - everything keeps poking at angry wounds which never properly healed - and it's getting harder and harder to squeeze her show face back on over them.
But Noah knows her.
When she was five, she'd insisted to her dads that she was big enough to go down the big slide at the park, just like all the other kids. She wasn't. Her tiny frame had juddered down through the metal tunnel and the momentum had sent her hurtling out with such force that all she'd been able to do was shut her eyes and scream. Instead of splattering out onto the gritty turf, however, she'd found herself landing on top of a larger, stronger body. Noah heard her coming and made sure he was there to catch her when she hit the ground.
When she was twelve, he was the only person she'd recognised when she had to switch middle schools. He'd made himself her tour guide on her first day and got her to promise that she would report back on any teasing from the kids in her grade. The slide was steeper, the descent bumpier than ever, but Noah had once again softened her blow.
At the start of summer this year, they'd been walking around the parking lot of her dance studio when she'd expressed some concerns about starting high school. Noah had leaned over, kissed her, and told her that he already ruled the school; he would protect her.
Now, she doesn't know how to reply, so she just kisses him again. He groans in contentment when his hands slide under her skirt; she can only hope that permission to do that is enough to convey her gratitude to him.
It's after just a few, heated minutes that Rachel's phone begins to buzz on the desk. She pulls away from him and leans over to pick it up, nerves already beginning to reconvene in her stomach. But Noah's got quicker reflexes. He grabs her wrist and slides his hand up hers to interlock their fingers.
"Just leave it," he mutters before returning his mouth to her neck.
"It's probably my mo- Shelby," Rachel says. She squints at the phone, futilely trying to read the name on its screen.
"Exactly."
"Noah…"
"Rach, she gets you all the time," he says, frowning down at her. "Who knows how long I'm going to have to wait to see you again? I've missed you, babe."
The phone has already stopped ringing, but she wouldn't have answered it anyway. He's got a point and she concedes this by kissing him again.
The next time it rings, it's just as he's whispering how hot she is into her ear. The time after that, he's already put her hands under his shirt, and her fingers are concerned with tracing the pattern of his abs. She doesn't even notice when it rings for a fourth time.
In fact, she's wrapped so tightly up in Noah's cocoon, that the outside world seems to cease to exist completely. He's Noah Puckerman, the youngest person to make the McKinley football team for almost a decade, the strongest and safest person she knows, and a very good kisser. She's Rachel Berry, a shooting star that almost fell out of orbit, and a girl who has to remind herself to breathe every few seconds because her brain is always so preoccupied.
But, in this moment, she's simply Rachel, Noah's girlfriend. They're just Rachel and Noah together. She's with Noah Puckerman, and he's with-
"Rachel Berry!"
Their lips break apart with a mangled squelch and she jerks backwards so vigorously that she topples right off his lap, landing with a thud on the office floor. The smack of her head against the thin carpet tile sends her shooting out of Noah's cocoon. Reality crashes down around her in the form of lurid overhead lighting and Noah's muttered expletives. Within seconds, her mother's face is hovering over her.
"Crap- Rach, are you okay?"
Rachel blinks groggily a couple of times, acclimatising herself with the brash physicality of it all. Everything she's managed to repress while she's been with Noah hits her like a tidal wave. Her stomach churns as all of the horrible feelings resettle and she can see the anger still lingering in the tightness of her mother's face.
"Rachel?" Shelby says, reaching behind the girl's back to help pull her up.
The second her hand makes contact, Rachel shrugs her off. "I'm fine," she spits. Ignoring the dull aches in her back and in her heart, she pushes herself up off the floor and straightens out her clothes. Her insides are not so easy to fix; everything is swirling and scrambled and sloshing. She latches onto the first familiar emotion that bubbles up - anger.
"Are you sure?" Shelby asks. She, too, stands up from her kneeling position and moves to check the back of Rachel's head for signs of injury.
"I said I'm fine," the girl repeats coldly. She takes a step backwards towards Noah and folds her arm tightly over her chest. "What do you want?"
"What do I want?" Shelby repeats, shaking her head and matching her daughter's posture.
"Yeah," Rachel says. She throws a minute glance over her shoulder to Noah for strength, and then eyes her mother with a raised eyebrow. "What do you want?"
"Fine," Shelby says brusquely. "What I want is to know why you think it's okay to ignore my instructions not to come down here, and then to ignore all of my phone calls." She nods at the phone on the desk. "You must have heard it. I was worried, Rachel - I didn't know where you'd gone. Why didn't you answer?"
Rachel swallows. "I was busy."
"Busy? Busy doing what? Breaking into my office so that you can-" Shelby stops herself suddenly, swinging her eyes shut and shaking her head again. "No, you know what? We're not doing this here. Let's go."
"No," Rachel whines instinctively.
It's too soon. She's only just got Noah back and she needs him. She looks up at him pleadingly, but his eyes are narrowed in on Shelby's face.
"Yes," Shelby says. She stands back and points out the door. "We're going home."
"No."
"Yes."
"No," Rachel repeats, with a stomp of her foot. "I'm not going with you."
"Rachel," Shelby warns, her tone low and dangerous. When the girl simply shakes her head again, she walks towards her and locks her hand around her arm.
Rachel can't help but to flinch at the touch. It doesn't hurt, and her mother doesn't immediately try to haul her from the office, but still, everything just feels too familiar.
She'd been doing okay; Noah had caught her in his strong arms and she was settling in at school. Then, her grandmother had come home from work early and spotted Noah's truck in their driveway. The door to Rachel's room had been flung open and, once again, the girl had been dragged away from everything safe. She was pushed out into the void without any clue as to where she was going. And now it's all happening again. Every time she manages to feel some like some semblance of the star she once was, it's like there's a black hole waiting to swallow her up.
There's an impenetrable darkness and she's being squeezed so tightly that she's sure everything in her stomach and her heart is about to come spewing out.
"Rachel?" a soft voice says. And then there's a soft hand on her cheek to match. "Rachel, baby? Can you look at me?"
"Don't touch her!"
"I'm her mom."
At that word, Rachel forces her eyes back open. Her mother is standing right in front of her, eyeing her carefully. The hand on her arm has moved to squeeze her own, clammy palm.
"Hi, baby," Shelby whispers. "Let's get you home, okay? We can talk about all of this later."
Rachel manages to suck in a shaky breath. "N-Noah."
"I want to have a quick word with him and then you guys can say goodbye for now," Shelby tells her, eyes lifting to look at the sullen boy standing behind them. "Go and wait outside for me. I'll be right there."
Rachel manages a weak nod and allows herself to stumble out of the office. She can't even think why she thought that would be a good place to go. Nothing good ever comes out of being in that room.
"Jesus- you look like… Are you okay?"
She looks up to see Jesse sitting on a table a few feet away, swinging his legs back and forth. Something about the rocking motion is nauseating to her. He quickly jumps up and moves to help her, as though he doesn't even think she can manage to stand on her own.
"Don't touch me," she mutters, stepping out of his grasp. The boy recoils and frowns. "I'm fine."
"I was just going to help you-"
"You never help me."
Rachel heaves herself up onto the table and stares at the brown carpet. Everywhere in this wing of the school is covered in the same, brown carpet tiles. It's beyond her as to why anyone would have picked them out. She wants to bring her knees up to her chest and curl up so that she doesn't have to think about anything, but she's already fixed her skirt once.
"What are you talking about?" Jesse asks. He moves to stand directly in front of her and tries to prompt her with a shrug. "Well?"
"You told on me," she says bitterly. "I don't know why I ever thought I could trust you."
"Hey- don't blame this on me! I didn't want to tell on you, but you've been gone for over an hour, Rach, and you didn't pick up Shelby's phone calls, and you didn't reply to my texts. I thought she was about to report you as a missing person."
"So you told on me."
"What else was I supposed to do?"
"You could have, for once in your life, minded your own business," Rachel snaps. She finally lifts her gaze to meet Jesse's eyes and finds herself evenly matched in the glaring department. "But I should have known that that's too hard for you to do."
"You're the one who came to me wanting the key!"
"Because I just wanted some space! I wanted one, tiny bit of space and you couldn't even give me that. You had to run off and tell Shelby, and now she's probably yelling at Noah and I'm not going to get to see him again."
Jesse sneers at her and shakes his head. "You're crazy," he says. "You're actually crazy. I didn't do anything wrong, Rachel, but think whatever the hell you want to think. Just never ask me for help again."
"Don't worry, I won't."
"Good!"
"Fine!"
The silence that follows is broken only by two sets of laboured breaths and some low tones drifting out of the office. Rachel realises that Shelby must have shut the door behind her.
Figures.
She tries to peer in through the window, but Noah had already pulled the blinds shut when they hurried in there earlier. She was floating, and they were just Noah and Rachel, and then everything had been ruined. Unbidden, her heart starts to pound and her glare finds Jesse again.
"What?" he asks when he notices her staring.
"Do you take pleasure in ruining my life?"
"Excuse me?"
"No, seriously," Rachel snarls, nodding to herself. "It's like you get some kind of satisfaction from it all. Do you enjoy it? Does it make you feel good about yourself to go suck up to Shelby and destroy anything good I have?"
"I honestly don't know what you're talking about."
"Of course you don't," she scoffs. "Because the only time you care about what I have to say is when you can start meddling in things and making everything worse."
"I haven't meddled," Jesse says, folding his arms. "And, trust me, Rachel, you really don't need any help in ruining your life. You seem to do a pretty good job of that all by yourself."
"What?" Before she knows what she's doing, she's on her feet. "What did you just say to me?"
"I said that you don't need my help in fucking things up," he retorts. "You've had some pretty crappy things happen to you, yeah. But you also really have a special skill in ruining everything good that comes near you. You didn't see Shelby earlier - she was so worried about you, and you just don't get it."
"Get what?"
"How special that is! Y-you know what I would give to have a parent who cared about me like that? You're lucky, Rachel, and for whatever reason, you're just ignoring that."
"Lucky?" she repeats, the word burning at her mouth like acid. "Jesse, I'm not lucky. You want to talk about luck? Let's start with you, shall we? You're the one who still has two parents and a big fancy car and a big fancy house!"
Jesse blanches. "You don't get it," he says again. This time, his voice is low, but cutting. It pierces into Rachel's skin and the hot anger pulsating around her only seems to grow. "I thought you could understand it, but you can't. You don't understand or care about anything that doesn't revolve around you because you're the most selfish person I've ever met."
'Did you really have to be this selfish, Rachel? Now look what you've done.'
She doesn't even realise that she's lifted her arm to hit him until there's a strong hand engulfing her own.
"Don't," Noah's voice whispers in her ear.
Shakily, she turns, looks up into his dark eyes, and flings herself into his chest. Somewhere behind her, she's vaguely aware of her mother calling Jesse away and asking him what the hell is going on. Blocking that out as much as possible, she just lets Noah hold her.
"I can't do this," she whispers against his body. "I can't, Noah. It's too much."
"What is?"
"Everything."
He draws back with a frown. "What do you mean, babe? What's going on?"
Rachel shakes her head hopelessly. She can't explain, and wouldn't want to even if she could figure out how. All she really wants to do is bury herself into him. When she moves to do so, however, she's stopped by his hands on her upper arms.
"Rach, if something was up with you, you'd tell me, right?" he asks. From the twitch in his lip or maybe from the slight flush on his cheeks, she can tell the question isn't hypothetical. Immediately, she looks over her shoulder at her mother, who's still engrossed in conversation with Jesse. "You'd let me help you?"
"W-what?" she forces out nonchalantly. "You know everything that's going on with me, Noah."
She's heard more convincing acting from kindergarteners.
"Are you sure?"
"Positive."
"Okay, babe," he sighs, leaning forward to kiss her gently. "He probably deserves it, but don't beat that guy up. If you need me to, I will."
"I don't," she says quickly. She's almost certain he's joking, but she doesn't want to take any risks, no matter how pissed she might be at Jesse right now. "Sorry."
"It's fine," he shrugs. "But that's not your job - it's mine. The chick's job is just to look hot."
"Noah," she groans. "Don't be misogynistic."
"There you are," he grins. "I love it when you use all those big words I don't understand." He finally coaxes a smile out of her. "Look, babe, I still don't trust your mom completely, but even I can tell that she cares about you. Let her help you, okay?"
"Noah-"
"Okay?"
"Okay," she relents, to please him if nothing else.
"Thanks." He kisses her again and then hugs her tightly. "You're grounded next weekend, by the way, but she said we can do something the weekend after that?"
"She did?" Rachel frowns. Again, she looks back at Shelby and this time finds the woman already patiently watching her. She doesn't even look too annoyed that they were just kissing.
"Yeah," he continues. "So I'll see you so soon, I promise."
"Okay," she says, tearing her gaze away from her mother and nodding at him. "I'll see you soon."
000
Shelby feels like she's trying to cross a river. The water's gushing relentlessly and the bank she started from is so far behind her that she has no choice but to keep going. The stepping stones guiding her way are slick and treacherous, and they rise up one after the other with no discernible pattern. They have to be taking her to the other side - there's no alternative, - but it's like with each step she risks falling into the river and being swept away by the pounding current.
Step number one had been to extract her daughter from the office. She wasn't expecting Rachel to hop, skip and jump out of there eagerly, but she also hadn't anticipated such a visceral reaction. So, she'd swallowed up everything in her that wanted to grab her daughter by the shoulders, shake her and then insert a microchip somewhere in her so that she'll always know where she is.
Talking to Noah was insightful in a way that doesn't really help her. He's a teenaged boy: he gets his exercise hauling his inflated ego around and he presumes that he knows what's best for her daughter like she, as a mother, could never understand. But he seems to care, and he'd appeared genuinely perturbed by the idea that Rachel could be keeping something from him. He hadn't offered any elucidation on the matter, though.
She makes Jesse and Rachel walk on either side of her to the car, but can feel them both glaring daggers at each other. When she drops Jesse off at home, it's under the promise that he'll call her if anything gets worse with his family.
In return, she receives a muttered, "You do know I have friends my own age too, right?"
"The guest room is always there for you, Jess," she replies. He smiles gratefully, nods, and walks over to key in the code for the big gates outside his house. Once he's in, Shelby drives away.
Rachel stares out of the passenger seat window with a scowl that must be engaging every muscle in her face.
As Shelby's straightening up the car in the driveway, she receives a text. In the time it takes her to read it and begin a reply, Rachel has left the car and, Shelby imagines, is already storming up to her room.
iMessage
Saturday, 20th October
5:48 p.m.
Jesse: Sorry. I didn't want to make the demon even more mad at me :S I love you
Jesse: update- Elliot's high. Dad's pissed. Mom's drunk. Wish me luck?
Shelby: Don't call my child a demon please.
Shelby: Grab some food, go upstairs, lock your door.
Shelby: Do you want me to come and get you?
Shelby: I love you too
6:30 p.m.
Jesse: I made a sandwich. I'm fine
Jesse: thanks for caring about me
Shelby: Always, Jess. I'm about to go into a meeting, but Luke will be around if you need to call him.
Jesse: a meeting? is that what we're calling therapy these days?
It's the last thing she sees before she steps into Marty's office, and the reason behind the smirk on her face. When the man sees this, and assumes it's because she's in a good, happy, and productive space, she lets out a loud cackle.
"Not at all," she laughs. "In fact, it's quite literally the opposite and I do think I might combust at any moment. I hope you had your smoke detectors tested recently."
"We comply with the building regulations."
"Yeah? That's good," she says. One hand slinks behind her to extract her favourite cushion. "Thanks for agreeing to see me so late on a weekend."
"There's no other way I'd rather spend my Saturday evening."
"Why do I get the feeling you're just saying that?" Shelby pouts. When she's simply met with a raised eyebrow, she shrugs and sucks in a deep breath. "So, in your professional opinion, what's the best way to force a secret out of someone? You know, assuming waterboarding and the like are out of the picture."
0
Marty, Shelby concludes, after her session finishes and she's driving home, is boring. He didn't want to talk about the significance of Noah's mohawk, or Jesse's family life. He obliged her for a few minutes before steering the conversation back to mundane things like her eating habits of the week and her levels of anxiety.
Luke proves to be a far better listener. He only interrupts her theory that Noah is very similar to a young Sean three times as they're lying in bed that night. When she insists that she's not just projecting - and shoots him a glare, - he returns to simple punctuations of 'Right' and 'Yes, babe'.
He does, however, make the point that it would probably be beneficial for her to talk to Rachel about 'Operation Office Make-out Session' sooner rather than later. As she's laying down to sleep, Shelby assures him that she'll do it the following day.
But, for much of Sunday, Rachel takes to avoiding her mother. She works out in the basement early, completes her homework in Luke's office and then retreats to her bedroom to watch some TV on her new laptop. Despite the protests of innocence Shelby makes to Luke in the late afternoon, she's been acting similarly. It's not that she doesn't want to talk to Rachel - she really, really does - but she just doesn't know how. Her feeble attempts at discipline in her office had been enough to almost induce a panic attack. Plus, there's the whole 'fourteen-year-old daughter engaged in entirely inappropriate activities on school grounds' aspect of things.
"Do it after we eat," Luke tells her firmly, glancing at her over his shoulder from where he's stirring a pot of rice on the stove.
Shelby slumps her bodyweight forwards onto the counter. She's been relegated from helping him cook and so, instead, is watching from the barstool.
"I'm being serious," he continues. "You're both creeping around each other and all that's going to do is exacerbate residual tensions."
She glares at the back of his head, but eventually sighs. "No, I know."
"So just do it, get it over with and then you can both move on."
"Somehow I don't think it's going to be that simple," she mutters and takes a sip from her wine glass.
Luke takes the spoon from the pot, tapping it on the rim a couple of times to shake off the excess water, before laying it down and walking over to her.
"Hey," he says, waiting until she meets his eyes to continue. "You've got this. Just be firm, be fair, and let her know how much you love her."
"I've been trying to do that. She just doesn't believe me!" she argues. Luke's pointed look halts the construction of her defensive walls. "Sorry. But you know I've been trying. And I got an email from my lawyer today saying that if Linda and I both go to the courthouse on Wednesday afternoon, we can get all of the paperwork signed and I'll officially have custody."
"Why are you making that sound like a bad thing?"
Shelby frowns. Under the counter, her fingernails begin to rake over her palms. "I- I don't know." The swirling thoughts inside her all grow louder in a declaration that this is a lie. "I don't know whether I can do this - whether I should be doing this."
"Shelbs-"
"No, I know," she mutters quickly, shaking her head. "I know. What kind of a mother am I for thinking that? But… Well, what kind of a mother am I at all, Luke? I don't… I asked her to do one thing. I asked her to stay out in the foyer and she didn't. She clearly knows that I have no idea what I'm doing, and that I'm just fucking everything up an-"
"Woah woah woah," he cuts her off. He leans across the island and lays his hands out for her to grasp. "You are not fucking this up. You're both trying to adjust to a really difficult situation. And, clearly, yeah, there's something going on with her that she's not ready to talk about yet, but you'll get there."
"I don't know."
"Look," he starts, running his thumbs over the backs of her hands, "you want Rachel to trust you and open up to you, right?"
"Right."
"So maybe that has to be a two-way street? Maybe you have to be willing to take that first step?"
She tilts her head at him. "You really are the only person who's smarter than me that I like."
"I'll take it," he grins, squeezing her hands one last time before returning to his cooking.
Shelby spends the majority of dinner warring an internal battle. Her apprehensiveness about the whole situation isn't doing her appetite much good, which reminds her that it's crazy that she's being trusted to take care of another person when she can barely take care of herself, which brings her back to her point of failing Rachel as a mother, which is, of course, the root of her anxiety.
But she also knows that Luke, with infuriating reliability, is right. If she keeps spinning around in circles, the needle of her compass won't settle, and then she'll never figure out which direction she's supposed to be going in.
So, once she's forced her food down, she stands from her stool and flashes Rachel a smile.
"Will you help me with the dishes, honey?"
The tuneless clanging of cutlery entering the dishwasher forms the only reprieve from an otherwise awkward silence. This isn't her; she's never been a particularly self-conscious person, but she just doesn't know how to shake off the tension that envelopes her and her daughter at every turn.
Open up.
That's what Luke had suggested. Anywhere has to be a better starting point than nowhere, and so she makes an attempt in the best way she knows how - music. As Rachel stacks their glasses in the dishwasher, she pulls her phone out of her back pocket, connects it to the kitchen speaker and sets her 'Chores Can Be Fun' playlist to go.
Rachel looks up as Beyoncé's voice fills the room. Shelby smiles weakly back at her.
"I always like to have music playing," she says as she begins to wipe down the countertops. "I'll have to get you linked on my account - I really do like to think I have a playlist for every situation."
Rachel peers at her somewhat curiously before nodding. "I think I'd like that." A pause follows in which the girl taps out the beat of the song with her fingertips on her thigh. "I- I'm on Noah's account at the moment, but it means we can't listen at the same time so…"
"So I'll definitely get you put on mine," Shelby tells her. She jerks her head towards the sink. "I wash, you dry?"
Met with a nod, she pulls on the gloves and begins to run the water. And then she's at a crossroads, almost entirely unsure of which direction to pull the two of them in. Still, she reminds herself, at this point, any direction is moving forwards.
"So," she starts carefully, "tell me about Noah."
Next to her, she's sure Rachel flinches. "What about him?"
Shelby shrugs in her best, casual manner. "What's he like? How did you guys meet?"
"Oh," Rachel says, noticeably relaxing a little. She sends her mother another tentative look as if just to check this isn't a trick question. When Shelby smiles back reassuringly, she tentatively begins to explain their relationship.
For a girl who seemed to have no problems straddling the boy's lap yesterday, Shelby can't help but to think that her embarrassment now is somewhat misplaced. But she can also remember what it's like to be young and exploring this whole new world of relationships. The evidence of that is drying a spatula next to her.
"So you managed to persuade the football star to join a glee club?" she smirks a few minutes later. "That's pretty good going, Rach."
"It did help our image a little," Rachel tells her. "But it wasn't exactly an easy sell. Noah was really against it at first, but he actually has a very nice voice. He's not… Well, he could benefit from a bit more training - I'd like to work on him reaching high B more consistently, - but at least he made it so it wasn't social suicide to sign up."
"Right," Shelby says, smiling at her daughter's technical assessment. "I can understand that. When I first started VA, it was much harder to attract guys than girls."
"What changed?"
Shelby shoots her an incredulous look. "Oh, come on. You saw what we managed to pull off yesterday! I just had to let things take their course…" She trails off as Rachel ducks her head, her bottom lip pulled between her teeth. It's like a fork in the road. "Rach?"
"I-I'm sorry," she mutters quickly. She swallows hard and takes a deep breath before meeting her mother's eyes again. "About yesterday. I- I know I shouldn't have spoken to you like that in the office. I know we shouldn't have even gone in there, but I… I don't know- I was just… Please don't be mad at me. Not too mad. I-I'm sorry."
Shelby quickly drains the sink, pulls off her gloves and turns to hug her daughter tightly. A still damp frying pan gets caught between them, but she ignores it. More than anything else in the world, she hates the look Rachel gets in her eyes when she thinks she's going to be mad at her.
As she draws back, she takes the pan and towel out of Rachel's hands and lays them on the draining rack. Then, she gently grasps Rachel's chin in one hand and forces the girl to look up at her.
"I'm not mad, Rachel, I promise," she says. "I was… Well, I wasn't happy yesterday, but I was more worried than anything."
"I-I'm sorry."
"I know," she sighs. "And I do understand, honey. You missed Noah and you wanted to see him somewhere you thought you wouldn't be interrupted, right?" Rachel nods softly, though she looks a little confused. "Right, and I get that, but the way you went about it wasn't okay."
When Rachel's lip trembles like she's about to burst into tears, Shelby puts an arm around her shoulder and leads her over to the dining table. Once they're sat opposite each other, she reaches out to take her daughter's hand in her own.
"I'm really not trying to make you upset, Rach, but we do need to talk about it."
It's a decisive leap forward, but that's what all of this was supposed to be about, right?
"I'm sorry," Rachel says again. She begins to trace her finger through the grooves in the wood. "I didn't think that…"
"That I'd find out?" Shelby guesses. Rachel blushes and nods. "Well it might have been in your best interest to answer your phone, then, hm?"
"Yeah, I guess."
"I need to know where you are, Rachel," Shelby says firmly. She hears herself falling into her patented 'teacher voice', but it doesn't seem totally inappropriate, so she runs with it. "I was so worried when I realised you weren't where I'd asked you to be. And then you weren't answering your phone so I had no way of knowing whether or not you were safe and okay. I want to be able to trust you and give you space and privacy where that's appropriate, but I need to be able to get in touch with you, okay?"
"Okay," Rachel whispers.
"Okay," Shelby repeats. She takes a deep breath; it's time to stand her ground. "So, because you broke that trust yesterday, next weekend you're going to be grounded. You can keep your phone, but where I go, you go. Got it?"
"Got it," Rachel nods.
"Good." Shelby sits back in her seat, nodding to herself. That's one part mostly handled, and she allows her a breath to orient herself before moving on. "Now, I need to talk to you about-"
"Noah?" Rachel interrupts, eyes wide with panic. "Please, I- I know it was bad, but please let me see him again. I'll be good, I promise."
"Hey, no," Shelby says, shaking her head. There's something deeply unsettling about her daughter's protestations. "No, that's not what I was going to say at all, Rach. Why…?"
"Oh," the girl squeaks out. She lowers her gaze back towards the table, cheeks flushing. "I'm sorry. I just thought… Because you walked in and you saw that and… But he did say that you said…"
Shelby frowns as she tries to make sense of the fragmented speech - they're still not walking the same path.
"Listen to me," she says eventually. "Do I think you're too young to be in a serious relationship? Yes. Will we be having more conversations about this? For sure. But, honey, I can tell that he's very important to you, and from talking to him, it seems like he feels the same way. I'm not going to force you to cut out someone like that from your life."
"B-but you were going to pull me away."
"What?" she asks, trying to replay the scene she'd walked in on. "Oh - when I held your arm?" Rachel's tiny wince provides her an answer, and a huge wave of guilt that sloshes over her and throws her backwards. "Rachel, God… I'm so sorry. Did I hurt you?"
"No, but…"
"But what?"
"Never mind."
"Rachel," Shelby sighs. She can't come face to face with another bolted door. Unless this is the bolted door, but then surely Noah would have said something? "Please can you tell me why that upset you? I just want to help."
"I…" Rachel bows her head again. "Grandma did that when she found me and Noah once. But then it did hurt and she was so mad. I'm sorry, I just… I didn't want you to see me like that."
Shelby's lips are tightly pressed together, every muscle in her body clenched to prevent her from jumping up, getting into her car and driving over to that woman's house to give her a taste of her own medicine. Instead, she squeezes Rachel's hand tightly.
"I'm so sorry that she did that, Rach," she says. "I love you so much and I can promise you that, no matter what I may ever find you doing, I will never hurt you. As for being mad at you, I was a little yesterday. Not necessarily because of Noah, but more so because of how concerned I was. But that's why I wanted us to just leave, go home so we could both calm down, and then talk about things. I'm sorry that me holding you like, in that situation, made you feel so uncomfortable."
"It's okay, I'm sorry," Rachel whispers. "I'm being stupid."
"No, you're not," Shelby tells her firmly. "You're not at all and I'm sorry. Now, what I actually wanted to speak to you about is that your custody papers are ready to be signed this week."
"Oh."
"Yes, so I'll do that on Wednesday, and then next weekend we can go and get the rest of your things. I'll do that by myself, if you'd rather… I don't want to make you go back in there if you're not comfortable."
"No, it's okay," Rachel says. She sends her mother a tiny smile. "But thank you."
"It's nothing," Shelby replies. "You tell me if you change your mind on that, okay?"
"Okay. So I… I'm really going to stay here?"
"Yeah," Shelby says, with the most conviction she's felt in a long time. "You're really staying here." Her heart glows at Rachel's tiny smile, but she can't wipe the confusion from her own face. "Rachel? You know that I would never be mad at you for what happened with your grandma, right?"
"What?" Rachel frowns. "No, I… I know."
"Okay, good," Shelby says, though there are alarm bells ringing in her mind. She's uncovered something, it's just not the something Rachel's trying to keep hidden.
000
For Shelby, the next week is early morning coffees and excessive concealer to hide the bags under her eyes. It's running out the house at the very last minute because Rachel spends breakfasts texting so much that she almost forgets her food is right there. It's jokes that maybe she should only let the girl have the device when she's out of her sight. It's Rachel eventually coming to pout and roll her eyes at these comments.
She breaks up one bickering match between her and Jesse when they're trying to decide on a song to sing for the booster club benefit dinner. Rachel insists 'What Is This Feeling' is the only one which will capture her current sentiment towards the boy. Jesse asks whether Shelby's sure he can't just do a solo. She signs two sets of legal documents: one to obtain full custody, and one to reinstate her parental rights. She fields three drunk phone calls from Cassie in the middle of the night and gets Luke to promise that he'll go and check on her when he's in Columbus at the weekend.
She spends twenty-four hours a day sick with worry for her daughter.
Rachel passes the week trying to negotiate a treaty between her heart and gut. The tightrope nightmare haunts her every night and, while a part of her loves the attention Shelby is showering upon her, she's becoming acutely aware that every hour she spends enjoying her mother's company is only going to make the fallout that much worse. She's no longer simply afraid that her mother will find her out and hate her. Now, she's also concerned with how broken she's going to be when that happens. She admonishes herself for their growing closeness, but can't help leaning into it all the same.
On Saturday, it takes them less than an hour to deconstruct the sanctum Rachel had built for herself in her bedroom at Linda's house. Most of the clothes she actually wears are already at Shelby's and everything else she wants to keep fits into the large suitcase. She smuggles her penguin into the bottom of the case when Shelby's back is turned. It's too embarrassing to have out in the open. They take down the few pictures she'd tacked onto the walls, and Shelby tells her not to worry about the slight marks they leave behind. By the time they finish packing, they're the only real evidence that Rachel was ever even there.
"You ready to go?" Shelby asks, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. Rachel finds herself melting into the touch and nods.
She casts a final, lingering look around the room, wishing that she could leave behind everything it represents as easily as she can the mounting putty on the walls, and follows her mother down the stairs.
Her grandmother is sat in the kitchen, drinking a cup of coffee and staring blankly ahead. She gets slowly to her feet as they approach.
"Are you packed?" she asks.
Rachel feels Shelby tightening her grip on her. "Yes," the woman replies coolly. "We're all ready to go."
A beat passes. Rachel looks warily between her mother and grandmother, both of whom are eyeing the other with narrowed eyes. She realises it's probably up to her to put an end to the eerie silence.
"Um, I guess I'll see you soon, Grandma," she says, forcing a smile. "Thank you for -" Everything? Nothing? Providing me with a bed? "- being there for me over the last couple of years."
Linda shifts to look down at her. Rachel's sure she can spot a knowing expression in the woman's eyes, but maybe that's just her head making things up again. It's been doing that a lot recently.
"Shelby, why don't you take Rachel's case out to the car so that we can say goodbye properly?"
Rachel hears her mother scoff at the instruction, but she turns and gives her a small nod. Shelby raises an eyebrow back at her, just to check, so she nods again. She needs to hear what her grandmother has to say.
"Okay, I'll meet you in the car, Rach," Shelby says reluctantly. "Don't be too long - we still need to go to your doctor to pick up your records."
"I'll be right there," Rachel assures her.
When the front door swings shut, she looks back up at her grandmother. Instinctively, she's wrapped her arms around herself, as if she can somehow control the feeling in her stomach through this action.
Linda eyes her carefully. "Things are okay at Shelby's?" she asks after a moment. "She's coping with you?"
It's a dig wrapped in scraps of concern, but Rachel's not here to argue.
"Yes. We're getting along well." It's not totally a lie.
"That's good," Linda replies. "And I supposed you haven't told her?"
Rachel's stomach clenches and churns. In opposition, or maybe alliance, her heart quickens its thumping. "N-no, ma'am," she whispers.
"Good," the older woman says, nodding. "I… I know we didn't always see eye to eye, Rachel, but you have to understand that it changes things. I do love you, I do want what's best for you, but it's still always there."
Rachel nods - she really knows that all too well - and bites down hard on her lip to stop it trembling. She can't cry because then her cheeks will flush and Shelby will notice and then she'll ask questions and she'll look at her with that face of concern and she's sure she'll fall apart. She needs to exert some self-control to stop herself from tumbling through that chain of events.
"I know," she eventually says. "I'm sorry."
Linda pats her on the shoulder in a touch filled with the awkwardness of lingering blame. "Take care of yourself, Rachel."
0
Rachel turns down the offer of eating lunch out - she can't even begin to think about food when her stomach already feels like it's digesting itself. She tries to redirect her mind, allowing it glimpses of escape from its own prison. Discussions of potential sectionals' setlists, making salads for lunch, eating them while watching a movie in the living room. She goes through the motions and manages to put up a pretty good front for her mother, but she feels as though she's on autopilot.
She's reminding herself to pay attention to the words coming from the TV when a loud snort from next to her catches her attention.
"What?" she asks with a frown through Shelby's loud laughter. The woman is reading through her medical records they picked up from her doctor on the way home. Nothing about that seems overtly comedic.
"Wait," Shelby wheezes, trying to catch her breath and wiping under her eyes. "God, Rachel, I love you."
"What?" Rachel repeats, this time tinged with a definite whine.
"Okay," Shelby starts, "this is from when you were six." She clears her throat and holds the paper up. "'Rachel presented in the ER today with 10/10 severe pain in her left arm. She was accompanied by her father who stated that the injury occurred when Rachel fell off the table she was dancing on. Given ice and analgesia at home, but Rachel had been crying for thirty minutes. Query: sprain, query: closed fracture. When Rachel was taken for X-ray, she had to be reminded which arm was injured and attempted to show the radiographer the dance she had been practicing. Discharged with instructions to ice and rest should pain return.'"
By the time Shelby's finished reading, the woman is laughing again while Rachel's folded her arms over her chest and is scowling.
"It's not funny!" she protests.
"Rach, you danced off a table, cried and then couldn't even remember which arm it was."
"So my pain is funny to you?"
"Doesn't sound like you were in that much pain by the end," Shelby smirks.
Rachel's mouth contorts into a little 'o'. "It says right there that they drugged me up! You're so mean."
"And it sounds like you've always been so dramatic," Shelby says, tapping her nose. Her grin fades a little as she sits back. "I wish I could have seen it."
The words hang in the air, heavy with guilt. When Rachel looks into her mother's eyes, she can almost see the distant memories swimming behind them. It shouldn't, but it comforts her, in a way. She's reminded that she's not the only one hauling around the mistakes of her past.
"Shelby," she says, "do you have a chessboard?"
A/N- Okay so this chapter was, you guessed it, getting too long. So I split it :S. Even though it was already supposed to be a two-parter. A three-parter? Who knows? I'll post the (nearly complete, but very self-indulgent) second half once I get to 250 reviews.
Just kidding...
Unless...
As always, everyone's support for this story really does mean the world to me. Hope you're all staying safe! -xo