Regrettably Chapter 21: I Can't Do It Alone, a glee fanfic

A/N: Hi, besties! (if there's anyone still out there oop) So terribly, very sorry about the delay lol. Shocked, aghast, appalled to learn that certain things in life require more effort than a cute outfit and iced coffee. Who knew? Who likes the rebrand? Truly a Moment in pop culture history, and I'm so happy to honour it like this.

Disclaimer 1) As you can probably tell, I found this chapter extremely difficult to write and I kind of went back to my very initial ideas for this story (came from post structuralist readings of palimpsest manuscripts lol wish i was kidding) so like... just go with me.. and lmk what you think. and if you hate it then it's meant to be camp

Disclaimer 2) Spoiler alert, but I touch on some stuff to do with postpartum depression and psychosis in this chapter. I did some research, but obviously I'm not a doctor and so if there's something here which isn't right, or shouldn't be here, then please, please, please shoot me a message and I'll fix it.

enjoy :)

"I don't need to be here, you know," Shelby said.

She let her pen trace lazily over the edges of the text boxes on the form she was supposed to be filling out and then shaded in the gaps she'd made. The lines were all a little skewed now.

"Really," she continued, finally flicking her eyes back up. "I'm fine."

Leroy sent her a gentle smile. "Maybe. But can you just give it a go? This lady specialises in postpartum… issues — I think you'll find her more helpful. And, well, we all said we would try, remember?"

Shelby bit her tongue to keep from arguing back and, instead, stared again at the stupid new client intake form. The lines looked like snakes trying desperately to slither off the page.

"What—what do you mean, Rach?" she asks as she wipes away the tear watering the bruise blooming on her daughter's cheek.

Warm cheeks. Soft cheeks. Cheeks that still have too much youthful fullness to always have such sad eyes hanging over them. Rachel's head shakes against her chest, her wet hair beginning to soak through her mother's tulle blouse.

"Rachel?" Shelby asks again. And then stops. Her next question rolls around her tongue with all the temptation of a loose thread; one well-calculated tug while Rachel is in this state and she knows the entire seam could rip apart. "Sweetheart, are you talking about— Remember when we said we would try to be honest with each other? Do you mean your dads, Rach?"

And something does break. Before Shelby knows what's happening, Rachel's dead weight against her jerks back to life. She pushes and scrambles and scratches her way out of her mother's arms like a panicked bird flapping against the walls of its cage.

"I— No! Get out!" she spits once she's standing again, eyes blazing with angry tears.

Shelby moves towards her, arms outstretched. "Rach—"

"No!" the girl bats her fiercely away. "Get out right now! You… You— I hate you!"

"Rachel!" Shelby tries, mustering up the sternest voice she can manage right now. It would send shivers down her students' spines, but Rachel just sneers at her.

"Get. Out," she repeats, low and deadly. "You don't ever get to ask me about my dads."

When Shelby doesn't budge, still just standing in dumb dismay next to Rachel's bed, the girl gets physical again. And, while she can't quite understand where her daughter had acquired this strength from, she feels herself being firmly shoved out of the room.

"I hate you!" Rachel shouts. "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you."

And Shelby, too engrossed in painful shock to do anything else, allows her body to be pushed firmly outside the door. It slams shut behind her and, for a moment, she simply stands in the hallway like she's forgotten how to move.

How the hell did that happen so quickly? One second Rachel was breaking down in her arms, and the next she's just… breaking down.

Shelby looks down at her stained top still clutched between her fingers helplessly and, on her hand, spots three dark pink scratches, fresh from her daughter literally clawing her way out her grasp.

How the hell did that happen?

On the other side of the door, Rachel's also still standing, head slightly bowed as she tries desperately to suck air into her lungs through the invisible smoke billowing out of her. Her heart slams against her chest, hot blood thrumming in her ears, and with every pulse her body seems to scream, 'Stupid, stupid, stupid.'

"You're such an idiot," she mutters to herself, raking her nails up her own palms.

That was close. Way, way too close for anything even remotely resembling her liking and her whole body feels as though it's been set alight — a scorching self-flagellation and a clearly effective way of warding off predators all at once.

Aside from the sound of her own heart, there's total silence, so she knows that her mother must still be right outside the door. She glares at the wood, nostrils flaring as she remains en garde, ready for another fight if her mother chooses to give her one. But then, finally, she hears footsteps making their way back down the hallway and heaves a sigh of relief.

She's trembling as she comes back into her body, tears and beads of sweat dripping across the canvas of her skin. The bruise under her eye is throbbing and she raises her fingers to trace over the hot, pulsating flesh. It doesn't feel as good as when her mother was tenderly stroking it before. A lump lodges in the back of her throat and fresh tears cloud her eyes as a sudden thought occurs to her: if she's so set on keeping the truth from Shelby so that she won't hate her, why is she doing everything in her power to make the woman hate her anyways?

Rachel stumbles back towards her bed and curls herself up as tightly as she can. She doesn't want to think about it, any of it — she physically can't think about it anymore so she reaches for her phone and headphones on her nightstand and decides to try to distract herself. It will be in vain, she knows, but she sets her music going anyway and lies back, willing her body to sink through the sheets, mattress, bed-frame. Down and down until she's absorbed by deep, dark nothingness.

Shelby flipped to the next page of the form and read the title.

'Over the last fourteen days I have…'

Shelby narrowed her eyes at the patronising language; she could just imagine the meeting where a group of doctors — her mind's eye made them all men — decided that it would be so much more comforting and friendly if they framed the completely invasive questions from the client's perspective.

It made her want to tear the page up into a hundred tiny pieces and storm right out of the stupid office.

She felt Leroy's watchful gaze boring into her, however, and so moved her pen down to the first question with a reluctant sigh.

'… noticed myself feeling more irritable than usual.'

She paused for a moment, and then checked the 'sometimes' box.

'… disagreed or argued with family/friends more than usual.'

That made her eyes flick back up to glare at Leroy. So that's why they'd brought her here. But she didn't think any of the recent arguments were her fault — not really. In fact, since she'd accidentally overheard a conversation between Hiram and her brother a couple of weeks ago, she'd been making much more of a concerted effort to avoid confrontation. There was still a pit in her stomach from listening to them discuss ways to help her manage her temper, or to get her to do what they were asking without bickering descending into screaming.

She wouldn't have had to argue with any of them if they weren't asking her to do such idiotic things in the first place.

But she really had been trying to be better. She knew it wasn't any of their faults that they were stuck dealing with her, and so, since then, she'd bitten her tongue more times than she could count and walked away. She did, however, have to deposit its venom somewhere, and so she'd taken every opportunity that her friends threw at her to argue. It was particularly easy to set Cassie off. Plus, bitching at her at least came with the added bonus of knowing it would never cause much lasting damage — they'd already been through way too much for that.

"Shelby, baby?"

Leroy's voice startled her from her thoughts, and the pen jerked across the form as she looked up at him.

"Hmm?"

"You don't need to worry so much, okay?" he said kindly. "Just try to be honest and answer with how you're really feeling."

"'Kay," Shelby muttered back. She thought for a moment and then checked the 'sometimes' box again. She would just have to try to be better from here on out.

"What the fuck is this?" she asks, slamming the top down on the counter in front of Luke. Somewhere between Rachel's room and the kitchen, defeat had given way to white hot anger. She can feel it thrumming through every nerve ending now as she slides the material towards him. "Well?"

Luke peers at her over the top of his laptop screen for a moment. Then he shuts it slowly, dark eyes never leaving hers despite the rage beaming out from them.

"That's your top," he says.

Shelby scoffs. "Don't be an asshole. She came home wearing this, right? Covered in fucking egg and you — what? — you thought it would be funny to just not clue me in on what the hell was going on?"

"Oh, yeah. It was so hilarious," he says dryly. "Look, I tried to ask her about it — she didn't want to talk. Not to me, and, it seems, especially not to you." His eyes lift pointedly to the ceiling and Shelby swallows. "Honestly, I can't really say I blame her with the way you acted today."

Shelby's eyes narrow dangerously. They rarely fight, not in ways that extend beyond eye rolls and pissing contests where they usually end up laughing. When they do argue, though, it hurts, and they leave the ring with bruised egos from each other's bloodied knuckles. She takes a second to steel herself.

"You should have told me when I texted you. It is not your call to decide what she does or doesn't share with me. That's my fucking daughter, Luke! My daughter and you— and you-"

"'And I' what?" he asks, shaking his head as he stands up from the stool. "And I was the one who was actually here to try to make sure that she was okay? Yeah. Because it obviously wasn't going to be you, was it? You didn't even take her calls—"

"That is not fair," she interrupts sternly. "My phone was off, I told you that. And that wasn't my fault, because Cass-"

"Don't start with that crap, Shelby. You can't blame this on someone else."

"I'm not!" she protests. "I'm just saying I would have answered if I had my phone."

He tilts his head, staring her down. "And you didn't think to look for her when she didn't show up to rehearsal because?"

"No, but— Well, that's because…"

She knows she should have; she'd had a bad feeling as soon as she couldn't spot her daughter during warm ups, but then she'd just got caught up in the rehearsal and—

"Exactly," Luke says.

A flicker of rage burns in the pit of Shelby's stomach at the smug look on his face.

"Because I was working," she snaps. "Because it's my fucking job and I had twenty kids in there who I couldn't just leave!"

"And your kid was getting assaulted out in the parking lot. Funny how that works out."

Shelby recoils as that one hits her like a slap in the face. "Oh, shut up," she spits "You haven't been here! You have zero fucking clue what it's been like. Every single little thing I do is wrong — everything gets me yelled at, or it just makes her hate me even more. And I've been trying, and trying and-"

"And so now you're just giving up?"

"What?" she asks, a frown on her face as she shakes her head. "No, of course I'm not."

"Really? 'Cause it sure as hell looks like you're abandoning her again to come down here and bitch at me instead."

And that one's a punch in the gut. It knocks the wind right out of her and she finds her hand moving to the counter to cling on for support as tears suddenly sting in her eyes.

"Fuck you, Luke. I have never abandoned my daughter," she hisses. "Don't you dare say that because it's not true. I never abandoned her."

She didn't. Rachel's right upstairs. She was just there out in the parking lot.

She always had her dads…

Luke raises his hands slightly and she sees the glimmer of guilt in his dark eyes. Somehow, it only serves to make her feel even worse.

"I'm sorry. Look, all I'm saying, Shelby, is that I can't work out why you have such a blind spot when it comes to Rachel."

She frowns at him. "Excuse me?"

"Oh, come on. You seriously don't know what I'm talking about?" he asks. "That's bullshit. You know damn well that if it was Jesse up there, or Maya, or Dex, or Cass, or anyone else, you wouldn't have left to give them space, or whatever it is you think you're doing with Rachel now."

"What? That's not true!" she snaps defensively. "I try harder for her than I ever have done for anyone else!"

"Seriously? Get a fucking grip, Shelby." He sighs heavily. "I have tried so hard to give you the benefit of the doubt here because I love you, and I think you're a better person than this. But you've gotta see that there's something fundamentally wrong going on. And I don't know whether you're just saying that you're trying your best, or whether you've actually deluded yourse—"

"Delusional? I'm not fucking delusional, Luke! I'm doing everything I can — I don't know what more you want from me!"

"Is that really what you think?"

"Yes!"

"Well, okay then," he says flatly. "In that case, I don't know, Shelby. I feel like I don't even know who you are anymore."

And that statement almost slams her body to the ground. She can't quite bear to look at him, instead staring back down at the scratches marring the pale skin of her hand. That can't be true. She's aware that she's not as good at resolving things with Rachel as she is when it concerns other people, but… She's genuinely not sure what else there is left to try. And she really, really has been trying. Hasn't she? So if she's still not getting anywhere…

Then what?

"Shelby," Luke starts, more gently now. He reaches out to lay a hand on her arm, but she shrugs him away.

"Don't touch me," she snarls, taking a step backwards so she's totally out of his grasp. "And don't speak about things you don't fucking understand. I've been trying-"

"I know you have, Shelbs," he says. "I'm sorry — I know you have. I just lost my temper. It just seems to me that the approach that you're taking right now, whatever's happening between the two of you, isn't working. If you keep cycling through those same patterns of behaviour, then nothing's going to change and—"

"Jesus, Luke. Could you, for once in your life, stop it with the condescending, twelve-step bullshit? Not everything has to be about you and your fucking moral superiority complex!"

His face immediately falls, and she's sure that hers must do the same. Because, deep down, she knows that while a part of her means it, another part just wants to make him hurt the same way that she is.

For a long moment, neither of them speak and the room becomes filled with the sound of their heavy breathing and the dishwasher whirring behind her. The longer they stare at each other, all wounded eyes and shrunken postures, the less the thoughts in her head make any sense. She can't quite grasp a hold of them and, if Luke doesn't know who she is anymore, maybe he's not alone in that.

Her hands are still shaking with rage and there's a stabbing ache deep in her gut. Her mind is replaying every interaction she's had with Rachel over the last month, trying to work out whether she is simply inherently inept at dealing with her daughter and, while she knows his silence is his way of giving her an out to resolve things, right now she doesn't want to take it.

"I'm sorry," she continues, not sounding contrite at all, "if I'm not meeting up to your standards in how I'm trying to get through this, but you're making that really, really fucking hard to do. And I know you didn't sign up for this, but this is what my life looks like now. So if you don't like it, maybe you should just leave."

She watches Luke take a deep breath, blowing the air out through pursed lips. Then, he gathers up his phone, cigarettes and keys from the countertop and begins to walk towards the kitchen door.

Battered and bruised in the wreckage of the fight, Shelby finds her voice calling out again before she can really stop it, "Where are you going?"

He spins back around to face her. "Are you kidd-" he cuts himself off and pinches the bridge of his nose. "I'm going out for a walk, Shelby. Before I say something I'll regret."

A few seconds later, Shelby flinches when the front door slams shut behind him.

When Leroy got up to go to the bathroom, Shelby dumped the half-completed form into his newly vacated seat, allowing herself to slump down in her own until her head lolled back against the wall. She just needed a little break from dividing herself up into little check-boxes, and Hiram and Leroy were always telling her to give herself breaks.

"Just to regroup, Shelbs," they would say. "You know, have a check-in with yourself."

How was she feeling now? Bored, exposed, like she'd literally rather be putting her own hand into a blender than sat here.

She wriggled a little against the discomfort of the jeans pressing into her stomach. It was her first time wearing a pre-Rachel pair since she'd had the baby and, that morning, she'd been so happy that all of her hard work had paid off so that she could get into them. Now, she was sure she must look like an idiot, leaning back as far as she could in the chair with excess skin still oozing out the top of the waistband.

Her eyes bore into her flesh as if she could make it disappear through simple willpower. Well, she knew she could; she'd just have to work a little harder at it. But, on occasion, she would pass through the kitchen at the Berry house and stop and stare at their fancy cooking knives. It surely wouldn't hurt that much, would it? Just to slice a few inches off. And one good bandage, or maybe a little trip to the ER later, she'd be good as new.

She snapped out of her fantasy when Leroy cleared his throat. He was standing in front of her with a raised eyebrow.

"Shelby."

She shot him a sheepish smile. "I was regrouping."

"Yeah, yeah," he laughed, handing the form back to her and sitting again. "Come on — the sooner you finish this, the sooner we can get out of here."

"That's not true," Shelby frowned. "My appointment isn't for another thirty minutes either way."

"Okay, smartass. Well, the sooner you finish, the sooner you can tell me all about how your first week back at school went."

"Oh, goodie," Shelby drawled. She made a show of lifting the pen to the paper very, very slowly and was rewarded with a soft thump around the head. "Okay — I'm going! No need to resort to violence."

She scanned down the list, stopping stock still when she reached the next question.

'… had thoughts of deliberately hurting myself.'

She surreptitiously glanced up at Leroy, who had returned to his book, and then checked the 'never' box. Only over her mangled body would she ever admit to that.

'… had thoughts of deliberately hurting someone else.'

That one was easier — she really never had.

'… had thoughts of deliberately hurting my child(ren).'

And, just like that, she suddenly felt like all of the air had left the room, like she was falling and the ground wouldn't be there to catch her.

She wouldn't, right? She would never, ever do anything to hurt Rachel. That was obvious — it should have been obvious. So she wasn't sure why she felt like this.

She would never hurt Rachel.

Right?

Ten minutes after Luke leaves, Shelby finds herself hunched over the sink in their bathroom, one hand clasped over her mouth as she tries desperately to choke back her sobs. She'd waited downstairs, standing exactly where he'd left her, until the food she'd ordered arrived. Then she figured that she needed to try to patch herself up somewhere Rachel was unlikely to come looking if she wanted to get anywhere this evening.

Not that she's really expecting Rachel to voluntarily leave her room anytime soon. She'd listened by the door for a moment and briefly deliberated over checking in on the girl. She had, however, decided that that should probably wait until she'd cleaned her hands of low blows and resentment.

She splashes some cold water on her face and quickly washes off the last scraps of makeup left over from this morning. It feels like a lifetime ago. Things weren't exactly going well then, but nothing felt this disastrous; sure, they were in a lifeboat in a storm, but now the water's rushing in from every direction and she knows she's not scooping it out fast enough.

Meeting her own bloodshot eyes in the mirror, she immediately curses herself. She's doing it again, right? Whatever 'it' is which is keeping her and Rachel trapped where they are. It has to be rooted in this self-pitying, sentimental bullshit. Before her daughter came back into her life, she rarely cried — definitely not to this extent anyway, and she can't wrap her head around why she's become so incapable of regulating herself.

Really, she feels like a kid again. Stubborn; destructive; running around completely detached from herself while simultaneously not being able to snap out of her head. And, this time, there's no Hiram and Leroy to hold her hands. Or, more importantly, to protect Rachel.

She never meant to hurt her.

'But you did, didn't you?' she thinks as she stares at herself. Puffy eyes, reddened cheeks, tousled hair. 'You are, aren't you? You selfish, fucking bitch.'

And she can't forget that she's in here, crying to herself, while Rachel's down the hall all alone. Alone on a day she was attacked by students on her own team. She should have been there to protect her. She should have gone out to look for her instead of worrying about a pointless fucking dance routine. She should have come home the second that she knew something had happened. She shouldn't have let Rachel push her out of the room, no matter how many scratches the girl wanted to leave up and down her arms. She should have forced the door back open, hugged her daughter, made her to talk to her and explain every thought clouding her head. She shouldn't have left her to go back downstairs.

She shouldn't have left her.

She shouldn't have abandoned her.

"You stupid, fucking cunt," she hisses as she slams her fist against the glass of the mirror.

And then it shatters into hundreds and hundreds of tiny, piercing shards. They seem to hang in the air for a moment before clattering to the ground all around her, ricocheting in rhythmic clinks off the porcelain and swirling down the drain. There are a thousand minuscule versions of herself staring back at her, none of them looking any more sure of themselves than she feels.

She stares down at her hand. Her knuckles are swollen, throbbing in shades of purple and blue, and there are shards of glass plunged into the scratches Rachel left on her. She watches the scarlet blood bubbling up through her skin, her insides spilling out and her own warped reflection cutting down to the bone.

Suddenly her phone begins to vibrate from where it's been discarded on the counter next to her. She blinks heavily, emitting a shaky breath as she refocuses her eyes back on her whole self in the mirror before reaching across for the phone.

Incoming call: Cassandra July

"You good?" Cassie asked as she unceremoniously dumped herself on the bench where Shelby was sitting. They were outside the auditorium at school, having just callbacks for that year's musical.

Shelby didn't look up from the spot she was staring at on the ground. "Fine, thanks." She could feel Cassie's eyes drilling into her, but chose to ignore it for now.

"Cool," Cassie said. "I'm good, too. Thanks for asking, by the way."

They sat in silence for a moment, even as their friends began to file past them on their ways home. Cassie waved off the people who sent her questioning looks about the way Shelby was seemingly so zoned out.

"What do you want, Cass?" she finally asked, turning her head just a fraction of the way towards her friend.

"Like I said, I just wanted to make sure you were okay. Kind of looked like you couldn't get out of there fast enough."

Shelby shrugged, but said nothing.

"You know," Cassie tried again, nudging her friend's shoulder, "I think you're a shoo-in for the witch. Hastings looked like she was about to cream herself while you were singing."

"I fucked up the last note," Shelby said in an uncharacteristically small voice. "I was flat."

"I didn't notice."

Again, Shelby gave no response other than kicking up a small pebble with the toe of her shoe, and Cassie began to wrack her brain to think of what to say next.

It was something she was having to do more and more often recently. In the last two weeks, Shelby had become weirdly withdrawn, bailing on their plans and spending all her free time at school in the music classrooms. She'd said she was rehearsing for auditions, but when Cassie had gone into find her the other day, the girl had just been sat at the piano, staring off into the distance like she was in some kind of trance.

Hiram had called Cassie earlier in the week to ask her whether she knew what was going on. When she could offer up no explanation, the man had sighed and explained that neither he nor Leroy could work it out, either. The only thing they could think of was Shelby's move to a new therapist, but she'd never mentioned anything about that to Cassie so she really didn't know what to think.

"I think April and I are gonna go to Dylan's party tonight, if you wanna come?" she offered. This time last year, Shelby would never have turned down the opportunity to go to a party.

But now, she shook her head. "I can't," she said, looking up at Cassie properly for the first time. "I'm going to the Berrys' house to watch Rachel tonight."

"Oh," Cassie nodded. "Watch her? Like by yourself?"

"Yeah," Shelby frowned. "What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing! No— nothing. I just didn't think you'd done that yet."

"I haven't," Shelby said. "I… It's my first time."

"Cool!" Cassie replied. She cringed at the forced enthusiasm in her own voice, but Shelby had that look in her eye that said she was angling for an argument and that was the last thing they needed. "Hey, maybe I could come, too? I don't really care about going to Dylan's honestly — I was only gonna go because I want to watch April embarrass herself in front of Matt again. And I haven't seen Rach for ages, so—"

"No," Shelby shook her head. "That's okay. I… I just wanna do it by myself."

"Oh. Sure. Okay, that's cool, too," she said.

Suddenly, Shelby stood up from the bench. "I'm gonna go — I need to get there before Hiram leaves."

She began to walk away before Cassie could properly respond and she frowned as she shouted after her, "See you, then. I'll call you."

There was definitely something weird going on with Shelby.

Shelby stares at the phone for a long moment and, by the time she accepts the call and presses it to her ear, there's a scowl fixed firmly on her face.

"You're a real, fucking bitch. You know that, Cass?" she snaps. "You've fucking ruined everything!"

"Most people usually start with 'hello', but okay."

"What the hell do you want?" Shelby asks, looking back at herself in the mirror as she uses her free hand to dab the remaining dregs of tears out from under her eyes.

"I just wanted to call and apologise again, but I'm kinda picking up some extra tension," Cassie says slowly. "You good?"

"No! No, I'm not good. I… Everything's a fucking disaster, and Rachel hates me, and I don't know what's fucking wrong with m-me," she finishes. The lump in her throat is growing bigger by the second and her eyes are filling with tears quicker than she can wipe them away. "I c-can't…"

"Okay, first of all you need to breathe," Cassie tells her. "What happened?"

"I've fucked everything up," Shelby chokes out. She brings her hand up to her lips and begins to bite at any loose skin she can find. "It's— God fucking damnit. It's really, really bad. C-cass."

"Shh, it's okay. It's gonna be okay, babe—"

"No, it's not!"

"Okay. Shelby, listen to me," Cassie says, her voice adopting a no-nonsense tone.

"What?" Shelby sniffs.

"You need to stop," the instruction comes back. "I don't know what's going on, but throwing a tantrum like a toddler isn't going to help anything."

"Fuck off."

"A very foul-mouthed toddler," Cassie laughs. "Seriously though, stop. Sit down, breathe, and then you can tell me all about it."

Shelby sits down on the closed toilet and cups her face with her hand. She's not even sure where all of that came from; she doesn't even feel any better for having got it out.

"Sorry," she mumbles into the phone, and then frowns. "But I'm still so pissed off at you, by the way."

"Of course you are," Cassie replies easily. "You ready to talk about it?"

"Sure."

The Berrys' driveway had never seemed longer, and that was including all the times she walked it while heavily pregnant. Shelby felt worse than she had done earlier that afternoon when she was waiting to go onstage for her callback; the butterflies in her stomach were squirming and flipping from behind the cage of her jeans.

All of her pre-Rachel pairs fit her again now — there'd been no need to think of knives and slicing at all.

When she entered the house, she found Hiram and Rachel in the kitchen and leaned up against the doorway for a moment, just watching. The man was racing around with his usual overdramatic elegance as he gathered up possessions to be packed away in his briefcase. Rachel was giggling away on his hip, her big, brown eyes wider and more alert than Shelby had ever seen them before.

Deep within her chest, her heart was smashing itself into pieces and then sticking them all back together so it could do the routine all over again.

In the two weeks following her therapy intake appointment, she'd been coming over to their house less and less and, when she was there, it was usually in the evenings as the men were trying to wind Rachel down for the night. Now, she realised just how much bigger Rachel looked since she'd last spent a significant amount of time with her — how much more attentive and present she seemed.

She forced her voice out to stop the downward curl of her lips.

"Don't get up."

Hiram spun around to face her, a broad smile crossing his face. "Shelby, baby! Look, Rach, Mommy's here," he cooed as he walked over to pull her into a big, one-armed hug.

She returned it and then leaned down to kiss her baby's cheek. "Hi, my little love," she whispered.

"How are you, honey? How was school?" He raised an eyebrow at her. "No trouble, I hope?"

"Me? In trouble?" she gasped, clutching a hand to her chest. "Never."

She filled him in on her day and her audition, smirking when he began to describe the first night standing ovation he already planned to give her. He waved her off when she reminded him that she didn't actually have the part yet.

"They'd be stupid not to give it to you," he assured her, and then turned to look at the baby. "We'd protest, wouldn't we, Rach? We'd get you a little placard that says 'My Mommy's the best singer here'."

"You're crazy," she laughed.

She was grateful he was distracted, though, that he wasn't probing further about her day. Some details, like being sent to the nurse's office because she'd zoned out for so long in French or how she'd skipped last period to go hang out with Sean in the auditorium back room, were better left unsaid.

"You know where everything is," Hiram said before he left, "and obviously help yourself to anything in the kitchen."

"Will do," Shelby replied.

She wouldn't.

She was barely listening to him anyway, even as he began to remind her of Rachel's feeding and sleeping schedules. Her focus was more on the four month old baby in her arms. She was studying the tiny details of Rachel's face that she hadn't seen this up close for a while and relishing in the softness of the little pale pink one-piece she was wearing. It was covered in drawings of flying birds.

"Shelbs?"

"Hmm— sorry," she said, looking back to him with a smile.

"Leroy will be back in a few hours, but you'll be fine, right?"

Shelby forced on a bright smile. "Of course we will. Right, Rach?"

"Okay, then. Be good for Mommy, Star," Hiram said as he gave each of them a kiss on the cheek. "I love you both."

"We love you, too!" Shelby called back.

Then the front door slammed shut behind him and she was left completely alone with her daughter for the very first time. She swallowed hard as that realisation truly slammed into her.

Rachel's face was pressed tightly against the glass.

She narrowed her eyes until they were almost closed so that she could squint out into the dark street below. Given the lateness of the hour, she was surprised by how many cars there were driving along the suburban road. Still, she supposed that lots of people were probably returning home after the night's festivities.

So why wasn't she?

She had to pull back from the window when it became too fogged up. That was her fault — her nose was streaming so she was having to breathe through her mouth and there were thick, fast rivulets of tears pouring out from her eyes. She used the sleeve of the old, faded NYU sweatshirt to wipe the condensation away, and then pushed her face against the cold surface again.

There was a ticking clock on the wall of the guest room reminding her sixty times a minute that she was still stuck there. Waiting. At first, she'd tried to turn it into a game. How many ticks could she count before she had to pull back to wipe the glass down? Or, how many ticks would there be until the next car passed?

That didn't stay fun for very long at all.

The next time she pulled back, she reached for her phone, which was tucked away in the pocket of her jeans. For maybe the hundredth time that night her dad's contact page became the only source of light in the small room. She pressed call and hoped with every single part of her that maybe this time the outcome might be different.

"Hi- you're through to Hiram Berry. Sorry I can't take your call at the moment, but be sure to leave a message and I'll get back to you."

Rachel let out a choked sob that continued far past the beep.

"Dad," she whimpered. "Dad, please. I'm so, so, so sorry. Where are you? I'm really, really worried, Dad. I want you to be here so that we can all go home. P-please. I love you so much, I'm s-sorry."

And then the door to the guest room flung open and the harsh overhead lighting flicked on. A sharp pain surged in Rachel's eyes as they struggled to adjust and she spun around, holding one hand up to her forehead to try to block some of the light.

"Rachel? What the hell are you doing?"

Shelby takes a deep breath as she approaches her daughter's bedroom.

"No more bullshit, Corcoran," she repeats Cassie's words back to herself. "No more bullshit. No more excuses."

When she reaches the door, she notices that the light is off. She presumes the girl must have fallen asleep sometime in the hour or so she's been gone, but, with a sigh, she reasons that she needs to wake her up anyway. She needs to make sure she's okay and they both still need to eat dinner.

She knocks lightly against the door and, getting no response, she gently eases into the room. To her surprise, Rachel isn't curled up in bed. Rather, she's kneeling up in front of her window, her face pressed flush against the pane. Her first thought, with a sickening twist in her stomach, is that the girl must be waiting for someone.

Probably fucking Noah, she thinks.

Still, she takes a moment to gather herself. If that is the case, they'll just have to cross that bridge when they get to it. Because even if it means physically restraining her daughter, she's damn sure that the girl isn't going anywhere tonight.

"Sweetheart?" she starts softly. Something about being in the dark incites the feeling that she has to whisper. "Rachel, what are you doing?"

The girl doesn't give any indication that she's heard her at all. She's completely still, just watching the street outside.

"Rachel?" she tries again a little louder.

There's still no response.

Shelby frowns until she notices the quiet sound of tinny music emanating out from headphones. She doesn't want to completely terrify her daughter by sneaking up behind her, so she instead opts to walk over to Rachel's desk and turn on the desk lamp.

As soon as the light fills the room, Rachel's whole body convulses upwards. There's a smacking sound as her head bashes off the glass and, when she spins around to see what's going on and spots her mother, she promptly bursts into tears.

You stupid, fucking cun—

"I'm so sorr—"

"What are you doing?" Rachel sobs. She pushes herself up to her feet and shoots Shelby a watery glare. "Get out!"

"Rachel," Shelby starts quickly. "I'm so, so sorry." She hurries over to her daughter's side, only to have the girl forcefully shove her away.

Her small body hunches in on itself as her breath jolts between cries. "W-what are you doing?"

"Rachel," she repeats, squatting a little to get down on her daughter's level. "Rach, I'm so sorry. Are you okay?"

Rachel just continues to cry.

"I don't…" Shelby's mind goes blank. She reaches out again, trying to pull the girl into her so that she can offer some comfort, but it's as if Rachel has created a bubble around her. One to which she is very much not allowed entry. "Honey, I'm sorry I scared you," she tries softly. "I'm really sorry, Rach. I… What can I do to help?"

"You can get out!" Rachel cries. "Get out of my room right now!"

"I can't. I can't leave you while you're this upset, Star."

"Don't call me that!" she practically screams. "I hate you! I h-hate y-you…"

And for as much hurt as Luke's words caused her earlier, this is infinitely worse. It's as if Rachel — scared, wide-eyed Rachel, who looks more like a cornered, wounded baby bird more than ever — is plunging a knife into her chest over and over again.

Shelby didn't know it was possible to be both predator and prey at the same time.

"Rachel…" she chokes out. "Please."

The first two hours were fine.

They went well, actually. The only blip was perhaps some spilled milk as Shelby got used to making bottles while holding Rachel at the same time, but there was no use crying over that. She played her favourite Barbra songs for the baby, and Rachel showcased her newfound ability to conjure up a giggle as her mother moved them in a waltz around the living room. Shelby even used tummy time to give Rachel the whole account, albeit the PG version, of what went down with Sean that afternoon.

She'd taken Rachel's silence as a solemn promise not to mention it to her dads or Aunt Cassie.

And then something shifted. Shelby would never have been able to say what it was, but she was suddenly acutely aware of everything.

She was carrying Rachel back downstairs after a diaper change when, without warning, all she could imagine was her dropping the baby down them. It was as if she could see the girl lying there, broken and silent, even as she felt her wriggling a little in her arms.

Then it was windows and doors. She bundled Rachel into the sling just to keep her close to her chest and checked every single one to make sure that it was locked. She couldn't stop picturing an empty crib and a house devoid of her baby's cries.

Her hands were trembling and her heart was thumping way too quickly against her ribcage. She tried to remember the exercises recommended to her by her new therapist to deal with anxiety, but none of them seemed to be working, and Rachel was starting to pick up on her mother's strange mood.

Shelby paced back and forth across the living room, desperately trying to settle her daughter. She'd been crying for twenty-five minutes straight now and, ostensibly, there was nothing wrong with her. Her diaper was dry (Shelby replaced it anyway to be on the safe side), she wouldn't take a bottle, she didn't have a fever according to the thermometer Shelby had dug out from the master ensuite, and she wasn't scheduled to take a nap for another thirty minutes.

"Please, Rachel," Shelby whimpered. "Mommy's sorry. I'm so sorry. I don't know what…"

Her pleas fell on deaf ears. Or, perhaps more accurately, on ears which must also be ringing with the sound of the continuous, piercing screaming.

She needed to think.

But she couldn't think because all she could hear was that cry. Over and over and over again.

Eventually, she decided to take Rachel up to the bedroom and lay her down with the hopes that exhaustion and muscle memory would simply overtake the girl, despite how clearly unsettled she was.

"Please, Star," Shelby whispered to her through the bars of her crib. "I don't… I don't know what else to do." She heard her voice catching on the tears choking up her throat. "I'm so sorry, baby."

Coming over to watch her with no help had been a mistake. This whole thing was a mistake. She didn't have a fucking clue what she was doing, and they'd all been stupid to think that she would. The only thing she was good for seemed to be causing her child pain and distress.

But she'd ticked the 'never' box.

She'd ticked the box which assured her and everyone else that she wouldn't hurt her baby. And yet here she was, not only breaking that oath, but ripping it apart so hard that she was sure her hands must be littered with paper cuts.

She looked down at them, knuckles turning white against her tight grip on the bars of Rachel's crib. And then all she could think about was how easy it would be to pull the whole thing over.

Rachel would probably stop crying if the crushing weight of a crib fell on top of her.

"Oh my God."

She couldn't believe she'd just thought that.

Chest rising and falling rapidly as her breathing picked up, she scrambled backwards on her bottom away from the baby. She needed to get away from the baby before she did something.

Her hands were clasped over her mouth, as if she were trying to shove the unspoken thoughts back inside. Or maybe it was to stifle the gasps that shook through her body at her sudden realisation that if she wanted to, or even if she didn't, she could hurt her baby. She could shout, or scream, or lift the girl into her arms and… This house was full of windows and stairs and bathtubs.

"Oh my God," she whispered again.

She backed slowly away from the screaming baby, inaudible whimpers escaping her own lips and collapsed down in the corner of the room.

"Oh my God."

That was the scene Leroy walked in on when he arrived home sometime later. Shelby wasn't really sure what was happening until she felt him prying her hands away from her ears and then pulling her into a tight hug.

"You h-have to get me away from her, Lee," she sobbed. "I'm going to— She won't stop crying."

"Honey, look at me," he said, gently grasping her chin until her wild eyes met his concerned ones. "Rachel's asleep. She's fine."

"No— she's…"

And then Shelby's look of horror grew as she realised that he was right: Rachel wasn't crying anymore.

"Oh my God," she repeated. "I'm going fucking crazy, aren't I?"

"No," he said firmly, pulling her back into his chest until she flopped against him. "No, Shelby. That's not true at all."

"I hate you," Rachel cries out again, big wild eyes staring her mother down.

Shelby lets out a deep sigh. She's fighting against every instinct in her body and brain which are screaming for her to get out. Get away from her daughter and stop making everything worse.

Because she's tried that. Lord knows that she's tried that on every scale imaginable and they're still in the exact same awful position. And so she curls her toes in her socks to rid them of the itch to run and, instead, follows an instinct to take Rachel's hand into her own.

The girl, predictably, begins to fight like mad to pull away from her, but she's the adult — the stronger one of the two, although she certainly doesn't feel that way right now.

"Get off me!" Rachel yells.

"No."

It comes out in a much more commanding tone than she was expecting and she tries to keep that surprise off her face.

"No," she repeats. "We're not getting anywhere right now, and so we both need to take a moment before we end up doing things we're going to regret." She leads Rachel over to the bed and points her down onto it. "Sit. We're both going to sit here and regroup, for as long as it takes, until we can calm down enough to have a proper conversation."

She's a little taken aback by the fact that Rachel actually follows her instruction. She's still sporting a look that would turn Shelby to stone if it got any more intense, but she's listening. She's sitting, and that's a better position than they were in thirty seconds ago.

Once she's confident Rachel's not going to make a run for it, she walks over to the desk and rolls the chair there back towards the bed until she's directly in front of her daughter.

And so they sit.

Shelby isn't sure exactly how long their silent face-off lasts for — she left her watch in the bathroom — but outside the dusty purple sky gives way to inky darkness and the number of cars passing their house begin to dwindle. She lets Rachel cry out all of her tears, and is actually rather impressed by the amount she can produce.

In an emotionally soul destroying kind of way.

It's only when she notices that Rachel is beginning to fidget in position that she speaks up.

"Do you think you're ready to have a real conversation with me now?"

For a second, the spectre of a well-worn glare appears on Rachel's face and Shelby worries that they did all of that for nothing. But then it passes and her daughter sends her a single nod.

"Good," Shelby says, masking her relief.

Before they start, she gets to her feet and gives the bottle of water on Rachel's nightstand to her. Given the level of crying, she can imagine that her daughter is probably in need of it.

"So," she starts once Rachel's taken a few, generous mouthfuls. "Can you tell me what happened today?"

"You know what happened," the girl mumbles. A tinge of pink flares up on her cheeks and she ducks her head. "I got egged."

"Who did it?"

Rachel doesn't say anything.

"Rach," she says, leaning forwards in her chair, "I need you to help me help you. I'm going to fix this, but I need to know what happened."

"No," Rachel shakes her head. "N-no, it's okay. You don't have to do anything. I'm quitting the team… I… You don't need to do anything."

"Why are you going to let someone bully you off the team?" Shelby asks. "You haven't done anything wrong here."

"Yes I have," Rachel whispers. Her eyes widen as she realises what she's said, and she looks desperately up at her mother. "Please don't— D-don't ask me what, because I won't tell you — I'll never tell you — because you'll ha— Just please don't ask— I don't want to fight again…"

Shelby stares at her. She briefly wonders whether Rachel knows what it does to her when she looks at her like that, says things like that. Maybe she really does. After all, if she hates her as much as she's claimed to this evening, maybe she wants her mother to feel as though her body is breaking apart from the inside out. Or maybe she's just a terrified little girl who feels as though her entire world is constantly crumbling all around her.

"I'll make you a deal," she says after a long moment of silence. Rachel, who was just beginning to sniffle again, looks up in worried anticipation. "Tonight, I won't ask. But you need to tell me exactly what happened today, and you need to forget everything you said earlier about groceries and walking to school and whatever else there was thrown in there. Just forget about that because it's not going to happen. You're a child and I'm your mother and, no matter what feelings you may have towards me, I am going to do my very best to take care of you and provide for you."

Rachel bows her head again to look at her hands twisting nervously around each other in her lap. Shelby seizes the opportunity to suck in a couple of lungfuls of much needed air and swallow the knot of anxiety choking up her throat.

"Well?" she says when Rachel meets her eyes again.

"Okay," the girl mumbles. "Deal."

Later that night, Shelby lies in her bed, eyes staring gauntly ahead as she tries and fails to make sense of everything happening in her head.

She's just finished sending out several emails to local therapists who specialise in teenagers, something which she's sure will probably send her and Rachel plummeting back into another stalemate, but it feels like her only option. They only barely scraped through talking about everything and dinner without another argument breaking out; every time she asked a question, Rachel would flinch as though her mother were throwing grenades right at her.

And, perhaps it's selfish, but Shelby knows she can't go on without knowing all her daughters secrets for much longer. Essentially, she needs to get a grasp on exactly how much of the pain lingering in her child's eyes has been caused by her. Without that information, co-existence with Rachel is starting to feel like a masochistic free for all; she can't exactly blame the girl for shouting about how much she hates her, if that's how she really feels. But if there's even a slither of a chance that she doesn't actually feel that way, or that her feelings could change in the right direction, she's willing to take it.

Only, she's far too much of a coward to even consider asking outright.

Another word to add to her growing list of self-descriptors. How nice.

It's disgustingly fitting, then, that she doesn't look up when the bedroom door opens, even though this is exactly what she's been waiting for.

"You didn't have to wait up for me," Luke says.

"I wasn't," she lies.

He disappears into the ensuite and she can finally roll over onto the side facing the door. It's the only one she ever sleeps well on. When he comes back, he hesitates, standing awkwardly beside the bed.

"Do you want me to go sleep in the guest room?"

Shelby shrugs, but finally releases some of the tension cramping through her muscles when she feels the bed dip next to her. Luke flicks the light switch next to the bed and they settle down together in the darkness.

"We need to talk," he says a few moments later. "Not now, but…"

"I know." She inches in a little closer towards him and lowers her voice to a tiny whisper, "I'm really sorry."

"I'm really, really sorry," he replies. Under the covers, she feels him take her hand into his to give it a gentle squeeze. "I love you."

"I love you, too."

The next morning, Shelby awakes with a start a couple of hours before her alarm. She lies there, panting and gasping for breath, before throwing the covers off herself and hurrying to Rachel's room as quietly as she can. She can't quite remember the exact details of her dream, but she has a horrible picture in her mind of Rachel lying motionless at the bottom of some stairs.

She peers in and, thankfully, finds her safely sleeping. As she stands there, however, relishing in the sound of her slow, deep breaths, she's almost certain she can spot tear tracks marring her daughter's cheeks.

And so another day begins.

She uses the extra time she finds herself with to review the auditorium security camera footage, which makes her morning smoothie especially harder to get down, and then schedules four meetings for her lunch hour. There's an inevitable fifth to be had, but she has a suspicion that it will come without request.

She's proven right, of course, as she turns the corner towards her office later that morning and finds a figure already slumped against her door. Jesse doesn't look like he's slept much more than her, and, just for a moment, she gets a gleam of sick satisfaction from the drained expression on his face.

"Shelby," he starts when he hears the clack of her heels approaching. He hastily stumbles to his feet and sends her a pleading look. "Shelby, I…"

"Yes?"

He swallows and stares at the ground. "Shelby…"

"Well," she returns cooly, folding her arms over her chest, "spit it out."

"I… I-I'm sorry."

"You should be," she says. "You knew, didn't you? During rehearsal, you knew and you didn't tell me." He bows his head, the words clearing hitting home, and she simply shakes hers in return. "I specifically asked you whether you knew where Rachel was, or whether anything had happened, and you lied straight to my face."

"It wasn't like that!"

"No?" she frowns. "Then what exactly is your version of events, Jesse?"

"I… I don't know."

"Unbelievable," she scoffs. "After everything I've done for you." She brushes him easily aside as she moves to unlock her office door and then looks him directly in the eyes. "I have nothing else to say to you."

"Shelby — please!" she hears him call.

She ignores him and locks the door behind her, only then slumping her shoulders and releasing a shaky breath. That had hurt more than she'd expected.

He remains right outside for the next fifteen minutes, but she goes about her business as usual, looking over her lesson plans and checking her emails to ensure that the rest of her day will go as intended. When she's done, she waits for an extra few moments, staring blankly at the clock on the wall. Then, as soon as the bell rings, she gathers up her bag and leaves her office.

"Shelby, wait," Jesse starts up again while she's locking the door behind her. "I'm really, really—"

"Detention, St. James," she says, pressing the pink slip she's just filled out into his hands. "You're late for class."

Cami and Sophie trail into her office at the beginning of lunch, both still levelling her with sour glares. Still, she's developed quite an immunity to those recently, and so she greets them with a gentle nod.

"Thank you for coming, girls. Please take a seat," she says, gesturing to the chairs on the other side of her desk. "I think we need to talk."

She begins by thanking them, genuinely, for looking after Rachel before proceeding to gather an account of yesterday's events from each of them. Her stomach is turning before Sophie's barely halfway done, and she spends more time looking down at the sheet of paper she's making notes on than meeting their eyes. She's sure the guilt glistening in her own would only serve to make her appear even more pathetic.

Once she's got the testimony she needs to back up Rachel's and the camera footage, she moves on to the more delicate matter at hand.

"As I'm sure you're both aware," she starts carefully, swallowing back the lump in her throat until her voice is as clear as it's ever been, "Rachel is incredibly upset about everything that transpired yesterday." They both continue to glare, and Shelby takes a deep breath before she continues, "And I understand that you both now know about my relationship to her—"

"We're not going to tell anyone that you're her mom, if that's what you're worried about," Sophie interrupts, a scowl fixed across her face. "We wouldn't betray her like that."

The second the words come out of her mouth, it drops open in shock, as though she can't believe the way she's just spoken to a teacher. A flicker of panic sets in her eyes and she quickly shakes her head.

"Um— I mean— Miss Corcoran, I…"

"It's okay," Shelby says with a small smile. At least Rachel has someone on her side, right? "I appreciate that. I don't doubt that it will be out in the open soon, but I'd like to help Rachel keep things on her own terms for as long as possible."

She finishes up with another expression of her thanks and then dismisses them. Cami, however, doesn't leave her seat right away.

"Miss C?" she says nervously once Sophie's gone. "I promise it wasn't me — I really do, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't Sophie either—"

Shelby's eyes close tightly in resignation; she's certain she's not going to like what she hears next.

"—but I overheard some people talking earlier, and… Well, I didn't hear everything, and I didn't want to make a scene, but I think they were talking about how Rachel is… You know? That she's your daughter…"

As if Shelby needed this to be any harder than it already is…

By the time the next person enters the office, she's ostensibly pulled herself back together. On her desk are several sheets of paper with specific sections highlighted and screenshots from the security footage.

"Sit," is all she says as the girl enters.

Giselle, growing paler by the second, scurries to do as she's told.

For a long moment, Shelby simply sits back and eyes her with an icy, impenetrable stare. Just as she's about to launch into the speech she's been mentally rehearsing all morning, however, the school network phone on her desk begins to ring. It's an infrequent occurrence, and that makes her take pause.

"One moment," she says to Giselle, who looks far too grateful about the interruption, and then answers it, "Hello?"

"Miss Corcoran? It's Suzanne," the school secretary says. "I'm afraid there's been an incident involving some of your students."

"An incident?"

"An altercation of sorts by the looks of them," the woman says. "I think only one of them will need to go to hospital." Shelby sits up, suddenly a lot more concerned. "But I think you'd better get up here right away."

"Which students?" she asks quickly.

Please not…

"Parker Daniels, Jesse St. James, and Rachel Berry."

A/N: thank you sm for reading! and also just want to say a huge, huge, huuuuuuuuuuuuge thank you to everyone who has continued to ask me about this story. made me so happy every single time and i promise not to disappear for so long again. most likely will be a couple of months bc im in the depths of a scathing Marxist critique on the neoliberal propaganda that was cinderella 2021. again, i wish i was kidding. and i wish that material girl wasn't such a life-altering bop so i wouldn't have to be such a raging hypocrite

anyways, please do let me know what you thought! and, in return, I will make sure that Shelby doesn't have any more bathroom breakdowns for a while so that Rachel can get a word in edgeways. :)

much, much love xo

edit- forgot to say, legit pls just stick with me for 2 more chapters until everything is out in the open, and then things will start to cheer up a bit