I do not own Glee or any of the characters created by Ryan Murphy. If I did we would see way more of Shelby. This story will contain spanking of a teenager. If that's not your thing stop reading now and go read something else.

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Rachel groaned and slapped her alarm for the second time. Figuring she had better get up, she slid out of bed and, barely awake, walked towards the bathroom. Emerging a while later, showered and dressed, Rachel felt a bit more awake as well as hungry. Grabbing her shoes, Rachel finally headed downstairs, wishing that she had her phone to pocket as well.

She had survived the rest of the weekend with her grandparents and wasn't sure how she felt about going back to school. Her mother had made it clear that Rachel would be taken to school, picked up from school, and would basically have no time with her friends until her grounding was over unless it was at school.

Shelby was going to allow Rachel to have her phone during school hours but had told Rachel she would be checking the phone for any inappropriate behavior. When Rachel asked what she meant Shelby had told her that only calls and texts to her were allowed. Rachel had looked at her mother as if the woman were crazy but one raised eyebrow was all it took for Rachel to merely nod and finish her dinner without another word.

"Are you ready to get back to school?"

Rachel slid into her seat and merely looked at her mother. The woman was already dressed and looked far too perky for this time of morning. She was holding a mug of coffee in her hands and slid into the chair across from Rachel as the teen began to eat the fruit and bagel that was already in front of her.

"Well?" Shelby pressed. "Are you ready for school?"

"If you are asking whether or not I have my things gathered in order to go to school, then the answer is yes. If you are asking if I am ready once more to walk the halls of McKinley then no, not really."

Shelby chuckled. "Leave it to you to turn a simple question into a multi-part one."

"And what do you mean by that?" Rachel demanded finishing her bagel.

"Nothing at all, baby." Shelby finished her coffee and stood. Placing the cup in the sink she poured the rest of the coffee from the carafe into a large travel mug.

"You have ten minutes, Rachel."

"Are you sure you can't just drop me at the corner?" Rachel asked as Shelby slowly began to pull into McKinley's parking lot.

"We have been over this, Rachel. I will be dropping you off at the door, watching as you walk into the building, and will be picking you up in the same place. I know you have glee and I have VA rehearsal as well. I might be a bit late. Wait inside the building until you see my car."

"Come on, Mama," Rachel turned her eyes to Shelby. "Kurt's dad can give me a ride home. Please?"

"No," Shelby held up her hand. "Not another word, Rachel. This is the consequence of what you did at the mall."

"Fine." Rachel opened the door of her mother's range rover and exited. "But I am not happy."

"Duly noted. Love you." Shelby smiled as Rachel turned on her heel and huffed into the school. "Nice storm out," Shelby muttered to herself as she finally pulled away from the curb.

"Berry!"

"Yes, Mercedes?"

"Why was Shelby dropping you off and waiting at the curb like that?"

Rachel took a deep breath, straightened her skirt, and closed her locker door. "If you must know it's because I'm grounded and on what Shelby calls complete lockdown."

The girls began to walk down the hallway and were soon joined by Kurt, "Did I hear you say lockdown?"

Rachel nodded, "You did. Apparently my mother didn't like it very much when I ditched my grandparents at the mall last Friday."

"Wow," Mercedes whistled. "She's really taking this mom thing and running with it. I mean, you've been with her for what, a week?"

Rachel nodded, "And your point, Mercedes?"

"My point is that you've been grounded the entire time not to mention the hell she put us through at the Carmel track." Mercedes stopped for a moment and then nodded to Rachel. "You are totally badass, Berry. Either that or you have a death wish ticking off Shelby Corcoran like that."

"Please," Rachel huffed. "I do not have a death wish though I am starting to wish that my plan had succeeded and I was spending this time alone. Being grounded by Shelby Corcoran is awful. Inmates have more freedom than I do."

"Oh come on," Mercedes continued. "It can't be that bad."

"Are you kidding?" Rachel began to walk towards her first class with Mercedes and Kurt next to her. "No electronics of any kind, a bedtime of a toddler, and constant supervision unless I'm at home."

Kurt stopped at the door to his first class, "Grounding at Chez Corcoran sounds vastly different than a grounding at Chez Berry."

"You have no idea, Kurt." The warning bell cut Rachel off and she grumbled. "Damn it, now I need to hurry. The last thing I need is the school calling my mother to tell them that I was late to class."

Leaving her friends behind her Rachel hurried down the hall oblivious to the people around her or the fact that Mercedes and Kurt were still watching her. "You think Ms. Corcoran would cut her a break if we apologized for Friday?"

"I think Ms. Corcoran would kill us and hide our bodies, Kurt, if we even tried." Mercedes left the boy to his class as she walked across the hall to enter hers.

Rachel sat quietly watching everyone come into the glee room. Mr. Schue had yet to arrive and she truly wasn't sure how she felt about the man at this moment. Finding out that he was responsible for feeding all of Shelby's fears to her on a silver platter left a bad taste in Rachel's mouth. If the man had simply stayed out of it then Shelby probably never would have left in the first place.

As the glee club talked occasional glances were thrown at Rachel and her unusual quietness. Will Schuester finally entered the room and Rachel sat up even straighter.

Facing the teens, he leaned against the piano and smiled. "Okay, people let's get down to it. Our assignment this week is family and what it means to us."

"Come on, Mr. Shue, seriously, can you have picked a crappier topic?" Puck's voice rang out. "Not that it can be easy to constantly keep finding assignments for us, but geesh, not like we're gushing to talk about our families."

"Well maybe this will be a good time to start. Find a song that says family to you," the glee coach pressed on despite the groans. "Certainly there's someone here who doesn't mind this assignment. Rachel?"

Looking at the man in front of her Rachel stood, "You would think that I would not have a problem with this assignment wouldn't you? However, since you're one of the main reasons my mother left me before deciding to ignore your idiotic comments then maybe, just maybe, I don't like the idea of the assignment much either. After all, there aren't really too many songs out there that scream gay dads and surrogate mother are there?"

"Damn Berry, what has Shelby done to you?" All eyes turned from Rachel to Mercedes. "I'm just saying," she held up her hands, "that since Rachel here has moved in with her mom she has grown some."

"What? You're living with Shelby?" Will now had the teens' full attention.

"Yes, despite what you tried to do with your overbearing interference. I am currently residing with my mother and despite the fact that I am on lockdown for behavior she did not appreciate things are going swimmingly."

"Rachel, what are all these jabs about me interfering between you and Shelby?"

Rachel rolled her eyes, "As if you don't know." Sitting down again the girl crossed her legs and arms and began to stare into space.

Deciding to ignore the mini-diva for now, Will began practice wondering exactly what Rachel was talking about.

"Rachel, care to tell me exactly what you were talking about before practice today?" Will tried before Rachel left the room.

Turning towards her teacher Rachel sighed deeply. "If you don't know then I'd really rather not inform you as you probably won't believe me. Just think about a conversation you had with my mother before she took off. Now, if you will excuse me, I need to be waiting where she told me to so she can pick me up. The last thing I need is to be in more trouble because of you."

Will watched as Rachel stormed from the room and then slowly turned and headed to his office.

Sliding into her mother's car Rachel was quiet. Knowing the question was coming she held up her hand, "Before you ask, school was fine, glee was fine, and Will Schuester is an idiot. Can we please go home? And if you don't mind I would like to ride in silence and not experience an interrogation."

"Good afternoon to you as well, Rachel." Shelby's quip was ignored and the woman once more promised herself to send her parents an apology note of some sort for not killing her or sending her away to boarding school when she was Rachel's age.

The slamming of the car door was the only sound made since Shelby's comment and she watched her daughter bolted for the house, slamming the door leading into the house behind her as well. Slowly gathering her things, Shelby followed Rachel into the house, and listened to the sound of pacing coming from Rachel's room. Deciding to leave well enough alone for a bit, Shelby headed to her room and slipped from her school clothes into sweat pants and a t-shirt.

Still hearing the pacing, Shelby was about to go past Rachel's door when she heard a loud crash. Opening the door to Rachel's room Shelby's hazel eyes opened wide. "Rachel Barbra Berry, what the hell do you think you're doing?"

Whirling from the bookcase with a heavy book in her hand, Rachel let it drop before once more ignoring her mother and moving onto another book. It received the same treatment at the first and Rachel was shocked when she felt a hand on her shoulder. "Stop it, Rachel."

It was Shelby's turn to be shocked when Rachel fell into her arms. Hugging her daughter, Shelby finally managed to get them to the bed where she was able to pull Rachel into her. "What's wrong, baby?"

Rachel said nothing but clung to her mother as if her life depended on it. "Why did you leave me, Mama? The first time? Why didn't you fight my dads for pictures or visitations or something? I shouldn't have had to grow up without you."

Rachel's tears began in full and Shelby could do nothing but hold the girl while she released the emotions. Finally feeling Rachel calm Shelby cajoled the teen into moving once more. Placing her back against the headboard, Shelby ran her fingers through Rachel's hair as she put her head in Shelby's lap.

"Ready to listen?"

A quick nod was her only response and Shelby continued moving her fingers through Rachel's hair as her eyes focused on her daughter's head. Handing Rachel her lamb, Shelby smiled as the girl tucked it under her arm. "I'm not sure where to start, Rachel. I was young and I never thought it would be so hard to give you to your dads. I felt that I was helping them have the one thing they couldn't have alone and I knew you would be loved and cared for by them. What I didn't count on was falling in love with you before you were even born.

"I sang to you every night and the first time you kicked I felt like running away and never coming back. I knew that I could do that but I couldn't do that to Hiram and LeRoy. They're good men, Rachel, and they wanted you as much as I wished I could keep you."

"But why did you let them keep me away from you?"

"I thought it would be for the best. Open adoption wasn't as common then as it is now. Everyone thought that severing all connections was best for the child and the birth parent. Now I know how wrong all those people were. The best thing would have been to have some type of contact but your dads were worried, I think, that if I had access to you then I would try to get custody."

"Is that why they made you sign the contract?"

"I signed the contract because I wanted to show them that I trusted them to raise you. I never realized until they took you from me that I had signed part of my heart away."

"Did you ask them to end the contract?" Rachel's voice was so small and vulnerable that Shelby's heart began to break once more.

"I did. About two weeks before you were born. They wouldn't budge and rather than fighting them I chose to do what I felt was best for you at the time."

"I don't understand."

"I was young, Rachel. So young and I didn't have the means to support you. You were going to be with two loving parents that would dote on you. I decided to go ahead and make my way to New York. The thing is, nothing about it excited me anymore. I tried out for shows, hell, I even made it into a show that was going to be on Broadway."

"Bubbe told me you came home instead."

"I did. I didn't want that life anymore, baby. I wanted you and the best I could do was to move to the same city I knew that you were living in and hope that I might catch a glimpse of you someday before you turned eighteen."

"You really left a possible Broadway career for me?" Rachel finally sat up and wrapped her arms around her mother before burying her face in Shelby's neck.

"I did and I would do it again in a heartbeat. I love you, baby. More than anything in this world and I will never forgive myself for leaving you without fighting for some type of contact when you were born."

"I'm glad you found me, Mama."

"I am too, Rachel. Now, care to tell me why you felt the books needed to suffer?"

Rachel pulled back and intertwined her fingers with Shelby's. "Mr. Schue gave us an assignment about finding a song today."

"And?" Shelby pressed knowing there was more to it than that.

"It's supposed to be about what family means to us," Rachel final said. "The thing is there is no perfect song for what family means to me. I mean I have two gay dads. A mom who was a surrogate but is now in my life and newly found relatives."

"What song immediately popped into your head when Will gave you the assignment?"

Rachel was silent for a while and Shelby thought perhaps she wouldn't answer when the song began to pour from Rachel in the haunting melody;

Mama, who bore me,
Mama, who gave me
No way to handle things,
Who made me so sad.
Mama, the weeping,
Mama, the angels
No sleep in heaven
Or Bethlehem

"Spring Awakening, huh?" Shelby felt a lone tear travel done her cheek. "Oh Rachel." The woman kissed the top of her daughter's head. "I am so sorry."

Rachel shrugged, "And it doesn't help that I'm still rather upset with Mr. Schue."

"Why?"

"Because he scared you away the first time you made contact. My dads wanted to move the therapist into the house because of what you'd done and how I reacted. I needed you, Mama, and you left."

"I know, baby and I was wrong."

"I'm glad you're here now." Rachel moved so that she was looking in her mother's face. "Promise me that you won't leave again."

"I promise, Rachel. I am here for the long hall. I will be there at your graduation, and your first Broadway show, and your wedding. I will be there to hold my first grandchild and fight your dads for babysitting rights."

Rachel began to giggle at the picture that popped into her head. "Promise me you won't hurt them."

"I make no promises on how selfish I may be in regards to future grandchildren, Rachel," Shelby teased instantly lightening the mood of the room.

"I'm sorry about the tantrum."

"I think you need to apologize to your books, Rach," Shelby said lightly. "Just clean up your mess and come down to help me with dinner."

Rachel nodded and began to climb over Shelby to get off the bed. "Mama, what are you doing?" Rachel questioned as she found herself face down over Shelby's lap.

"You thought I would let a perfect opportunity like this pass me by?" Shelby gave Rachel a love pat before releasing the girl. "I love you, Rachel. Never forget that."

Rachel grinned as her mother finally released her, "I won't. I love you too, Mama."

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First the disclaimer: I in no way had any part in writing Spring Awakening or the song Mama Who Bore Me. I used it solely as a way to convey Rachel's feelings here. The fact that Lea Michele sang this on Broadway had no bearing what-so-ever in me choosing the song. G

For those of you who have not seen Lea Michele as Wendla please look it up on Youtube. You will be pleasantly surprised.

Secondly: Thank you all who have sent me PM, have added this story to your favorites list, or have added it to your alert list. It means a lot to me.

RL has been interfering but I am still writing this story and I promise you that there is more to come in the lives of Rachel and Shelby.