I do not own Glee though one could wish...sigh...oh well, enjoy!
Chapter 3
(Berry home, November 2010)
Sitting at her desk in their family study Rachel goes over the scripted plan once again as she shakes her head, wondering how Sue could have royally f'ed up all their hard work. Glancing at the clock display on her laptop she arches her eyebrow reading 5:59 PM just as she hears a throat being cleared behind her. Turning she sees Sue standing tall yet not so proud as her face shows a slight grimace and Rachel motions for her to come in saying, "Close the door please." Doing as she is told the cheer coach closes the door and makes her way to sit in the chair Rachel has provided for her. Not wanting to wait any longer to hear what Sue has to say Rachel states, "You are going to explain to me, succinctly and clearly exactly what you did today to cause this mess. Then, well then I am hoping we can salvage a plan which gets my girlfriend back into my life before it is too late." Straightening her shoulders, Sue looks into Rachel's eyes and begins to explain, "I discovered early this morning that Patient Zero was none other than one, Shawn Rowan Sylvester." at this information, Rachel blinks once, then again before Sue continues. "He is my youngest cousin, the son of my mother's estranged brother who I know very little about except that he was conceived and birthed from a one night stand and my uncle hasn't even met him." Shaking her head, Sue goes on, "None of that matters. What does matter is that his mother is married to none other than one, Russel Fabray." again Rachel blinks. "Yes, my young cousin is the half-brother of Quinn Fabray, who I have learned knows him, has a pen-pal type relationship going on with him without her mother knowing it seems." Running a hand through her short hair the older woman says, "I tried talking to Q about him. I wanted to find out if she would be willing to get me in contact with him. I handled it wrong and it came back to bite me in the ass when I lost my temper and told her to choose between doing me this favor or being kicked off the Cheerios. I really did think at that moment that Cheerios was more important to her than some long lost half sibling she has never even met face to face." Closing her mouth with a snap the cheer coach leans back in her chair to await Rachel's response to her information. Following the movement Rachel leans forward in her chair, holding Sue's eyes as she says, "Patient Zero is your long lost cousin. He is also half-brother to Quinn who is aware of and in contact with him. You tried to demand she give you contact information on him and when she didn't you thought it best to threaten her with being tossed off the Cheerios. To Which, she called your bluff and stripped right then and there in front of all of us, giving up her position on the team. Does that sound correct to you?" Giving the young team leader a short nod, Sue opens her mouth to speak again only to be silenced with an upheld finger from Rachel. Turning to her desk Rachel presses a button on her intercom asking, "Daddy can you come in here for a moment please?" and waits as he responds, "Yes." and makes his way from the kitchen to the study. Entering the study, LeRoy glances first at his daughter then at her team member Sue then back again to Rachel as he moves to sit in his own chair that he pulls around next to his daughter's desk. Looking once more at Sue, Rachel turns to her father asking, "Did you give the name of Patient Zero to Sue this morning?" Frowning slightly at the very authoritative tone in his daughter's voice he answers, "I did, yes. I was curious to know if he might be related to her since they both are Sylvesters. Why? Should I not have done this?" Noting just how thick the tension in the room was, his frown deepened. Nodding her head at the confirmation, Rachel leans back in her chair and relays to him what transpired today at school. Once she is done explaining Sue's reasoning the young lady sighs heavily before saying, "Now, I have to figure out a way to get Quinn to accept her position back on the cheer team before I can try to get her to break up with Sam and realize that her future lay with Santana, Brittany and I. Do either of you have any idea how far back this pushes us? There may be no time to actually accomplish this now. Which means we'll have to try another iteration all together!" Both adults cringe as her volume rises with each word she speaks and LeRoy says, "Honey I am sure we can get this all worked out. Please just take a breath." Then he turns to Sue asking, "Why was it so important for you to get the information from Quinn? I am sure with your contacts you could've learned what you needed without her." Shaking her head the woman explains, "I know I could've learned about him further without her but I was desperate to find out how close she might be to him once I learned of his parentage. Do either of you remember the meeting we had about what we would need to do once we jumped back here? It was mentioned that Patient Zero may have had an anomalous blood type or disorder or some such that may have been the leading cause of the melding of the drug used on him during surgery." watching as both Rachel and LeRoy nodded their heads remembering the meeting before she continued, "If we could learn more about it we were told to do so. Also, I wanted to find out from Quinn if she had any knowledge about him because there is a possibility that she shares this anomalous blood type or whatever then it would be prudent to find out as much as possible in case it could lead to a cure or turn into something that could be bad for her. With all of this in my head I lost my temper when she chose not to disclose his information." Turning to Rachel, holding her eyes the woman is near tears as she says, "I am so sorry for breaking protocol Boss, and so much more sorry about screwing up your plan but I had to know. I desperately needed to know if this could lead to more trouble or possibly something good for all humanity in the way of a cure. I let my emotions overwhelm me when I lost my temper. I will of course allow Q back on the team and apologize to her but what are we to do about Shawn?" Reaching out, Rachel clasped one of the coach's hands and answered her, "We'll do everything we can to find out more about Shawn and also Quinn. As for why you went about this the way you did, I have to say that I do understand Sue. If I wondered for even a moment that Quinn could be put further at risk in this whole situation I would probably be all up in my emotions as well. Not to mention the possibility of a cure. Though our endgame is to stop their use of the drug first then combat it further if it gets out another way, we do need to learn all we can about how it turned into this zombie creating drug." Nodding her head the older woman squeezes her leader's hand before sitting back in her seat once more as she dabs at her nearly tear-filled eyes. Shaking his head in thought, LeRoy speaks up again, "I hadn't remembered about his blood having some sort of an anomaly. I've been focussing on finding out who he is so that we can eliminate him as a threat, so I pushed all thoughts about pursuing it further to the back of my mind until we get to that point." Turning apologetic eyes to his daughter, he goes on to say, "Sweetheart, I am so sorry about that. I know better than to look at any of this in pieces. That the big picture needs to stay in focus throughout this iteration." Nodding her head in agreement to that, Rachel tells him, "Well, we're here now with this knowledge and our minds' eyes back on the big picture. So, for now me and my team will not worry about Shawn, that will be your team's job Daddy." and she receives a nod from him before she turns to Sue saying, "As for our team, I'll talk to the girls tonight and let them know the situation. From there we'll create a plan that gets Quinn back to us as well as figure out a way to find out what she knows about her brother and whether or not she too has this anomalous blood. Until then, I believe we should get to having some dinner and let Dad in on all we've learned today. Sounds good?" At each of their nods of agreement the three "travelers" stand and make their way out of the study just as Hiram is walking in the front door. Smiling at the three of them as he accepts a kiss from his husband and a hug from his daughter, the shorter man says, "Well, this should be an interesting dinner." and the three other laugh softly as they all move toward the kitchen and the debriefing that is to take place.
(Fabray household, same time)
Having finished her homework but not feeling up to cooking for herself and the girls, Quinn had put in an order at the local chinese restaurant and was waiting for either the girls or delivery driver to show up any minute. Playing a little game of who will show up first in her mind, Quinn bet herself that it would be the girls, figuring that they were probably anxious to find out what happened with Coach Sue today. Nodding to herself as the doorbell rang through the house, almost eerily the blonde makes her way to the door and chuckles softly as she sees Brittany's face smooshed up against the glass window beside the door. Letting them in she says, "I've got Chinese on the way since I didn't feel up to cooking." and laughs as Brittany asks excitedly, "Did you get the little dumplings I like, Q?" Nodding her head as they reach the kitchen and she begins to hand out drinks from the fridge, Quinn answers, "I got all of our favorites B." and they hear the doorbell ring again. Going to retrieve their meal Quinn misses the look shared between her friend's as they wonder exactly what happened today and why Quinn didn't seem so despondent over her loss of position on the Cheerios. Shrugging her shoulders at her girlfriend Santana whispers, "I think we should tell her about Rae tonight B." and receives a nod of agreement from the tall blonde since they had already discussed this and felt it was time to let her in on their secret relationship. They both knew that Rachel had left it up to them to tell Quinn that she was their other girlfriend just as long as they informed her that they had done so, in case Quinn asked her about it and now seemed like a good time since none of them had gotten anywhere in getting Quinn to understand that they were all interested in her as a girlfriend. Once they tell her about the three of them, they are hoping Quinn's reaction to the new information will give them a new opportunity to include her in their relationship. Calling them from the living room Quinn says, "Come get settled in her girls. It'll be more comfortable as we eat and I can fill you in on what happened." Grabbing up the bottle of Sprite Quinn had left for herself on the counter, Santana follows Brittany into the other room, hoping beyond hope that whatever happened today wouldn't hurt their chances of getting their girl.
