Chapter Ten

Quinn found Rachel at the back of the bus, deep in conversation with Tina. They both sounded happy (amazingly) and Quinn didn't want to interrupt them, especially when the news she brought was less than cheerful, so she sat down quietly near Rachel.

"Hey Quinn," Rachel turned to her when there was a break in the conversation, still sounding cheerful.

Quinn took one of Rachel's hands and rubbed her thumb along the back of it. "Hey," she said softly.

Rachel knew something was up now, what with Quinn looking so somber and giving such a public display of affection. But she also knew Quinn well enough to know that she wouldn't want to talk about it now, she would want to wait until they were alone, so she turned back to Tina to continue their conversation, all the while questions buzzing in the back of her head about what Quinn would say later as she talked.

Quinn watched as Rachel chatted with Tina, then high-five'd Santana after she was given a compliment about her mini-solo. It seemed for the first time in glee, or maybe even ever, Rachel was being accepted by the group of people around her.

Quinn couldn't really share in the club member's festiveness. She was too busy thinking about Shelby. It didn't make sense that Shelby had come looking for her daughter now, of all times. What could she possibly want from Rachel? Was it money? Quinn knew for a fact that LeRoy was fairly wealthy, but Shelby didn't look like she was struggling either. She had been wearing designer clothes and her hand bag had been in the hundreds of dollars. So she really wasn't short on money, unless she was one of those fake rich people. Quinn just found it so odd that right when Rachel had been adopted Shelby had just happened to show up.

The bus had stopped so Quinn waited for her turn to enter the flow of people leaving. Outside, she found herself by Rachel's side, in a group of people laughing. "Mercedes is throwing a party," Rachel said excitedly.

Quinn tried to smile, Rachel had probably never been to a party before. Soon she found herself packed in an overcrowded car. Then she was being pulled into a room full of music and dancing by Rachel's hand. Santana handed Rachel a beer, then gave her another to pass to Quinn.

"I'm sorry I was such a bitch to you before," Santana said to Rachel. "I didn't realize how cool you were. It was mostly Coach Sylvester's fault anyway, she was pissed that her budget got cut and wanted to end glee club. But she won't, now that me and Britt-Britt have realized how kick-ass the club really is, I mean come on, we won Sectionals!"

"Yeah!" Rachel agreed happily yet a little breathlessly. By this time Rachel, Santana, Brittney, and Quinn were all on the floor dancing and drinking between beats.

Quinn felt a little dizzy and took another swig of her beer. The colors of the room were blurring together around her.

After they had been dancing for a while, and Quinn had lost count of how many beers she had downed, Quinn pushed Rachel against a wall. "Come on let's get outta here," she said drunkenly. She knew that they needed to leave so she could talk to her, but she couldn't remember why.

"Whoa there," Santana came over to them and pulled Quinn off of Rachel. "No drunk driving. If you need a ride outta here Artie's got it covered, his parents are really cool and will drive you guys home, no questions asked."

"Great," Quinn said stumbling, "Yeah, do that."

Rachel, who was less drunk than Quinn, supported Quinn on her shoulder.

When they got to Quinn's house, Quinn fumbled around with the key as if she couldn't remember how to use it. Rachel took it from her quickly and unlocked the door. Inside the house was quiet, as if Quinn's parents were already asleep or just not home yet. Rachel held a hand over Quinn's mouth so that she wouldn't accidentally make any noise.

"Which room is yours," Rachel whispered, she had only ever been in Quinn's basement. She risked moving her hand slightly so that Quinn could answer.

"That one," Quinn said thickly and a little too loudly, pointing up the stairs.

Rachel heaved Quinn up the stairs, feeling the pain in her back muscles, but more worried about the noise they were making. Inside Quinn's room she closed the door quickly and let go of Quinn who slumped over on the bed, unconscious.

Rachel looked around. She probably would've called LeRoy with Quinn's cellphone, but she didn't know his number. She would have to hope that he was either too drunk to notice she was gone, or too cool to care. He knew they had Sectionals, so maybe he was one of those guys who remembered what it was like too be in high school, and suspected that after such a big event there would be a party.

This wasn't Rachel's first party either. Her and her fellow foster brothers and sisters had definitely known how to drink and smoke problems away. All the drinking and dancing had made Rachel crave a cigarette, and she would have pulled one out of her emergency stash right now, but she didn't want to make Quinn's room smell like smoke.

Rachel wasn't going to sleep on Quinn's bed, and she couldn't pull a blanket out from under her even if she didn't mind disturbing her, though she was probably too knocked out to be woken even if Rachel could have yanked a blanket. Rachel dared to venture outside Quinn's room. The closest closet she found carried towels, so she pulled out a stack of them and brought them back to Quinn's room. There, she spread them out as a make-shift bed on the floor. As Rachel tossed and turned on the towels, she wished she had a dozen or so more beers to knock her out completely.

In the morning Quinn had a hangover, and Rachel woke with a pile of vomit dangerously close to her head. Rachel offered to go downstairs and make coffee, but Quinn told her not too because her parents would probably be up.

"I'll have to sneak you out the window," Quinn groaned, clutching her forehead. After that she could just stay in bed and pretend to have the flu or something if her parents came into her room. Thankfully for her it was a Saturday, so she didn't have to worry about missing school.

Rachel was fully prepared to jump down and out the window, having plenty of experience using this technique to escape drunk or otherwise enraged Foster parents. Though it didn't really help when they caught up with her. It was a more useful trick, Rachel had learned, for sneaking out in the middle of the night.

"Wait, Rachel, before you go, there's something I need to tell you," Quinn said, her voice still groggy and head pounding.

Rachel stopped with one leg out the window, straddling the windowsill.

"I saw um, your mom, Shelby, last night..." It was hard for Quinn to get the words out with the pain in her forehead.

Rachel stared at her. "Quinn, the alcohol is still effecting your brain. Get some sleep, okay?"

"No, wait." Quinn moaned softly.

Rachel swung her other leg over, hung from her hands, then dropped.

It was making her way through the backyard that felt dangerous.

She didn't want to sprint because the movement would draw the attention of Quinn's parents, who Rachel could see through the glass windows were enjoying their breakfast. If for whatever reason they had decided to glance out the window when she had fell, they would have seen her. Rachel quickly hid behind some bushes. Quinn's backyard was huge, it even had a swimming pool.

Working as fast as she could, Rachel moved from bush to bush until she reached the fence. The fence was high, and made of thin metal strips with big gaps between them. Climbing it would be hard, and she could be seen from the window if she tried that. Luckily, there was enough space between the ground and the start of the fence for her to slide underneath it.

She walked as quickly as she could to LeRoy's house. She wanted to break into a run, but she wasn't wearing athletic clothes, so she didn't because she didn't want to draw attention to herself. She thought about sneaking in through the window, but even if she could somehow manage to climb LeRoy's slippery walls, which she probably could given enough time, she hadn't remembered to leave her window unlocked. So she rang the doorbell.

When LeRoy answered, he took in her appearance with a raised eyebrow. She had mud smeared on her face from sliding under the fence and her clothes were torn in some places. Her breath smelled like alcohol.

"I'm not going to be a hypocrite," he said. "Come on inside and get yourself cleaned up."

He allowed Rachel to step inside the house. He gave her a slight grin with annoyance shining in his eyes. And with that he turned his back on her and went back to the living room to watch TV.

Rachel felt relieved to have one of the cool parents, and she knew she should be relieved too. But as she cleaned herself up, a ripple of disappointment and loneliness stirred in her gut. She couldn't help fantasizing that Shelby would have been furious if she came home looking like that, and that she would have made her stop feeling like an abandoned foster kid. She knew that these thoughts just came from what Quinn said, and she didn't want to get annoyed at her girlfriend for saying strange things while drunk, but she wished that she hadn't said it.

On Monday, Quinn looked considerably healthier when she caught up with Rachel in the halls. "Rachel, I don't want to freak you out, but I really did see Shelby on Friday night."

"No way," Rachel said confidently. "Why wouldn't she have come to see me?"

"Because she was afraid you wouldn't want to talk to her."

Rachel bit her lip. Her mother knew her well, which annoyed her considering that her mother hadn't known her at all for nine years. "What was she doing at a glee competition, my mom lived off of paychecks from convenience store jobs."

"Well, not anymore. She's the coach of Vocal Adrenaline now, a really good glee club, our competitor. Look I know its a lot to take in, but she wants to meet up with you, and I really think you should do it. When I wasn't busy being hungover, I did a little research, you know the anxiety you've been feeling in glee?"

"Yeah?" Rachel hated to admit it, espically now that things seemed to be changing and people were accepting her more.

"Well, it could be due to unresolved trauma, like that shit with your mom. It starts out real slow, just feeling anxiety in one place for instance, like you did in glee club, but if you don't fix the problem, it can keep spreading to other areas of your life, until your locked up in your room with your computer watching reruns of Ugly Betty, and too afraid to leave the house, because you don't want to have a panic attack in a random public place."

Rachel raised her eyebrow and gave her the 'oh please' look. "What kind of messed up psychology websites have you been reading Quinn? Because a little healthy stage nerves in glee club, does not mean that I have some huge psychological disorder stemming from my estranged mother's abandonment."

"A little healthy stage nerves? If it was healthy than everyone wouldn't be-" Quinn stopped herself quickly before she revealed the old rumors, most of them started by her. "Look, I Googled it. And besides the incredibly accurate never lying internet sources, I also have been in counseling, Rachel. I was bullied when I was younger and-"

"You were bullied?" Rachel said disbelievingly.

"Yes, in elementary school. It wasn't easy being ditched by you, and so I got pretty ugly and everyone hated me. In sixth grade I started feeling anxious in math class for no reason, so I started seeing a counselor and she told me that the trauma from the bullying was still negatively effecting me. I worked through my problems with her and everything was fine."

"So then all I need to do is see a counselor."

"It wouldn't hurt but it would also be better to tackle the problem head on, you have the advantage of being able to see Shelby, so you should take it."

Rachel was silent for a moment. For nine years, whether in the back of her mind or the front of it, she had longed for Shelby. Now, however, things in her life were just starting to get better. She could see herself living out a bright happy future, with Quinn, with the glee club, and she didn't want getting rejected by Shelby to ruin that.

"Rachel, you don't have to form this big relationship with Shelby. If you want, you can just talk to her once, find out the reason she left you. She invited you to see her today, at Carmel High's auditorum."

"But what if I don't like the reason?"

"Then at least you don't have to spend the rest of your life wondering what it is. You might feel really broken, but you can work through that brokenness. I'll help you work through that brokenness. And then the rest of your life you're free."

"Even if I did consider it, today's just too soon Quinn. I-I want to see her before I meet up with her. From afar."

Quinn rolled her eyes. "Alright. Well then I'll email her and tell her you're not coming today, and we can sneak into Vocal Adrenaline practice instead."

Rachel gave her a worried look and opened her mouth like she was about to protest.

"Don't worry Rachel. If we get caught, its not weird, their our top competitor, we'd be fools if we didn't spy on them. I'm fifteen minutes late to class, so I should probably be going, I like to make an entrance but not that much of one."

They hadn't paid much attention as the halls had emptied around them. Rachel and Quinn shared a smile for a goodbye. Rachel wasn't going to class. And not just because being not-so-popular made being late not-so-cool, but also because she needed some time alone to think. She was so nervous about going to see Shelby. Just the thought of watching her from a distance freaked her out. Maybe Quinn was right about the anxiety thing.

Shelby had emailed Quinn the directions to Carmel High School, so Quinn had one of her sophomore cheerleading friends drive them over. Quinn made up a lie about her new boyfriend going there, because glee club still wasn't really cool with most of the Cheerios, and her friend definitely wouldn't get the whole spying-on-your-rival thing, she would just think it was stalkerish and creepy. The boyfriend lie also solved the problem of her beard.

When Rachel and Quinn opened the auditorium door, a Vocal Adrenaline practice had already begun. They crawled across the floor on their hands and knees, hiding behind the chairs. Rachel kept glancing up, but all she could see was the back of a head with sleek dark hair. The sight still made her nervous. Quinn pulled on her hand signaling that if they got any closer they would be easily spotted, so they both stopped moving and peered out carefully around the chairs.

Vocal Adrenaline was in the middle of rehearsing a number. A killer one two. Rachel tried to distract herself from Shelby by focusing on their performance. The problem was Shelby kept shouting out instructions, and every word cut through Rachel like a knife.

"Good!"

"A little more to the left on that turn, Dylan."

"Make sure your breathing from your diaphragm, Becky, you look a little out of breath there."

"Jesse! Perfect! Everyone be like Jesse!"

Rachel didn't even notice that she was shaking, but Quinn did. She squeezed Rachel's hand. "Your mother kicks-ass." Quinn whispered in an attempt to loosen her up.

Rachel grinned. "Yeah, I don't think I would want to get on the wrong side of her."

"Not all strict teachers are strict parents." Quinn tried to reassure her.

"No, yeah, she wasn't really, at least not this bad, I guess she was more of a fun parent." Rachel said.

"Stop!" Shelby yelled. "You guys can stop, there's still a lot, of work to do on that number, but its good for now. Take five, and you know where the energy drinks are, I finally got some new coolers, so they should be cold..."

The crowd on the stage dispersed as the members disappeared back stage.

Rachel and Quinn jumped when the door behind them and to the left of them swung opened. Quinn involuntarily pulled Rachel farther down behind the seat.

They were surprised to see Mr. Schuester striding down the auditorium aisle. They watched as he introduced himself to Shelby. Shelby stood to shake his hand and Rachel took in a breath sharply as she was able to see her mother more clearly for the first time in nine years.

That she was dressed fancier was the obvious difference between the old Shelby and the new one, but Rachel noticed that everything about her appearance was more angular. From the sharp lines of her facial expression, to the commanding way she held herself. Rachel felt a shiver run through her. As a child the sight of her mother had never scared her before, not like this.

"I'm here about one of your students," Mr. Schuester said, "Jesse, I believe. He's been attempting to form a relationship with one of my students, Tina, and I don't know if that's the best thing with Regionals right around the corner, I don't want either one of them to get hurt."

Rachel didn't know why, but suddenly the idea of a member of Vocal Adrenaline dating Tina seemed completely hilarious to her, in a really childish way, like kids thinking kissing was gross. She started giggling, and quickly had to stuff her hand in her mouth. To her surprise, Quinn started giggling as well. Soon they were fighting not to make eye contact with each other, because the idea of them both stuffing their fists in their mouth and hiding behind chairs in an auditorium as they spied on adults was just so ridiculous and childish that they couldn't help releasing their pent up fears through the laughter. Quinn's fear of being outed. Rachel's fear of her mother.

The two adults were starting to notice the weird hissing noise emanating from the chairs and were looking around. Quinn quickly grabbed Rachel's arm and started dragging them to the far exit, where she hoped they wouldn't be recognized by the backs of their clothing and hair.

Outside they let their laughter out to its full volume. They sprinted until they were off campus. Then they started walking towards the coffee shop where Quinn's friend would pick them up.