A/N: Okay everyone, I need to bring out the virtual hugs again for this one. I certainly needed one after I wrote it, and goodness knows Shelby needs as many as she can get. Keep an eye out for Brenda Castle!

Unlike the morning before, when waking up was easy because she barely fell asleep in the first place, Thursday morning turned into one that involved her contemplating causing the alarm clock physical harm. Shelby had a great deal of monotony over the last few years and usually the simple habit of waking up was enough to get her out of bed and going for the day, but every now and then she stared at the ceiling for minutes at a time, listening to the idiotic radio disc jockeys and considered calling in sick. It was one of those days but as usual, she eventually rolled out of bed and got ready for work. She had too many people depending on her to flake out on them so she never did.

She felt better after a hot shower. It wasn't unusual for her to wander around her room or even into the hallway as she brushed her teeth, and it was a good thing she had that morning for she heard the faint beep of her phone from down the way. Her bare feet carried her to her study and with a sigh and an upward roll of her eyes she realized she had left her cell phone in her bag overnight. She hated it when she did that. She pulled it out of a pocket and saw she had three new voicemails and a quarter battery-life left.

Who had called? The toothbrush hung limply from her lips as she used both hands to navigate her Blackberry. She checked the call log as she moseyed back towards her bedroom and her heart thudded when she saw she had two missed calls last night from Rachel and one this morning from Will Schuester. She was concerned about the former more-so than the latter: Why did Rachel call her twice? Was she all right? Did the costume go over well? Was she made fun of for it? Shelby remembered back in her high-school days when she was pelted with spit-wads whenever she entered the school in her drama costumes or her choir outfits (they were terribly old-fashioned, like they were going for English tea or something and not dancing and singing to contemporary pop hits), and her stomach clenched as she blamed herself for bullying on Rachel that might not have occurred at all. Shelby scolded herself for foolishly forgetting about her phone; her inability to answer her daughter's phone calls was just another bullet on the enormously long list of missteps she had made with the girl.

She paused her slow movements as she passed her guestroom. The hand that held her phone fell to her side while the other resumed the brushing of her teeth, but its movements were slow and pensive as she peered through the dark doorway. It could have been because she had just been thinking about Rachel, or maybe it had been a coincidence, but she stepped in and flicked the switch.

Some part of her had always thought about Rachel when she looked at her guest bedroom, as though if it were ever possible for her to meet and know her daughter, that room could be hers. Suddenly it was possible, yet Shelby had a bad feeling about it all. It was just hard to imagine that Rachel's dads would ever be cool with their little girl staying the night over at her surrogate mother's home so they could have time to bond.

It was scantily decorated; she left it simple and livable so it would be tolerable for her family or friends if they visited while still a blank slate for the daughter she had never known to make her own. Shelby tried to be hopeful that it would finally happen, but that unpleasant feeling in her gut convinced her to put it out of her mind.

She turned off the light and returned to her own room. She plugged in her cell on its charger and dialed the voicemail, setting it to speakerphone so she could finish with her teeth in the adjoining bathroom.

"You have three new messages. New message…"

"Hi M-…Um, it's Rachel. I was just calling to say thank you again for your help. My friends all love my costume, and Mercedes keeps asking me where I got the sunglasses. I've been telling her it's a secret, but honestly I have no clue where you found them, so I guess I'll keep playing coy. The dress is great. It's really nice to be able to sit down in costume again without some pellet-filled creature going up my—"

"End of message. New message…"

"Hi, it's me again. Sorry about that, I have this habit of talking too much at times. I can only assume that is a genetic gift from my fathers. Not that you're inarticulate! You have a remarkable brain-mouth filter, is what I mean. Never mind. I-I just wanted to let you know that I appreciate your help, and I hope we can spend time together again soon. Maybe we can see about your cooking like you offered or go out to Breadstix and ta—"

"End of message. New message…"

"Hey Shelby, it's Will…Will Schuester. Look, uh…we need to talk about some things. Face to face. If you can, please try and drop by my office at McKinley sometime today. If that doesn't work, just give me a call back and we'll figure something out."

"End of message. There are no more messages. You are at the main menu. Press—"

Shelby clicked off the call and the room fell quiet again. She had finished her dental routine a minute before and had since been standing over the phone with her arms crossed in front of her, listening to the recordings. She had been smiling during the first two, especially when she realized that Rachel must have given up after the second botched message, but the smile had vanished upon hearing Will Schuester's voice. If Rachel had mentioned where the costume had come from to her Glee friends, then Will probably overheard and was calling out of concern for the wellbeing of his club. She recalled how he had boldly accused her of trying to spy on New Directions and with Regionals just around the corner she understood his worry.

She thought about trying to stop by between her classes, but even with reduced travel time between the two campuses because she wouldn't be fighting rush-hour traffic, their meeting would be short. Shelby decided that since she was only going to be introducing their vocal arrangements that afternoon in Glee, she could hand out the sheet music and send them home to learn it. It wouldn't have been the first time she had taken that approach; she liked them to be fluent enough to read and understand sheet music, and sometimes that involved letting them figure it out for themselves. Since it was nearly the end of the school year even the freshmen knew what they were doing, so by tomorrow everyone would have a basic idea of how the complicated Gaga number would go. She just crossed her fingers she wouldn't interrupt McKinley's Glee rehearsal if she stopped by after hours, making her trip there in vain. She had no interest in spying on them, though she would have difficulty objecting to watching Rachel sing again.

Forty minutes after classes let out at Carmel, Shelby Corcoran made her way through the respectably clean halls of McKinley High School. Classes had ended there a little more than a quarter-hour before; a few kids still hovered and socialized in the hallways and several uniformed teenagers went off to their various after-school sports and clubs. Down the way was what Shelby could assume was a faculty member holding an outdated badminton racket, and she carefully approached with a polite smile gracing her face.

"Excuse me, I have a meeting with Will Schuester—"

"Get in line, honey," sniggered the brunette with a snort. Now that she was near the woman, it was hard to miss her instability or her dilated pupils. She recently huffed something, and by the smell of her it was probably rubber cement. Shelby took a step back.

"Do you know where I might find his office?"

"Sure, darlin', let me show you the way," she said, and Shelby stiffened when the intoxicated woman linked arms with her and forced her down the hall. "He's down the Es-pan-yeol-a wing, which in my opinion is so hot." She snorted again, and Shelby hypothesized that was a result of hitting too many hard drugs. She let the nutty lady drag her down the hall just the same until the many flyers on the wall included those for several language clubs.

"Oh Schuuuuue!" the lady sang, pulling Shelby's reluctant form in a doorway with her so they were far too close for comfort. She was never more relieved to see a competing Glee coach in her life, and Will stood in his seat with his mouth slightly open at the sight of them. "Why didn't you tell me you were taking appointments? I would have been first on your list."

"Uh," Will said, his face flinching noticeably to the flirty wink the woman sent his way. When she fearlessly licked her lips, he coughed, thanked her for coming by and pulled Shelby by the hand into his office before lunging forward to close the door on the other woman. They both heard a clear, "Call me!" before it snapped shut. Shelby smirked in amusement when he banged his head on the wood.

"You good?" she asked him, her thumbs hooking in her pockets. It looked like he had a long day. That, or he was preparing to blame someone for sabotaging his cherished glee club. One or the other.

"Yeah," he sighed, and took the two long steps back to his side of the desk in his tiny office. She looked around and found the Spanish theme very cute. She gestured to his purple armadillo and quipped, "Que interesante."

"Gracias. Bienvenidos a mi oficina," he said with sweeping wave of his arm as he dropped back in his chair. Though she had been turned on a bit when he smoothly welcomed her to his office, it was a good thing for Shelby's extremely rusty Spanish that was where it stopped. She sat down in the seat across from him, her hands placed on her lap, and judged from Will's expression he wasn't interested in flirting with her today any more than he had been interested in flirting with the astronaut that had been her escort to his office. She was glad for that, because while she still thought he was completely adorable, this was a business meeting.

"I know why you called, and don't worry about it. My reconnection with Rachel is not some kind of plot to mess with you guys before Regionals."

He shook his head and said glumly, "I'm not worried about Regionals."

She stared at him in confusion. Only weeks before when she first met him, she had actually been surprised when he approached her and insinuated that she was spying on his club. The thought hadn't even crossed her mind when she asked Jesse to get close to her daughter, and when she replied a simple "Noted" to Will Schuester, she had, in actuality, made a mental note of it. Now that wasn't the concern?

"It's Rachel," he said meaningfully. "She's special. She's got all the best of you: she's strong-willed, dramatic, wildly talented."

Wildly talented, huh? That was either a really good guess or he had Googled her. Despite her strong objections, her friends from her college years posted more than one video of her on YouTube belting herself silly: from dancing absolutely sloshed between transvestites at gay bars on karaoke nights and not missing a note, to a couple of leaked tapes of her performing at weddings. As cranky as she was at her college pals, she could hardly be ashamed considering her natural talent, though there were some exceptions. She really, really hoped he didn't stumble across the recording of the 1990 bar mitzvah that involved her sporting a feminine but still very unsightly Jew-fro.

She had forgotten what a thrill it was to receive such genuine compliments. Usually, she was described with words such as "ambitious," "clever," and "assertive" that had as many negative connotations as they did positive ones. It didn't hurt her self-esteem to hear that her daughter inherited what she, and apparently Will Schuester, regarded as some of her better qualities. So she smiled, delighted, and wittily said, "Go on…"

"But she's not hard like you."

Shelby's face fell, and a familiar ache of self-loathing filled her gut, knowing that "hard" was one of those descriptive words that she despised. "Hard" as easily meant "cold," "difficult," "cruel," and "unfeeling" as it did "tough" or "thick-skinned."

"She's fragile, over-emotional. And she's clearly convinced herself that you are as committed to this reunion as she is, and I don't think you are. You're not prepared to have a teenage daughter…are you?"

Shelby felt completely transparent. She had been sitting in front of this man for 30 seconds and he already had seen what was inside of her dark, lonely heart. It wasn't as if she had told anyone – as if she had anyone to tell of these things to – but Will said with no holds barred what she knew in her mind to be true. She wasn't ready for a teenage daughter, and she wasn't even sure whether she wanted one. She admired and adored Rachel but she would never be content standing to the side uselessly and watching her girl live a happy life with her devoted daddies. It hurt her too much.

She tried to smile it off, but the artificial look faded as quickly as it appeared and she looked away. She could easily play off his concern, tell him everything was fine and that she was fine, but she was not so deceitful. She wasn't even able to lie and convince herself that she could brush aside 16 years of longing and move on from this.

"I can't have any more kids," she admitted finally before she changed her mind, and she made direct eye contact with him to emphasize the significance of her confession. She didn't falter. She must have seemed as though she shared the truth often while in actuality she couldn't remember the last time she had told anyone, barring her compulsory admission to Principle Lancaster a couple days before. Her gaze fell; it was hard to think back to that difficult time in her life when everything was falling apart, but it was necessary so she continued, "There were issues a few years back, then some surgery, and that's that."

It was hard to see his face so full of pity, but she forced herself to and told him with a spark of strength that she no longer had, "I really wanted a daughter." She paused, her words failing her as she looked at Will, a man she had no choice but to consider a good friend at this point. She hoped he understood that she was not heartless and hard as everyone thought. She felt so weak inside. "That's why it was so important for me to make that bond with her." Out loud, it sounded as selfish as it was: Where in her explanation was any interest in Rachel as a person or her wants? She wasn't ignorant to that. "But you're right." She shook her head, the hatred for herself deep and unwavering, and she acknowledged her pathetic wistfulness. "I wanted my baby back. Rachel's an adult now; she doesn't need me."

She had said it—the worst of it was out. Greed was a terrible thing and she had not been immune to it. She looked straight at Will, waiting for his condemnation. There was nothing he could say to her that she hadn't already punished herself relentlessly for since meeting Rachel.

"Shelby…I can't tell you what to do," he began, and if her chest wasn't hurting so painfully from dealing with an overflow of repressed emotions, she might have laughed at the quirk of fate. Wasn't it just a short time ago the roles had been reversed and Shelby had been counseling him on how he should live his life? "But if you really love her, you have to tell her what you just told me."

She knew he was indisputably correct, and it killed her. She was so sick of continually letting down her daughter, and despite the girl's intelligence, Shelby knew that Rachel wouldn't be able to truly empathize with her mother's struggles. As Will had told her, Rachel was fragile. Shelby remembered her daughter's heartbreak when she had admitted to her that she kept her existence a shameful secret, how wretched of a human being she felt afterward, and how that little detail was the very tip of the iceberg that was Shelby Corcoran's life. Certainly the idea of Rachel understanding everything was absurd, but even more so was suggestion that she try explaining it all.

Without doubt, it would be a very long story. It would start with the moment Shelby knew for sure she was pregnant and how alien she felt in the body that was growing someone else's child. Then, as that little fetus began morphing into a human, Shelby's feelings also began to change until they were totally out of control and out of line. She wanted Rachel for herself, damning the generous men and their contract, but even her emotional attachment to the baby she had stupidly begun to think was hers wasn't enough to override her sense of charity and resoluteness. She had made a decision and she was going to stick with it; she just had no idea that decision would screw up her life so badly.

Was there a way for her to tell Rachel about her infertility without the girl believing that their quasi-relationship was just filler for what Shelby could not have? The only truth to that was that Shelby did want a daughter and the fact that she couldn't give birth to one of her own was simply strong motivation to finally do something she had always wanted to do: know the little girl she had remorsefully given away.

Her mind returned to that fateful tape that she had Jesse give to Rachel. "Once she hears it, she won't be able to sleep until she finds me." It was with mad desperation she made the tape, and she was so rundown from years of loneliness that she was willing to bring her own child down to her level in order to find some peace for herself. There was nothing acceptable about that. Shelby earnestly wanted to be a part of Rachel's life but that wasn't enough to justify her poor decisions, and it wasn't enough to make a place materialize in her daughter's world for her to step into.

"I should go," she said quietly, but didn't get up immediately. While she refused to meet Will's eyes again, she took solace in his presence and his kindness. At last, she stood and reached for the door but she felt Will's hand gently grasp her forearm, preventing her from leaving just yet. With a deep breath she turned to look at him.

"Will you be okay?" he asked, in the same subdued tone he had used before when he advised her about Rachel. It wasn't fair that this man knew her own daughter better than she did. It wasn't fair.

Her lip curled into a bitter smile and she pulled her arm away from him. "Yeah," she said untruthfully, knowing but not caring that he could see right through that. She was hard, as he had already bluntly pointed out; she may have felt like shit at that moment but they both knew she would survive.

She was almost out the door when she turned her head to stare right at him, a memory resurfacing in her mind. "Remember the day we met, and I told you that I had lied to you, that I did know who you were?"

"Yes."

"There was something else I hadn't been honest about that day. Vocal Adrenaline isn't the only thing I constantly think about."

With that and a shuddering breath, Shelby left, shutting the office door behind her. She leaned a palm against the wall outside of his office in a feeble attempt to collect herself, her other hand resting on her aching, wombless abdomen. She knew that Will Schuester wouldn't try to follow her out to console her or anything uselessly sweet like that; she had spent her youth sulking in corners after dramatic exits, wishing that someone cared enough about her to go after her, but that wasn't how the real world worked. Life wasn't a movie—there were no perfect moments and there was no happy ending.