This is not the dream I dreamed - Rachel faces up to the fact that her Broadway career could be over before it had chance to begin.
Rating - T
Character - Rachel
A/N - Reviews/concrit are loved, and if there's anything you'd like to see happen the let me know and I'll try my best to work it in somehow.I'm from the UK, so if anything American is not quite right, please let me know and I'll fix it.
It had just gone 10 when Rachel let herself into Shelby's house. "Had a good night?" Shelby asked as her oldest daughter walked through to the living room.
Rachel nodded, "Yes thank you" she answered politely, her eyes scanning the room, "Where's Lyla?"
"She's sleeping in her buggy, I put her in the dining room, so the tv wouldn't disturb her, it's just through there." Shelby pointed to a dark room adjoining the living room.
"I should get her settled upstairs" Rachel spoke slowly, "thanks for watching her, did she go down okay?"
Shelby considered telling Rachel that Lyla was fine, but couldn't bring herself to lie to Rachel, they had enough problems as it was, they didn't need lies too, "She was a bit cranky. . ."
"Oh" Rachel began to panic, "you should have rung me, I'd have come straight home and . . ."
Shelby shook her head, interrupting Rachel, "Rachel, she was fine, I wrapped her up and took her for a walk, it always settled Beth, She took her bottle when we got back and fell straight to sleep, she's been down since about half eight."
"Thank you" Rachel repeated, "I should. . ." She gestured towards the dining room.
"Rachel." Shelby spoke softly as Rachel began to walk away, "Can we, can we talk?" she asked.
Rachel nodded, "Just let me. . ."
Shelby nodded, "okay."
Rachel walked quietly over to the buggy, smiling as she watched her daughter sleep soundly. "Sweet dreams" she whispered, bending to drop a kiss to Lyla's forehead. She paused for a moment, taking a deep breath before returning to the living room. "You wanted to talk?"
"Yeah." Shelby spoke softly, "I think we need to."
"Okay" Rachel couldn't lift her gaze from the hardwood floor. "What do you want to talk about?"
Shelby shrugged, "you can sit down you know. I, I want you to feel at home here Rachel." Rachel nodded and glanced at the space on the sofa beside her mother, before walking over towards the empty armchair. "Rachel" Shelby patted the space beside her, "please?"
Rachel nodded and sat beside Shelby, trying to put as much distance between her and her mother as possible, "Why?" she finally broke the tense silence "how could you give me up? I mean since I had Lyla I couldn't imagine being without her, but giving her to someone else, and giving her to someone else and signing a legal document agreeing to have no contact with her are two completely different things, I don't, I . . ." Rachel paused, trying to get her thoughts in order, "I guess I want to hear your side of the story, I just want to understand."
Shelby nodded, she knew Rachel would have asked about the contract, about her reasons at some point, but she still wasn't prepared. "I signed the contract a couple of weeks after I found out I was pregnant" she tried to explain. "I was young, naive, I thought it would be easy, have baby, give baby away, get money, move to New York, be a star. Simple. Only it wasn't. The bigger you got, the more I felt myself falling in love with you. I waited for three weeks before telling Hiram and Leroy that I'd felt you kick. I liked the fact that for that small period of time I knew something about you that they didn't, I felt like you were mine. I only ever wanted what was best for you Rachel, your fathers did too, they made me move in with them after a while, they were convinced I wasn't sleeping, that it was bad for you. I didn't tell them that I laid awake at night talking to you," Shelby swallowed hard, failing to blink back the tears that had formed in her eyes, "I'd talk to you about anything and everything, stupidly hoping that you'd be able to remember enough to find me one day. It only got harder as I got closer to the day you were due. I lost count of the number of times I thought about running away, but I had no money, nowhere to go, and I was rarely left alone, so I began to pray that you'd be late, I'd have done anything to keep you with me for even the tiniest bit longer. You weren't though. I went into labour the day before you were due and you made your arrival at 4.26am on the date the doctors predicted. I didn't even get to see you Rachel" Shelby's voice quivered. "I felt you leave me, and you were wrapped in a towel and carried away, you were out of the room before you'd even taken your first breath. You were part of me for 40 weeks and I never even got to say goodbye, I never even got to say hello" Shelby's shoulders shook as tears rolled freely down her cheeks. "The next, the next day Hiram came to see me. He didn't say anything, didn't tell me you were okay, didn't thank me, I had to beg a nurse to tell me how much you weighed. He just gave me an envelope stuffed full of hundred dollar bills and left. I didn't want the money" Shelby paused reaching up to wipe away her tears, "I just wanted my baby. I wanted you Rachel, I wanted you so much, I've always wanted you."
Rachel too had tears streaming down her face, "why" she asked shakily, "why did you push me away, when I. . ."
"I was scared" Shelby admitted quietly, "scared of what your fathers would do if they found out, I was scared of you getting hurt, getting hurt because of me. I was already hurt and I didn't want you to feel that pain. Seeing you hurt me Rachel, it was the first time I'd ever set eyes on you, for 16years I'd imagined you to be a tiny baby, 6 pounds and 12 ounces. I imagined you'd have little tufts of dark hair and big green eyes, but that's not who you were, you were a beautiful young woman, I'd missed out on so much Rachel and it broke my heart. Half of you is me, but you were a stranger, and in a selfish way I thought it would hurt less if I pushed you away myself instead of having you taken from me again."
"And did it?" The look that crossed Shelby's face told Rachel it hadn't.
"No" Shelby whispered, "not at all, and I know you think I adopted Beth to replace you Rachel, but that's not true. No one could ever replace you. No matter what happened, what does happen, I'll always love you. It sounds stupid, but when Hiram and Leroy took you from that hospital, they took a part of me with them, a part of me I'd never get back no matter how many babies I adopted. I suppose in a way Beth helped me move on, something to focus on other than the huge gaping hole in my life where you should have been. I see you with Lyla Rachel and I get jealous, I hate the fact that we never got to be like that, that I never got to see your gummy little smile, that I never felt your tiny fingers wrap around mine. I know I've missed so much of your life Rachel, but I hope tonight means we can start again, that You'll let me get to know you, I want you to be in my life Rachel, even if you don't want a mother-daughter relationship that's fine. I just don't want to lose you again."
Rachel nodded, surprised Shelby had been so open with her, "I want, I, I, I don't know what I want" she sighed. "I don't want either of us to walk away from this. I want it to work, I'd never have asked you to watch Lyla if I didn't. But I don't know that I want this to be. I'd like to be able to tell people you're my mom, but right now I don't know if I can, I'm sorry."
"Hey" Shelby took Rachel's chin in her hands, forcing their eyes to meet, "you have got nothing to be sorry for. I never expected you to fall in to my arms and for everything to be perfect, it's going to take time." Shelby paused for a moment, tucking a strand of Rachel's hair behind her ears, "Maybe we could make this a regular thing, you and Lyla coming over, spending the night."
Rachel nodded, "I think we'd like that. Lyla seems to really like you." She yawned.
"C'mon" Shelby smiled pulling Rachel to her feet. "You're exhausted and it's gone 11. Get Lyla settled upstairs, get some sleep, and we can finish this in the morning."
Rachel smiled and stood to her feet, "Thanks" she smiled, unexpectedly pulling Shelby into a hug before going to fetch Lyla from the dining room and taking her to bed.