DISCLAIMER: I do not own, or claim to own, glee, any of the character or songs mentioned in this story.

Note: Reviews always guilt me into writing more. Plus, I really like to hear all of your thoughts and on my stories and your guesses on how they may progress, whether they are accurate or not.

One last thing: As you may notice, English is not my first language. So, if you find any grave errors in my stories, especially ones I make regularly, I'd be glad if you informed me so I don't do it again.

So, now go read and, hopefully, enjoy!

Of Mothers And Mums

- Chapter 2 -

Help From A (Non-)Sister

Instead of re-reading the letter for the hundredth time, Beth got up from her desk with a heavy sigh and rubbed her temples. She had a killer headache from trying to rephrase sentences over and over until they sounded right. The problem was that they just couldn't sound right.

Hell, she didn't even know what to call them. Were "Miss Fabray" and "Mr. Puckerman" adequate? Or should she already start using "mother" and "father" or even "mum" and "dad"?

But she couldn't call these strangers that. She already had a "Mum", even though Shelby was not her biological mother – a fact that she still didn't want to acknowledge and that still made her head hurt even worse when she only tried to make sense of it.

No. She would stop contemplating that letter right now. It would still be there tomorrow. There was no way she could deal with it right now, and she shouldn't force herself to.

So she let herself drop on her bed and blindly felt for the cell phone she'd carelessly dropped on her bedside table hours before. She had some text messages, mainly from her ND teammates, but she was too worn out to even read them, let alone answer them. They would have to wait until tomorrow.

Beth was up to something entirely different. Before she knew what she was doing or why she was doing it, she punched in Rachel's number and held her breath while the phone rang. Although she knew that calling the person that she had supposed to be her half-sister for some years, and she now knew to be Shelby's only biological daughter, would quite probably be upsetting, she needed to talk to her. The urge to call her had simply been stronger than the fear of it.

"Hey, you're finally calling. Took you long enough!" Rachel answered the phone cheerfully and Beth froze immediately. Was she in on it all along? Did she know Shelby was going to tell me tonight? But Shelby didn't know herself. The voice in her mind reasoned.

"Beth?" Rachel asked after Beth had remained silent for a suspiciously long period of time.

"What – why should I've called you?" Beth finally blurted, not caring if she was giving away that she was as upset as she was. She was going to tell Rachel anyway.

"Sectionals. I already talked to Mr. Schue. I thought you wanted to inform me." Rachel's voice had gone from cheerful to sober. She had obviously noticed the strange tone of Beth's voice, and wasted no time to find out what was going on. "Beth, what's up?"

Beth let out a long breath, before she answered as calmly as she could. "Shelby told me about my parents tonight."

There was a brief silence, and when Rachel finally started talking, Beth realized that she wanted to pick her words carefully, that she didn't want to break anything to her that Shelby might not have told her yet. "Just what exactly did she tell you?"

"Everything, I suppose." Beth closed her eyes and said the next sentences in a rush, as if speed would make it any less true. "That she isn't my biological Mum. That my real parents are called Quinn Fabray and Noah Puckerman, that she was a teen and gave me up for adoption … wait, you knew them, right?" Beth felt like a complete moron that she hadn't realized it before. Of course Rachel had known them. They had been on the same damn Nationals-victory picture.

"Yeah, I was in glee club with them." Rachel confirmed. "I still know them, actually. Quinn is still my friend, and I see Noah sometimes, too. You know, class reunions and so on."

"Are they together?" The question passed her lips before she'd consciously decided on asking it, and she asked herself why of all things that was the first thing she wondered about.

"No, they are not. Quinn is engaged and Noah … well, he has always enjoyed single life."

Beth took a deep breath as she savored that first bit of information she got about her biological parents' personal life.

"Can you please just tell me about them?" She pleaded her sister. "It's just … I feel like there's a blank page that needs to be filled, if that makes any sense."

"It makes perfect sense, Beth. That was pretty much how I felt about Shelby before I had met her." Rachel reassured her, and Beth could have kicked herself. How could she have forgotten that Rachel had gone through a similar situation before?

Similar, yes, but not the same. Growing up with two dads, it couldn't have been a secret that there must be a mother out there somewhere.

"What do you want to know?" Rachel asked.

"Just … everything. Tell me just whatever you can think of."

"Alright then." Beth thought she could hear Rachel's smile through the phone.

Half an hour later, Beth knew that Quinn had been the most popular girl in High School, that she'd been head cheerleader, dated the quarterback … and that everything changed when she'd got pregnant, not from her boyfriend but his best friend and the entire school found out. Rachel said the pregnancy had actually changed her for the better, making her a more considerate person – although she had still been manipulative and bitchy at times. After High School, her mother went on to Yale and graduated from there. She was an actress now, not in the big movies – at least not yet – but had worked her way up from local theatres to bigger stage productions. And she had gotten back together with her first High School boyfriend, the quarterback Finn Hudson, whom she was now engaged to.

Her father, Noah, had, according to Rachel, been a "badass" in High School, and even gotten into juvie once. But he'd cared about his daughter. He had named her Beth, after the song by KISS; he'd often babysitted her when Shelby got back to Lima in Quinn and Puck's senior year. When Rachel mentioned that he played the guitar, something clicked in Beth's head and she could finally make sense of the memories about the guitar-playing, singing man she had from her early childhood. Noah was now a member of a band, making a living from rather small performances in bars, hotels and such.

"Do you want me to give you their phone numbers? Or should I call them for you?" Rachel offered.

"No!" Beth reacted stronger than she'd intended. "I mean, don't call them. Don't tell them that I know. I want to make that contact by myself." She explained. "I'm trying to write a letter, you know." She added. "But you can give me their phone numbers, it surely doesn't hurt."

After she'd noted down the numbers, she had to ask one last thing. She just had to.

"How did you … deal with the, well … the biological and non-biological parents issue?" Beth asked.

She heard Rachel sigh at the other end of the line. "It wasn't easy, that's for sure. By the way, I still don't know which one of my dads is my biological one." She added. "I guess you just have to remember that the person who raised you is an important piece of your life. You have always loved Shelby, why should that change with a piece of knowledge? And Quinn and Noah can also become important parts of your life. I'm sure they'd love to hear from you. But I can't help you to figure out what roles you want them to have in your life. You have to do that on your own." Rachel concluded, and Beth realized that her sister had probably given her the best advice she could. She thanked her and hung up, getting up and going back to the letter she had attempted to write earlier.

As it turned out, it was much easier to write it now that she could imagine what the people behind these names must be like. Quinn Fabray, former head cheerleader, actress. Noah Puckerman, bad boy, band member. Biological mother and biological father.