17. Shelby
It was a loud and clear "yes" what resounded in the field. There was no room for misunderstandings. In answer to the question, Quinn did.
"By the power enthroned in me by the state of Ohio, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may now kiss your bride."
And then they kissed. The guests applauded while standing, cheering Mr. and Mrs. Hudson.
"Epic success, Snixx. Epic success," Blaine said as he clapped slowly.
At the back, nobody but Beth joined the standing ovation. "And now you two give me a heads-up," Shelby said while talking Rachel and Puck to one of the tables in the other tent. The three of them sat down, Puck with Beth on his lap. "Anyway, I didn't dress my child like a flowergirl just to watch her mother getting married with my other daughter's boyfriend. I thought she was marrying you, Puck!"
"Actually, Finn was the one who was supposed to be on that altar… with your daughter."
Shelby frowned at Rachel.
"And now I know why New York tore you down," Berry added.
"Why do you say so?" Shelby asked.
"You've always told me that your career was the only thing that got between you and your personal life. And it did for me too."
Shelby held his daughter's hand. "That's only because you and I decided to give the 200% of ourselves to the city. We could have chosen a 50-50, but we didn't."
"It runs in the family, right?"
"It runs that you get a second chance to make things right," Shelby said while stroking Beth's face.
Puck kept playing with his daughter. At least he was enjoying something about the wedding. The little blonde in his arms again. "Peekaboo!" he kept repeating over and over again, though he wasn't hiding his face before saying it. He didn't get the rules of the game.
"I heard that you came back to Lima for love, am I right?" Shelby continued.
Rachel nodded, "and look at him, marrying LucyFer," she said with sarcasm right after picking another glass of Champagne from a caterer that was wandering up and down the tent with a plate full of alcohol.
Shelby took the glass away from Rachel's hand. "You're underage! And already drunk enough. These things never end well. And if you spike them with alcohol, even worse."
"Okay, mother," she rolled her eyes. "What do you want me to do?"
"Do you still love him?"
"I left NYADA for him! I even serenaded him with Woman in love!"
The conversation got interrupted by Quinn. She came to Beth still with tear-filled eyes. "Hey, my girl!" she said while taking her from Puck's arms. "It's a beautiful surprise! Thank you so much, Shelby."
The woman didn't answer, she just smiled at the newly wedded. Rachel stood up and left. "I'd like to talk to you later, Rachel," Quinn told Berry without even looking at her. She was too busy staring at Beth.
"I thought you would invite us, not that I had to be anyone else's plus one," Shelby said with a little bit of resentment. "Thank God your friend Santana called me yesterday."
"Yeah, I'm sorry I hadn't talked to you for a while. You know, I've been busy." Quinn pointed at her dress with her free hand. "She's so beautiful."
"She looks more like you every day that goes by." Shelby stood and walked away. "I'm gonna leave you three alone, okay?"
"Oh, don't worry, you don't have to go!" Quinn stopped her child's mother. She didn't want to be alone with Puck.
"I insist." Though she had missed lots and lots of chapters, Shelby Corcoran couldn't deny Puck and Quinn's sexual tension. Actually, even the goat smelled it.
Once she walked away, Quinn sat next to Puck, holding Beth in her arms. "Do you mind if I introduce her to my mind?"
"You married him," the boy answered, ignoring her question.
Quinn took a deep breath and realized that the sooner they talked it out, the better. "Yeah, Noah, that was the whole purpose of today."
Puck covered Beth's little ears. "We kissed. You kissed your fiancé's best friend five minutes before you had to say "I do" and you still married him!"
"You kissed me," she replied slowly.
"And you kissed me back," he said lowering his voice.
Quinn pulled Beth away. "Why are you covering her ears?! You look crazy!"
"Because I don't want her to know the bitch her mother is," Puckerman sentenced.
"If half of my family wasn't looking at us wondering whose niece I am holding, I'd slap your teeth out of your mouth."
After the rose petals rain, Finn stood with his family while Quinn was with Beth. Carole was proud. That wedding may not be the most expected moment of her life, but… it was her only child's day, so she had to smile and fake happiness. Burt, on the other hand and surely influenced by his own son, didn't stop grouching. "Man, I still don't get why you aren't marrying the other girl… what was her name?"
"The kleptomaniac dwarf who thinks she's the King Midas of straightness and that she can make people bat for her team just with the touch of her hand? That's Rachel," Kurt said while passing by on his way to climbing up on to the stage and announcing that lunch would be served in ten minutes.
Finn, tired of not finding real support, turned to her friend, but Santana intercepted him first and took him apart by carrying him by the tie. "Okay, little piece of shit, weren't you the honest one in the group?" she said, angry as a monkey, but not loud enough to make a scene.
"Excuse me?" the groom asked back.
"You can't go down to the Snixx' garden of earthly delights and then marry another woman! Why isn't your guilty piercing your overweigh soul?!"
"Santana," he started while putting her accusing finger away of his chest, "what we did was totally meaningless. I don't feel a thing for you. I'm sorry. What we had was a product of too much booze and… it is not worth breaking two couples."
"Oh, please, you have to do better than this to break Brittana."
"So… why don't we… keep this to ourselves and in our school reunion in 2022 we remember it as a funny story?"
Santana lost her calm on Finn's cheek. "You are the worst! Why is it taking so fucking long for your inversely proportional to your body fat percent brain to realize that Quinn and you is not going to work in this life or in the next one?!"
She sighed and walked away. "Tomorrow I'm taking Brittany and we're gonna go to the damn Tribeca. This place is so fucked up."
The table where most of the Glee kids were sitting was the closest one to the stage, where Kurt was acting as master of ceremonies. Every single member and former member of New Directions was sitting there, except for the bride, the groom and his brother, who were at the presidential table; and Santana and Blaine, in unknown whereabouts.
Mike and Tina doing an Asian handholding, Mercedes telling Artie and Sam stories about her successful Angelino life, Sugar forcing Rory to pull her closer to the table, Rachel killing her seventh drink, Puck admiring Rachel's iron liver and Brittany making the first toast of the evening. "This goes to my bestest blond friend, Quinn Fabray. Sorry, Sam," she turned to Trouty, who nodded in approval. "And to her husband, the man who saw me peeing in a can. That's a bond we'll never break. This goes to you too, brother."
"Where are our dates?" Rachel asked Brittany once she finished her toast.
"Mine's saving your relationship with the groom because you neglect your love life. Yours is up there," she said while pointing out to the stage.
Blaine asked Kurt for the microphone, "do you mind?" He only had to look at the best man with puppy eyes to get what he wanted. "Thanks."
"Don't you want me to introduce you?" Kurt offered friendly. More friendly than expected. More civilized than expected, actually.
"Nah, thanks anyway, I'm sure anyone would boo me before I started singing."
The both of them chuckled. "Well… the stage's all yours." Kurt touched his hand when he passed him the microphone, and shivered. A part of him wanted not to wash his hand ever again, another part felt ridiculous. "But that's what weddings are about, right?" he thought. "Forgive and forget. Or that was Thanksgiving? Or was it Christmas? Whatever."
Blaine set the microphone and started. "This is my gift to this lovely couple, and, most of all, to every single person who feels they're being alluded to."
"Oh my God! A Blaine Anderson's solo! Please, everybody, take your video cameras out and record it, this happens only once every lifetime!" Santana said after jumping onto the stage and pulling the microphone towards her mouth. "Did I say lifetime? Sorry I meant every fifteen minutes."
"Thank you, Santana, for the presentation," he said while the bridesmaid laughed her way to the table.
[The one that got away (Acoustic) – Katy Perry]
Blaine:
Summer after high school when we first met
we make out in your Mustang to Radiohead,
and on my eighteenth birthday we got matching tattoos.
Used to steal your parents' liquor and climb to the roof,
talk about our future like we had a clue,
never planned that one day I'd be losing you.
In another life I would be your girl.
We keep all our promises, be us against the world.
In another life I would make you stay,
so I don't have to say you were the one that got away.
The one that got away.
Blaine recalled the lavender fragrance of her wet hair down her bare back before zipping her dress up. Those kisses, those hugs, those hours together.
I was June and you were my Johnny Cash.
Never one without the other, we made a pact.
Sometimes when I miss you I put those records on.
Oh.
Someone said you had your tattoo removed.
They saw you downtown singing the blues.
It's time to face the music; I'm no longer your muse.
In another life I would be your girl.
We keep all our promises, be us against the world.
In another life I would make you stay,
so I don't have to say you were the one that got away.
The one that got away.
The one.
The one.
Oh the one, the one, the one, the one, the one.
All this money can't buy me a time machine.
No.
Can't replace you with a million rings.
No.
I should've told you what you meant to me.
Oh.
'Cause now I pay the price.
In another life I would be your girl.
We'd keep all our promises, be us against the world.
In another life I would make you stay,
so I don't have to say you were the one that got away.
The one that got away.
Oh oh oh oh oh.
The one...
In another life I would make you stay,
so I don't have to say you were the one that got away.
The one that got away.
The touched guests gave Blaine an ovation while cutting their steaks. "Oh my God…" Santana mumbled as she cleaned the mascara smudged under her eyes.
Brittany wrapped her arm around her and pulled her closer. "Oh, sweetie, are you crying?"
"Fucking Frodo… I'm gonna cut his throat open," her girlfriend answered while trying to stop crying.
In the meantime, Shelby enjoyed lunch with Will, Emma, Sue and Beiste while feeding Beth. "With this boy you can win Nationals again, Will. I'm totally sure."
"Last year we made it mostly thanks to Rachel, Finn and your Troubletones. You should have come the celebration dinner," the teacher answered. "But I don't think we'll make it again this year. We are one member short and I can't put it all on Rachel, Blaine and Santana's shoulders."
"You have Tina too, honey, she's a wonderful voice," Emma added.
Will mumbled something with his mouth full, actually not paying attention to Emma's comment.
"Santana? Santana Lopez is in the club? I knew that Rachel was back, but Santana?" Shelby wondered.
"Yep, things weren't good for her in New York and she came back for Brittany. Who would have said that Rachel Berry and Santana Lopez were two of a same kind?"
"I find it really brave what those girls have done. You know, leaving everything for love. Put their loved ones before their dreams and their careers…" Beiste said while devouring her steak and a second one she got from one of Quinn's vegan cousins.
"You know what's brave, Shannon?" Sue asked, "Having a child around these bunch of dysfunctional teenagers. If their stupidity is contagious… Oh, please God have mercy on me for the next fourteen years."
"Fourteen?" Emma frowned.
"Do you know that legally you have to provide your child until he or she's eighteen?"
"When I was thirteen I was left alone in the forest. I managed to survive among bears, snakes, butterflies, Sunday trippers and other creatures. I am giving Sylvester another year of comfort and being useless for this society, so he shall thank me."
Will decided to change the subject and put behind Sue's atrocious parenting plans. "But what about you, Shelby? We don't know anything of your life."
"Well… my stay in Lima inspired me. It felt like a second senior year," Shelby chuckled. "So I told myself "why don't you go back to New York and try your luck one last time?" And hell I was lucky this time. I rented an apartment just for a month and it turned out that my door-to-door neighbor is a Broadway producer! Crazy, right? We had dinner, I told him about the idea I had and… yesterday he called me to tell me that he wants to put up my musical this summer!"
"That's fantastic, Shelby! Congratulations!" Will said.
"So now I have to write the characters, the songs, find the cast… But I don't think it's going to be harder than coaching Vocal Adrenaline," she laughed. "And I already have a few ideas so…"
"What is it about?"
"A teacher who tried to lead a bunch of misfit teenagers into the right path by using the power of the music of his choir. Does it ring a bell?" Shelby chuckled.
"Kind of, yeah."
Shelby carried on. "And I might need some… help from my friends, you know? And yes, this is a job offer, my hope-to-be-executive-consultant/main-character."
Will and Emma looked at each other, practically in shock by the proposal. But the long kiss Sue planted on Shelby's lips took them out of it.
"What are you doing?!" Mrs. Corcoran shouted.
"Yes, please, take him far, far away from here. Thank you. I love you." Sue wiped her mouth with a tissue she took from Shannon's dress. "Oh my God, Shannon, please, cover that nipple, we're eating!"
