Chapter 7:
Quinn avoids telling her mother about her hand for as long as she can.
She is certain that she can get away with it, her mother is hardly observant, but Judy catches a glimpse of the swollen knuckles on Saturday morning while Quinn is struggling to maneuver a spoon long enough to shovel a bowl of cereal into her mouth.
After that, she ends up spending the rest of her Saturday in the Emergency Room.
It takes all day. The public hospital is packed and under-staffed, a perfect recipe for disaster. The wait is hell, but the worst part is the lecture that she gets from her mother about how un-ladylike fistfights are the entire time.
"This is worse than that awful color you dyed your hair, Quinnie."
By the time Quinn is discharged, it is already evening. She had wasted an entire Saturday.
She leaves the ER feeling bored and unfulfilled with a black cast wrapped around her right hand – another feature for her mother to voice her disappointment over – cradling the two broken knuckles of her middle and ring fingers.
To make matters worse, she doesn't talk to Rachel all weekend.
Quinn had destroyed her phone after throwing it against the brick exterior of her high school and her mother is refusing to buy her a new one as punishment for her fight.
In her absence, Quinn finds that she actually misses Rachel. The brunette's presence has been the only source of comfort Quinn has had in recent weeks. As a result, without even thinking about it, the first place Quinn goes when she returns to school on Monday morning is Rachel's locker.
Judging by Rachel's appearance, the weekend hadn't treated her any better than it had Quinn.
The brunette's eye is a dark shade of purple and her split lip looks just as swollen and angry as it had on Friday, if not more so. Quinn can't help but to grimace as she approaches.
"Are we still fighting?" she asks tentatively, trying to sound casual as she leans into the locker next to Rachel's.
"I don't know," Rachel responds dryly. She doesn't even look at Quinn. "Are we?"
"I'd prefer it if we weren't," Quinn admits with a shrug.
Rachel's eyes finally flicker up to look at the blonde.
"How's your hand?" she nods down to Quinn's cast. It hardly goes unnoticed that she has completely changed the subject.
"It's fine," Quinn shrugs. "How's your face?"
"It's fine," Rachel mimes.
"Did your dads freak?"
"Yes," Rachel rolls her eyes at the mere memory. "I didn't get in trouble, though. I just blamed it on The Skanks. Of course, they didn't believe that their perfect daughter could be responsible for something so violent. I did have to spend all of Saturday at the dentist, though. Those Barbarians knocked out one of my teeth."
"If it makes you feel better, I spent all of Saturday in the ER," Quinn smirks, waving her casted hand in Rachel's face.
Much to Quinn's surprise and relief, Rachel actually smiles back. The blonde feels something rise inside of her chest, something that makes her feel much more hopeful about the status of her friendship with Rachel than she had felt on Friday afternoon.
"So, are you not pissed at me anymore?" Quinn risks re-visiting the subject. When Rachel only frowns at her, Quinn's face falls, wondering if she should have brought up their argument at all.
"I am grateful that you came to my aide on Friday," Rachel sighs, her eyes falling again. "I realize now that it was rather bull-headed of me to think that I could take on five of The Skanks on my own."
"You think?" Quinn raises her eyebrows, but she lowers them back down when she notices that Rachel does not look amused.
"I'm still upset that you told one of them," she admits.
"Rachel…"
"It's okay, Quinn," Rachel cuts the blonde off. "I know that you were only trying to help. But I don't need The Skanks of all people knowing about me. I can figure this out without them."
Quinn forces herself to nod. She has no choice but to agree with Rachel. This is not her fight. As much as she wants to control the situation, and point Rachel in the right direction, she can't. This is something that Rachel will have to figure out on her own.
"Did you get any leads over the weekend?" she asks Rachel. She already knows the answer, she is just forcing herself to be supportive.
Rachel shakes her head, but the look on her face tells Quinn that she is not out of ideas yet.
"You said that you go to Shelby's apartment with Puck to see Beth sometimes, right?" Rachel asks.
"Right…" Quinn nods slowly. She wasn't expecting Rachel to bring up Beth. It catches her off guard, but she forces herself not to show it.
"I want to go with you next time," Rachel states bluntly. She is wearing that same, determined face that Quinn had seen on her when she had been holding her own against The Skanks on Friday. She knows that Rachel has made up her mind.
Quinn cannot very well tell Rachel why she doesn't agree with this tactic, so all she does is nod.
"Sure…" she tells Rachel. "But Rachel… Are you sure that you want to drag Shelby into this? I mean, your entire relationship with her has been nothing more than disconnections and disappointments. Do you really think that it will be worth it?"
"I'm sure," Rachel nods her head confidently. "Besides, to have a disconnection with Shelby, I would have to have been connected with her at some point, and that certainly isn't the case."
"You were connected to her once, technically," Quinn points out.
Rachel rolls her eyes. "An umbilical cord doesn't count."
"Why not?" Quinn asks. She is thinking about Beth again – how could she not be – and why Rachel refuses to ever give her that inch that she needs to assure herself that her and her daughter could still have a relationship, that they were still destined to be mother and child.
"I heard that The Skanks got suspended for a week," Rachel tells Quinn quickly, blatant in her attempts to change the subject. Again. Like the last time, Quinn is disappointed, but she rolls with it.
"Yup," the blonde confirms. On Friday, every single Skank, with the exception of her and Genesis - who had not been involved in the fight – had been suspended. They weren't allowed on the school grounds for a week. It meant that Quinn and Rachel would be safe as long as they were at school for the next couple of days, but Quinn is not foolish enough not to expect retaliation the moment they are back in school next Monday…
And when that did happen, their little fight on Friday would look like child's play.
"I heard that we didn't get suspended because Shelby vouched to Principal Figgins that our involvement was self-defense," Quinn continues.
Rachel nods, but holds steadfast to her confused, almost anguished expression.
"She could have lost her job, lying like that for us," the brunette clicks her tongue. "I don't get her."
The only thing that Quinn can do is shrug her shoulders at Rachel, forcing out a little smile.
"Well, if you have things your way, you'll get her soon enough."
Rachel is genuinely surprised when she goes to the auditorium after school and finds Shelby waiting for her at the piano as always.
"I thought you wouldn't come," Rachel admits to the woman, unslinging her bag and placing it down on the floor a couple feet in front of Shelby.
"Why?" Shelby asks her. "Because you got in a fight on Friday?"
"No, because I got in a fight on Friday and I took it out on you and you still defended me," Rachel clarifies.
"We all have our days, Rachel," Shelby assures her with a shrug and a sigh. "How's your face?"
"It's a little sore," Rachel admits. She is dancing around Shelby. "I just came today because I wanted to tell you that my doctor said I can't sing or do anything strenuous while my cheek heals. It's not broken or anything, my dads are just being paranoid."
"Yes, I heard all about that," Shelby nods, standing up from the piano. When the smaller brunette looks up at her curiously, Shelby smiles and explains. "I saw Mr. Schuester earlier. He seemed upset. When I asked him why, he told me it was because his female lead is benched for a week with Sectionals right around the corner."
Rachel feels herself flush. Although there had once been a time where she would have sacrificed life and limb for the opportunity to sing, right now, she is honestly grateful for the break.
Shelby is right; Mr. Schuester had been disappointed when she had told him the bad news this morning. So had the rest of her team. Those involved in the play didn't take it any better, and although they did not outright say so, Rachel knew immediately that her role as the lead is in jeopardy. She has been too flaky lately. Last week, she hadn't had her lines memorized at all and this week, she can't even deliver those lines.
She is sensing everybody getting increasingly frustrated with her.
"I'm sorry," Rachel apologizes. Shelby just shakes her head.
"Don't be sorry," the woman laughs softly. "I'm sure that not being able to sing for a week is a sufficient punishment for people like us."
"People like us?" Rachel asks, looking up at Shelby.
"Ambitious," Shelby nods and Rachel feels herself swallow. She is ambitious, that is for sure; but these days, she is taking her ambition to an entirely different level.
"I feel like I've been doing a lot of apologizing lately," Rachel admits, training her eyes back down to the floor. "Especially to you."
Shelby nods before averting her eyes back down to the piano like she is thinking very hard about what to say next.
"If it makes you feel better, I did a lot of apologizing at your age too."
Rachel frowns. That doesn't make her feel better. Shelby may have done a lot of apologizing, but Rachel knows that Shelby had a lot to apologize for when she was her age. She has a lot to apologize for now. Rachel doesn't want her own life to be punctuated by such a profound series of mistakes.
A silence pulses painfully between mother and daughter. Somehow, Rachel knows what Shelby is going to say even before the woman says it.
"You need to be careful around those girls, Rachel," Shelby tells her seriously.
"I didn't do anything to them!" Rachel insists, offended that Shelby would even think her capable of starting any of this. "They just decided to start messing with me one day. What was I supposed to do? Let them keep ganging up on me? They'll get bored and move on eventually. It's not a big deal."
Shelby sighs. She is not happy with Rachel's answer, but the girl can at least tell that she believes her. Why wouldn't she? Shelby has no reason to think that Rachel would ever be associated with those girls. Then again, it is likely that Shelby would have once said the same thing about Quinn.
"Is there anything that I can do?" Shelby finally asks.
Rachel stares at her. For a moment, her eyes betray everything that she is thinking -
There is so much that you can do.
Rachel manages to erase the look from her face before Shelby can fully process it. There is so much that Shelby can do for her, but when it comes to this, Shelby would only make things worse. Rachel is going to have to get through this one on her own.
"No," Rachel settles, shaking her head.
Shelby stares at Rachel for a moment, gauging her. Rachel holds the gaze determined. She doesn't falter once. In order for this to work, Rachel knows that she needs Shelby to see how much she has changed since they'd last seen each other. She needs Shelby to see the girl who had pulled strength from her experiences, not the girl who used to always use them as an excuse.
"Is Quinn friends with those girls, Rachel?" Shelby asks after a long moment. Her voice is low and serious. Rachel looks up at her timidly, afraid of the conclusion that Shelby is making about the blonde.
"Not anymore," Rachel insists.
Shelby's eyebrows cock, imploring Rachel for the truth. The girl swallows. She knows that she will have to come up with something better. She can't be the one to put Quinn in a position where Shelby no longer trusts her. It would destroy her.
"She's had a tough couple of years," Rachel settles. "She made a mistake getting together with The Skanks, but she learned her lesson. She defended me against them. She's changing, really."
Shelby raises an eyebrow at her daughter's adamant defense of Quinn Fabray. She knows that her daughter's relationship with the blonde could be described as tumultuous at best, but there is something about the two of them together lately that has caught Shelby's attention, and the woman can't help but wonder if Quinn is not the only one who is having a tough couple of years suddenly catch up with her.
"You know, Rachel, I'm starting to think that Quinn might not be the only one around here who is struggling."
"What do you mean?" Rachel asks. She doesn't like the implication inside of Shelby's words.
"I know that it's been a long time since we've last seen each other. Even now, we hardly know each other." Shelby is being cautious, Rachel can tell. This only makes the younger girl more nervous. "You just seem so different."
"People grow up," Rachel shrugs, working very hard to keep her voice straight. "They learn."
"It's usually a few more years before they become this bitter, though."
Rachel points her eyes down to the floor. Is that what this feeling is? Rachel had never considered it before, but now that Shelby has said the word, bitter seems to be the perfect word to describe what she is feeling.
"Listen, I've been thinking," Shelby breaks through the silence. "I guess it makes sense that you and Quinn have been spending so much time with each other lately. I hurt the both of you once before. Maybe we can all try to figure something out together. Noah and Quinn come over sometimes to visit Beth. Why don't you join them next time? We'll all have dinner."
Rachel's eyes shoot up. She had come here today in the hopes of trying to convince Shelby to invite her to her apartment. She had thought she was doing a horrible job so far. She hadn't expected Shelby to offer her the invitation first.
"I know it's a lot to ask," Shelby says quickly, like she is afraid that she had messed up by blindsiding Rachel. "If you're not ready, that's okay too."
"You want me to meet Beth?" Rachel asks.
Shelby looks at her carefully, trying to study her facial expression, but she finds that she reads nothing. "If you'd like to."
"I would," Rachel nods, forcing herself to keep things simple before she can say anything that would only totally screw this up.
"How about we coordinate with Quinn and Noah to set something up?" Shelby suggests.
"How about we do it tonight?" Rachel counters.
"Tonight?" Shelby asks, unable to hide her surprise by Rachel's eagerness.
"Why not?" Rachel forces herself to take a step back while still committing to her suggestion. "I can't sing so we won't be stuck in rehearsal all night. We both have plenty of time to get ready."
Shelby pauses, considering her. She is not so certain about doing this so quickly but knows she cannot risk pushing her daughter any further away than she already has.
"Okay," Shelby finally agrees, and Rachel knows that she has her. "I'll let you off the hook on our rehearsals just this one time. Don't think that just because you're benched for a week, I won't come up with anything for you to do."
Shelby smiles at Rachel, who forces one back.
"Here's my address," Shelby tells the girl, jotting her home address down quickly on a piece of scrap paper before handing it over to Rachel, who studies it as though it were made of gold. "Be there at 6:30 sharp."
Quinn is still a little bit skeptical about what Rachel has up her sleeve, but she is not one to say no to an opportunity to see her daughter.
When Rachel approaches her with the knowledge that she had brokered a deal to have dinner at Shelby's tonight, the blonde has no choice but to agree.
Later that night, at Shelby's, Rachel tries her hardest to look comfortable, but she knows that she is way out of her league.
Quinn watches her carefully as she bounces Beth on her lap. She remembers how uncomfortable she had been the first time she had come to Shelby's apartment. She is still uncomfortable about it. She wishes that she could say something to Rachel, but with Shelby and Puck so close, it wouldn't be safe.
Instead, Rachel is left to fend for herself, sneaking fleeting glances towards Shelby all night.
She is trying her hardest to find the right opportunity to speak to the woman, but it never seems to come. She is too caught up in being inside of Shelby's apartment, in being in such personal proximity with the woman, of meeting Beth…
Despite everything, this is the first time that Rachel has ever actually seen the little girl.
She looks like Quinn. In fact, Rachel doesn't see an ounce of Puck inside of her. Only Quinn.
Rachel notices the way that Quinn notices the resemblance as well. She notices how Quinn's entire persona changes when she is with her daughter and wonders if Shelby ever felt that way about her, or wished she had the same opportunities when Rachel was little as Puck and Quinn do with Beth…
The evening is uneventful, all things considered. Quinn and Puck leave as Beth's bedtime approaches, just as they always do, with Shelby seeing them out as she cradles the heavy-eyed Beth high inside of her arms.
Shelby stands in the doorway while Quinn slowly backs into the hall. She watches as Shelby holds one of Beth's hands, waving it goodbye for her.
Quinn forces a smile, but the truth is that she wants to cry.
This is how she normally feels when it's time to leave Beth, but somehow, this time feels different…
"Are you coming?"
Puck and Quinn make all the way to the parking lot before Puck realizes that Quinn is no longer following him to his car.
He turns over his shoulder, watching Quinn slowly trot towards him.
"I was gonna wait for Rachel," Quinn explains, sitting down on the curb as though to prove her point.
Puck raises his eyebrows. "What is going on with the two of you?"
Puck sounds suspicious. He is looking at Quinn with the same expression he had worn when he accused Quinn of having ill-intentions regarding her visits with Beth.
"She's my friend," Quinn settles on saying. She gives nothing else away, afraid that if she does, she will inadvertently tell Puck everything.
Despite her best intentions, she does that anyway.
This is the first time she has ever publicly admitted to having any sort of relationship with Rachel Berry; friendship or otherwise. Usually, she is trying her hardest to deny this fact. If anything, this makes Puck even less inclined to believe that Quinn's intentions are purely honorable.
"You're not gonna try anything stupid, are you?" Puck pushes.
"Not anymore," the blonde informs Puck with a stiff shake of her head.
"Anymore?" Puck raises an eyebrow.
"I used to think that getting custody of Beth back would be the best thing for her, alright?" Quinn rolls her eyes at herself. Saying this out loud makes her feel incredibly foolish and frankly, it's humiliating.
"You were gonna kidnap our daughter?" Puck asks incredulously.
"Of course not, Puck," Quinn rolls her eyes, although she knows that Puck's question is not as ridiculous as she is trying to make it sound. "I was gonna make Shelby look like a bad mom so that I could file a CPS claim and they would give us custody back."
"That's stupid," Puck criticizes, crossing his thick forearms across his chest.
"Thank you, Puck, I know that now." Quinn's voice is hostile and accusing. She doesn't need Noah Puckerman of all people rubbing her bad decisions in her face.
"So, what's the plan now?" Puck asks. Sarcasm is dripping from his voice. "Hire a hitman? Use Rachel to get Beth back? Is that why you're so obsessed with her all of a sudden?"
Quinn swallows as her heart dips into her stomach. In fact, that had been her plan. She was supposed to use Rachel to blackmail Shelby into giving her Beth back and she wasn't supposed to have any feelings about that one way or another.
But then she had had feelings about it.
She hadn't had feelings about anything before, and isn't entirely sure how she is supposed to interpret them.
What she does know is that everybody that Quinn has ever known has made the exact same mistakes; her father, her mother, her sister, her friends. Her.
Quinn is determined to break that cycle. She has to. Half of her friends were destined to become nothing more than Lima Losers. Her parents are two lonely people who are destined to spend the rest of their lives that way.
Quinn has made her fair share of mistakes, but the difference is that she still has time to correct them, and she has somebody to do it with her.
Somewhere in the course of all this, Quinn had looked straight inside of Rachel Berry and found light on the other side.
"I'm not using Rachel," Quinn whispers quietly. Her voice has lost all its gusto. Inside of her chest, her heart is flurrying a beat in Morse code, begging her to listen, begging her to be honest with herself about why it hurts so badly to consider how horribly she had planned on using Rachel.
"Then what's with the sudden obsession?"
"I like Rachel, okay?" Quinn mutters. She is having a hard time projecting her voice any louder than a whisper. This is the closest she has ever gotten to admitting the truth, even to herself.
She does like Rachel, a lot in fact. The brunette is different; exquisitely unique. Like Rachel, many people come her way. Unlike Rachel, they have all left.
Rachel Berry is the first person in the entire world who has refused to give up on her, and Quinn now realizes that she owes Rachel more than trying to use her tragedy for a personal gain she isn't even sure she deserves anymore.
"You used to torture her," Puck reminds her, and the accusation pulls something primitive out of Quinn that not even she thought was possible.
"I love her!" Quinn bellows through Puck's persistence.
Her voice echoes across the empty parking lot, vibrating through the silence. Quinn has been looking for a way to shut Puck up. This seems to do the trick.
Puck's eyes double in size, but his body shrinks away from its previously defensive stance. Of all the things he had been expecting Quinn to say, that had been just about the last.
"Woah…"
Puck's response is underwhelming, but Quinn's admission has caused tears to leak out from her eyes which she quickly wipes away.
"I thought that obsessing over getting Beth back would make all these stupid feelings go away," Quinn continues despite Puck's lack of articulation. She finds that now that she has started speaking, she is hard-pressed to stop.
"Did they?"
"Of course not," Quinn rolls her eyes, deflating. "I was… I was projecting, I guess. I have a tendency to act like an idiot when I get cornered."
Much to Quinn's surprise, Puck offers her a gentle smile.
"Me too," he says before sitting down on the curb next to Quinn. "So, does this mean I don't have a chance to get with either you or Berry anymore?"
Quinn rolls her eyes at Puck again, but this time it is less out of anger and more out of the understanding that Noah Puckerman is a dork hidden inside the body of a hard ass…
"Rachel is probably still on the table."
"You haven't told Rachel any of this yet, have you?" Puck asks. He sounds surprised, which Quinn finds weird because of course she hasn't told Rachel yet. She doesn't think she can ever tell Rachel.
"I have barely been able to admit it to myself," Quinn admits, her tone slightly hard as though to tell Puck that he better keep his mouth shut; a trait that she knows he is not well-known for. "The last thing I need are those rumors floating around. Besides, Rachel doesn't play for that team; she won't be interested. Just look at all the guys she's been with: Finn, Jesse… you."
Quinn nods up at Noah, who shrugs and makes a face like he is recalling the memory of him and Rachel hooking up fondly.
"Well, if I remember correctly, you've been with me and Finn, too," Puck points out. "And I am certainly no chick."
Puck flexes his sizeable biceps towards Quinn as though to prove a point. Quinn just rolls her eyes and leans back against the curb, fishing through her purse.
She hasn't had a cigarette in almost a week, but her sudden craving is almost desperate with Puck in her ear giving her advice on how to embrace her sexuality.
"You really can't tell anybody, Puck," Quinn repeats as she locates the full pack of Marlboros at the bottom of her purse. "Especially not Santana. I know the two of you have been hooking up."
Quinn pulls out the cigarettes, tapping the cardboard box hard against the heel of her left hand. The motion makes the broken knuckles of her right-hand throb, but she ignores it.
"Please, I haven't hooked up with Santana in like three weeks," Noah rolls his eyes. "Seriously though, Quinn, from my experience it's better to just let the girl you're after know what your needs are. Trust me, they say yes way more than they say no."
"Rachel isn't some sex-deprived housewife, Puck," Quinn point out. She flips the cigarette carton open. As always, she had flipped one of the cigarettes upside down for good luck when she had bought the pack although she doesn't know why she even bothers with this superstition anymore. The only thing her lucky habits have given her is bad luck.
She grabs the upside-down cigarette and shoves it between her teeth. She doesn't bother turning a second one around.
"Maybe she's not, but if there is one thing I know about, it's ladies," Puck tells Quinn confidently. "And I don't discriminate between what type."
Quinn has to resist the urge to gag as she ducks her head against the windy night in an effort to spark her lighter.
"Besides," Puck offers just as Quinn manages to light her cigarette. She feels the smoke wrap around her throat like a noose. "You'll never know until you try."
"Are you alright, Rachel?"
Inside of Shelby's apartment, the older woman walks out of Beth's bedroom after putting the little girl down for the night only to find that while Noah and Quinn are long gone, Rachel has chosen to stick around.
The girl is standing in the living room, her hands deep inside of her pockets. She is leaning over the mantle that frames the fake fireplace, looking closely at all the pictures of Beth that Shelby has lined up there.
When she hears Shelby's voice, she looks away from them quickly, embarrassed at having been caught.
"Sure," Rachel shrugs. "My dads told me once that it's rude to leave your mess behind at a dinner party. Do you need any help cleaning up?"
Rachel isn't lying. Her dads had taught her that it's rude to leave a dinner party without offering to clean up. Of course, her intentions go well beyond the scope of not wanting Shelby to think of her as rude.
"Sure," Shelby smiles softly, gesturing Rachel into the kitchen where the dirty dishes from dinner are still stacked high inside of the sink.
"I wash, you dry?" Shelby asks, offering Rachel a dish towel.
Rachel nods, accepting the towel as Shelby rolls up her sleeves and digs her hands into the full sink.
"So, how did tonight go?" Shelby asks after a moment, her voice slightly muffled by the sound of running water.
"Okay, I think," Rachel shrugs, accepting the dripping wet plate that Shelby hands to her.
"I think so too," Shelby agrees. "To be honest, I'm surprised that you agreed so readily to my invitation to come over."
"Because of Friday?" Rachel asks curiously. Shelby only shrugs.
"That and everything else," the woman nods, and then she pauses in a strategic manner that tells Rachel she is thinking very hard of how to word what she wants to say next as not to offend the girl.
"You just seem so angry lately, Rachel," Shelby finally settles on. "I can't say that I blame you after everything you've been through, but I've gotta tell you that I know from experience that it's not healthy to let these feelings build inside of you. You're bound to explode eventually."
"Who have you exploded on?"
Rachel forces herself not to get offended and instead, uses Shelby's advice as a segue into opportunity.
She looks at the woman before her intently, watching as Shelby just shrugs before handing Rachel yet another dish to dry.
"I've never gotten into a fist fight if that's what you're asking," Shelby finally clarifies.
Rachel flushes red with embarrassment as she turns back to her task of drying dishes. Her black eye seems to throb extra hard with shame at Shelby's remark.
"I was thinking more along the lines of a boyfriend or something," Rachel comments. It's not exactly subtle and she knows it.
"A boyfriend?" Shelby chuckles slightly, like the idea alone of her being in a relationship is some huge joke.
"Do you have one?" Rachel presses, and the question is so strange that Shelby actually stops washing the dishes long enough to look at Rachel like she has three heads.
"Why do you want to know?" Shelby asks. She doesn't sound angry or offended by the question, just curious.
"I don't know," Rachel shrugs, looking away from Shelby where she concentrates a little too hard on drying the already-dry dish inside of her hands. "I've just been hanging out with Quinn a lot lately and she's been telling me about coming here to see Beth, and I started thinking… If Quinn can get to know her daughter, why can't you get to know me? And vice-versa, I guess."
"What do you want to know?" Shelby asks.
"I don't know," Rachel shrugs, even though she knows exactly what she wants to know. "About how I was born and stuff, I guess."
Shelby raises a skeptical eyebrow, sensing Rachel wading into dangerous territory. For a long moment, the only sound between mother and daughter is that of the running sink and for the first time, Rachel senses a semblance of fear in Shelby, like she thinks that Rachel knows the truth even though she couldn't possibly.
"This might be a conversation better left for your fathers, Rachel," Shelby responds. It is a subtle warning. If Rachel hadn't known any better, she wouldn't question it. But she does, and it makes something inside of Rachel snap.
"Which one?"
The ceramic dish inside of Shelby's hand slips and clatters back into the sink. The tinkering of glass tells Rachel that it breaks on the way down. Some of the hot, soapy water splashes out of the basin and soaks her, but she doesn't seem to notice. That is how off-guard Rachel catches her.
"What do you mean?" Shelby forces herself to play dumb, just in case she had heard Rachel wrong, but she looks frightened by Rachel's comment. She knows she hadn't heard anything wrong, and Rachel figures that now that the scope of her knowledge is out in the open, she might as well own it.
"I found something," the girl announces, working her jaw carefully back and forth in an effort to stop that now-familiar sensation of anger from overwhelming her. "You weren't just a surrogate for my dads, were you?"
Shelby's mouth opens and closes several times, but no words ever come out.
"Rachel…" she finally manages. Her voice is meager, shocked. "Did your fathers tell you this."
"I figured it out on my own because they were lying to me!" Rachel feels the band inside of her composure snap. Shelby cringes at her volume. The mother's head darts towards Beth's closed bedroom door, waiting for the sound of a needy cry that might save her from this conversation, but nothing ever comes.
"You owe me answers, Shelby," Rachel continues, backing Shelby further into a corner. "I know that neither Hiram or LeRoy is my real father. So, who is he? I deserve to know."
"Telling you about your biological father is not my story to tell, Rachel," Shelby tells the girl.
She turns off the kitchen sink, drying her hands on the small hand towel draped across the oven door handle before turning away from Rachel, but the answer is a weak one, and Rachel is not buying it.
"When has that ever stopped you before?" Rachel argues. She is not about to let Shelby run away from this conversation like she has run away from every other aspect of Rachel's life.
Still, Shelby seems unwilling to talk. Instead, she keeps walking away towards the living room, and Rachel knows she is going to have to step up her strategy in order to keep her momentum.
"Peter Gabbanelli." Rachel spits out the name she can't help but wonder if Shelby still thinks about. She watches the older woman turn to her, her eyes widening at the scope of Rachel's knowledge. "Is that him? Is that my father?"
"How do you know about Peter?" Shelby asks. Her voice is trembling. She sounds genuinely frightened.
"I'll take that as a yes," Rachel prods for an answer, crossing her arms over her chest.
"How do you know about him, Rachel?" This time, Shelby's voice is stern. It throws even Rachel off. The girl is practically forced to answer as she drops her arms back down to her side.
"You told me that you went to William McKinley," Rachel reminds the woman. "I went to the library to find the archived yearbooks and I went through a few of them looking for you, and I found you. Class of 1994. That was the year I was born. There was a picture in the back of you and Peter and a superlative: Most Successful Couple."
Shelby closes her eyes at Rachel's explanation and takes a deep breath. She remembers that conversation during Rachel's very first private rehearsal with her about a week ago.
At the time, Shelby never would have guessed what Rachel was planning on doing with that information. She hadn't thought twice about offering it. She never would have said anything if she knew.
The woman curses herself under her breath. She was normally so careful when it came to Rachel and the truth about where she came from; that is part of the reason she had left the last time. This time, she had dropped her guard for one second and Rachel had run with it.
She should have stayed in New York.
Shelby wonders if Rachel already knew that her fathers were not who they said they were when she had first approached her for private lessons. Probably, Shelby reasons. Why else would Rachel ask such a favor of her than to butter her up? How much of their relationship – which Shelby thought was finally starting to bud – had been a lie? Likely all of it. Shelby usually prides herself in her ability to see past other people's bullshit, but in this case, she has to admit that her daughter played her like a fiddle.
Shelby shakes her head, still too shocked to speak. She knows that Rachel is angry, and that rightfully, she wants answers, but she had given up that responsibility almost eighteen years ago when she had handed her daughter to two kind, loving men, desperate for a child of their own.
This was a decision they would have to make.
"Rachel," Shelby tells the girl, her voice dropping seriously. "You have to speak to your fathers about this. I understand that you're confused and frustrated, but the only thing that I can tell you is that your fathers love you very, very much, and that they did everything they could to give you a much better life than you would have had otherwise."
"You know what? You're right, Shelby, this isn't your problem."
Sarcasm drips from Rachel's voice as she sweeps towards the door. She had been foolish to think Shelby could be a reliable source of information. Shelby has never been a reliable source of anything in her life.
She isn't surprised when Shelby doesn't try to stop her. Instead, she just storms out of the apartment, unopposed.
Rachel takes the stairs because she is afraid that if she stops moving – even for a period of time as short as an elevator ride – she will lose it.
Storming past the very confused doorman without a word, Rachel marches into the parking lot. She plans on getting into her car and driving somewhere, anywhere, just to clear her head, but before she can get very far, she spots somebody sitting on the curb a few feet in front of her.
Quinn.
The blonde is puffing absently on a cigarette. Judging by the number of empty butts around her, she has damn near smoked an entire pack while Rachel was upstairs arguing with Shelby.
Rachel can only assume that she isn't the only person in the world who is having a bad night.
"I thought you quit," Rachel sighs, feeling her anger diminish even as she speaks as she sits softly next to Quinn.
Historically, Quinn has had the very opposite effect on her. These days, the blonde is the only person who can stop her from exploding.
Quinn grips her lit cigarette between her index and middle fingers. Tapping it gently, she lets the ash fall to the pavement below her as she looks up at Rachel. Something happened in that apartment between her and Shelby just now. Quinn knows that just from looking at Rachel. She feels like the brunette is regressing right in front of her. Where once was a confident, capable woman, Quinn now saw a child much like herself.
She would never admit to this, but Quinn had spent the majority of her formative years studying Rachel Berry like a book. She knew her mannerisms by heart, and Rachel was on the verge of breaking.
"I did," Quinn insists, ignoring the way her heart starts to cleave for Rachel. "How'd it go with Shelby?"
"Not good," Rachel answers before looking down at her hands. She has half a mind to ask Quinn for one of those cigarettes, but reasons she has already added too many vices to her rapidly growing list to have to tackle another one.
"You said that one of your Skank friends knows how to work a computer?" Rachel cuts through the silence after a moment.
Quinn nods her head slowly through a deep pull of her cigarette. "Yup."
"Call her," Rachel orders determinedly. "We're going to have to figure this thing out on our own."