Hey all, here is the next chapter! As always, thank you to everybody for reading/reviewing/favoriting/sticking around. It means a lot. As some people were asking for, this chapter has a little bit more of Shelby in it. There will be a lot more from her perspective in upcoming chapters as more of her backstory comes to light.
Thanks again everyone. Until next time.
Chapter 10:
Quinn wakes up late the next morning.
The angle of the sun is reflecting through the cheap blinds, straight into her eyes. It is already high in the sky. The blonde wonders how much of the morning they have already wasted.
Groaning, Quinn rolls over on the lumpy mattress and ignores the pain in her lower back as she checks the ancient alarm clock on the bedside table.
It is already after ten. Quinn doesn't even remember falling asleep.
Stretching widely, the blonde sits up inside of her bed, wiping at her tired eyes.
Rachel is already awake. Quinn spots her in the far corner of the hotel room, packing some of her belongings in an organized fashion into her backpack.
Her back is to Quinn. The blonde wonders if this is on purpose. Probably.
Quinn falls back down against the mattress. She recalls – before last night's fiasco – that the brunette had wanted to hit the road early. She wonders if the reason Rachel had abandoned that plan was because she was afraid to so much as look at Quinn, let alone wake her up and rush her to the car.
"Rachel?" Quinn calls into the quiet room.
The brunette flinches at the sound. When she finally turns to look at Quinn, her eyes are frightened for a moment. She is terrified of what Quinn is going to say to her.
Is she going to want to talk about last night? Is she going to make fun of her? Is she going to tell her that she wants her to call her fathers to pick her up and to never speak to her again?
"Good, you're up," Rachel coughs, speaking up before Quinn has the opportunity to say any of these things. Her voice is much stiffer than usual. "You have to check out of the hotel in thirty minutes or else you'll be charged for another day. There's breakfast still in the lobby."
"Cool…" Quinn mutters, swinging her legs over the edge of the mattress.
The blonde realizes immediately that Rachel does not plan on talking to her about last night. She thinks to press, but realizes that now might not be the right time. Her and Rachel have another five hours in the car with each other, not to mention the ride back.
They can confront their future together when they're safely back in Lima. For now, Quinn will leave it alone.
"Is the breakfast any good?" Quinn asks, stretching widely.
"It's terrible," Rachel scrunches her face before slinging her fully-packed backpack over her shoulder. "I'm gonna get another cup of coffee, though. I didn't sleep so well last night. I'll meet you out there."
Quinn frowns as she watches Rachel scurry to leave the hotel room as quickly as possible.
The blonde wants to call after her. She wants to tell her not to be embarrassed. She wants to tell her not to go, but to come closer.
They can lay in bed together for the rest of the morning. Forget Peter Gabbanelli. Forget if this crap motel charges another $25 on her credit card for a second night. Forget everything except for her and Rachel and finishing what they had started.
Shelby still wakes up and goes to work the next morning.
She knows that she could, and probably should call out. She would hardly be able to teach today, and she could use the extra time to help look for Quinn and Rachel…
But the more she thinks about it, the more she realizes that the idle time would drive her crazy. Besides, William McKinley High School might be a better source for finding Peter Gabbanelli than anything she could come up with.
She had spent the last decade or so wondering whether or not Peter was even still alive. She wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't, not considering the path he had been on the last time she had seen him eighteen years ago.
But if two teenagers could dig up her past, then she could suck it up and do it too.
With that thought in mind, Shelby gets herself ready for work, feeds Beth, and then drops her off at the sitter like she does every other morning. She sits in the same traffic. She drinks from the same coffee mug. Everything about her morning is exactly the same except this day is far from normal.
Last night's conversation with Hiram and LeRoy had been awkward to say the least.
Understandably, the men were upset that Rachel had found out the truth about her birth father, even though they were able to accept that once Rachel got that bite, this outcome was the only logical one. The Berry men had raised a remarkably smart, independent woman. Unfortunately, they couldn't predict when exactly those traits would come out.
They had asked Shelby if she knew where Peter was. Unfortunately, Shelby had to admit that she has been far less resourceful than her daughter and her friend.
"But you have to have some idea!" It was LeRoy who had snapped first. He raised off his seat, gripping the edges of the dining room table so hard that his fingers turned white.
Hiram wanted to go to the police, even though they have already proved to be less than helpful. He had thought that the additional inclusion of Peter Gabbanelli into the narrative would motivate them to act, but when they had gone back to the Lima Police Department, they were told the same thing. The girls had left on their own accord. Quinn is eighteen-years-old, and Rachel seventeen; past the age of consent in the state of Ohio…
Their options were limited. Hiram had called Finn, but the tall boy had informed them – much to their surprise – that he and Rachel had broken up nearly two weeks ago. When they tried calling Judy Fabray next, the blonde woman sounded concerned, but hopeful that Quinn would return with Rachel in tow.
"She always comes back," Mrs. Fabray had insisted. "Just give them a few days."
At William McKinley, Shelby barely walks into the teacher's lounge before she is assigned to substitute a homeroom computer science class.
It is a small class, which is unsurprising giving the fact that while kids these days are adamant to get their hands on the latest technology, they are less enthusiastic about learning how it works…
Shelby herself barely has any knowledge on the subject. She takes attendance, plays the morning announcements, and then lets the class work quietly on their personal coding projects.
The class is almost halfway over before Shelby realizes that she recognizes one of the girls in the class. She has spotted her in recent weeks hanging around Quinn…
The blonde hasn't exactly been prone to letting people inside of her inner circle lately. Maybe that means that this girl knows something. Or maybe it doesn't. Either way, Shelby realizes that it's worth a try.
The woman scans through the short class roster so that she can be reminded of the girl's name.
Genesis Santiago.
"Genesis, can I talk to you for a minute?" Shelby waits until after the bell rings to call to the girl. She doesn't want to bring any more attention to herself by doing this in front of the rest of the class.
"Sure," Genesis shrugs, slinging her bag over her shoulder before approaching the front desk.
"You're friends with Quinn Fabray, right?"
Genesis raises a highly suspicious eyebrow in Shelby's direction. "We're more like acquaintances."
"I've seen you hang around with her in the hallways," Shelby points out.
"We run around the same crowd, that's it," Genesis insists vaguely, giving nothing of value away. "We're not really the type for friends."
"I didn't realize there was a type," Shelby smirks, trying to loosen the girl up, but Genesis's face remains stoic. Shelby feels her expression fall. This might be harder than she thought.
The woman leans forward, bracing herself against her desk with a sigh as she tucks her chin down and scans her brain quickly for another approach. Unfortunately, the only thing that she can come up with is to be direct.
"Listen, I'm sure by now you've heard that Rachel Berry was reported missing by her fathers yesterday, and that Quinn is probably with her?"
"You think I have something to do with that?" Genesis asks quickly. Shelby watches her defenses flair.
"I just wanted to know if you knew where they might be headed," Shelby responds quickly, but Genesis's face still hardens in a way that Shelby does not like.
"I have no idea," the girl says with a stiff tone that tells Shelby that she is not entirely telling the truth.
"Genesis, this is important," Shelby emphasizes, but before she can start begging, the door to the classroom bursts open and the secretary to Principal Figgins comes flying in, looking breathless.
"Shelby, Principal Figgins wants to know if you can take over a Spanish class next period," the woman speaks quickly before she even realizes that Shelby is not alone in the room.
When she notices Genesis, her eyes dart between the girl and Shelby.
"I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were in here with somebody…"
"It's okay," Shelby waves the older woman off. "Tell Principal Figgins that I'd be glad to."
The woman nods and luckily, does not linger. She turns back out of the classroom, leaving Shelby and Genesis alone again. When Shelby turns back towards the younger girl, she is looking up at the woman curiously.
"Your name is Shelby Corcoran?" she asks after a long moment's consideration.
"Yeah…" Shelby breathes. She's not sure why Genesis is asking. More importantly, she's not sure that she even wants to be Shelby Corcoran anymore. It is starting to feel like the worst role she has ever played, and she has played a lot of bad roles…
"Last week, Quinn paid me to hack into a computer system to find information on some guy," Genesis breathes after a long moment of deciding whether or not she wants to say anything at all. "I'm good with computers. I found him pretty quickly. His name was Peter something. I don't remember, he had a weird last name. Quinn told me that he was Rachel Berry's biological father. The first thing that I found was a petition for a restraining order. It was filed by a woman named Shelby Corcoran. Was that you?"
Shelby nods. "It was."
"You're Rachel's mom?" Genesis asks, putting the pieces together impressively quickly.
Shelby's lips curl inwards as she forces a deep breath. She doesn't want to cry in front of this high school student who she barely knows, but for the first time in her life, a complete stranger had associated her and her daughter. She has been craving that acknowledgment for so long that for a split second, Shelby forgets herself entirely.
"I am," Shelby finally manages. Her words are shaking on the way out. "That's why I have to know the truth, Genesis. Do you have any idea where Rachel and Quinn may have gone?"
"I don't know for sure," Genesis shakes her head, and Shelby can tell that she is telling the truth this time. "But I'm willing to bet that it has something to do with this Peter guy."
"Me too," Shelby nods in agreement. "Do you have an address for him?"
"Look, I'm not a snitch, okay?" Genesis insists. "If Rachel and Quinn wanted to be found, they would have told you where they were going."
"Genesis…"
"I don't snitch," Genesis repeats, cutting Shelby off, but her voice is softer, like there is a but hiding somewhere within her words. "But if you happen to tell me that you also have an interest in finding Peter What's-His-Name, I just so happen to provide a service that could help you. If that's the case, it's not snitching. It's just business."
"A service?" Shelby asks, raising an eyebrow. She's not sure she likes where this is going.
"For $100," Genesis clarifies.
"Seriously?" Shelby's eyebrows raise high inside of her hairline.
"You want an address, I can get you an address," Genesis nods confidently.
Shelby takes a breath so deep that her entire body moves. She can't believe that she is even considering this, but what other choice does she have?
"Meet me in the faculty parking lot after next period," Shelby concedes after a moment. "God, I can't believe I'm doing this."
She looks down at the teenager who is smirking at her like she'd just won the lottery.
"And I can't believe that Rachel Berry's daddy issues are making me rich."
Shelby doesn't want to substitute for a Spanish class, but she had already committed, so she does what she has to for the hour and fourteen-minute period before retreating outside to meet Genesis in the parking lot.
There, she slips Genesis a hundred-dollar bill in exchange for a wrinkled up Post-It with an address written on it in sloppy handwriting.
It is the most expensive Post-It she has ever seen in her life. She hopes it's worth it.
Shelby calls out of work for the afternoon and for tomorrow as well. Afterwards, she calls Beth's babysitter - a retiree although she is still on the young side – and asks if Beth can stay with her overnight.
She figures if she hits the road now, she can reach Nebraska by dawn. She doesn't plan on this trip taking any longer than the time it will take to drive to Foster, force Rachel and Quinn into her car, and drive back to Lima.
When Shelby calls the Berry men to tell them where Rachel and Quinn are likely headed, they make their first executive co-parenting decision about Rachel. The Berry men decide to fly. Shelby will drive. Whoever gets there first can have their way with Rachel and Quinn just so long as they leave enough for the other to have a piece too.
Afterwards, the race is on.
Shelby stops at her apartment only long enough to pack up a couple of necessities. She is back in her Range Rover within five minutes.
If she pushes, she knows that she will make it to Nebraska before the Berry men.
Shelby pulls onto the interstate. The radio is off in her car, leaving her in silence that is only broken when she curses herself out loud for not just coming out and telling Rachel the truth earlier.
She thought that she had been protecting the girl by keeping her ignorant. She realizes now that she had underestimated her daughter. She has been underestimating her daughter since the day they met. She had been too immersed in the game to even know she was playing it.
When Shelby was Rachel's age, she would have done the same thing. She realizes now that despite their physical distance while Rachel was growing up, the pull of genetics was just too strong. Rachel was just like her.
She wanted so much more for her daughter.
For some reason, Shelby cannot stop thinking about the first role she received after moving back to New York with Beth. She had been hired to play the witch in an off-Broadway production of Into the Woods.
She realizes now that after spending six months playing a mother so over-bearing she had single-handedly led her daughter down a path of destruction, she should have been able to predict the ending of this story a little bit better.
Don't you know what's out there in the world?
The line turns inside of Shelby's head over and over, but she realizes that it is not helpful to dwell. Instead, she presses her foot even harder against the gas pedal and makes her way a little bit faster in the direction of Foster, Nebraska.
Eighteen-year-old Shelby Corcoran steps up to a professional building on the opposite side of the city from where she, and all of her peers live.
She had done this on purpose.
The entire city of Lima seems to know she is the latest statistic in the epidemic of pregnant teen Lima Losers at this point, but she had sought this level of privacy in an effort to keep what's left of her child's dignity intact.
Selfishly, she can't help but to consider her own dignity as well.
The young brunette swallows before stepping inside of the building. An elderly man holds the door open for her, but he stares at her judgmentally as she enters, just like everybody else does the moment they notice her protruding stomach.
She had hit her five-month mark in her pregnancy yesterday. She has been ballooning steadily for weeks. Her second trimester had not been kind to her.
The sign in the main lobby tells Shelby that she can find the office of Hiram G. Berry, Family Lawyer on the third floor. She takes the stairs because the elevator is packed, and she can't stand the pitiful stares she thought she would be used to by now.
The baby inside of her starts to kick at her ribs before she is even halfway up the stairs, like it knows what she is doing here. The teenager lets out an emphatic oomph in response that nobody is around to hear and takes a break at the landing.
For such a tiny thing, her baby certainly is a strong one. Her daughter. She had found that detail out only last week. For some reason, she hasn't been able to get it out of her head since.
With a lot of effort, Shelby makes it to the third floor. Her daughter is still rolling around inside of her and it is starting to make her nauseous.
"Settle down," she whispers to her stomach, wrapping her arms around its curvature before pushing her way into the office.
"I have an appointment with Mr. Berry," she tells the secretary behind the desk; a thin man in a well-fitting suit and horn-rimmed glasses. "My name is Shelby Corcoran."
The man nods at her. He doesn't appear to be very old, maybe in his late-twenties or early-thirties. Without a word, he stands up and gently knocks on the closed office door just behind the desk.
"Mr. Berry will be out with you in just a moment," he relays the information to Shelby before pointing her towards the series of waiting chairs just by the front door.
It's not just a moment. Hiram Berry takes nearly twenty minutes to come out and invite Shelby into his office. In that time, the baby has stopped performing acrobatics inside of her stomach, but Shelby did have to excuse herself once to throw up in the public restroom. Luckily, she has learned to always carry gum and a water bottle with her wherever she goes.
"Mr. Berry, I'm here because I need to know what my rights are as this child's mother to ensure that her father can have no contact with her."
Shelby doesn't even sit down before she is making her intentions known to Hiram Berry. She has her speech memorized. She had written it out last night and rehearsed it in a mirror so late into the evening that she had to spend the last couple of hours whispering just to make sure she didn't wake up her parents.
"I'm sorry, Ms. Corcoran, I don't understand…" Hiram Berry is a young man. Shelby wonders how long he has been out of law school. He was the cheapest family lawyer that Shelby could find, leading Shelby to believe that he hasn't been practicing long.
"My baby's father," Shelby repeats, gesturing down to her pregnant stomach. "I'm afraid that he will pose a threat to my child. I want to know if there is any way that I can protect her from him."
The man raises a very curious eyebrow.
"How old are you, Ms. Corcoran?" he finally asks after a long moment, leaning forward on his desk on his elbows.
"I'll be nineteen in November," Shelby answers, trying to sound older than she is.
"And what do you do for a living?"
"I just graduated from William McKinley in June," she informs the man and she hates the pitying look that she isn't even sure he realizes he is giving her. Her eyes narrow. She doesn't need this man's pity. She just needs somebody to help her. "And as soon as I have this baby, I am moving to New York to be on Broadway."
"Do you plan on taking the baby with you?"
"No," Shelby answers stiffly. "I plan on giving her up for adoption."
"Yet you think that he'll still be a threat?"
"I'm afraid he'll try to stop it, or try to do something even after it's done. Can I… can I put her up for adoption without him knowing?" Shelby pulls her bottom lip between her teeth, nervous for the answer.
"He wants to keep the baby?"
"He doesn't want her to be born at all!" Shelby argues, her volume elevating. She doesn't understand what is so difficult about this. Her child is in danger, and she is trying to protect her. That's it. "He's an ambitious man, Mr. Berry, and he has a lot of influence in this town. He doesn't like anything getting in the way of his future, and right now, me and this baby are getting in the way."
"Do you think that he is capable of harming you or your child?"
"I think that it is in my best interest not to underestimate him," Shelby nods.
The man leans back inside of his chair, thinking very carefully.
"Are you married to the baby's father, Ms. Corcoran?" he final asks.
"No."
"In the state of Ohio, an unmarried woman is considered the sole custodial parent."
"But he can fight that," Shelby argues. She watches the man raise his eyebrows at her, like he is impressed by the scope of her knowledge. "I looked it up. He could take it to court. The only thing that it would take is a DNA test."
Hiram Berry takes a deep breath. Shelby watches him remove his glasses very purposefully.
"Has your baby's father ever harmed you, Ms. Corcoran?"
Shelby hesitates, her eyes flickering down into her lap. It is an answer in itself.
"His behavior has been… erratic as of late," Shelby answers vaguely.
"What do you mean erratic?"
Shelby closes her eyes, trying desperately not to cry in front of this man. She is humiliated. She still can't believe that there had been a time not so long ago when she thought she was in love with Peter.
But she had been wrong, and with Peter's behavior growing riskier and the court system and police department wrapped up inside of the Gabbanelli family's deep pockets, Shelby knows that she cannot risk going through anything in an official capacity. She has to be sneaky.
It is time to take matters into her own hands.
Shelby returns to Hiram's office several times over the next few weeks.
He proves to be a kind man, sympathetic to her plight. He knows that Shelby doesn't have a lot of money and offers to do everything for her pro bono, even though Shelby knows that his tiny office hardly gets much business.
Hiram starts by petitioning the court to file a restraining order against Peter. His secretary, who Shelby has since learned is named LeRoy, signs off as the witness.
One week later, he is calling Shelby to regretfully inform her that the petition had been rejected.
Shelby is disappointed, but not surprised. She knew from the beginning that she couldn't trust the system to go against the Gabbanelli family.
But Hiram has another solution, and he asks Shelby to come to his office as soon as possible to discuss it.
Shelby does not realize how unusual it is that Hiram is asking her to come to his office after hours until she is sitting here, with nobody but Hiram and LeRoy in the building with her.
"What did you mean when you said you had another solution?" Shelby asks.
Hiram swallows and looks up at her hesitantly.
"I have to admit that it's rather unorthodox," he tells her. Shelby has never seen him look nervous like this before, and immediately, alarm bells go off, telling her that Hiram is about to say something she could never see coming. "My partner and I have been trying to have a baby for about two years now."
"Partner?" Shelby asks. She has been coming to this office on a regular basis for almost a month now and never once did Hiram Berry mention having a wife. Hell, Shelby has never noticed a family photo on his desk or even a ring on his finger.
Hiram doesn't answer immediately. Instead, LeRoy takes a tentative step forward from out of the shadows. His hand slips inside of Hiram's and squeezes, and Shelby feels her face dip with realization.
"Oh…" she breathes.
Understanding floods into her features. She realizes immediately what Hiram is suggesting.
It isn't that Hiram and LeRoy were having a difficult time having a baby, it is that they couldn't have a baby. The state of Ohio is not exactly a breeding right for gay rights. There are not exactly a lot of agencies clamoring to adopt their children to an unmarried gay couple…
Shelby looks down at her feet before Hiram and LeRoy can see the sympathetic look that has appeared on her face. Shelby might get stares on the street for being the pregnant teenager, but Hiram and LeRoy could not even publicly disclose their relationship without risking their dignity, their career, their lives…
"We tried adoption agencies," Hiram goes on to explain after a moment. "They all kicked us out without a word. We looked up a few at-home methods, and even convinced a few women to try them, but nothing worked."
"What can I do?" Shelby asks, and not even she can believe how strong her voice sounds.
"I can put my name on the birth certificate as the baby's father," Hiram offers.
"Can you get in trouble?"
The man hesitates. "I can be disbarred."
"Mr. Berry, I couldn't-"
"You would have to sign a contract that turns over your parental rights to me and agree not to make contact with the child until she's eighteen," Hiram cuts Shelby off, trying to get through all the logistics before any of them could lose their bravado.
"Why?"
"Because if a problem with custody ever did come up, the state of Ohio would side with you before they ever sided with an unwed gay man, and if this situation gets dragged into the courts, then I cannot promise that Peter will not catch wind of it."
Shelby takes a deep breath. This all seems to be happening very fast.
"What if Peter catches wind of it anyway?" she asks.
"If my name is on the birth certificate, then Peter will have no legal right to the child."
"But he knows I'm pregnant," Shelby sputters, searching for any hole she can find in Hiram's arrangement. "Once he knows I have the baby, he can still come after us. One DNA test can ruin this entire plan. I can't just tell him that I stopped being pregnant."
"Maybe you can…" Hiram lowers his eyes.
"You want me to tell him that I lost the baby?"
"You would have to lay low until the baby is born," Hiram nods. "LeRoy and I have a guest bedroom that you can stay in. Afterwards, we will give you some money, enough to help you establish yourself in New York. That's your dream, right? To be on Broadway?"
"I'm not selling my daughter for money, Mr. Berry."
"The money is not for the baby," Hiram insists. "It's to help you get away from Peter. It's to help keep your daughter safe. LeRoy and I will raise her as our own, and Peter will never even know that his daughter had been born, let alone where she is."
Shelby takes a deep breath. She can't believe that she is even considering this, but the more she thinks about it, the more she realizes that it is the best option she has. She never wants her daughter to know that her father never wanted her, and that he would go through abhorrent lengths to make sure that she was never even born. This is the way to do it. For the first time since finding out that she was pregnant, Shelby feels her confidence soar.
"Okay," she finally nods to the two men. "I'll do it."
Despite their late start, Rachel and Quinn make it to the small town of Foster, Nebraska by early evening, just as people are starting to trudge home from work.
The last several hours of their ride had been awkward at best. The girls hardly spoke a word to each other, and in the middle of nowhere Nebraska, the radio didn't have enough signal to even give them the relief of having sound between them.
Instead, there was only silence.
Following the map that Quinn had brought back in that gas station in Illinois, Quinn takes an unmarked exit off a dark one-lane highway that spits her out on a dirt road that is labelled as Main St.
Once the dust that her tires kicked up settles, the blonde sees the hand-written sign up ahead welcoming her and Rachel to Foster, Nebraska.
"Jesus, what a dive…" Quinn breathes as she rolls her car slowly down the street. The blonde isn't so bold as to consider herself a city girl by any means, but compared to this town, Lima might as well be New York.
They decide to stop at the one restaurant in town before driving the block or two to Peter Gabbanelli's house.
The girls haven't eaten all day and are starving. Plus, Rachel is not quite ready to confront her estranged father just yet, despite how many hours of preparation she might have had for this moment.
When they enter the restaurant, their senses are immediately assaulted.
Cigarette smoke hangs low in the air. The bar is full with patrons winding down from the work day with watered-down beer and grimy, forlorn expressions on their faces.
They turn in their seats to stare at Rachel and Quinn like they are watching a circus.
The girls make themselves comfortable behind a high-top table in the far corner of the room, but it doesn't stop people from looking. Everybody seems to be talking about them. They don't belong here, and both girls know well enough that for what small towns lack in population, they make up for in gossip.
The restaurant has no vegan options. In the end, Rachel has to settle to pick on a side order of French fries while Quinn downs a surprisingly delicious cheeseburger in under a minute.
"You okay?" Quinn finally asks Rachel, only when they finally leave the restaurant.
Both girls have been shying away from saying much of anything to one another since the motel room last night, but they are mere minutes away from the moment they have come all this way for. Quinn could hardly get away with not saying anything, even if it isn't what she wants to say to Rachel.
"I'm fine…" Rachel breathes. Her voice is shaky, but not so prohibitively so that Quinn would question if Rachel was actually ready for this. She is bound to be nervous, but she is standing surprisingly tall.
Quinn continues down the main street, looking for Peter's. Her road map is not so detailed that it gives the street names in a dumpy little town like this, but there are only about ten roads in Foster, so it only takes about 15 minutes of driving around to find Schneider Street; tucked away in the far corner of town.
The street terminates in a dead end about a mile off the main road. There are a few trailers peppered alongside it, and at the very end, one with a wooden sign hammered into the ground out front with the number 310 spray-painted in orange paint.
Rachel and Quinn stare out the window, taking in the building. It looks like it is about to collapse in on itself and has so much junk strewn all over the front lawn, Quinn wonders how they're even going to make it to the front door without breaking a leg.
Immediately, Quinn's stomach rumbles with the gut feeling that maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all. She is about to turn over her shoulder and ask Rachel if she's sure about this, but before she can, Rachel decides to just go for it. Without a word, she steps out of Quinn's car and storms towards the trailer.
"Shit…" Quinn murmurs, throwing her car into park before climbing out to chase after Rachel.
There are no lights on out front and Quinn has to weave through the trash dotting along the overgrown grass to catch up to Rachel.
Meanwhile, Rachel hears Quinn chasing after her but she doesn't stop or even slow down because she knows that if she does, she will be lost. She doesn't want to think about Quinn. She is glad to have the blonde at her side through all of this, but she has already been embarrassed in front of Quinn once this trip. She doesn't want to ruin meeting her birth father and only add to that embarrassment…
Instead, she tries to think about what she is going to say to Peter when he answers the door. Surprisingly, she hasn't thought about that at all. She wonders if this is a conversation that one can even prepare for.
Rachel knocks on the front door while she still has a little of her nerve left.
She hears a dog start to bark on the other side, but there are no lights on inside of the house and she hears no other noise.
Rachel knocks again. The dog continues to bark, but nobody ever answers.
"Maybe he's not home," Quinn suggests. Rachel turns over her shoulder to look at her. Her adrenaline is starting to die down as her disappointment raises. All of the questions that she should have asked before she got into Quinn's car yesterday morning are only now starting to flash through her mind.
What if they got the wrong house? What if Genesis had given them an old address and Peter didn't even live here anymore? What if everything everyone has been telling her is true and what is waiting for her on the other side of this door is dangerous?
Is this her sign? Should she just give up?
No. She hadn't come all this way for nothing.
"We can wait for him…" Rachel suggests. Maybe he works late. Maybe he is visiting friends. Maybe he had been sitting at the same bar that Rachel and Quinn had been eating dinner at and Rachel hadn't even recognized him.
Quinn shrugs. She knows that they probably shouldn't wait for him. She knows that they should probably get another motel room, maybe check in with their parents to let them know that they're not dead, and come back in the morning when it is light outside and there are more people around to witness their presence…
But Rachel can't wait much longer. Quinn can tell by the look in her eyes. Besides, Peter has a dog inside of the house. He can't be gone for too much longer, right?
"Sure," Quinn agrees, despite that feeling in her stomach telling her to take Rachel and get the hell out of here.
The blonde watches Rachel smile shyly at her through the shadows of the night.
For a moment, Quinn forgets all about the awkwardness that has been sitting between the two of them like a wall all day. She sees Rachel smiling at her and realizes that nobody has the capacity to heal her like Rachel does, and maybe Rachel might be able to say the same thing about her.
Quinn reaches down and grabs onto Rachel's hand before she can stop herself.
"It's all gonna be okay, you know," she assures the brunette, and she hopes that she isn't lying.
For the first time all day, Rachel meets Quinn's eyes. Quinn squeezes Rachel's hand a little bit tighter, and Rachel's face relaxes like she is interpreting Quinn's motion as the blonde telling her that she has nothing to be afraid of or embarrassed about. When she says that everything is going to be okay, she means everything.
The duo walk back to Quinn's car hand-in-hand. They only separate when they take their respective seats in Quinn's BMW.
For a long moment, they both stare through the windshield into the vast darkness of the night until their breath fogs up the window. Finally, Quinn cannot take the silence anymore.
"I'm sorry about what happened yesterday," the blonde finally breathes. It is the first time that either one of them has mentioned what happened at all.
Rachel turns to look at Quinn, surprised that she is the one apologizing when it had been her who had started everything.
"What do you have to be sorry for?" she asks.
"I just… I didn't want to push you away," Quinn admits, her eyes sliding down into her lap. "I've been waiting for something like that to happen between the two of us for a long time, but you just seemed so upset yesterday that I… I felt like I was taking advantage of you. I didn't want anything that we did together to be defined by that. That's why I pushed you away. I should have told you all of that last night. I'm sorry for letting you go on for so long thinking that it was you who did something wrong."
Rachel continues to stare at Quinn, speechless for a moment.
"So, you're not mad?" she finally asks after a moment.
Quinn shakes her head hard. "Never."
Her word is like an invitation. Rachel leans forward over the console towards Quinn. Like a magnet, Quinn feels herself pulled towards Rachel until their foreheads touch.
Quinn reaches up, pushing one of Rachel's chestnut locks behind her ear. She watches Rachel close her eyes and physically relax into Quinn's touch, like the blonde had somehow just given her permission to feel something again. For Quinn, it is like seeing color for the first time.
"I don't think that I could have ever done this without you," Rachel admits.
"Of course, you could have," Quinn insists. "You're Rachel Berry."
Rachel's eyes turn down. She pulls away from Quinn and sinks back down into her seat. Quinn retreats as though burned, afraid that she has said something wrong.
"I feel like I don't know who I am anymore," Rachel admits quietly.
Quinn swallows before nodding slowly. She knows exactly how that feels.
"Me too," the blonde tells Rachel. "But for some reason, whenever you're around I know exactly who I am."
Rachel blushes in a way that makes her look more beautiful than she already does, but she doesn't say anything. Instead, she lets out a breath so deep it sounds like she has been holding it all day.
She tilts herself over the center console again and this time, rests her head against Quinn's shoulder. Her hair tickles underneath Quinn's nose. It smells like cheap motel shampoo, but the familiar scent of Rachel still lingers underneath that and Quinn takes it in for all it's worth.
The duo falls into a quiet that is comfortable for the first time since last night.
Quinn feels her muscles relax as she lets the moment take over. Feeling bold, she reaches behind Rachel with her casted right arm and pulls her in closer. It feels like a promise; an unspoken next step in a budding relationship.
The night is still young, but neither girl had gotten much sleep last night.
The stars that linger above this desolate town are magnificent, and they provide just enough glow that Rachel is asleep within minutes. Quinn can tell that she is really asleep because she hasn't heard the girl breathe so easily in weeks.
Quinn wants to stay awake. She feels an obligation to keep vigil for Rachel, waiting for Peter to come home, but the comfort of Rachel's body against hers feels like the biggest, warmest blanket she has ever had and it isn't long before her eyes start to grow heavy too.
She wishes that she could break the clock so that the hands of time never move again. She wants to stay here, like this, with Rachel for the rest of forever.
Quinn takes a deep breath through her nose, counting the passage of time using the steady breathing patterns of Rachel next to her.
Her eyes close again and this time, they don't open. Instead, she is lulled into oblivion thinking about nothing but the image of Rachel's eyes looking back at hers like she the two of them are the only people left in the entire world.
Quinn's eyes snap open again after only a couple of minutes. Or has it been hours?
The blonde realizes that she doesn't know. She must have been in a deep sleep.
Within seconds, she realizes that she never would have woken up at all if it wasn't for a distinct tapping sound that is growing clearer and clearer the longer she allows her brain to emerge from the fog of sleep.
Quickly, Quinn realizes that the sound is that of knuckles wrapping against her window.
Quinn straightens up a little inside of her seat. It proves difficult because Rachel is still out cold with her head against Quinn's shoulder.
Additionally, the blonde is reluctant to completely wake up from the dream she had been having where Rachel had been on top of her, staring down at her with those brown doe eyes bearing into her soul.
Then, she follows the sound of knocking and blinks out her window with bleary eyes.
For a moment, she thinks that she is still dreaming because when her vision finally does clear, she is looking at those exact same eyes she had been dreaming about, still staring down at her.
It takes her a few seconds to realize that those eyes aren't looking at her in a seductive way. Instead, they look angry, and Quinn feels the last of her sleepiness immediately clear from her mind when she realizes that those eyes do not belong to Rachel at all, but to the man who had given them to her in the first place;
Peter Gabbanelli.