This fanfic was written at least five years ago. It's part of the universe of the Berry-Lopez and Fabrey Sagas and would be a prequel to the fanfiction that tells the story of Rachel and Santana Berry-Lopez (as twin sisters) and Quinn Fabray. In this case, being a prequel, the fic was focused on Shelby Corcoran and Juan Lopez and the process that led to the birth of Santana and Rachel. This story was never published before because Shelby was never a popular character and because Juan Lopez is basically an original character despite having canonical information. They are, therefore, not characters that would generate interest from Glee readers. But I decided to publish the fic now, because I'm spawning these files and I'm not too worried about popularity. A lot of information about this story is contained in the Saga's fics and the reader of them knows what the ending is. So this fic is about the process that got to that end.

...

(Shelby)

Not having money to fulfill a dream sucks. When I moved to Cleveland, I really had no idea what was going to happen to me. I came here to attend drama school at Cleveland State University. I knew it wasn't the best academic option in the world, but not everyone can get into Tisch at NYU or NYADA. I studied in a place where I got a 50% scholarship, which meant I could pay for college with my meager savings that my mother made for me without my father's consent. My dream has always been Broadway, New York, but life quickly gave me a reality check: making dreams come true costs money.

I could take the money from my savings and go straight to New York with my school's art program experience in Findley, Ohio. As much as my teacher meant well and helped me a lot by casting me as the lead actress in virtually every production we did, I knew it wasn't enough. Could I compete with someone who was trained in Tisch? Or at NYADA? Could I get a role based on my talent, without having to do horizontal favors for freak producers? That's why, in a moment of humiliating reality check, I chose to complete my education only 118 miles from my home. My retrograde family, with my hypocritical father who stifled the rest of the family without the slightest mercy, my submissive mother, my broken brother.

I spent my entire school life doing theater because it was the only thing that really made me happy. I dated boys I never introduced to my family, I lost my virginity at 14, I smoked marijuana for the first time at the same age because I thought I was cool and, above all, because if my dad found out, he would throw me out of the house. I had a false positive for pregnancy at 15, I had an abortion at 17. My family was Christian, Pentecostal, and in their view I committed the worst of crimes. Well, they never knew about it, but that doesn't mean I don't think about it every single day. It doesn't mean that I never suffered, because I tell you, my friend, it's not easy to go through that.

My college's freshman year was okay. I made all the credits I could with the money I had in my savings. I joined the university's body and soul theater group. But my savings started to run low after the sophomore year. I had to leave the college dorm and look for a cheaper rent along with other colleagues, I also got a job as a waitress so I could eat. Even so, expenses were greater than I could generate income and, last month, I withdrew from college.

"Apple pie and cheeseburger, table 12."

The order was followed by the annoying little bell. I picked up what was lost and handed it to the table that had a couple who didn't seem to be going through the best phase of their relationship. I brought the meal to the table.

"Apple pie." I handed dessert to the lady. "Cheeseburger." I put the plate in front of the man. "Anything else?"

"No, thank you." The girl said indifferently.

The night was slow in the diner, which I hated. Nights with fewer customers meant fewer tips. And less tips meant less food. And less food meant that my best meal of the day would be the cheeseburger that Charlie prepared for the employees free of charge. That diner's kitchen was something with a permanently impregnated frying smell. Jane began mopping the diner floor with a damp, grimy cloth, dragging up any leftover food that customers dropped. That wasn't even the worst part of the service. The worst thing was having to clean the bathroom, especially the men's. Damn, how can men's pee stink so bad? How do they have the ability to hit our vagina and miss a much larger hole in a toilet bowl?

I looked at the clock. It was the end of my shift. I waited for the couple and another loner costumer who was reading a magazine to finish their meal just because of my tip. I wouldn't leave my little money to Jane. Meanwhile, I cleared the vacant tables and waited. Jane had one customer at her tables, and she had another hour of service until the diner closed. Sometimes I stayed until closing when the movement paid off. But on dull nights like this one, I preferred to run home and rest, take a shower to wash the fried smell out of my hair.

"Charlie, I'm going to have a piece of pie today."

That diner's employees were entitled to one menu item per day. You could eat before or after the clock. Never during the shift, not even during those 15 minutes break to drink water, to pee or smoke a little bit. I didn't always take advantage of this benefit because, let's face it, if I ate all that sugar and fat every day, I'd be huge and diabetic.

The magazine customer nodded. He paid for the combo and left me two dollars: there were worse. I collected the plates and threw what was disposable in the trash. I quickly cleaned the table and it was time for the couple to get out of there. They tipped me a dollar and 30 cents. I thanked them and silently wished they would never come back.

"Charlie, Jane, I'm going out."

I went into the locker room, took the day's tips out of my apron pocket and stuffed them in my purse. I took off my pink uniform and hung it up. Charlie's wife collected the uniforms for washing, and we had clean clothes at least twice a week. Can't say that diner was one of the worst. I had to give credit to Charlie, who tried to keep his establishment in decent shape, despite all the grease accumulated in the kitchen.

"See you tomorrow." I said to Charlie and Jane, picking up the bag with my piece of apple pie.

My apartment was two blocks from the diner. I went up the three flights of stairs and crossed the small hallway to the place where I shared with three other girls. Brenda wasn't home, which wasn't a surprise. She worked as a bartender, and only got home in the early hours of the morning. The drinks she prepared were really great. Amanda was also a waitress, but she worked in a high-society restaurant, getting better tips than I did. Lastly there was Regina, who was, shall we say, a dancer for male and occasionally female entertainment.

We became the four musketeers who shared the rent. The girls were nice and we had a good relationship especially since we each took care of their own lives. As long as we each paid our share at the end of the month, we were fine. I got home and I counted the day's tips: $26. The day was weak. I put my money in my secret jar with my accumulated tips. With those 26 dollars, I had accumulated 68 dollars in the week. My salary paid my share of the rent. My tips guaranteed the food and everything else I would consume. It meant that week I had $68 to eat, to pay for transportation, and for any eventuality.

After my shower, I grabbed my piece of pie and went to watch some television. I always turned on the television in time to catch a snippet of the Lois & Clark episode. I had a crush on Dean Cain. I read in a magazine that the guy was half-Japanese. Imagine a half-Japanese superman, but who could pass for a Latino man? Whatnot. I had a thing for Latino guys. The idiot who got me pregnant came from a Mexican family. My racist father used to say that they were bad people, that these non-white people were lazy, but he married a biracial woman, the daughter of a guy from southern Italy and a Native American woman.

I saw that Brenda left a note next to the phone: "Bobby called." Brenda never wrote Robert. It was always Bobby, just to tease. I picked up the phone and dialed my friend's house.

"Shelby!" I heard my friend's excited voice on the other end of the line. "You won't believe who's having a party this weekend."

"Carol?"

"It's the perfect time for you to get revenge. Get the best guy you can, put on your sexiest outfit, and go to the party."

Robert was very gay, and also a great friend. He had been trying to cheer me up for a week after my last boyfriend dumped me for the rich slut from the college who still lived with her parents. Everything was still very high school, and honestly it tired me. What a fucked meaningless life!

...

(Juan)

"How old are you, Doctor Lopez?"

"I just turned 27 recently."

"27 years old!" My patient cracked a small smile. "My sister already had two kids by age 27." Then she started to cry. "Sorry, I'm very emotional today."

"Don't worry."

"I am 35 years old, Doctor Lopez."

"I know."

"I was outraged with my younger sister because she was a mother at just 23 years old. She gave up having a career to be a housewife and raise kids with an idiot. One day, I asked her why she gave up a promising career as a journalist to become a mother, and she told me that she did want to have them while she was young and had energy. I called her an idiot, I said she was wasting her life." My patient wiped away her tears. "Today my sister has a family and a career as an author of children's books. I hate her."

"This is not true. I'm sure you don't hate your sister."

"Are you married, Doctor Lopez?"

"No, I'm not, but I do have a mate. We've been together for five years."

"Isn't she want to be married?"

"We can't actually marry because it's a he."

"Are you gay?" She looked startled.

"Yes, I am. Do you have a problem with it?"

"No... it's just that... looking at you, I would never have guessed that you were gay."

"What do you imagine a gay man is?"

"The gay men I know are all kind of effeminate. It's not your case. Not that it's any of my business. Sorry if I asked too much."

"It's fine."

"Great. But what I wanted to say was that if you are 27 years old and in a stable relationship, would you have children with your partner?"

"Honestly, I never thought about it."

"I got married at 28. My husband always wanted kids, but we agreed to wait. We've waited too long. If I could go back in time..."

"Like I said, there are other options. You are still young."

"I know, but I can never have my own children again. You are going to take my uterus out today."

Four years of pre-med at OSU while majoring in Biology. I did the MCAT exam. Then there were four intense years in medical school at the University of Pennsylvania, where I spent an extra year as an intern at the University's Hospital. I took my licensing exams and got into the highly regarded Cleveland Clinic residency program because I wanted to specialize in general surgery with renowned surgeon Aaron Parker. And here I was... a newcomer to the city where my partner's family lived. A newcomer to a game in a highly competitive location: out of ten selected residents, some of us would be invited to finish their training elsewhere, or look for a job at McDonalds. I learned from day one as an intern that I had to be a shark if I wanted to be a surgeon.

I wouldn't take Laila Carter's uterus. I would assist the surgery with dr. McLiam. It was one more experience in my training process as a general surgeon. By the program's proposal, residents should go through all the clinical specialties and learn the basics in each of them before taking the specializations. That was my month serving the doctors of gynecology. A month of looking at vaginas, examining vaginas. As a man in a gay relationship, my colleagues and my attendants thought I had some sort of revulsion. No, I didn't. I liked vaginas. Despite my five year gay relationship, the truth is that I was a bisexual man. It wasn't easy to accept myself on those terms, but that's who I was. That's why I needed to focus and remain professional. I excused myself from Laila Carter and left the room where she was awaiting the procedure.

The surgery wasn't going to happen for the next few hours, so I stopped by to get a coffee. I needed to do a little revision in the procedure to assist dr. McLiam. The uterus was doomed because of malignant tumors. The patient underwent chemotherapy sessions and now her uterus was going to be removed. It was sad to think about for a woman full of life and expectations.

"Hey Lopez!" Alicia entered the lab. "Aren't you tired?"

"I got double black coffee."

"Nice. I need one too."

Alicia and I was wrapping up my 24-hour shift at the emergency clinic and after a three-hour nap, I was practicing for a hysterectomy I'd be assisting with in a few hours. Hiram hated it when I turned thirty-six hours at the hospital, but I never passed up an opportunity to practice a good surgical procedure. Like I said, you had to be a shark.

"Hysterectomy?" Alice walked over and watched as I picked up and studied the doll. People practiced either on corpses, or on dolls, or on animals. But I thought practicing on animals was just plain disgusting, and we didn't always have dead bodies on hand. "I hate gynecology."

"I don't hate gynecology. I hate dr. Hunt. They are completely different things."

Alicia laughed. She knew very well what it was about. Doctor Hunt was a pretentious, homophobic idiot who was the gynecologist's clinic chief at the hospital. Fortunately, he didn't offer anything different that I hadn't already had to deal with over the five years of my relationship with Hiram. As I said, I was on duty with the doctors in that especially that month. Doctor Hunt practically demanded that I take an HIV test to work there, which was completely illegal, but the guy was on the board of directors at the hospital. It was 1993, AIDS was endemic, and I was part of the most affected group. I understood people's fears, but Hiram and I were clean, we were in a stable monogamous relationship now, and we were tested for STDs every six months.

"What are you going to do next?" Alicia smiled and touched my arm. She was flirting with me. She always flirted with me. As open as I was about my relationship with Hiram, some people had a hard time believing that I had been in a relationship with another man for five years.

"Home… shower… bed… in that order."

"We are going to Blue's to get drunk at the end of the day. Tonight is karaoke night."

"My plans remain the same unless there is a major tragedy."

"I can't stand you, Juan. Has anyone ever told you that you are a 50-year-old in a 20-year-old body?"

I just smile at Alicia. She was a good friend I made in this hospital of highly competitive people. I think we got along well because we had different aspirations, so we weren't direct competitors: she wanted to be a cardiologist. I finished my exercise and went to get ready for the real thing. My function as an assistant was to prepare the patient, assist the attendant and, after everything is finished, close the cut. On my second entry into the bedroom, this time with Dr. McLiam, the husband was there, holding his wife's hand, as things should be. Dr. McLiam spoke some basic information and received the final thumbs up. I was really sorry to see that cheerful and attractive woman, a lawyer, facing uterine cancer at the age of 35.

"Me and the two nurses are going to walk you to the OR, and we're going to do all the prep, okay? Doctor Steven won't be there, but he's already given us all the directions. As you know, the tumor did not spread and even regressed with treatment, which is why we are so optimistic about the procedure. Let's go?"

I accompanied the patient. I tried to smile, convey confidence and friendliness. This always helped in an already traumatic situation for many of the patients. We got her on the operating table, and the nurses started making final preparations while I went to wash my hands along with Dr. McLiam. The anesthesiologist worked his magic and everything that happened after that was absolutely as expected. And it was amazing. As much as I didn't want gynecology as a medical specialty, surgery was always fascinating. We went downstairs, broke the good news to the patient's husband. We were trained to deliver good news and bad news with the utmost professionalism, but of course delivering good news was much better.

In the late afternoon, I dropped by to do the last round of my patients before finally heading home. I walked into the recovery room, and Laila Carter was awake, alone in her cubicle, staring at the TV without actually watching anything.

"Mrs. Carter, everything is in perfect order. Your surgery was successful and soon the nurses will send you to your room." Then she started crying, which left me a little disconcerted. I approached the bed and held her hand. It was all I could do to bring some comfort.

"I am 35 years old and I cannot have any more children." She vented still with her voice blurry because of the anesthesia. "I had planned to have children since I got married. I always wanted to have children. I thought this was the right time, I have a stable career and I'm married... and now... I'm 35 and my chance is gone."

"You can still adopt."

"I know... it's just... it's not always easy."

I left the recovery room thoughtful. The drama of Mrs. Carter got me thinking. I would love to have kids, but I was 27 years old, newly accepted into the residency program, my paycheck was ridiculous for someone working close to 80 hours a week, and I was in a gay relationship in a state with many rights denied to people with a homosexual involvement. I couldn't even marry Hiram. Obviously, I wouldn't think about having children at that time but I wanted them someday. Mrs. Carter got me to start reviewing my priorities.

When I got home, I saw Hiram cooking. He was an untalented cook, and whenever he decided to make his own food, it was because there was major stress going on. Stressed Hiram was particularly important. My boyfriend had been drug free for a year. He was never a chronic addict, he never injected drugs, and you could say he was a social drug user until he hit a low point when we were living in Philadelphia. After he got clean, he relapsed, and he got clean again until he was in that year-long drug-free state. Our years in Philadelphia weren't easy, but we came out stronger as people and as a couple. Now, in Cleveland, Hiram was close to his mother (his father wouldn't talk to us), he had a nice job as a botanist, and we could pay all our bills.

The problem was, since I entered the residency program, Hiram and I haven't spent much time together. I worried about Hiram having too much free time without me. I was more afraid of him having another relapse than being cheated on. Hiram getting clean was one of the conditions of our staying together after we broke up the first time in Philadelphia. He was lucky enough not to get HIV despite the way he was living, and it took a lot of effort to make him see that.

"Hey love." I hugged him from behind and kissed his neck.

"Hey." Hiram dodged a little, which was never a good sign.

"Looks good…" I tasted the spice. It wasn't very good, so I took the apron.

"I don't need your help, Juan."

"It just needs a little more salt in the seasoning. Maybe some paprika."

"Finish dinner yourself." He angrily took off his apron.

"Hiram..." I grabbed his arm. "What is the problem? Talk to me!"

"It's nothing... it's just that you were on call and I had a bad day."

Anxiety was a bad sign for someone in a state of recovery and readjusting to a new routine, as was the case with Hiram.

"Did something happen at work?"

"No... it's just that you were on call at the hospital for 36 hours and I wanted to smoke pot. So I ate a bunch of chocolate and ran around in the park for hours."

I glanced over from the trash can and saw that Hiram had eaten three chocolate bars.

"I bet you had to dissipate a lot of energy."

"I saw my father yesterday." Hiram finally addressed the problem. "He pretended he didn't see me. He's been pretending he never had a child for ten years. I should be used to it, but it still hurts like hell."

"I'm sorry, Berry."

I kissed my boyfriend's lips. It sucked to see him like this. Hiram's mother was a sweetheart but I never got a chance to meet the father because he rejected Hiram from day 1 of when my boyfriend came out of the closet. I thought my family would do the same thing, but things weren't so bad for me. My dad was upset, but he didn't stop talking to me. He avoided the subject and from time to time asked about the AIDS issue because he worried about me. My mother was always an evolved spirit and accepted my relationship with Hiram without reservation. My older sister, Maria, was shocked and even suggested gay healing treatment. My younger sister, Rosa, also took it very well. Rosa was the first in our family to be born on American soil, and she always had a more liberal attitude.

"The important thing is that you are here now." Hiram hugged me and we stayed like that for a minute or two. When we parted, he returned to the cook.

"How was your shift?"

"I've made two transvaginal ultrasounds, a labor, an emergency c-section and today I've made a hysterectomy... I mean, I've assisted McLiam perform a hysterectomy."

"Did you spend another shift seeing pussies?"

"Yes, I did."

"How horrible."

"I have nothing against pussies."

"Unfortunately, I know that." Hiram made a face. "That ugly, wrinkled, wet thing."

"It's warm inside... and really soft." I provoked my boyfriend.

"Oh, come on, that's disgusting. Stop it!"

"You stated it."

"Anyway, what about this surgery? What it is?" Hiram asked as he finished our dinner.

"It's the removal of the uterus. It was a 35-year-old patient who had uterine cancer. It was a pity."

Hiram looked at me with that curious look.

"You seem upset about it. I thought you turned into a robot when you put on a doctor's coat."

"This patient wanted to have kids, but her plans were postponed because of other things that happened in her life, like job and this stuff. Until cancer came along and ruined her every chance of having kids by her own. She... is only 35 years old, she still had time, but... the cancer came."

"It sounds like a saying: don't put off until tomorrow what you can do today."

"I disagree that this applies to that saying. This is not a task. Having kids is a life project, a family project. It's about making sense of things... educating, putting them in the world."

"I don't see any sense in that. Traditional families can be awful. Not everyone is lucky enough to have cool parents like yours."

"It's not about our parents. It's about us."

"Do you really want to have a family, Juan? Do want to have kids and everything?"

"Yes, I do want kids! Not now because doing residency sucks. Doing residency and taking care of a child would be fucked up! But, yes, I would like to be a father."

"With me?"

"Yes, with you. I think you would make an extraordinary father. So yes, I would like to have kids with you someday. We could adopt or, I don't know, if we have the money, we could hire a surrogate to produce biological kids."

"In Ohio? In this state that barely accepts that we are a couple? That people think they will get AIDS just by looking at us?!"

"We are clean."

"Juan! Focus on the issue."

"The prejudice thing is bad, but it will be like that here or in New York. It's not that we can't reverse negative opinions. Look at our history. As you used to say: Fuck the world! What matters is you and me."

"Do you want to be a dad! Who knew, Juan Lopez?" Hiram said with a small smile.

"Yes, I do, one day. Are you in?"

"If you're in, I'm in. I do like kids."

"I think you would be an extraordinary father."

"Really?"

"I'm sure. Let's agree on this: as soon as I finish my residency, we will expand our family."

"Deal… in the meantime… we could practice. What do you think?"

Yes, we forgot about dinner for a while. Hiram unbuttoned my pants and unzipped them. He was the best at these things.