When Santana turned around to make her feelings heard, even though the entire waiting room had heard her screaming, she saw two new faces passing by the windows outside. For the second time today, she took off running. Shawn stopped himself this time seeing Santana in the safe, protective and familiar arms of Maria and Carlos, more tears being shed. The family felt so helpless waiting to hear something from Will or Shelby. Judy and Rose went to pick up some food for everyone, Puck and Quinn were still watching Beth as Brittany made silly faces at her, and Santana had been passed from grandparents to grandparent after her conversation with Thomas.

When Shawn asked what she wanted to eat, Santana started spiraling again which had led her to the double doors, begging to get back there because she still thought Rachel wasn't down there, no one knowing anything about the ICU. When she saw her grandparents, she thought maybe, just maybe they'd be able to do something her other sets of grandparents or aunt and uncle couldn't.

"I need to see her, abuelo I need to, I just need to."

"Breathe nina, breathe," Carlos said, Maria's hand on her granddaughter's chest. They all knew during these spirals Santana often worked herself up so much she hyperventilated, Maria and Carlos were the only ones who had seen it though. About a year ago actually, the day after the anniversary of Juan's death they watched Shelby do this exact method to help her daughter.

"Please help me get to her…nobody has told me anything," Santana cried when her breathing was under control again.

"Okay, honey. We'll see what we can find out. Let's go inside."

Santana didn't release the grip she had on Carlos's hand as the three of them walked in. Maria went over to speak with Thomas who she knew to always keep a level head during chaos due to his profession, Carlos still by the front desk with Santana in his arms.

"…well do either of them have their phones?"

"I'm not sure," Thomas answered honestly. He had told Maria everything his wife knew as Rose was out getting food, making his wife the only one who had been back there so far. He had gone up to the front desk many times, never receiving an answer from the secretary, she didn't know what was going on with Rachel either.

"We need to figure something out because that little one is going to end up admitted right next to her sister if she has to wait any longer," Maria said, signaling to Santana.

Thomas nodded in agreement; he had said the same thing to his wife about twenty minutes ago. He couldn't imagine all the thoughts running through Maria and Carlos's mind on the flight here—the unknown is a very cruel and unfair headspace.

"She's fine," the doctor said straightening out the stethoscope around his neck. "While in a coma, patients oftentimes exhibit something we call reflexive generalized responses. In other words, they experience involuntary movements. Your daughters' movements caused a lead to come loose which set off the monitors. This is completely normal."

"Normal?" Shelby questioned with a dark, murderous laugh. "This is anything but normal. My baby girl is in a coma for god sakes! In what world is that normal?"

Will wrapped his arms around Shelby's waist, pulling her body into his as he shh-ed in her ear soothingly. "Take a breath, Shell. He was talking about the movements, nothing else."

Will felt the same way as his wife though, nothing about this situation was normal. The doctor wasn't fazed by Shelby's outburst, he knew his bedside manner wasn't great and had worked with much more aggressive and scary parents in his career.

"There's another doctor on call tonight, I'll check in before I leave for the night." And with that, he was gone.

When Shelby was settled again in the chair next to Rachel's bed, Will's pocket started vibrating. He had been so focused on Rachel and listening to all the doctors and nurses that he missed multiple texts messages and calls. Seeing Maria's name on the caller ID, he stepped out of the room to answer to not interrupt the one-sided conversation Shelby was having with Rachel.

"She needs answers, Will."

"Tell her I'll be down in about ten minutes. And Maria? Thank you."

"You're welcome, honey."

Will told his wife what Maria had told him, kissed Rachel's forehead again and went downstairs preparing himself for any and all reactions his feisty brunette could possibly have.

Carlos suggested they have this conversation outside after realizing the father had been crying, not to mention he could hear Santana screaming before they got into the waiting room earlier and was trying to not have a repeat of that. Maria and Thomas went with the father daughter duo, Katherine taking Beth from Quinn to change her diaper in hopes of keeping her from screaming herself if she saw her sister so upset.

"What do you mean she isn't awake?"

"The doctors needed to stop the seizures she was having—"

"But I thought it did stop when me and mama were at school?" Santana interrupted.

"The shaking her body stopped, sweetie, not the seizures. To prevent anything worse or any long-term effects from happening, the doctors gave her some medicine to keep her asleep."

"Like before?"

"No, honey. This time she's not going to wake up for a few days." Will immediately reached out to catch his daughter who was heading towards the ground with a horrific scream. Puck, Quinn and Brittany were watching from the window inside and knew whatever was going on with Rachel was really, really bad for their friend to have such a drastic reaction.

"I need to see her daddy!"

"You need to calm down for dad first, honey." Once Will felt his daughter could hold herself up and was breathing normally, he said, "Okay, sweetie. Let's go see your sister."

"Abuelo too!" Santana said, her hand reaching back for his as well. There was something about having Carlos there that brought her the slightest bit of relief, she couldn't explain why though. Shelby would have known the answer if she was with them right now, Carlos looked like an older Juan, his face the tiniest bit rounder and having him 'earthside' would hopefully keep Rachel here with her.

Shelby heard her husband's voice before she saw him and stood up, leaving Rachel's room so she could prepare her daughter for what she was about to see. It was the compromise she and Will had made before he went downstairs to get Santana because Shelby could always get her girls to focus on her when they were overly upset.

"Mama!" Santana cried.

"Shh, shh, shh. I've got you, babe." When the girl calmed down, Shelby gently held Santana's chin in her hand and lowered her own body until she was face to face with her daughter. "Focus on mommy, baby. What color are my eyes?"

"Umm…green." This was a trick Shelby started doing with the girls when they were very little, she knew once they could confidently give her the correct answer, she had their undivided attention.

"Good girl. I want you to listen to mommy, babe. I know daddy told you your sister was taking a really big nap, and he was right, she is. But what he didn't tell you is Rach has a tube in her mouth which is helping her breathe."

There was no reason to tell Santana it was down her sister's throat because when she looked at her, you could only see the tube covering her mouth and the feisty brunette didn't need anything else to have night terrors about.

"Why?"

"To make sure she's getting enough oxygen in her body, baby."

"I'm scared, mama."

"I know, babe. It's okay to be scared, daddy and I are right here with you, abuelo too." Santana turned her head and saw the men nodding and then gave her mom a nod to signify she was ready.

Shelby had an arm wrapped around her daughter and they made their way into Rachel's room where she gasped immediately. Carlos was the last one in, tears welling in his eyes seeing Rachel lying in the hospital bed.

"Can she hear me?"

"Yeah, babe, she can hear you," Shelby said. It wasn't something that was medically proven, she liked to believe it to be true though because it brought her a tiny bit of peace.

"Rachie…it's Tana. Mommy said you can hear me, so listen really good, okay? I love you. You're my other half and life's like not even a little okay without you. I'm sorry I've been mean sometimes; I promise to never be mean again when you wake up...twin promise. Maybe you can wake up early like we do in the mornings so we can snuggle before school, then we can have a wheelchair race or something, I'll even let you win cause' you're smaller. I'm sorry I couldn't protect you from getting hurt last year…if I did, you wouldn't be in the hospital right now. It's all my fault Rachie, I'm so sorry."

Shelby pulled Santana into her lap and the girl twisted her body to rest her head on her mother's shoulder as she cried. Will rubbed her back and Shelby rocked her, Carlos making his way over to the other side of Rachel's bed as his granddaughter was being comforted. He kissed Rachel's hand, setting it back down and moving the blanket over her again, then said a silent prayer.

"I think there are two monkeys in our bed," Shelby said to her husband, a smile on her face.

Juan always did something new when the girls snuck into their bed in the mornings, today he covered his arms with the blanket they kept at the end of their bed and pretended to be asleep. When he felt the twins right beside him, Juan trapped them in the blanket hearing two squeals then belly laughs when he tickled them.

"Da-ddy, da-ddy," Rachel squeaked out through her giggles.

"Mommy help us!" Santana screamed.

Juan leaned forward and whispered something to the twins, no longer tickling them and smiled when he received two nods. Suddenly, the twins jumped onto their mother and tried to tickle her too. "Oh, you are so going down," Shelby said to her husband, wrapping her arms around the twins and grabbing their chins lightly.

"Excuse me monkeys, where are my morning kisses?"

Juan smiled seeing his girls kiss Shelby, he felt so lucky to have the most beautiful wife and perfect little girls. While Shelby said something that caused the twins to laugh, an idea popped into his mind and he wasted no time making it known. "How about we play hooky today?"

"What's hoapy?" the twins asked in unison.

"Hooky means doing something super fun instead of going to preschool or work."

The twins cheered and Juan made eye contact with his wife who was pretending to think about her answer before nodding. Juan sent a text message to his secretary telling her to cancel his day, Shelby doing the same with her agent and off they went to get ready. They started the day having breakfast at Tiffany's, the twins wearing the charm bracelets Juan had gotten for them on their birthday even though Shelby thought they were too young. Then continued their day at the Spyscape museum where the girls had the best time; Shelby and Juan had taken them there since they were two because the museum is interactive, something the parents still helped them with, and fun for all ages.

"Ahh," Rachel screamed, now sitting on her bottom with tears in her eyes and holding her knee.

"I sowy Rachie! I didn't mean to," Santana said right away, kissing her sister's boo-boo. She had slipped on a bit of water, accidentally bumping Rachel in the process.

"It's otay, Tana."

"I'm so sorry, Rachie," Santana said, wanting nothing more than to hear her sister say it was okay.

"It's not your fault, babe. None of this was your fault."

Shelby and Will shared a look thinking the same thing…they hated Mercedes. Carlos excused himself knowing he was about to say something he didn't want his granddaughter to hear. When he got back downstairs where the rest of the family was, he realized his wife wasn't with them and went in search of her. The chapel was the third place he looked, and Carlos found her praying.

"How bad is it?" Maria asked when she turned to face him.

"Extremely."

"Why don't you let the Corcoran's and Schuester's go first, I'm not ready yet."

"Okay, honey. I'll be back in a bit. I love you."

"I love you too, Carlos."

Judy stayed in the waiting room with the kids, Beth included as the four grandparents went upstairs to the ICU. The Lopez's stayed in the chapel for a while because they had a lot of praying to do; not just for Rachel, they were praying for Santana, Shelby, Will and Beth too. The baby didn't understand what was going on, she did recognize her sisters though and if something happened, she'd be affected too.

Before Carlos went into the chapel for the second time, he explained to Judy what was going on so she could break the news to the kids. Beth was now asleep in her arms and Judy moved the baby into her carrier before explaining everything to Quinn, Puck and Brittany, wanting to focus her attention solely on the teens seeing as Beth was snoring away.

"I don't get why she's not awake though…or why she was pretending to be a fish in math class," Brittany said, clearly confused.

"Will she be okay when they stop giving her the medicine that's keeping her asleep?"

"I don't know, Noah."

Quinn was trying to explain things to Brittany in a way the quirky blonde would understand and when she finally understood, tears filled her eyes. Judy moved chairs to comfort Brittany and her daughter asked, "Is she going to have more seizures, mom?"

"I hope not, Quinny. The doctors are giving her medicine to try and keep them from happening again."

Puck stood up, fists clenched, making his way outside to get some air. The twins and Noah had known each other the longest out of their large group of besties—so much so that when they first started having 'playdates', they were too young to truly appreciate the others' company or know what a friend was. He had so many emotions swirling around in his head right now because he felt really bad all of this was happening, he was super angry at Mercedes for starting shit in the first place, mad at himself for not being able to stop it and would never admit it out loud but he was scared Rachel wasn't going to be okay.

Carlos went out to talk with him after he and Maria made their way back into the waiting room, it seemed only fitting. They were fond of the boy, oftentimes speaking with him over facetime when the twins called them—Carlos could always tell he cared about his granddaughters and that made him happy knowing they'd always have someone looking out for them.

Noah voiced his anger, feeling comfortable doing so after Carlos shared his own anger regarding the situation—it was no one's fault but the girl who caused his granddaughters pain in the first place and he was feeling bitter the girl wasn't sentenced to a stricter, scarier detention center right about now. Carlos was planning on talking to Thomas about it at some point to see if legally there was anything thing else they could do. He knew the answer was most likely no, it was worth asking though.

When a group of kids called Puck's name, he quickly wiped his tears and filled them in as Carlos greeted the parents, he had met a few times before and introduced himself to Emma. The rest of the school day had been incredibly long with no news from the hospital to help settle their nerves, and Emma found her office circulating with the rest of the 'fab 12' as she likes to call them. She thought it was incredible that the twins had so many friends who cared about them so much, and parents who were so fond of Will and Shelby wanting to be there as well even though there was nothing any of them could truly do.

When Emma and the rest of the group got to the secluded waiting room they had been given, she saw containers of food and boxes of pizza, stacks of new magazines and books, a huge pile of candy, Beth's toys scattered out on a blanket, and a bunch of crayons in front of Brittany. They were told to help themselves to anything, and Brittany showed the rest of her friends the pictures she was making for Rachel and Santana.

"I like this one best, Britt," Sam said with a smile.

"It's a dinosaur that protects you from getting hurt!"

Emma smiled. If they weren't here for something so scary and tragic, this would seem like a smaller version of the family gathering the Corcoran's often threw. The comradery was really something special though—there was no doubt in anyone's mind how loved the family was, that's for sure.

"Can I lay with her now, mama?"

"Not yet, babe."

Santana was out of tears causing Will and Shelby to exchange another round of looks to figure out how the hell they'd get their daughter to leave the hospital tonight to go home to get some rest. Right now, though, their only focus was to get her to eat and drink something because she was already dehydrated from crying so much, and Shelby could feel and hear her stomach rumbling.

Before they could attempt again to get Santana to drink the Gatorade Shawn had picked out for her, Santana's head dropped against Shelby's shoulder, and the mother heard little snores. Shelby knew how exhausted she was from everything that happened at school, on the car ride over, the multiple times she ran out the doors, the conversation she had with Thomas, and so on, feeling absolutely heartbroken for her baby. She really thought this year would be different.

Twenty minutes later Will took Santana from his wife so she could walk off the foot that was asleep, use the bathroom, and quickly check on Beth. Normally Shelby would have pumped at work by now meaning her boobs were completely full and she needed to do something about it, especially because she was staying with Rachel tonight. She knew her mother would go home and get her a change of clothes, the breast pump and happily watch Beth for them because Santana was going to need all of Will's attention tonight, most likely needing Maria and Carlos as well meaning, Beth was better off with Katherine and Thomas.

Thankfully for Shelby, Beth was waking up from her nap when she made it downstairs knowing you 'never want to wake a sleeping baby' no matter the circumstance. She had used Will's phone to call her mom so Katherine could bring Beth to her, not having it in her to greet everyone in the waiting room right now. She knew they'd understand, most being family or parents themselves. Katherine wrote down a list of everything her daughter needed and said she'd head over to the house once Beth was fed, still unsure how or why Shelby always wore such high heels to work every day.

"Daddy, will you tell us how you meeted mommy?" the 6-year-old twins asked before bed.

"How I met your mommy?" Juan saw two heads nod and smiled, this was his favorite story because it led to marrying the most beautiful woman in the world, creating a life and family with her.

"Before I tell you the story, you first need to tell me what mommy and daddy do for work."

"Mommy sings on a really big stage!" Santana started.

"And you fix people when they have owies, daddy!" Rachel finished.

"That's right! How did you girls get so smart?" Juan asked, and Shelby smiled from outside the door. She loved how Juan made it a priority to tell the girls a new story every night before she sang them to sleep. Some nights he would begin the story and save the rest for the next few days, others he'd finish them all in one sitting.

"Cause' we pay ttenion at scwool, daddy!"

"Make sure you always do because what to school help us with?"

"Get smart like mommy and daddy so we can be anyfing we want!"

"That's right. Okay, let's start the story." Juan began the way he always did, making sure to give the girls as many details as he could to paint an accurate picture in their minds, leaving out how serious the injury Shelby had that night really was, so he didn't scare them.

"And you fixeded mommy's owie like you do with me and Tana, right daddy?"

"I did. Before mommy could leave though, I asked her one of the most important questions of my life. I wanted to know if she'd have coffee with me and do you know what she said?"

"YES!"

"You two are right, she said yes. When mommy walked into the coffee shop that day, she looked so beautiful. She had on a purple dress with a silver necklace that had a star on the end of it, a pair of purple heels to match, and her hair was curled the same way mommy did your hair three nights ago when we went out to dinner with abuelo and Abuelita." Shelby was now curled up on the other side of the twins listening to the story too, nearly speechless Juan remembered so many details about that day.

"I bet you looked so pretty mommy."

"Just like my perfect pair of girls."

"They really are the perfect pair in every sense of the word," Carlos commented, back in Rachel's room staring at the twin's linked hands that only Santana was aware of. Shelby looked up at her father-in-law in a bit of shock because she had just been lost in thought sending messages up to Juan who was the first one to call the twins his 'perfect pair', something she continued until they were about three. She hadn't heard that phrase in such a long time, it was as if Carlos was able to read her mind and Rachel's although, nobody knew what she was 'dreaming' about.

"They are," Shelby agreed.

Santana was sound asleep with her head next to Rachel, their hands interlocked, looking anything but comfortable. They weren't going to let her stay that way much longer though, so no one moved her. Everyone had gone home for the night as it was a little after 9pm, Shelby and Santana had changed into comfy clothes hours ago, Beth was already fast asleep at the elder Corcoran residence leaving Maria and Carlos in the ICU to give Rachel one more kiss before taking Will and Santana home.

"Let me give her a kiss first," Shelby said.

Will was going to carry Santana out of the hospital in hopes of avoiding her freaking out when they told her it was time to go home. Shelby kissed her daughter a few times then carefully separated her hand from Rachel's, helping her husband get her situated in his arms. Once they left, Shelby gently crawled into the bed with Rachel and wrapped a protective arm around her. She knew the doctors and nurses preferred nobody get in the hospital bed with the girl, Shelby couldn't help herself though.

This is her baby.

"Don't you dare give up, baby girl. You're too special to this world."