Five Times Rachel Berry Needed her Mom (And One Time when her Dads were All she Needed)
Title: Five Times Rachel Berry Needed her Mom (And One Time when her Dads were All she Needed)
Fandom: Glee
Characters/Pairings: Rachel, Rachel's Dad/Rachel's Dad, mentions of Shelby and Quinn
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Length: 2011
Spoilers Up to and including Theatricality
Prompt: This prompt from the glee_fluff_meme.
AN: I realize that it would probably not take one day to sew a dress, but Glee's timeline confuses me, so keep your disbelief suspended for that part. ;)
i.
“Quinn said that our family is weird,” a five-year-old Rachel said casually to her daddy James as he drove her home from a play-date at the Fabray household. “She said that a family is only supposed to have one Daddy.”
Rachel herself did not seem to be concerned by the revelation. In fact, she seemed to be distracted by the red triceratops toy that Quinn had let her keep. James Berry, on the other hand, had nearly missed a stop sign and had to slam the brakes. “Sorry, Rach,” he called back to his oblivious daughter.
Rachel briefly looked up from the toy in her lap. “Are we weird, Daddy?”
James frowned (instinctively looking to the empty front seat as if his husband will have magically materialized to help him out) and briefly met Rachel’s eyes in the review mirror. “Of course we’re not, Sweetie. Every family is different and unique, and you’re not different from anybody else because you have two fathers.”
“Okay.” Rachel sounded unconvinced. She was silent for a few minutes (enough time for her daddy to be concerned about her, because she was typically the kind of child who liked to verbalize her every thought). Then, she said, “Is that why you always pick me up from things and not Dad? ‘Cause we’re weird?”
“We’re not weird. We're a perfectly functional family,” James said again, feeling helpless.
Rachel wondered, if she had a mom, could her mom pick her up from Quinn’s house? Or, could Quinn come to her house and meet both her parents in person? Would her daddy not have to lie about her dad and say that he wasn’t married when he introduced himself to other parents?
She had been curious about these things ever since she was old enough to notice them (which, of course, was a somewhat younger age for her than for most, seeing as she had always been disturbingly precocious), but whenever she brought it up to her dads, they always just smiled and changed the subject and usually bought her a new soundtrack some time later in the week.
She didn’t speak again for the rest of the car ride.
ii.
“This is so embarrassing!” Rachel lamented, an arm dramatically thrown over her forehead to complete the mood.
“Don’t worry, Rach. I’m sure we can figure something out,” Will said, peeling the second-grader’s arm from over her eyes and giving her a crooked smile.
“Yeah,” James said as he brought a glass of water with a crazy straw to his daughter. “The school wouldn’t ban one of us from visiting you at school for Mother’s day. They know how hard you’ve been practicing.”
That year, Rachel’s elementary school was holding a Mother-Daughter talent show for the holiday, and Rachel, of course, had selected an entire list of potential songs upon learning about it. Although she was still young, she enjoyed showcasing her immense talent to her peers, and she never missed out on an opportunity as golden as a talent show.
“It’s not the same,” Rachel whined. “Neither of you have the proper range to engage in a customized duet of Slipping Through My Fingers. It would be positively mortifying!” Even as an eight-year-old, Rachel had an extensive vocabulary.
“Rachel,” James said, “it’ll be all right. Everybody knows you’re the star of the school, even if you don’t sing with your mother next week.”
“C'mon, Kid,” Will said, ruffling his daughter’s hair and trying to lighten the mood. “You don’t need a duet anyway. Your voice is big enough for three people, at least.”
Rachel just buried her face in her hands and moaned.
iii.
“Rachel, are you all right?” James called from the other side of the bathroom door.
Rachel didn’t answer. Because she wanted to cry. And curl up in the corner. And sink into the floor (possibly forever). She mumbled out a negative response through gritted teeth, knowing that her dads wouldn’t hear.
“Rachel, sweetie, is there anything we can do to help?” Will asked, his arm around his husband’s shoulders.
“Please leave me alone,” Rachel said. She had been in the bathroom for well over fifteen minutes now. She knew that her dads were sure to be worried about her, but…well. Rachel didn’t want them to see her now. She felt another sharp pain in her abdomen, and she curled forward, with a hiss, until her forehead was resting on her knees.
“Are you sure?”
“Please leave me alone.” Rachel’s voice was harsh, but she didn’t care at the moment. She didn’t want to talk to her dads about this. It would be mortifying to say the least. The built-up tears finally spilled down her cheeks. “Daddy, wait.”
“What do you need?”
She hesitated, eyes tightly shut in humiliation. “Could I please have the heating pad from the closet and… some sanitary napkins.”
iv.
“And now Quinn is mad at me because she’s dating Finn even though he’s clearly more attracted to me but then she got pregnant by his friend Noah even though she doesn’t actually enjoy his company and so I told Finn that he wasn’t the biological father of the baby-it’s a girl, by the way-because I was slightly jealous of her position as Finn’s girlfriend and wished that he would divert his attentions over to me.” Rachel paused briefly to bring a plastic red spoon full of vanilla ice cream to her lips. With her mouth still full, she continued, “And then-”
“Woah, woah. Wait.” Will rubbed his temples and then let his hands fall back to their table in the corner of the Dairy Queen (called, literally, Their Table, because they never sat anywhere else). “I thought you and Quinn were friends?”
“Dad,” Rachel groaned, sounding like-well, like a sixteen-year-old girl. “We haven’t been friends since middle school.”
“Okay. Well, have you tried apologizing?”
“Of course.” Rachel huffed a bit in frustration and stared down at her Oreo Brownie Earthquake, as if the dish of ice cream could somehow provide her with the answers.
“Sorry, Rach,” Will said with a shrug and a smile, “I guess I’m just not that good at this.”
Rachel’s lips curved up. She gently kicked her dad under the table (as she always did whenever he made a joke at his expense) and continued to eat her snack.
In the back of her mind, though, she couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to have another girl she could actually talk to.
v.
Rachel pushed open the front door to her house quietly, feeling as if she needed to sneak around even though it was just before five in the afternoon and she hadn’t done anything inherently wrong. Sort of.
The Lady Gaga outfit that her fathers had made for her the night before was draped over her arm. She had briefly considered changing back into it in the car and hiding her new one (her better one) at school, but she couldn’t lie to her dads.
She stepped into the front hallway and immediately went for the stairs. It wouldn’t be lying if they just… didn’t notice. She was stopped by her daddy James’s voice coming from the kitchen.
“Rachel, is that you? How was your performance-wow!” Rachel turned to face her daddy, who was now standing in the hall holding a cheese grater and wearing his ‘Mr. Good Lookin’ is Cookin’’ apron. He gestured towards her with the grater, “You look amazing! Where did you get that?”
Rachel tried to keep her voice even when she answered, because, really, she hadn’t done anything wrong. (It just felt like she had.) “I visited my mom after school again, today. She sews, and she had some spare stuff lying around.”
“Oh.” James was still smiling, but now it seemed-it just seemed off. “That’s wonderful. Hey, Will,” he rose his voice to a shout so that his husband would be able to hear him upstairs. “Could you please help Rachel take apart her Gaga outfit?” He flashed another smile at Rachel while he waited for the response.
“Sure. But I thought she needed it until-” by this time, Will had left the study and looked over the banister at his daughter downstairs. “Ah,” he said simply. “I’ll take care of that for you. I know you wanted to do some extra rehearsing tonight.” He smiled at Rachel (and it looked kind of like James’s smile, too: fake), and as he passed her on the stairs, he took the old outfit from her and carried it to the kitchen so he could work next to his husband.
“Dinner will be ready in an hour,” James mumbled before going back into the kitchen.
---
Rachel had been sitting at her desk, staring at the same paragraph of her History textbook, for nearly forty-five minutes before her dad Will came into her room with an armload of stuffed animals.
She pretended to work in silence, but really watched from the corner of her eye as Will put each of the toys back in their original spots.
“Rachel,” he said, and Rachel turned in her swivel chair to fully face him. “I managed to get all of your toys free, but this one was stapled really well. James and I did the best we could, but…” He held up her little stuffed cow, Ferdinand. Ferdinand was sporting a large gash along his side, poorly concealed by a single thread sloppily sewn along the middle. Rachel’s eyes watered a little at the sight.
Will placed Ferdinand on her hope chest at the edge of her bed (next to her new dress which she had laid out to wear to school tomorrow) and said, “I’m sorry we couldn’t do better.” He left.
With a sniffle, Rachel turned back to her homework. She was unable to make out the blurred letters on the page through her tears.
vi.
Will and James came home to the scent of freshly baked cookies.
They found their daughter curled up on one side of the couch, clutching her stuffed cow so hard that his stuffing was starting to fall out through the seams and crying hard. She was dressed in her purple pajamas with the microphones on them (she always wore them after she was slushied or bullied), and the two men noticed that her new dress was crumpled up in the corner.
James and William Berry exchanged a quick look, and then sat down on either side of their daughter. Rachel immediately leaned into James’s chest, and Will rubbed her back as she sobbed.
“My mother doesn’t want me,” Rachel said pathetically.
“Rachel-” both of her dads began speaking at the same time. Will nodded at James, who continued, “Rachel, I’m sure your mother loves you a lot. But not everybody is ready to be a full-time mom. I’m sure that whatever she said, she was just trying to do what’s right for you.”
Rachel curled her knees up to her chest and grunted. A few moments later, she peeked at each of her fathers and then spoke. “I baked you some ‘I’m Sorry’ cookies.”
James knit his brow and placed his hand on his husband’s on Rachel’s back. “Rach, you have nothing to apologize for.”
Will added, “I refuse to eat any cookie declaring your apologies on the matter.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.” James smiled weakly.
“Rachel, we’re not angry at you for trying to find out more about your mother. If you’re still interested, we would be happy to help you guys work out another time to meet.”
“I don’t know,” Rachel said, her voice muffled by her legs.
“You don’t have to answer now. Or anytime soon,” James Berry said as he stood up from the couch, pulling his husband up along with him. “Now, you can feel free to mope on the couch as long as you want, but your dad and I are going into the kitchen to eat some delicious cookies. Feel free to join us.”
Rachel smiled weakly, stood, and did just that.
Fandom: Glee
Characters/Pairings: Rachel, Rachel's Dad/Rachel's Dad, mentions of Shelby and Quinn
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Length: 2011
Spoilers Up to and including Theatricality
Prompt: This prompt from the glee_fluff_meme.
AN: I realize that it would probably not take one day to sew a dress, but Glee's timeline confuses me, so keep your disbelief suspended for that part. ;)
i.
“Quinn said that our family is weird,” a five-year-old Rachel said casually to her daddy James as he drove her home from a play-date at the Fabray household. “She said that a family is only supposed to have one Daddy.”
Rachel herself did not seem to be concerned by the revelation. In fact, she seemed to be distracted by the red triceratops toy that Quinn had let her keep. James Berry, on the other hand, had nearly missed a stop sign and had to slam the brakes. “Sorry, Rach,” he called back to his oblivious daughter.
Rachel briefly looked up from the toy in her lap. “Are we weird, Daddy?”
James frowned (instinctively looking to the empty front seat as if his husband will have magically materialized to help him out) and briefly met Rachel’s eyes in the review mirror. “Of course we’re not, Sweetie. Every family is different and unique, and you’re not different from anybody else because you have two fathers.”
“Okay.” Rachel sounded unconvinced. She was silent for a few minutes (enough time for her daddy to be concerned about her, because she was typically the kind of child who liked to verbalize her every thought). Then, she said, “Is that why you always pick me up from things and not Dad? ‘Cause we’re weird?”
“We’re not weird. We're a perfectly functional family,” James said again, feeling helpless.
Rachel wondered, if she had a mom, could her mom pick her up from Quinn’s house? Or, could Quinn come to her house and meet both her parents in person? Would her daddy not have to lie about her dad and say that he wasn’t married when he introduced himself to other parents?
She had been curious about these things ever since she was old enough to notice them (which, of course, was a somewhat younger age for her than for most, seeing as she had always been disturbingly precocious), but whenever she brought it up to her dads, they always just smiled and changed the subject and usually bought her a new soundtrack some time later in the week.
She didn’t speak again for the rest of the car ride.
ii.
“This is so embarrassing!” Rachel lamented, an arm dramatically thrown over her forehead to complete the mood.
“Don’t worry, Rach. I’m sure we can figure something out,” Will said, peeling the second-grader’s arm from over her eyes and giving her a crooked smile.
“Yeah,” James said as he brought a glass of water with a crazy straw to his daughter. “The school wouldn’t ban one of us from visiting you at school for Mother’s day. They know how hard you’ve been practicing.”
That year, Rachel’s elementary school was holding a Mother-Daughter talent show for the holiday, and Rachel, of course, had selected an entire list of potential songs upon learning about it. Although she was still young, she enjoyed showcasing her immense talent to her peers, and she never missed out on an opportunity as golden as a talent show.
“It’s not the same,” Rachel whined. “Neither of you have the proper range to engage in a customized duet of Slipping Through My Fingers. It would be positively mortifying!” Even as an eight-year-old, Rachel had an extensive vocabulary.
“Rachel,” James said, “it’ll be all right. Everybody knows you’re the star of the school, even if you don’t sing with your mother next week.”
“C'mon, Kid,” Will said, ruffling his daughter’s hair and trying to lighten the mood. “You don’t need a duet anyway. Your voice is big enough for three people, at least.”
Rachel just buried her face in her hands and moaned.
iii.
“Rachel, are you all right?” James called from the other side of the bathroom door.
Rachel didn’t answer. Because she wanted to cry. And curl up in the corner. And sink into the floor (possibly forever). She mumbled out a negative response through gritted teeth, knowing that her dads wouldn’t hear.
“Rachel, sweetie, is there anything we can do to help?” Will asked, his arm around his husband’s shoulders.
“Please leave me alone,” Rachel said. She had been in the bathroom for well over fifteen minutes now. She knew that her dads were sure to be worried about her, but…well. Rachel didn’t want them to see her now. She felt another sharp pain in her abdomen, and she curled forward, with a hiss, until her forehead was resting on her knees.
“Are you sure?”
“Please leave me alone.” Rachel’s voice was harsh, but she didn’t care at the moment. She didn’t want to talk to her dads about this. It would be mortifying to say the least. The built-up tears finally spilled down her cheeks. “Daddy, wait.”
“What do you need?”
She hesitated, eyes tightly shut in humiliation. “Could I please have the heating pad from the closet and… some sanitary napkins.”
iv.
“And now Quinn is mad at me because she’s dating Finn even though he’s clearly more attracted to me but then she got pregnant by his friend Noah even though she doesn’t actually enjoy his company and so I told Finn that he wasn’t the biological father of the baby-it’s a girl, by the way-because I was slightly jealous of her position as Finn’s girlfriend and wished that he would divert his attentions over to me.” Rachel paused briefly to bring a plastic red spoon full of vanilla ice cream to her lips. With her mouth still full, she continued, “And then-”
“Woah, woah. Wait.” Will rubbed his temples and then let his hands fall back to their table in the corner of the Dairy Queen (called, literally, Their Table, because they never sat anywhere else). “I thought you and Quinn were friends?”
“Dad,” Rachel groaned, sounding like-well, like a sixteen-year-old girl. “We haven’t been friends since middle school.”
“Okay. Well, have you tried apologizing?”
“Of course.” Rachel huffed a bit in frustration and stared down at her Oreo Brownie Earthquake, as if the dish of ice cream could somehow provide her with the answers.
“Sorry, Rach,” Will said with a shrug and a smile, “I guess I’m just not that good at this.”
Rachel’s lips curved up. She gently kicked her dad under the table (as she always did whenever he made a joke at his expense) and continued to eat her snack.
In the back of her mind, though, she couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to have another girl she could actually talk to.
v.
Rachel pushed open the front door to her house quietly, feeling as if she needed to sneak around even though it was just before five in the afternoon and she hadn’t done anything inherently wrong. Sort of.
The Lady Gaga outfit that her fathers had made for her the night before was draped over her arm. She had briefly considered changing back into it in the car and hiding her new one (her better one) at school, but she couldn’t lie to her dads.
She stepped into the front hallway and immediately went for the stairs. It wouldn’t be lying if they just… didn’t notice. She was stopped by her daddy James’s voice coming from the kitchen.
“Rachel, is that you? How was your performance-wow!” Rachel turned to face her daddy, who was now standing in the hall holding a cheese grater and wearing his ‘Mr. Good Lookin’ is Cookin’’ apron. He gestured towards her with the grater, “You look amazing! Where did you get that?”
Rachel tried to keep her voice even when she answered, because, really, she hadn’t done anything wrong. (It just felt like she had.) “I visited my mom after school again, today. She sews, and she had some spare stuff lying around.”
“Oh.” James was still smiling, but now it seemed-it just seemed off. “That’s wonderful. Hey, Will,” he rose his voice to a shout so that his husband would be able to hear him upstairs. “Could you please help Rachel take apart her Gaga outfit?” He flashed another smile at Rachel while he waited for the response.
“Sure. But I thought she needed it until-” by this time, Will had left the study and looked over the banister at his daughter downstairs. “Ah,” he said simply. “I’ll take care of that for you. I know you wanted to do some extra rehearsing tonight.” He smiled at Rachel (and it looked kind of like James’s smile, too: fake), and as he passed her on the stairs, he took the old outfit from her and carried it to the kitchen so he could work next to his husband.
“Dinner will be ready in an hour,” James mumbled before going back into the kitchen.
---
Rachel had been sitting at her desk, staring at the same paragraph of her History textbook, for nearly forty-five minutes before her dad Will came into her room with an armload of stuffed animals.
She pretended to work in silence, but really watched from the corner of her eye as Will put each of the toys back in their original spots.
“Rachel,” he said, and Rachel turned in her swivel chair to fully face him. “I managed to get all of your toys free, but this one was stapled really well. James and I did the best we could, but…” He held up her little stuffed cow, Ferdinand. Ferdinand was sporting a large gash along his side, poorly concealed by a single thread sloppily sewn along the middle. Rachel’s eyes watered a little at the sight.
Will placed Ferdinand on her hope chest at the edge of her bed (next to her new dress which she had laid out to wear to school tomorrow) and said, “I’m sorry we couldn’t do better.” He left.
With a sniffle, Rachel turned back to her homework. She was unable to make out the blurred letters on the page through her tears.
vi.
Will and James came home to the scent of freshly baked cookies.
They found their daughter curled up on one side of the couch, clutching her stuffed cow so hard that his stuffing was starting to fall out through the seams and crying hard. She was dressed in her purple pajamas with the microphones on them (she always wore them after she was slushied or bullied), and the two men noticed that her new dress was crumpled up in the corner.
James and William Berry exchanged a quick look, and then sat down on either side of their daughter. Rachel immediately leaned into James’s chest, and Will rubbed her back as she sobbed.
“My mother doesn’t want me,” Rachel said pathetically.
“Rachel-” both of her dads began speaking at the same time. Will nodded at James, who continued, “Rachel, I’m sure your mother loves you a lot. But not everybody is ready to be a full-time mom. I’m sure that whatever she said, she was just trying to do what’s right for you.”
Rachel curled her knees up to her chest and grunted. A few moments later, she peeked at each of her fathers and then spoke. “I baked you some ‘I’m Sorry’ cookies.”
James knit his brow and placed his hand on his husband’s on Rachel’s back. “Rach, you have nothing to apologize for.”
Will added, “I refuse to eat any cookie declaring your apologies on the matter.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.” James smiled weakly.
“Rachel, we’re not angry at you for trying to find out more about your mother. If you’re still interested, we would be happy to help you guys work out another time to meet.”
“I don’t know,” Rachel said, her voice muffled by her legs.
“You don’t have to answer now. Or anytime soon,” James Berry said as he stood up from the couch, pulling his husband up along with him. “Now, you can feel free to mope on the couch as long as you want, but your dad and I are going into the kitchen to eat some delicious cookies. Feel free to join us.”
Rachel smiled weakly, stood, and did just that.