…

The first time Shelby Corcoran ever stepped foot in the Big Apple, she knew she could never go back to a small town life. There was something that was so electric about New York that made her soul sing. From the constant movement all around her, to the bright lights, the food, the people. It truly was the place where people came to make their dreams come true. And she was determined to do just that from the moment she arrived nine years ago. And she did.

Her first couple of years in New York, she had landed some roles in small off-Broadway productions, before landing a supporting role in Rent. She had even earned herself her first Tony nomination for her portrayal of Maureen Johnson. After that she did a couple more off-Broadway gigs, put out some albums, was dropped from her label, and was in a bit of a slump for a couple of years, unable to find work.

But then it came, her big break. She had landed the leading role of Elphaba in the new Broadway musical, Wicked. Wicked had officially been on Broadway for a couple of months now, and it was taking the great white way by storm. The reviews were spectacular, and the Tony buzz that was surrounding the show was amazing. Shelby was back on top and she truly had never been happier. Her hard work was finally paying off and she had it all.

Well, she almost had it all.

As happy as Shelby was in her life and her career, there was something missing, something that would always be missing. The entire reason she was even able to come to New York in the first place and make a name for herself was because of what she had given up, what she had walked away from.

Her beautiful baby girl.

Nine years ago, Shelby had finally graduated college and was ready to make her way to New York and start her life. But her parents were less than supportive, constantly telling her that show business was going to lead her down a path of rejection and disappointment. But Shelby ignored them and applied for jobs anyways, knowing she couldn't even attempt to make it in the concrete jungle without a steady income. But after months and months of turning out with nothing, Shelby had started to feel hopeless.

And then she answered an Ad in the paper. Nine months of work could pay for her to live in New York for two years. Two years was plenty of time to get herself established and start earning an income, so Shelby greedily applied.

When Shelby had first met with Hiram and LeRoy Berry, she had immediately taken a liking to them. They were warm, kind, and praised her for her beauty and her talent and encouraged her to follow her dreams, pushed her even. So when they asked her to carry a child for them, it only felt right to say yes. Who was she to deny two wonderful men a chance at starting a family when they were willing to give her a chance at starting a career?

The first couple of months of the pregnancy were easy. She dealt with morning sickness, insomnia, and was all around miserable, even with the two men constantly doting on her. It made it easy for her to detach herself from the baby that was making her so miserable. But then she started showing, and Shelby would catch herself lovingly stroking her protruding belly. And then they found out it was a girl, and then the baby kicked for the first time. And by eight months Shelby found herself falling in love with the child growing inside of her.

The Berry men had noticed Shelby's growing attachment to the child she was carrying, and one day they approached her asking her to sign a contract relinquishing all parental rights and promising not to contact the girl until she was at least eighteen. Shelby signed it no questions asked. She knew the men weren't being malicious. They were just protecting themselves. After so many failed attempts at trying to start a family, they wanted to make sure they got it right this time.

And then her daughter was born, and she was beautiful. One of the most beautiful babies Shelby had ever seen. She only saw her for a second, but that single second was enough to get her through some of the most trying times in her life. She held onto that second and held it dearly in her heart.

After Shelby was cleaned up by the doctors, a tearful Hiram and LeRoy had come over to voice their thankfulness, handed her an envelope, took her beautiful baby out of the room, and left.

So, Shelby packed her bags the next day and never looked back. That's not to say it wasn't hard. It was the hardest thing she had ever done. She almost didn't go, too overcome with grief. But then giving up her daughter would have been for nothing. So she went. She thought about her daughter every single day. Constantly wondering what she looked like, what her name was, if she inherited any of Shelby's talent. She missed her, but she was forever grateful to her daughter for the doors in which she opened for her.

But she missed her.

…

It was a Tuesday morning and Shelby was walking towards the Gershwin Theatre with an extra pep in her step. The air, though still slightly chilly, was finally starting to turn warm. The sun was shining, and it was gorgeous outside, and Shelby couldn't wait to get to the theatre and start getting ready for the show tonight. As she rounded the corner, she rolled her eyes at the dozens of paparazzi that were milling around outside by the stage door. The closer it got to the Tony nominations being announced, the more the paparazzi seemed to be lurking around. She walked past them nonchalantly, ignoring their shouts asking her if she thought she would be nominated, giving occasional smiles to the flashing cameras. She reached for the door, but was stopped dead in her tracks when a pap off to her side called out, causing her blood to run cold.

"Shelby! Is it true that you have a daughter?"

Oh, fuck.

…

"LeRoy!" Hiram Berry hissed, gently shutting the door behind him as to not wake their sleeping child. "LeRoy, get over here!"

LeRoy Berry slowly made his way over to his husband, passing him a cup of coffee before taking a generous gulp of his own. "Hiram, I'm too tired to deal with any more dramatics tonight." He sighed. "What is it?"

"Have you happened to check the news at all in the past couple of hours, or even happened a glance at any social media?" Hiram asked.

"No?" LeRoy said confused, "We've been pretty busy today." He said, raising an eyebrow, indicating to the door behind his husband.

"Well check!" Hiram all but screeched.

"Alright, alright." He conceded, pulling his phone out of his back pocket. "What website am I supposed to be looking at again?"

"Oh, I'm sure any site will have this particular article front and center." Hiram said bitterly.

LeRoy rolled his eyes at his husband's dramatics and pulled up his Facebook, his eyes going wide at the dozens of post all linking the same article. "What the hell?" He asked, looking up to his husband. "What is this?"

"I don't know." Hiram answered honestly. "But I don't think it was Shelby."

"No. Of course it wasn't. Shelby would never do that to us." LeRoy said.

LeRoy glanced back down at the headline that seemed to be mocking him. 'Broadway's biggest star's best kept secret, her nine year old daughter.'

Hiram sighed and leaned against the wall. "What are we going to do LeRoy? We can't let Rachel see anything of this before we talk to her, and I don't think we should talk to her until we can talk to Shelby."

"Well, I don't know how you plan on talking to Shelby. We tried getting in touch with her three years ago and all of her contact information had been changed."

"I don't even understand how this got out." Hiram sighed. "Rachel is going to lose her shit when she finds out."

LeRoy chuckled, knowing his husband was right. Their little diva was the spitting image of Shelby. She walked like Shelby, talked like Shelby, sang like Shelby. So it was only natural that she was just as obsessed with broadway as her mother was. And because of that, it only made sense that Rachel currently idolized Broadway's biggest star, Shelby Corcoran.

When Wicked had first started it's run on Broadway, Rachel had begged them to take her to see it. She had read countless articles on all of the broadway blogs, and she had fallen in love with the fact that the leading lady was from a small town and was also Jewish, just like her. She quickly became enthralled in Shelby, idolizing her and her every move. Hiram and LeRoy had shot down her request to see Wicked quickly, much to the girl's dismay. But that didn't stop her from buying everything related to Wicked and Shelby.

"Yeah, she really is." LeRoy said. "Remember when she told us she wanted to be just like Shelby when she grew up?" He asked, chuckling.

Hiram laughed. "I so badly wanted to tell her that she already was just like Shelby." He said, his smile quickly fading into a frown and his face settling into a guilty expression.

"Don't." LeRoy said. "We've been over this. We didn't do anything wrong, and we tried to reach out to Shelby. We really did. There is only so much we can do."

This had been an area of discussion many times for the men. The older Rachel got, the more evident it became she could use a womanly figure in her life. They knew how much Shelby had loved the girl, and they had started to feel guilty for turning her away from her child. They had tried to reach out, but were only ever met with dead ends.

"I know." Hiram said sadly. "I just hope Rachel doesn't hate us when she eventually finds out."

"Yeah," LeRoy agreed. "Me too."

…

"How the fuck did they find out?" Shelby seethed shooting her manager a nasty look through her dressing room mirror. "As far as I know only four people in the entire world know about my daughter, two of which are sitting in this room, April! It wasn't you, it wasn't me, and I know it wasn't her fathers', so who the fuck was it?"

The short blonde winced at Shelby's sharp tongue, and Shelby felt bad. The short, spitfire blonde was more than just her manager, she was also her best friend.

Shelby had met April Rhoades her first year living in New York City when they had both auditioned for the same role. They bonded over the fact that neither one of them got it, and the director had critiqued both of their appearances. When Shelby's career started to sky rocket, April had already given up her Broadway dreams, and instead decided to work with the stars. Shelby quickly hired her as her manager, and to this day had no regrets.

"I'm sorry April. I'm just so fucking confused as to how this got out." Shelby said, reaching for the green makeup.

"Apparently the doctor's office you went too with Hiram and LeRoy during your pregnancy was getting remodeled. They hired someone to come in and shred all of the paperwork from old patients who weren't seeing them anymore. Well, whoever was shredding the files saw your name and took pictures of the documents and sold it to the tabloids." April said quickly.

"Son of a bitch!" Shelby yelled, throwing the makeup across the room. "Those files are supposed to be kept confidential."

"I know." April said, ducking so she didn't get hit in the head. "I'm working on getting the name of the person who sold the information, once I do I'll be pressing charges."

"I don't even care about that." Shelby said, dropping her head into her hands, debating on telling her understudy to get into makeup. "Hiram and LeRoy, their names are going to come out eventually, and my daughter, I just, I don't want to cause any upheaval in their life. There was a contract put into place for a reason." She sighed.

"I know, Shelbs." April said softly, coming to sit next to her. "I've found both of their email addresses'. I've sent them both an email with your contact information. That way the three of you can decide how you want to go about this." She said. "I know you all will have her best interests at heart, and if we work together and get ahead of the press, we can manage this."

Shelby nodded glumly and sat back in her chair. Her daughter was only nine years old. The last thing she wanted to do was to throw her in the middle of a media frenzy.

"Can you go tell Paul that Jackie needs to go in for me tonight? I'm not in the right headspace to perform."

"Of course." April said, going to get up.

"Can you also take me home when you're done? I walked here today and I don't want to be swarmed by the paparazzi walking home."

April smiled and gave her a slight nod before leaving Shelby to herself.

She threw herself back into her chair and finally let her tears of frustration fall. Of course something like this would happen at the height of her career. She should have known better than to finally let herself be happy. Now, instead of being excited about the prospect of an upcoming Tony nomination, Shelby had to figure out a way to tell her parents and sister that she had a daughter. She had to figure out a way to make it up to her daughter for throwing her life into an upheaval. She had to figure out a way to explain to Hiram and LeRoy that she had nothing to do with this, that she would never intrude on their family like this.

Shelby was pulled from her thoughts by her cell phone ringing. Unsurprising, as it had been ringing all day since the news hit the tabloids. But what was surprising was that it was an unknown number calling from Lima.

Shelby gulped, knowing exactly who it was on the other end of the phone. She took a deep breath and calmed her nerves before placing the phone up to her ear. "Hello?"

"Shelby? Is that you?"

Hiram Berry's voice sounded exactly like she had remembered it. Warm and loving.

"Yeah, it's me." Shelby responded. "I take it you got my managers email?"

"We did." Hiram confirmed. "I'm sorry for calling without warning, but I figured this was something that couldn't wait."

"I'm so sorry, Hiram." Shelby sighed. "I hope you know I had nothing to do with this. I would never do that to you guys. Ever."

"Oh, Shelly, we know that." Hiram said, using her old nickname. "We would never question your character. And your manager explained through the email how this all came out." He said. We've actually been trying to get into contact with you long before this whole thing erupted." He paused. "We want you to be apart of her life, Shelby. We were wrong to keep you away."

Shelby felt tears welling in her eyes and she had to clear her throat before speaking again. "Really?"

"Yes." Hiram said clearly. "To keep you away from Rachel was wrong. She is your child, and we should have never separated the two of you. But we were selfish. And I'm sorry."

"Rachel." Shelby breathed. Her heart bursting with joy at finally knowing her daughter's name. "How is she? Is she okay?"

"She is your spitting image, Shelby. She could be your clone. And not only does she look like you, but god does she act like you." He laughed. "She's also quiet the fan of yours. She owns all of your CD's and has probably watched YouTube videos of you performing hundreds of times."

Shelby laughed and found herself being filled with giddiness at the fact that her daughter liked her music. "You know, a couple of my songs-

"Are about Rachel." He finishes for her. "We know, and we love them."

Shelby smiled her first genuine smile since shit hit the fan a couple hours ago. This could work. She could be a part of her daughters life, and they could be a family. She can finally, truly, have it all.

"I'm sure my manager also mentioned to you that it's best if we get ahead of this media frenzy." Shelby started, continuing when Hiram hummed a confirmation. "I can fly you guys out, all of you. And I can meet Rachel, and the three of us can work together on a statement and then I can take Rachel to see the show and backstage, and then,"

"Shelby," Hiram said softly, cutting her off. "As wonderful as that all sounds, we can't come to New York."

"Oh." Shelby said, her heart dropping. "Does she not want to meet me?"

"Oh, no. She very much so wants to meet you. Granted she doesn't know that you are her mom, but she's always wanted to meet her mother." Hiram started. "We were waiting to talk to you before telling her about you, now that I have, I'll probably drop the bomb tomorrow that the Shelby Corcoran is her mom." He teased, but Shelby could sense a shift in his voice.

"If you don't mind my asking, why can't you guys come to New York? If it's because of work and school I can book you guys a Friday night flight that returns Sunday evening?" She said. "I really want to meet her. There's not a day that goes by where I don't think of her."

Hiram sighed, and Shelby braced herself for the no that was coming. "Rachel can't fly right now." He said.

"Oh?"

"Shelby there's no easy way to tell you this, and I hate that it has to be over the phone. And before I do tell you, please know that as soon as LeRoy and I found out, we tried everything we could to get in touch with you."

Shelby felt her heart rate pick up, a feeling of panic setting in that she had never felt before. "Hiram, what's going on?"

"Shelby, Rachel has cancer."

And just like that, Shelby's world once again came crashing down around her.