Disclaimer: I own nothing; just borrowing them for the fun of writing.

Glee is Ryan Murphy and The book Wednesday Night Witches is wrote by LeeNichols

A/N: Not beta'd; all mistakes are mine. Please mention them if you find any, and one wanting to help and be my beta reading please message me...

Chapter 1

People often stalk me in my line of work, and today was one of those days. I'd felt them behind me for three blocks, but when I checked my back, trotting into the subway station, they were gone - must've lost them on Broadway.

Past the turnstile, the platform was suffocating int the August heat, yet I shivered with relief. Then the fluorescent llights flickered, and i marked a tall man with long blond hair, wearing thigh-high boots and a red mesh shirt, and a feral-looking woman in studded leather pants and a matching bra.

My God. I was being hunted by Motley Crue.

The train came in and the doors closed behind me - but not soon enough. Though the morning commuter crowd, I saw them approaching from the next car, a hard, unearthly light in their eyes. The subway lurched forward, and I backpedaled, a line of sweat trickling down the small of my back. I ran until there was nowhere left to go. They cornered me in the last car, their feral lips curled in anticipation.

I slipped behind a stocky businessman, reaching for my obsidian dagger, and the businessman said, "Hey!"

"Hmm?" I blinked and the Crue disappeared. Oh, no.

The businessman looked at his arm. The arm I was clenching. "I'm using that," he said.

"Oh! I'm sorry-"

"Leave her alone," said a kid in a baseball cap. "Can't you see she's Amish?"

The stocky businessman eyed me warily. "Do you need help?" he asked.

I stared with mute mortification that my daydream has gotten so out of control. Yes, I daydreamed to much, but I usually stopped short of grabbing strange men on the subway.

"You have to ask like this," the kid informed him. "Doth thee require assistance?"

The subway squealed to a halt and I scurried outside. Not my step, but I didn't care - anything to get away. In truth, I wasn't Amish, despite being dressed in a long black skirt, beige blouse and brown sweater-vest. Iwasn't a vampire slayer, either.

I was a knindergarten teacher.

So why was I dressed like this on a stifling August 30 in NYC? Because today was Open House, the day before school officially began, the most important in a knidergarten teacher's year. And while most teachers would wear seasonably correct linen skirts and blouses, not me. Not Rachel Berry. Not with Sue Sylvester as my head teacher.

I waited for the next train, keeping a tight rein on my fantasies, and still got to school twenty minutes early. My boyfriend, Jesse, wasn't his best in the morning, before drinking his coffee, reading his newspaper and checking the marginal rates on his foreign incestment tax portfolio. It was easier to leave the apartment before he woke and remembered I'd moved in three month ago - otherwise, his first look of disappointed surprise could really blow my day.

"Much better," Sue said, eyeing me as I entered the classroom. "That is an appropriate outfit."

I pulled paper towels from the dispenser next to the miniature kindergarten sinks and wiped the sweat from my neck. "You look good, too."

"Dio you like this? "she asked, tugging at her shirt. "It's linen."

"Perfect for this weather," I said. "Maybe I should've worn-"

"Oh, not you, Rachel! Remember what happened at last year's Open House? You looked like you were trying out for an episode of Buddies."

"Friends," I muttered, tossing the damp paper towels into the trash.

Buddies was Sue's catchphrase for anything she found remotely inappropriate. "That's the way they might teach on Buddies," she'd say if I suggested an alternaticve lesson plan. Or, "One of the girls on Buddies is pregnant with her brother's twins," if I mentioned Jesse - a correlation I found baffling. She watched the reruns religiously, yet had no idea the show was called Friends - or that spending the night with your boyfriend didn't mean I was carrying my brother's children. I didn't even have a brother.

Sadly, Sue was tight with my principal-hence my Puritan costume. I didn't want to give her any reason to refer to Buddies in her evaluation.

After we organized the room, Sue said, "Oh! I almost forget. I have a present for you!"

"Is it one of those hats with the little fans built in?" O made a propeller motion over my sweaty face.

"No."

"Lemonade?"

She handed me the letter A, cut out of red consruction paper. "Pin this to your chest."

"What? Why?" I didn't want a letter pinned to my chest. "We didn't do this last year."

"You're always saying we should shake things up around here."

"I am, that's true, but..." I stared at the offending red A. "Wouldn't you rather wear the A? You're the head teacher, after all."

Sue pinned a green Bto her chest as if it were a corsage. "This one matches my shirt."

"Yes, but, um, a scarlet letter?"

"A is for apple," she explained.

"Od adultery. The way I'm dressed-" I gestured to my homespun magnificence. "I'll look like Hester Prynne."

"Oh, don't be ridiculos. You look very nice."

Before I could answer, a little blond girl skipped into the room, dressed entirely in pink, with her mother following close behind in a matching outfit.

"Quick," Sue said, "here they come. Pin it on!"

"But..."

Sue's eyes flased. "Rachel."

So I pinned the scarlet letter to my chest and preprared my self to be poised and professional when addressing the new parents. And ready with an A is for Apple quip, if necessary.

The parents and students poured in, filled miniature Dixie cups with apple juice, and sat in a circle. Sue gave the welcoming speech and I refilled the juice, and toward the end the pink mother raised her hand and said, "I have a question for Miss Berry."

I smiled. "Yes?"

"Will they be reading Hawthore this year?"

"No, that's a little advanced for-"

"Then why are you dressed like that?"

I could've asked her why she was dressed like a five-year-old, but I said, "They will learn to read, though, and some classics as well. Beatrix Potter and Maurice Sendak, for example-"

"Will you be dressing like a character from a novel every month?" another mother asked.

"No."

"Yes," Sue cut in. "Rachel will be reenacting a character from each of our books. That's a wonderful idea."

"If you're not reading Hawthorne," Pink Mom said, "why are you dressed like hester Prynned?"

"I'm not, I-"

"You're wearing the scarlet letter."

"A is for Apple!" I explained, and ripped the letter from my chest, sending a hail of pins to the floor.

"She should dress like Moaning Myrtle," another mother said. "You know, from Harry Pooter. Will you be teaching Harry Potter this year?"

"Well, we-"

"What about the real classics?" a thired mother asked. "Like Tom Sawyer?"

"Or Lady Chatterley." One of the fathers leered at me, before his elbowed him. "What?" he said. "That's a classisc?"

"How about Mary Poppins?" a mother suggested. "Or Heidi?"

"Barbie!" one of the girls yelled. "Schoolteacher Barbie!"

Pink Mom cleared her throat and pointed to the floor. "Those pins are a choking hazard."

Everyone clasped their kinder tightly as I dropped to my knees and searched for pins. Sue finished her talk and ushered everyone out. She smoother her hair in the mirror that allowed us to monitor the toilets from any angle in the classroom, and said, "Principal Lane and I have reservations downtown for dinner. She's being consudered for associate superintendent. There's an opening, you know, and she's got a good chance."

"Oh, congratuale her for me."

"She hasn't been hired yet, Rachel."

"No, of course not. I just meant-"

"You don't think she will be?"

"No! I mean yes! I think she will be - so...cingratulations?"

Sue rolled her eyes at the mirror. Maybe she forgot I could see her. Or maybe not. "What are your plan for the boards?" she asked.

"The what?"

"The boards, Rachel. The boards."

"Oh! The bulletin boards." We redecorated everyh month with a seasonal theme and lesson paraphernaila, and the boards were currently blooming with late-summer flowers and early-reading items. "They're perfect for now, don't you think!"

"I've laid out new materials, shouldn't take long. See you tomorrow!"

After Sue left, I cleared the decorations from the boards, stabbing pushpins into a tight circle in the corner. With each tack I got madder. I shouldn't be 'help' -stab- I should be the co-teacher -stab- responsible for half the boards and half the lessons and half the disciplin -stab, stab, stab. Instead, I got stuck supervising potty time, managing snacks and heading up 'telephone' circles. Okay, so I quite liked 'telephone,' but that wasn't the -stab- point!

The point was, I wastn't going to let Sue push me around anymore, and I wasn't going to comfort myself by drifting off into daydreams of having my own classroom. Henceforth, I'd be assertive and grounded and not take'no' for an answer. I was finished forever with...with... Where the were the new bulletin board materials? I spun circles around the classroom, checked drawer, every cupboard- no craft materials anywhere. How was I supposed to design a gorgeous seasonal board, a testament to my new resolve, without any supplies?

I sighed and started replacing everything in a messy clutter. Boards weren't my thing, desite all of Brittany's tutelage. Brittany, my best friend from NYU, was the prototypical starving artist and she'd given me pointers on collage and design, outlining the basics of compostition. Then she'd said my style was like Jackson Pollock- but not so tidy.

I replaced the last construction-paper dahlia and shook my head. Decoration overwhelmed me, just like Sue. Why, did I always do what she said, like dress in this ridiculouse outfit?" Why couldn't I tell her, 'It's Friends, dammit! There's no such thing as Buddies!'

At least I didn't have to come to work dressed like Phoebe. Yet.

I stepped from the stifing mugginess of the subway into the oppressive heat of the street and staggered the two blocks to Jesse's building. Well, to my building, except I still felt like a guest. I know my nervouseness annoyed Jesse-I aleays asked permission to use the phone for long-distance calls or finish th ecarton of milk or claim one-thired of the medicine cabinet as my own. I had a key, obviously, but still felt the need to buzz before going up.

"You're late." Jesse's tinny voice came through the intercom. "I'll come down."

"I need to change," I said.

"No time."

"Jesse, I'm dressed like a pilgrim! It'll only take ten minutes and-"

And I realized he wasn't listening; the intercom was dead.

Whe I got upstairs, Jesse was stepping into the hall, wearing a dark suit from barney's and a plae gray silk tie. He was tall and slim, with a no-polish manicure and a weekly Pilates class physique. I was short and curvy- usually not such a bad thing, but in the wrong cloths, like today, I looked squat and porky.

Jesse winced when he saw me.

"I told you," I said.

"What happened to your hair?"

"The subway."

"You rode with head out the window, like a dog?"

"Let me in. I'll only be ten minutes."

"You're an hour late."

"I'm sorry, Sue made me stay to finish the bulletin boards."

"Hurry up." Jesse opened the door in a martyred fashion. "No daydreaming, Rachel."

"I won't! I don't. I hardley ever do..."

"I can't be late to our company cocktail party, and I can't go with my girlfriend looking like...that. How you look reflects on how they see me."

I pushed into the apartment, the coolest air I'd felt all day. "I'm sorry. I tried to call." A lie, but he was impossible to reach, so a good one. "It's actually kinda funny. You know, I dressed like this to keep Sue happy, then when I got there she gave me this letter cut out of construction paper..."

He stood in the bathroom doorway, tapping his watch, as I stripped off my clothes and washed my face. I told him about looking like Hester Prynne, hoping he'd laugh and tell me I was his favorite little Puritan. But of course he hadn't read hawthorne- he bragged he'd never read a novel in his life- so I lamely finished with "...and, um, then I had to stay to work a little late."

"It's kindergarten," Jesse said. "I'd hardly call it work."

I laughed at his lame attempt at humor. "Seriously, Jesse, sometimes I feel you don't think my job is important."

"Of course it isn't," he joked.

"I teach children. I shape minds."

"You make $52,000 a year, I make $370,000."

"Yes, but-"

"Do the math." He wasn't joking. "My job is eight times as important."

I eyes him. "That's only seven times my salary."

"You're a glorified camp couselor, Rachel- and we're still late."

I yanked my little black dress from the closet, willing myself not to explode. Jesse was a good man: he worked hard, and was good in bed, adn her treated me okay and... well he worked hard.

"Not that again," he said. "That must be four seasons out of date."

"Only three."

"Let me but you a new wardrobe."

"I don't want to-"

"Consider it a business exoense, Rachel. I'll never make partner with you looking like that."

"You're there sixteen hours a day! Who cares what I wear?"

"Doesn't matter how many hours I bill if I don't look the part. Ican be fat and bald, as long as I have a sexy young thing on my arm. I can't afford you looking like a frumpy mess- that's as bad as buying an office chair from a big box store."

I knotted the grosgrain ribbon at my waist, slipped into my kitten heels, and clopped back into the concrete bathroom. A chair. That's how he saw mw, as an office chair- not a staus symbol like a Rolex or Porsche. A chair.

I shivered in the cold gray room. Before moving in, I'd loved this austere bathroom with the shower that ran into the floor anf the contemporary sculptured sink, but after living here a week, I despised it. I was always freezing, and the exposed lightbulbs gave me a cadaverous pallor. Plus, there wasn't room in my thire of the medicine cabinet for my cosmetics, so I had to keep them in a basket next to the plunger behind the toilet.

Jesse looked away from his watch. "All I'm saying is, you're stunning when you try. How come you never try anymore?"

I closed the door on him, tamed my hair hair with anti-frizz serum and applied too much makeup- just the way he like. Then I opened the door and told him, "See? Ten minutes."

His peevish expression changed to one of hungry approval. We'd always had a good sex... but there was no time now. I found my classic black evening clutch in my quarter of the closet, stuffed my driver's license, Visa, lipstick, cell and a fifty inside and headed for the front door.

"You wouldn't believe the day I've had." Jesse complained about his paralegals all the way to the corner, where we stood to hail a taxi.

"I had a long day, too. The open house-"

"Remember, Rachel, most grown-ups don't want to hear about preschool. We don't have nap time. We get jealous."

A taxi pulled to the curb. "It's kindergarten, not preschool."

He snorted. "Like that matters."

"It matters, Jesse." I slipped into the cab. "I matter."

I slammed the door before Jesse could follow, and told the driver, "JFK airport."

I stared straight ahead while Jesse knocked at the window, then turned to watch through the back as he grew very small and presumablu very angry, then disappeared.

Like magic.