Original Songs: The Road to Regionals
Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me. I'm just playing in Ryan Murphy & Company's sandbox of characters. Any and all music mentoned beongs to their singers and writers.
Author's Note: This fic is a slightly AU take on the seaons two episode 'Original Songs'. Flashbacks are in italics with dialouge from the show (different episodes) being underlined while thoughts wil be in single quotes and italics. This story will be Puckleberry with tiny mention of the Finchel relationship as well as the Pinn friendship/bromance. There will also be the AU Berryford siblingness.
Author's Note 2: I know I shouldn't be starting a new story since I've still got works in progress from my other fandoms. But writer's block (mostly) and watching my box set of Glee have kept me away. I figured if I got this (and another) plot bunny out of my head then maybe the block on "Hidden Truths" (Harry Potter), "Picking up the Pieces" (General Hospital), "Together Again" (Mighty Ducks) or any of my other unfinished works. For those who are still reading my stuff and follow/fave my writing, thanks for still being here. It meanss a lot. :) Enjoy the story.
Chapter One: Prolougue
(a.k.a. "How We Got Here"/Song Suggestions)
"Okay guys, settle down." Willam Schuester waited for his kids to find their seats. "I've just gotten off the phone with the show choir committe. There are going to be some changes for Regionals this year."
The gleeks were about to stir in uproar until he raised his hands to quiet them. Some of the kids waited patiently with hands in the air to find out what was going on.
"Yes Mike?"
"How bad are these changes?"
"Not bad at all." he said before looking towards his female lead. "Rachel, were did you get the idea for using original songs?"
"The show choir website said something about them being an option."
Some of her fellow glee club members were amused at her resourcefulness. Others were somewhat annoyed, either rolling eyes or muttering "show off" or "teacher's pet" under their breath.
"Quit muttering you losers." Puck bellowed. "At least Berry's trying to find ways to make this club better and help us win. What have any of you done but bellyache and complain about shit." he stood in defense of his fellow Jew. "That's why she's co-captain and none of yous ain't."
"Thank you Noah."
"S'okay shorty. Just tellin' it like it is."
"And trying to get in her pants." Santana muttered.
"Shut it Satan!"
"Enough!" Schue yelled, ttrying to get the classroom back under control. "She had a point concerning the original songs. That's one of the changes. It's now mandatory as part of this year's set lists. There are other ruquirements." he said making notes on the whiteboard. "The scoring will be different. We competing longer. There are specific kinds of numbers the judges are looking for and wants."
"Longer competing time?" asked Sam.
"Yeah, since they've changed how the winners will be picked, Regionls will last a total of five days. Also, since more schools have been added this year, an elimination round will last the first three days with six groups starting and three groups finishing up on the last two."
"So basically like Nationals," asked Finn. "But less schools?"
"Yeah, just like Nationals. And the prelims will have three rounds while the finals have two. One round per day."
"Woah, that's a lot of planning." quiped Mercedes. "Do you think we'll be ready?"
"Guys, Imma hafta pull a Rachel here." everyone looked at Brittany. "What?"
"Brit Brit," Santana grabbed her hand. "are you sure about that?"
"Hey! I resent that!" exclaimed Rachel.
"Yo! That's my little sister you're talking about!" yelled Matt.
Matt Rutherford had been very protective of the small Jewish girl since finding out right before Regionals a year ago that they were brother and sister. He'd come back to McKinnley from Carmel where he had been forced to transfer to when the district lines had been redrawn during the summer. His family had lived close enough to the boundries that he could still commute if he got permission from the two schools. Luckily he didn't have to do this, since the Berry men offered to let Matt live with them so he'd get to know his sister better - as well as keep a protective eye on her once they were forced to leave her home alone because of work - even though the transfer wasn't complete until after Kurt had to leave for Dalton due the whole Karofsky sistuation.
"I didn't mean it in a bad way Rachie, Matty. I just wanted to say that we should spend all our extra time practicing."
"Brit's right everyone." Schue siad. "We've got three months tops but we've got to put together six set lists, if not seven or eight."
"Obviously some will be back-ups in case - God forbid - we have a repeat of last year's Sectionals." mused Tina.
"One thing the judges are looking for is variety. That's why we're gonna tap into some stuff we've already done either at assembly, performances in class or from past competitions."
"That makes sense." Matt said while Mike noded in agreement. "The less new material the less choreography we need to come up with."
Schue nodded while writing on the whiteboard.
"All right, listen up. These are the types of songs we're working with. Minimum of three to six per category between all the sets. The most we can use is eight." he said going over his notes. "No less than three songs per set. No more than the eight. Average amount of songs should probably hit around five."
The list on the whiteboard read as follows: Country, musical icons (examples - Beatles, Madonna, etc.), Broadway, mash-ups, orginal songs, accustic (either originally arranged or stripped down versions) - song selections can fullfill multiple categories if applicable
"Mr. Schue?" Arite rose his hand.
"Yes?"
"Do mash-ups count as one song or two?"
"Let me see." he told the wheelchair bound boy, checking his notes again. "They count as one."
The whole club was bursting with excitement.
"I want suggestions by Friday's meeting. You don't have to think of something for everything. Just as long as you tell me which category it fits and who might be good to sing it. I want suggestions for solos, duets and group nubers. Anybody interested in working on original pieces, come see me if you already have something. I'll look it over to see if it's appropriate."
After being dismissed, the Gleeks head off in different directions. Matt is seen walking off with his arm around Rachel while the little brunette talked his ear off.
"Matty, there's so many combinations of numbers we could do! I can't wait to go through my sheet music when we get home."
"I know what you mean Shortcakes."
"No fair!" exclaimed Santana from behind them, pinkies locked with Brittany. "How come you can call her that but none of use are allowed to call her midget, dwarf or hobbit?"
Matt crossed his arms, glaring at the Latina cheerleader.
"Fore one, I'm her brother." he reminded her. "And second, I'm using it with affection, not as a mean nickname."
"I still find that wierd." she retorted. "You look nothing alike. You sure she's your sister?"
"Back off Satan!"
He felt a small hand on his arm as he started to get both angry and annoyed.
"Matt, ignore her."
"You're right baby girl, let's go. Maybe you can find a kick ass song for you and me to sing together."
He loved seeing the way music lit up her face. And he loved knowing that he did that. If only he'd known sooner that they shared the same birth mother. He thought back to when they found out they were both borne of the same woman, Shelby Corcoran.
#~#~#~#~#
A few weeks before the day Vocal Adrenaline finkified the New Directions (possibly sometime between the Madonna assignment and the week that Rachel Berry lost her voice, maybe even around the same week as the Lady Gaga and Kiss performances)...
"Matthew, have a seat."
Matt sat down on the couch across the love seat his parents occupied. Based on the looks on their faces, he could tell something serious was going on.
"What's up Mom, Dad?"
"Son," his mother started. "you know we love you. Right?"
"Yeah, I know."
"And you know that even though your mom didn't give birth to you, she's still your mom. Right?"
"Yeah, I know that too. What does that have to do with things?"
His parents shared a look.
"Your birth mother called today. She wanted to know if you wanted to meet her. Face to face."
Matt thought about this for a moment. He'd know for a long while that he'd been the product of a drunken affair when his parents found out that his mom couldn't have kids and she tried to push him away. His biological mother relinquished her maternal rights once she found out their situation. He'd known very little about the woman who'd carried him to term in her belly whom he'd never laid eyes on or spoken to.. He knew her name, what kind of job she had, things like that. But he didn't know if she'd had other children or anything relating to her family life.
"Any particular reason she wants to see me now, seventeen years after the fact?"
"It turns out that you have a sister somewhere in the area. A baby she was a surrogate for with another couple. This was several months - almost a whole year - after you were born." his dad explained. "She's trying to meet the young girl but also wanted to extend the same courtesy to you. Maybe you'd like to meet your birth sister."
"A little sister? I always wanted one of those." he said with a smail smile.
"It's completely up to you." his mom told him. "Who knows maybe you already know her."
"I'll think about it.
#~#~#~#~#
A few weeks later - incidently on the same day Vocal Adrenaline funkified the New Directions - he'd made up his mind to meet his birth mother. And he got one of the biggest shocks of his life when he realized his mom was right.
"Holy crap! You're Rachel's mom. The resemblance is freaking uncanny. Does she know yet? About me?"
"No. We dididn't get the chance, seeing as I told her last week that we should appreciate each other from afar. Like I told her, I'm not capable of being a teenager's mom even though I am their mother."
"I gotta go. I need to go make sure she's okay."
"Why wouldn't she be?"
"Your star broke her heart after he left our choir hangin' in the wind to come back to yours. Kind of makes me wonder what else he's capable of doing to put her in a funk."
#~#~#~#~#
Later that same week, he held Rechel as she cried in the choir room after getting cleaned up from the egging that was dished out by Vocal Adrenaline.
"It's okay baby doll. No one's gonna hurt you anymore. Not while I'm here." he told here while placing a loving kiss on the top of her head. "St. Douche will pay for what he's done to you. I promise you that sweets."
A loud bang from the choir room's doorway got their attention. Just like that, they had gotten the attention of a very angry football player.
"What the Hell, Rutherford?" he heard Finn yelling at him at seeing the tiny diva in the dark footballer's embrace. "First Puckerman snags Quinn out from under me. Now you're trying to do the same with Rachel!"
"Hey, it's not like that Hudson! Besides, Rach's not even yours to be snagged away from!"
"Then what the Hell are you doing with your arms around her?"
"Taking care of my baby sister you jerkoff!"
"Yeah right! Rachel doesn't have any brothers."
"It's true. We have the sae birth mother. Not that it's any of your business. Like Matthew said, I'm not yours."
"Besides, I should be kicking your ass right now considering all of what you did to Rachel. But first, I'm taking care of St. James and then finding a way to get the assholes in this shithole to stop messing with my baby doll."
#~#~#~#~#
He was brought out of his musings by a tug on his letterman jacket's sleeve. He smiled down at Rachel.
"Yeah, you're right. I'll ignore her, just like you say. Then when we're done looking at songs I'll show you another self-defense move. And we can also work on that left hook of yours."
"Matty, you said my left hook was fine."
"I know. But we need to make it killer." he told her, walking her down the hall to the parking lot to drive home.
'If I'd been told we were related before the bullying, maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if not going on at all. Or at least I'd been able to to do something to help make it easier.'
#~#~#~#~#
The next lunch rehersal/meeting found some members of New Directions complaining about doing original songs as part of their setlist requirements for Regionals. Rachal, Matt, Puck and Mike rolled thire eyes as Mercedes voices her doubts.
"You're right, we're not gonna be as good at it. We're gonna be better." Quinn started. "We won't just be using other peoples' words or music, even though that's true for all the teams." the blonde cheerleader stood, heading towards the center of the floor. "It'll be our own. Our own heart, soul, not just our voices." She took a moment to look around the room. "We have several really talented songwriters in our midst. Rachel? I was thinking maybe you and I could write a song together."
"I'll think about it."
"Baby doll, I'm not sure about this."
"It'll be fine Matty."
#~#~#~#~#
Later that day, Quinn sat playing the piano in the auditorium when Rachel showed up.
"You're late."
The smaller girl gives her a dubious look.
"We're friends, right?"
"Yeah, I guess so."
The brunnette steels herself, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear.
"I mean, like everything happened last year. You gave your baby to mine and Matt's mom. We kind of bonded over it, right?"
"What's your point?"
"My point is…Is that I know we haven't spent a lot of time together this year, but I thought that we were close enough to be honest with each other."
"Go ahead, ask me."
Rachel's feet shift akwardly.
"Fine. Are you and Finn together?"
Quinn turns towards the piano before answering here.
"Yes. It's been a couple of weeks." she turns back towards Rachel, irritated expression on her face. "It's like Groundhog's Day with you, Rachel. How many times do you have to make the same mistake to realize it's not going to work out?"
Rachel looks down for a moment to collect herself, even though a little piece of her is dying on the inside.
"Thank you for being honest with me, Quinn, and… And I'm happy for you and Finn, but don't go and try to rewrite history, okay? It was real between us. He chose me over you."
"And how long did that last for?"
"Why are you being so mean?"
Quinn gets up from the piano, walking in Rachel's direction.
"Do you want to know how this story plays out? I get Finn, you get heartbroken," she starts pacing the floor. "and then Finn and I stay here and start a family." she glances at the smaller girl to gadge her reaction. "I'll become a successful real estate agent, and Finn will take over Kurt's dad's tire shop." her voice beginning to break. "You don't belong here, Rachel, and you can't hate me for helping to send you on your way."
The tiny diva shakes her head while she listens.
"No. I'm not giving up on Finn. It's not over between us."
"Yes, it is!" Quinn snaps, angrily running her fingers through her hair. "You're so frustrating, and that is why you can't write a good song…Because you live in this little schoolgirl fantasy of life. Rachel, if you keep looking for that happy ending, then you are never going to get it right." she starts heading back to her seat at the piano. "So we're done with that, and why don't we just return to our work, okay?"
"No, I think I'm gonna write this song on my own."
Rachel storms out of the auditorium, heading out of the school's building in tears.
#~#~#~#~#
Later that night, Rachel sat in her room writing on sheet music when her brother knocked on her door.
"You okay baby?"
She looked up at him with glassy eyes.
"You were right. Things with Quinn didn't work out."
Matt sighed, stepping into the room.
"I'm sorry sweets. You wanna talk about it?"
"In a while. I need to finish this first."
The footballer looked down at the pages to see the makings of a song titled "Get It Right". She doesn't stop crying, but the waterworks do slow down a bit.
"You want me to take a look when you're done? Talk about it over some of those awesome cookies you baked?"
She simply nods. He kisses the top of her head.
"Thanks Matty. I love you."
"Love you too, doll face."
#~#~#~#~#
Author's Note 3: Part 2 of the Prologue coming soon. Let me know what you think.