DISCLAIMER: I do not own glee or any of its characters.

"Real" Friends

Marley went through the hallways of William McKinley High on her first day of high school. At this high school, at least.

She'd survived the first few classes she'd had and was currently looking for the cafeteria. The secretary she'd spoken to this morning had described how to get there, of course, but Marley had only been able to memorize half of the flood of words the middle-aged, chubby woman had spilt over her.

Then she'd been given a print version of her new schedule, along with the comment that her first class, French, would be "just down the hallway", and that had been it. From then on, she'd been on her own in this huge, unfamiliar building. Fortunately, the class room where her French class was held was really just down the hall, and she found it easily. She'd knocked on the door, waited until a voice called "Come in!", entered the room, walked over to the teacher's desk, explained that she was Marley Rose, the new student, and asked for a signature on the sheet the secretary had given her.

She could tell that she'd been stared at, but not stared-at stared at. She was the new kid, after all. A lot of stares came with that. So she'd held her head up high, because it really was all about body language. Everyone was picking on kids who kept their head down and let their shoulders slouch. At least that's what the counselor at her old school had said. As soon as the teacher had scribbled something unreadable next to where her name was printed, Marley, keeping her head up, had made her way to the only free desk in the back of the classroom and sat down.

This procedure – finding the classroom, introducing herself, getting the signature, finding a free seat – was repeated five times before lunch. Every time, she was being stared at by her new classmates, and every time she could tell that they were merely curiosity stares. If anyone knew the slight difference, it was her, after all.

So, after she'd found an empty seat, a few minutes of the respective class had passed and the teachers would be caught up in whatever they were blundering on about, whoever fate had chosen to sit next to her would start to try and get some information out of her. So she'd prated with Jessica in French, chattered with Hannah in American history, twaddled with Daniel in biology, chit-chatted with Cindy in Geometry, babbled to Jake in English and gossiped with Kitty in physics.

They all wanted to know the same, superficial things. Where was she from? Why had she transferred?

She told all of them that she was from a small town not more than three hours from Lima by car, and that she had transferred because her Mum had gotten a job offer here. Which wasn't that much of a lie, really. She'd just swapped cause and effect a little.

Yes, she had survived her first morning at this school without taking any damage, and now she was on her way to the cafeteria. She had no doubt that that was where almost everyone was going, so she'd decided to just follow the crowd. She hadn't been mistaken.

Out of habit, she briefly let her eyes wander across the room and noticed nothing more than an occasional "Hey, a new kid who's not a freshman!" look. So she quickly got herself a tablet with the usual probably-not-good-for-you high school cafeteria food that was the same everywhere and was just looking for a table when she spotted a familiar looking group.

She knew at once where she'd seen them before. As soon as she'd known which town they'd be moving to and thus which school she'd be transferring to, too, she'd scanned McKinley High's web page for anything that might be interesting. So she knew that these people must be the glee club that had won Nationals in Chicago the year before after having given a stunning, but abridged, version of Meat Loaf's Paradise By The Dashboard Light. The New Directions, that was what they were called, she remembered. She'd watched that video over and over again, and then, intrigued, she'd done some more research on this particular show choir.

Somehow, she'd stumbled across a blog of someone who called themselves Jacob Ben Israel and claimed to have all the inside information on the New Directions, the Cheerios and the McKinley High Titans. The latter ones were secondary to her, of course, but she read everything on the New Directions with interest. Most of it did sound pretty opinionated, and most of the comments were not very favorable - both of the articles and the people they were written about - and once she'd broken it down to the facts, she was still convinced that this club consisted of people who wouldn't be labeled the most popular kids. There was a pregnant teenager, two out-of-the-closet gay kids, someone who was in a wheelchair … and the list went on and on.

Yet, they'd won Nationals.

It was this contradiction that had intrigued her even more and made her put her name on that sign-up sheet the moment she'd spotted it. That, and the fact that she loved singing and dancing.

She missed a few people whom she had found remarkable in that Nationals video, though. She knew that the astonishing brunette lead singer had gone off to New York – frankly, half of this Jacob kid's blog was about her, so there certainly was no lack of information about Rachel Berry – but also the tall male lead, the black girl and the Latina, and the Asian dancer she'd found so remarkable were missing.

Her decision to walk over to the remainders of the Nationals-winning team was made hastily and only semi-consciously, so she was standing in front of them without knowing what to say before she even knew how she'd gotten there.

"You guys are the glee club, right?" She finally stammered out a little timidly. She didn't get much of a confirmation, so she just blurted on. "Hi. I'm gonna try out. I'm a sophomore. My name is Marley."

"Great. Well, lots of competition, so good luck to you." An Asian girl replied smoothly, giving her a casual smile. Nobody said anything more, so she considered herself dismissed. Brushed off.

Aren't these guys supposed to be nice? She thought as she took a place at the next table that was, thankfully, empty. No, they're probably being bugged by a lot of people right now. That has to be it.

She gulped down her meal quickly, wanting to go to the kitchen – she'd enter through the back door, of course – and spend some time with her Mum before the lunch break would be over. Only a few minutes passed before she got up, picked up her tablet and turned around.

"When she sits around the house, she really sits around the house."

It had been the boy in the wheelchair, and there was no mistaking whom he was talking about. She tried, and thankfully succeeded, not to send him a death glare right then right there, only giving the group a disturbed frown, and passed by the popular kids' table without really being noticed.

These guys were supposed to be nice. Different. She just couldn't believe what she'd just heard. She couldn't believe he'd said that, she couldn't believe that all of the others had laughed about the comment. According to her research, they were - or at least had been - underdogs, outcasts, too. They knew what it felt like. Which made hearing these uncreative lines out of their mouths so much worse.

She looked over her shoulder, double-checking that no one was watching her before she slipped through the door to the kitchen and closed it quickly behind her. The smell that engulfed her was familiar. It must be the same in every high school cafeteria kitchen, just like the food was the same everywhere. She relaxed instantly, and even more when she was being pulled into a familiar hug.

"Marley!"

"Hey, Mum." She said, holding her Mum close to her.

"So, how was your first day?"

"Good." Marley said, telling her Mum everything that came to her mind in the next few minutes. Everything, except the one thing that she just couldn't forget. Everything except what she'd overheard the glee kids talking about.

Her Mum didn't need more things to worry about than she already had. So instead she talked about how Jessica had promised to help her with her French and how cute the guy she was sitting next to in English was. She noticed her Mum's small smile, of course. She knew how much it meant to her that she was finally being accepted by her classmates. They had moved to a different town just so that Marley could transfer schools to achieve that, after all.

"And you've still got your sight set on getting into that glee club?" Her Mum asked her a little too casually. It was easy to tell that she cared a lot more than she wanted to let on.

"Yes, I have." Marley said, trying to push the wheelchair-kids words to the back of her mind. "But it seems you're more excited about it than I am." She teased.

"Maybe." Her Mum answered, and Marley felt the familiar weight of her hands on her shoulders. "I just want you to make some friends, Marley Rose. Some people who like you for who you really are. And I can almost see straight down to your soul when you're singing. They'll be able to tell who you are, and I know they'll love you."

Marley nodded, glad her Mum was standing behind her, unable to see her face right then. If she had seen it, she'd have seen the strange expression that had formed on it at the thought that they certainly wouldn't like everything about her.

"They wouldn't know about you." She blurted out before she could stop it. "I mean, it just feels so weird pretending. It feels so weird lying about you. You're my Mum."

She felt the hands slip off her shoulders when her Mum walked around her to face her. "We've talked about that, Marley. It's better if they don't know about me. That's why we moved." Her Mum gave her a heartbroken smile. "I want you to have a shot at making real friends. That's not going to happen if they know about me."

Marley kept her head down. She knew that her Mum had good reason to say what she'd said. She remembered very well what had happened at the last school. She'd suffered. So she didn't object.

"I gotta go to P.E." She finally said after they'd remained silent for a long time, both in complete knowledge of what the other one was thinking.

No one noticed when Marley Rose left the kitchen. Nobody knew that she was the daughter of the lunchlady. Nobody made fun of her.

But nobody knew her, either.

I know that this may not be perfect - no, scratch that. I know that this is not perfect, but I had to get something out on Marley. I simply adore her, and she may very well be my new Rachel in terms of character obsessions.

If you liked this flawed story, you may want to subscribe to me, because I'll definitely write more about Marley in the future. You can also follow me on twitter teebs_teebs or find my writer's account on facebook (Teebs SingerWriter) where I will post a tweet/status update whenever I update or post something new.

Oh, and reviews would be great, too.