I've been developing this story for a long time now, I wasn't sure how to go about it. I wrote two other stories in the past but never finished them because things kept changing in my mind about how I wanted it to go. Finally after listening to Some Other Me from If/Then on repeat this story was born. It's an AU with a few characters from other shows sprinkled in but it's Glee at it's core. I guess you can say the basic plot is what if one of Elizabeth's other selves was Shelby Corcoran? What's her life in this world like?
"Somewhere there's a world where you and I are man and wife. We have a child..or three…" - Some Other Me, If/Then
There comes a moment in everyone's life that changes them forever. For Shelby Corcoran that moment came on May 30th, 1980, the day of her eighth birthday. That was the day she had seen a Broadway show live for the first time.
Shelby's mother Elizabeth was a seasoned Broadway actress, so the stage was not a foreign concept to Shelby. She and her brothers Aaron and Joseph had grown up listening to various cast recordings and visiting their mother at work. This experience was different however, she got to see what made the theater so magical.
Elizabeth Corcoran knew how much her daughter loved the movie West Side Story, it was one of her favorites along with Funny Girl and The Sound of Music. So, when a former cast mate of hers mentioned they were doing another revival of the show she knew she'd have to get tickets.
Shelby was so excited to be in the audience for this particular show, her father Daniel chuckled as he watched her bounce in her seat before the show. He quickly snapped a photo of her so Elizabeth could scrapbook it later.
Shelby was mesmerized by the show, the music was incredible, the lights timed perfectly, it was amazing.
From that day on Shelby knew what she wanted to be, she was determined to be a Broadway actress just like her mother.
"Kids, your vocal teacher is on her way!" Elizabeth called upstairs after getting off of the phone.
The Corcoran children were engaged in several recreational activities at a very young age. Their parents wanted them to find something they genuinely enjoyed. Music had been one of their main activities, the boys liked learning to play the guitar and various other instruments that had to do with rock. Shelby settled on the piano. The boys played for fun, Shelby played to help with her eventual career. But it was an activity they all had in common, and had been talented at.
Liz had to admit she wasn't exactly convinced at first, her children could be fickle when it came to this sort of thing. Joey in particular, his dreams and aspirations changed daily. The day Liz heard Shelby sing for the first time however, she knew her daughter had something special. Now she was twelve years old, and her voice continued to improve. Liz couldn't wait to see how far she could go.
"We're here, we're here! Sorry for the lateness, I know we live right next door but this one decided it would be a good idea to go swimming in a mud puddle." Amelia Stark entered the Corcoran residence with her two children Nathan and Katherine.
"Mom, I told you I fell in!" Nathan pouted before going over to the other boys, Kate and Shelby tried to hide their giggles as he slinked off. He perked up when he heard Shelby's laughter and turned to go over to her instead.
"Oh, don't worry about it Am, Lauren isn't here yet." Liz told her referring to the vocal teacher. "I got off the phone with her a little while ago, she's on her way. Coffee?"
"Yes please, god knows I need it." Both women laughed together as they headed into the kitchen.
Nathan shoved his hands in his pockets trying to play it cool as he got closer to where Shelby was standing. "Gorgeous, hey!"
Shelby blushed at the nickname and smiled. "Hi Nate."
"I almost didn't see you there." He joked while looking to see if their mothers were watching.
When he was sure they weren't he lightly kissed her.
Shelby blushed and touched her lips. "What was that for?"
Nathan smiled. "Just wanted to see what all the fuss was about."
Kate rolled her eyes and nudged him playfully. "Eli's been giving you advice again hasn't he?" Elijah St. James was Nathan's best friend and Kate's boyfriend. Sort of. Kate had been kissed multiple times by Eli recently, ever since he turned thirteen. Things started to change between them. Especially when puberty set in, now Daniel would watch Nathan like a hawk if he happened to be over while Daniel was home from work.
Elizabeth found the whole thing cute, she and Amelia had the talk with their girls and they knew they were smart. But sometimes things could still happen so the older women decided it would be best to keep them supervised for now.
"Maybe...turns out he was right, by the way I got something for you last night." He held his hand up motioning for Shelby to hold on while he dug around in his backpack. "I got something for you too sis, it's from Eli." He handed them each a stuffed teddy bear. "We spent like forty bucks between us trying to win them at the carnival." He rubbed the back of his neck feeling somewhat embarrassed about it.
"Dang, you could've just bought one for five bucks at the store." Aaron said as he passed to go into the kitchen making Nathan feel even more embarrassed.
"That's what you guys were doing? Mom thought you had gotten lost." Kate laughed and hugged the bear. "I need to call and thank him."
"Thanks Nate I love it." She stood on her toes and kissed his cheek.
Meanwhile their mothers were watching the exchange from the kitchen with knowing smiles on their faces.
"Looks like you and I might be related one day Liz." Amelia Laughed and Elizabeth smiled watching them a little longer before walking over to the table to sit down.
"You know Am, I believe you may be right.
Shelby and Kate sat on the sofa in the basement after their vocal teacher had gone for the evening. They watched the boys experiment with the new drum set their father bought them for Hanukkah. "It's a good thing my dad had this room soundproofed."
Kate smiled and pulled her feet up on the couch. "Yeah, boys are so noisy."
"Where's Eli by the way?"
"He couldn't make it; his mom is taking him to the dentist. He shocked his teeth after biting into a caramel apple last night, poor guy." Kate told her. "He was holding his cheek the rest of the night. Must've been a cavity."
Eli and Nathan differed from other boys their age. Sure they were thirteen now, the age where boys liked girls a lot more than usual. But they had loved Kate and Shelby since preschool. They weren't together officially; their parents wanted them to wait until they were older. Eli promised to make Kate his girlfriend by the time he was fifteen, and she knew he could make it happen.
"You two will probably get married one day." Shelby teased her.
"Shut up." Kate laughed. "I saw your face when my brother kissed you. Although I'd barely call that a kiss." She teased.
"Oh come on, it was nice...I really like him." Shelby smiled and looked over in Nathan's direction. He looked up briefly and met her eyes.
"You're blushing again." Kate teased.
"Oh shut up!" Shelby Laughed and hit her playfully with a sofa cushion.
"Aaron get down here, I need your help at work today." Daniel called up to his son. He liked taking his kids to work and showing them the business side of things. Aaron walked down after getting dressed and met his dad by the door.
"Alright dad, we'll be back before Nathan's party this evening right? I promised Ma and Amelia I'd take care of the music."
"Yeah, this won't take too long. There's a new property I want to take a look at, I figured I'd get your opinion on it. Plus, I have to pick up your aunt Val from the restaurant before we head back home, Leo had a few dishes made for the party tonight but he can't come until this evening."
Meanwhile Joey was in the garage looking for his camera lens. "Maybe I left it in dads' car…" He checked to see if it was unlocked and climbed into the back to look for it.
A little while later Daniel and Aaron were heading out of The Hamptons on a two-hour drive to Manhattan. Aaron used this opportunity alone with his dad to get info about his job "So dad I was wondering if you could help me out. My teacher wants us to write a paper on a person we find interesting. It counts for half of my final grade, so I figured I'd write about you."
"Oh yeah? Son I'm honored, but what does that have to do with the arts?" His children went to a performing arts high school, so the request seemed a little odd.
"Well we have to write it in the form of a script." Aaron replied. "And if I'm going to write awesome screenplays someday I have to start somewhere."
"Ah, makes sense. OK son, what would you like to know?"
"Well your job is kind of cool, I always wondered how you got where you are today."
"Now that is an interesting story." Daniel went on to tell his son how he went from working as a waiter in his father's restaurant to the business tycoon he was today. Aaron took a few notes while his father spoke.
"I thought the whole concept was interesting, taking something old and run down and turning it into something cool. When I went to college a few years later I met Allen, he was my roommate." He explained how he and Allen Stark got into the house flipping business.
"Whoa, seriously? So it was like fate then huh?" Aaron chuckled.
"Yeah, you could put it that way." He smiled. "Allen was majoring in architectural design, I told him about the work I used to do and intrigued, he told me we should try to do it ourselves.
We got jobs as waiters, we didn't want to ask our folks for all of the money, but we would need a lot of it. After working various jobs throughout college and getting the rest from our parents we set out to attempt our first project."
"So how does that work? Did you buy just any house or?"
"Well you could just buy any home for sale or you can get one through an auction, that's what we did. The first time we had to do all the work ourselves, luckily my uncle had guys that could help us out."
"Thank goodness for family right dad?" Aaron smiled and Daniel ruffled his hair while they were at a red light.
"Right kid, family is important." He drove off again and continued with the story.
"After a few more jobs we could pay our folks back, and soon we bought land as well rather than just houses. Businesses would contact us to build on our land, and we would have things built as well. When we could hire people to work for us we got into hotels and condos."
"So how did Mr. Solano get involved with you guys?"
"Well, Emilio's father is a friend of mine as you know and he asked me to give him a job when he was around sixteen years old. He worked his way up to the top, cashed in his trust fund and bought shares in the company. He's good at what he does so we didn't mind making him a partner, he's running some of the hotels."
"Ah, I see." Aaron nodded.
Just then they heard a yawn. "Tired dad?" Aaron asked.
"Wasn't me son."
"No it was me." Joey sat up from his position laying down on the back seat. "You two put me to sleep with all that boring business talk."
"Joey, you scared the crap out of me! What the hell are you doing here?" Aaron frowned.
"Hey watch the language." Daniel chuckled. "We didn't see you back there Joe."
"You're supposed to be home helping Eli with the thing." Aaron grumbled.
"What thing?" Daniel asked curiously.
"Just something for Nate's birthday dad." Joey told him before turning back to Aaron. "Look A.J., I was going to help but when I came back here to look for my camera lens the car started moving. So, I just stayed back here, I figured we'd be back in time." Joey explained.
Aaron sighed. "Yeah yeah, just hope we are or Kate will kill you."
About an hour later they pulled up to the front of a tall brick building in the city. The boys gazed out of the window with wide eyes staring at the building in front of them. "What's this going to be if you buy it? It's huge!" Joey asked.
"Well it's in the city, close to the colleges so I figured I'd have it remodeled and when you kids graduate you can live here instead of in the dorms. I know when I was in college I hated the limited freedom dorms offer."
"Wait, seriously? This will be all ours?" Aaron was in shock.
Daniel chuckled. "I figured it would be more comfortable for you all, let's keep it between us for now OK boys?"
Aaron nodded. "Secret's safe with me, dad."
"Me too, but this is too cool for words." Joey grinned.
"Come on let me show you boys inside."
As they walked inside you could tell the building was once a hotel. "I'm going to have all this stripped out and then I'm thinking down here on the first floor we can turn it into a place for family get togethers and parties." Daniel explained.
"Yeah I can see that." Joey started taking before shots with his other camera.
"And I was thinking about making each floor an apartment with the very top being your collage space. That way if your mom and I decide to move in at some point we'll have our own place basically."
"Well dad it's so big you could do a ton of stuff with it, and it's like right in front of central park so you could put in some big glass windows. You could make a whole lounge area down here with a bar and everything." Aaron suggested.
"Yeah and you know you've got to put in a stage, and you could also make an outdoor type area with a pool and a barbeque, maybe a TV for game watching." Joey added.
"Yep, you're definitely my kids." Daniel chuckled.
Lol We're going from childhood all the way to adulthood in this story so get ready. Also if you want to know who the characters introduced so far are based on. Shelby: Idina Menzel (of course), Aaron: Paul Rudd, Joseph: Ben Affleck, Nathan: Anthony Rapp, Katherine: Jennifer Aniston, Elijah: David Schwimmer, Elizabeth: Bernadette Peters, Daniel: James Brolin, Amilia: Christine Baranski, Allen: Richard Gere. I'm working on a side tumblr for my story characters so when it's ready i'll just start linking it. Feedback is appreciated.