Hi (: Thanks for taking the time to have a look in on my story. I won't waffle, but I'll just give you a quick rundown of what I'm trying to do here in case you like to know that kind of thing. I wanted to write a story about Rachel and Shelby's relationship and essentially that's what this is; following the death of Rachel's fathers she and Shelby are forced together and must try to overcome the tragedy and build something between them. At the same time, I wanted to write a story about Glee, not just about two characters, because I think much of the beauty of Glee lies in the group dynamic. This is my attempt at trying to join what seemed to me to be two very conflicting aims, and I'm really not convinced of how successful it's been, or whether they detract from each other, but I'm posting it anyway as it's been fun to plot out.

Logistics wise, there are five chapters, each told from the point of view of a different character. Each chapter is split into two (potentially three for some but I'm not entirely sure) giving a total of around ten parts. It's not all written yet but it is all plotted, so I hope to keep to a reasonable schedule. It's set at the start of the groups' junior year, and everything that happened in season 1 stands, except Beth was adopted by a different family, not Shelby, and Shelby didn't resign as VA's coach. There are a couple of songs in later chapters, but as I've discovered I'm rubbish at trying to incorporate songs into writing, so they'll be few and far between.

I hope you all enjoy reading my little experiment. It's my first Glee fic and my first multi-part in a long time, so we'll just have to see how it goes. Please feel free to review, be it positive or constructive criticism. This first part is very much setting the scene, so my apologies if it drags, please do stick with it!

Will: of Dentists and Denial, part I

All things considered, William Schuester loves his job.

Certainly, it is far from perfect. While other teachers might moan about having to spend such extended periods of time with teenagers, plague-of-society-and-cause-of-all-wrongs-in-the-world, for him it is the sheer bureaucracy. Excuse him for his naivety, but he'd gone into teaching fully expecting to spend most of his time doing just that. Instead he finds himself spending an increasing number of hours filling in accident forms (it's hardly his fault Rachel has a tendency to be slightly over-enthusiastic when wheeling Artie about the stage) and performing other similarly mindless tasks. Despite this, as September and a new year approaches, Will finds himself eagerly anticipating the hours he will spend at McKinley High. His summer has been a restless one, marred with thoughts of his failed marriage and failed relationship, and the prospect of burying himself in work is an appealing one. Hell, he even finds himself looking forward to his near daily showdown with Sue; it will give him an outlet for the pent up irritation.

Most of all though, Will can't wait to get back to his Glee kids. The few weeks post-regionals had been hard on all of them, with the promise of continued funding doing little to lessen the blow of the loss once the elation had worn off. It had been of little surprise to Will that it was Rachel who eventually decided that enough was enough, striding into rehearsal one day for all the world as if they'd won, telling her team that if they were going to take Carmel next year they sure as hell better get a move on, before belting out a show stopping performance of The Show Must Go On, which would have put Jesse St. James and Bohemian Rhapsody to shame, in Will's wholy unbiased opinion. Although she had been met by groans and eye rolls at the time (he was fairly sure he'd heard Santana tell Rachel where she could stick her show) over the following days he'd slowly watched as, one-by-one, they followed Rachel's lead. By the time school broke for summer, they were back to their old on-again-off-again romances, teenage dramas (though thankfully no pregnancies) and on impressive Glee club form.

Every time he thinks back to the club singing To Sir With Love, he can't help but allow a smile to creep across his features. The moment itself had been bittersweet and his emotions too raw to really comprehend what they were saying to him, but hindsight is a powerful thing, and it is with an astonishing amount of pride that he thinks about how they've all grown and how – it seems churlish to deny it – he has helped. Santana, while perhaps far from warm and fuzzy, now occasionally graces some of the Glee clubbers with a smile. Puck no longer feels the need to slushie somebody everyday and Quinn has undergone an amazing transformation, from the self-centred Queen Bee of the previous autumn to a girl who had the courage to give away her baby girl to a family she didn't know for a better future. Finn has grown into a mature, thoughtful (if still a little slow) young man and Tina no longer stutters her way through conversations. Most of the time now Rachel manages to tone her crazy down to tolerable and Mike has come to dazzle with his dancing.

Will loves his job. He loves the fact that through teaching he can change somebody's life for the better, that he can give a child music, and joy and hope. But as he has learned once before at regionals and will learn again on that September morning, teaching can also break your heart.

GLEE!

"Ice, ice baby vanilla! Now that the party is jumpin- Emma!" Will's all singing, all dancing rendition of Vanilla Ice's song comes to a rapid halt as he finds himself face-to-face with Emma Pillsbury, very bottom of his list of people-to-run-into-while-rapping-in-a-deserted-corridor. "What are you... I didn't expect to see you here." The statement seems obvious bordering on pointless, but it is the best he can come up with whilst praying for the ground to open up and swallow him.

She raises an eyebrow at him, a small smile playing the corners of her lips, and all of a sudden he can feel his heart pounding in his chest and a bead of sweat trickling from his palms. Damn it, why can she still have this effect on him? "Will, I work here. It's a Thursday. It's the start of term, meaning the probability of me having caught some sort of disease due to the abominable hygiene of the vast majority of the student and staff body is at its year long low. Why wouldn't I be here?"

"I-" He opens his mouth and promptly snaps it shut again, realising he has no good answer to this question. In truth, had he ran into any other person in the school, he would have laughed off the embarrassing moment; most people do by now expect such eccentricities of the Glee coach, it's nothing on most of the Glee clubbers themselves. But because it's her and because he's spent the better part of the summer obsessing over her, he can feel the heat rising in his cheeks. "I don't know," he replies lamely.

Fortunately Emma Pillsbury, despite much evidence to the contrary, is an accomplished school counsellor, and as such knows when a subject ought to be dropped. She smiles and suddenly he doesn't care about much else anymore because she's smiling. "How was your summer?"

Terrible. I spent the whole two months agonising over what you could possibly see in a dentist above me. "Great! Really relaxing! Got loads sorted out for Glee," – at least that much was true, selecting songs and choreographing them proved an effective distraction from his pitiful love life – "we're going to wipe the floor with Vocal Adrenaline this year. And yours?" This time it is Emma's cheeks that burn a slow crimson, and suddenly she won't meet his eyes. "Emma?" he prompts in confusion.

"Will I..." She stops and glances around, as though hoping for an excuse to escape. "Can you hear that? Someone's being sick... I should really go and check on them. Bulimia's a serious problem, you know, more than one in –"

"Emma, nobody's being sick."

"Are you sure? I thought I heard... no?" Her eyes are still darting from left to right, and then she lets out a sigh of resignation and she finally looks at his face, although she still won't quite allow her eyes to meet his. "Perhaps you should sit down."

"We're in the middle of the hallway."

"Ah, yes, good point. Well, in that case, maybe we shou-"

"Emma, spit it out."

"I got married," she blurts. There is a long, pregnant pause. "To Carl," she adds for clarification.

For a moment, Will is too stunned to speak. He takes an involuntary step backwards and reaches for the wall to steady himself, thinking that a chair mightn't have been such a bad idea after all. Despite all his agonising, all his wallowing, a small part of him still believed they would work it out. They have to work it out. They're Will and Emma! Except now they aren't, he's Will and she's Emma and Carl. A hollow feeling settles in the pit of his stomach. "Married," he echoes, trying the word out for size. And then before he knows what's happening, anger is rising and words spill from his mouth before he even knows what he's saying. "What were you thinking! Do you not remember what happened last time? How long have you even known the guy? A dentist? How could you be so stupid?"

It takes a second or two for the words to sink in, and then she looks as though she has been slapped. Tears rapidly fill her eyes, but before he can backpedal she has started her own barrage. "I was thinking that maybe he loved me, unlike you who couldn't keep your man-whore hands off everything that walks!" she explodes. "I was thinking that I didn't want to spend my whole life waiting around for you to decide. I was thinking that!" She takes a deep breath, blinking rapidly. "Can't you just be happy for me?"

They stare at each other, he searching her eyes desperately for some uncertainty, but for the first time in his memory he can find none. "I... I don't know."

The blinked back tears rapidly return. "Fine!"

"Fine!"

She turns on her heel and storms away. And though it is so, so far from fine, he watches her go, feeling the knife twist in his chest as he does.

GLEE!

By the time he reaches the practise room ten minutes later, having made a stop at the toilets to re-compose himself, his previous good mood has long dissipated. He greets the assembled group with little more than a grunt and tells them he needs five minutes to get sorted before they start. He had been planning on starting the year by teaching the group Footloose which he has spent a good proportion of the summer arranging for them, but he has a new plan. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Rachel's hand shoot in the air, but she promptly pulls it back down following an elbow in the ribs from Finn, for which Will is exceedingly grateful.

Within moments, the buzz of chatter once again fills the room, and seizing the distraction, Will tunes into the conversations around him whilst rifling through his collection of sheet music. The first voice he hears is, naturally, Rachel's, who seems to have Finn hanging on her every word. That boy really needs a new girlfriend. "We spent four weeks in New York," she's currently boasting, complete with extravagant hand gestures. "We saw everything: Wicked, Chicago, Memphis, Phantom... And Daddy promised me we could go back next summer. I'm planning on booking tickets as early as possible this year to ensure the best seats, as it's essential for me to study the performances of current leading ladies. After all, it's not long until they'll be my competition."

Across from Rachel next to the piano - and therefore within Will's hearing range despite the lack of Rachel's vocal projection - Quinn and Puck are conversing more quietly. "Mrs. White sent me some more photos last night," she's telling him, and Will immediately realises they're discussing Beth. "She seems to be doing really well."

"Of course she is, babe," Puck replies, sliding his hand onto her thigh. It is promptly slapped away, with a hiss about 'that being how the whole mess started in the first place' and Will quickly glances around for somebody else to eavesdrop on. Mercedes and Kurt seem to be engaged in an intense debate on the pros and cons of nudes versus black, and while Will tries listening for a few seconds he finds himself rapidly out of his depth. Santana and Brittany's heads are so close together that he can't even see their lips moving, let alone work out what they're saying, yet judging by the expression on Matt's face it's deeply fascinating. Tina is sat with her head resting on Mike's shoulder; Will does a double take when he sees this, and indeed if Artie's forlorn expression is anything to go by, it seems there is a new couple in Glee. He sighs, and returns his gaze to Artie. At least somebody will appreciate his assignment.

Deciding he has stalled for long enough, Will clears his throat to draw the attention of his students. They all fall quiet quickly, although Mercedes shoots him a look which suggests he has just interrupted a very important point in her argument. "Okay," he starts, running through his change of plan in his head one last time. "This year's first assignment is heartbreak. I want you to split into pairs and prepare a –" The sound of a quiet 'ahem' from the doorway causes him to fall silent and as he realises who is standing there he finds himself wishing for the second time in half an hour that the ground would swallow him. Perfect. Just the person he wants to hear him talk about heartbreak. "Now's not a good time, Miss Pillsbury," he says, keeping his voice as even as possible.

She smiles a thin smile, and he suddenly notices how strained she appears. Did she look like that before? He doesn't think so. "It really needs to be now," she replies in a tight voice.

He turns back to the assembled crowd of teenagers, many of whom are watching the exchange with narrowed, calculating eyes, and he guesses the significance of his mood and the assignment is not lost on them. Why doesn't he teach seven-year-olds who're oblivious to teacher's personal lives? "Right, pair up and I'll tell you what you're doing when I get back. Try and mix it up a bit guys – no, Finn, not Rachel – and, yeah... I'll be right back." He follows Emma from the room and closes the door to keep the conversation from prying ears (he may not be above eavesdropping himself, but he'll be damned if he's about to give Rachel or Mercedes more gossip ammunition than is completely unavoidable). "What is it Emma?" he demands as soon as the door clicks, barely concealing the irritation in his voice. For a long moment she says nothing, and when she does her voice is so quiet he doesn't quite catch the words. "What is it?" he repeats, his voice a great deal softer than before, for even if she has broken his heart he cannot bear to see her sad.

"It's the Berrys," she says, and as her voice catches he feels his heart start to beat faster, and this time it's not due to the soft rise and fall of her chest or the slight redness of her lips. He feels a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, and a chill shoots through his body. "Rachel's fathers."

"What about them?" he asks, fearing he already knows the answer, but praying that his suspicions are somehow wrong.

"They're dead."