A/N: Alas, it is nearly 2 AM in the morning as I publish this new fic. However, when an idea comes, it must be acted upon! So here you all are, a semi-Will/Emma fic based on "Sectionals". Because it had to be done... but it's with a TWIST! You'll see...

Disclaimer: I do not own Glee. If I did...well, I'd still publish fics. Just not for this fandom.

At around 4:35 PM on a Saturday afternoon, there was not a cloud to be had in the sky. The sun was casting its rays for the final hours before it would begin to dim, and the world seemed as fresh as the dewdrops on the Astro-Turf of William McKinley Senior High School's football field every cold morning. Ohio did have weather, after all.

Of course, the world of William Schuester was the exact opposite of the weather that day. First, he had been dishonorably discharged from his position as New Directions' director. It was all due to one mattress that wasn't even soiled, as Sue had libelously pointed out. It was just unwrapped from its package. Second, Sue had leaked the set list, and although the kids sounded great, who knows what the judges would decide. What Jane Addams and Haverbrook had that McKinley didn't was the originality behind the stolen songs. And that no one knew that they were stolen. Third, his wife that he no longer loved due to a fake pregnancy had tried to convince him to stay. Even he didn't know if that was the right thing to do anymore. At least he was as honest as can be with her. Despite her lying, she deserved the truth. But it made him wonder if he was being truthful with her because he didn't want to leave as much as she didn't want him to. He hadn't the faintest clue of his actions. And fourth, he was attending a wedding that, in the dark recesses of his heart, didn't want to see happen.

Ken was, quite frankly, a jerk. And he had been so friendly only three months ago! Will became disillusioned after Ken had confronted him about being the best in Emma's eyes. Ken was truly someone who did not deserve Emma. She didn't even want him! From what Ken had said, she actually wanted—Will gulped at the very thought. What made him even more scared was that he wasn't sure if he reciprocated her feelings.

But Ann King didn't know any of this. In fact, Ann King knew only two things: she was being called for a catering job for a wedding at the very last second and that she hated her job.

Ann King was a young twenty-two year old woman who had never been able to get a decent break in her life. Fresh out of Ohio State University with a BA in Performing Arts, she was trying to scrap as much money as she could for the application fee to even have a shot at going to Juilliard's graduates program. If there was any way to get out of Lima, Juilliard was her ticket out.

But her vigor had been dying out as of late. Money had to be apportioned between herself, her family, and her younger sister Tammi, a blonde, short, tan (from the machines and lots of bronze spray-on), and stocky cheerleader at William McKinley Senior High. Tammi was trying her hardest to rise amongst the ranks of the Cheerios, but Coach Sue Sylvester had the tendency to bring her confidence shooting into the basement, so to speak. Quinn Fabray and Santana Lopez certainly didn't help at all.

Ann always got the shaft, the short end of the stick. Most of the money went to her single father, desperately trying to find a better job. Being a lowly mechanic to Burt Hummel didn't bring in too much money. And secretly, he'd spend his salary on alcohol, beer, and liquor to drown his sorrows in. Raising two girls with their own conflicting needs was certainly a lot of hard work. Tammi needed the money for her Cheerio needs, which always ran a high price.

Ann came last. She ALWAYS CAME LAST.

Disrespect for her needs ran to an all-time high that Saturday afternoon. If being woken up to the sound of her father passing out on the kitchen floor, being forced to drive Tammi to Cheerios' morning practice because she had supposedly sprained her ankles (when she was walking just fine!), and typing up more of her application didn't exemplify inhumane treatment, then a phone call from her boss at 2 PM certainly did.

"Annie girl!" A thick Bostonian accent called out over the speaker on the home phone. Ann thanked her lucky stars that her father was out cold due to his hangover.

"Mr. Duvall…hello." Ann momentarily stopped typing away at her application.

"It's DuWalle, again, and Annie—"

"Ann…"

"Fran Fine the nanny! Whatever!" Curse the Bostonians and their atypical brashness, Ann furiously seethed to herself. "Joey just called me and said that Bella had to go to the hospital again. I don't know why and I don't care. What matters is that we're short a caterer for the wedding reception in the local VFW at 5 PM today."

Ann was even more enraged, but careful to not explode completely. "But it's my day off!" She was never good at containing her emotions.

"Work this gig and all goes well, I'll pay you double your hourly wage on top of whatever you earn on this gig."

She clenched her teeth. Despite all of his tactlessness, the man knew how to drive hard bargains. "Alright Mr. DuWalle, you have yourself a deal. I'll be at the VFW within the hour."

The gig was going by swimmingly. The unpacking was complete; all six tables, blue tablecloths, and red and white rose centerpieces were set by the time she got there all dressed in her black dress pants, black dress shoes, and white long sleeve button down chemise with a black vest on top of it. She even took the time to have her blonde hair tied in a loose ponytail. Six guests were to sit at each table that already had the plates and utensils set up perfectly. The only thing she had to help with was setting up the refreshments and 36 cup and saucers…and the buffet tables…and the monstrosity that was the hockey player ice sculpture, no doubt the groom's idea. The banners were set up by other caterers.

So Ann stood in the kitchen behind the serving window to distribute whatever dishes came her way—and waited. She waited until 4:15 PM. Joey, the brown haired joker, had decided to saunter into the kitchen and jump up to the window's countertop and dangle his legs, all the while pretending to be as blasé as a member of the Rat Pack.

She gave a huff. "You'd think the guests, hell; even the bride and groom would be here by now."

"You'd think that someone as dignified as you would've heard of the term 'fashionably late'." Joey fired back with a smirk.

"Shut up Joey." She spat back derisively. "I can't believe DuWalle called me in to fill in for Bella. What the hell happened to her anyway?"

"Hallucination about vampires and werewolves. I think she's going through Twilight withdrawal; she actually thinks she's that Bella chick from the movies." Joey proceeded to lay down flat on the countertop and turned his head to Ann. He didn't have much patience. "Oh come on! That was the best Bella joke yet!" Still, Ann was unsmiling. She did like the joke, but the pressure of the rest of the day had put her in a permanent mood. "Besides, Du wasn't even going to call in another person. I told him to."

It didn't serve to snap Ann out of her deep frown. But she did glare. "Because you didn't want to do all of the work I had to do?"

In one swift motion, Joey had snapped himself off of the countertop, landed firmly on the red tiled ground, and was face-to-face with Ann. "Because I need someone to talk to." No inflections, no smile. That was enough to snap her out of her mood, because she knew that he was being dead serious. As to whether she liked that or not…"Job gets boring, you know. You're the only person I can have a conversation with that goes beyond one joke—besides my family, of course."

That's when she heard a cough. A very small, almost mute cough, but it was certainly there. They turned their heads to see a woman sitting in one of the chairs, unmistakably the bride. She was wearing a long, white gown, a sparkly headband that split in the middle, accentuating the bun that her red hair was tied up in, a pair of long white gloves, and small earrings with short dangling pearl-colored spheres. There was no bouquet in her arms, and no smile plastered on her face, and Ann sensed that there was something wrong.

"She looks HOT." Joey whispered. Ann gave him a swift stomp on his foot, which made him stifle a cry of pain.

"Can't you see that she's upset? Come on." She, with Joey limping close behind, cautiously walked to the bride with porcelain skin and red hair and took a seat in the chair next to her. Joey took a seat from one of the other tables and sat on it with the back in front of him; that way, he'd have someplace to rest his arms. "Hi."

The woman gave no response, but looked at the two with sad brown eyes. She took the cue to continue. "I'm Ann and this is my friend Joey. We're the caterers for, guessing by your outfit, your wedding reception."

"Where are the guests?" Joey asked with absolutely no tact whatsoever. Ann gave a glare, but surprisingly, the woman spoke.

"My name is Emma. Emma Pillsbury. And…" She gave a shaky sigh. "There aren't any guests coming."

Ann felt ready to scream. The two hours' work, all for nothing?! NO, NO, NO!!!! But Joey suddenly had a dour look on his face, a stark contrast to the laughter in his eyes just a second ago. "We're needed in the kitchen, sorry." Ann, still too petrified with anger, had to be pulled out of her seat and dragged by him all the way to the serving window.

She snapped out of her cloud of anger and looked over to Emma, who was putting the chairs back in place. Sadness began to glaze over Ann's eyes. "Abandoned at the altar. But how did—?" She turned to Joey.

"My mom was abandoned at the altar when she was pregnant with me. What that woman needs is time alone."

Emma never got that time alone, because as Ann was packing a few things to carry out of the kitchen, all the while staring at Emma, and Joey was sitting under the counter with a disappointed look about him, a man with slicked back curly hair, dressed in a nice outfit with a blue blazer and dark red tie on, walked across the hardwood flooring, gift in his hand, to the bride. Joey heard the footsteps and poked his head above the counter as quickly as a prairie dog. "Didn't she say—?" Ann put a hand over his mouth.

"Busy yourself with something so you can listen in as well." He scrambled to his feet and started to help pack the chips on the countertop. For a moment, she wondered why she had done that. But she tuned out her thoughts to hear the conversation.

"Hey…nice ice sculpture." The man commented. But as he approached her, a look of confusion crossed his face. "Where's Ken?"

The two assumed that Ken was the groom, therefore responsible for the ice sculpture. Ann had a deep-seated hate towards him now, because she had to haul it in and position it just right. "Um…" Emma gave a sorrowful breath. "Home, I'd imagine. Probably trying to regain some of the pride I stole from him." One second, two. "He dumped me."

"What?" The man gave an exasperated sigh.

"He said moving the wedding for Sectionals was the last straw." Emma nodded, desperately trying to keep herself together.

"What the hell's Sectionals?" Joey whispered.

"Don't know." Ann whispered back. "But—"

"But I thought he understood that-that you were doing this for the kids." The man sat down in the chair Ann had been sitting in 15 minutes ago and interrupted her answer to Joey.

He was unusually close to Emma for a wedding guest, Ann thought. Maybe they were good friends or something. "He understood that…I wasn't doing it for the kids." Emma looked into the man's eyes and took on a look that seemed so familiar to Ann.

"I was doing it for you."

That sentence made the two caterers stop in their tracks and immediately lean against the countertop to listen. Ann glanced at Joey, who was engrossed in the couple outside, and then realized something. 'I need someone to talk to.' But it couldn't be…was it…?

The man was a combination of dumbstruck and despondent, another look that Ann recognized. "Emma…I'm so sorry."

"No, gosh, no, it's not your fault, I—I really messed up. He was absolutely right; I was settling for him." Three beat, four. She started again. "Really, one blink from you Will, and I would have been out the door."

A pause. Both looked near tears, and while Joey was cursing that he couldn't be closer to watch the drama, Ann was intently watching, deciphering all of the coded conversation. "So, um…I emailed my resignation to Figgins." A work romance. Joey thought it was the juiciest thing he had seen since that Fruit Gushers commercial as a kid, and Ann wanted nothing more than everything to be set right. The travails the couple must have gone through because of their unrequited love for one another…the man was turning more and more upset by the second.

"My last day is Monday. I just can't—" A tear threatened to spill from one of Emma's eyes, but it was too late. It already had. "I just can't be at that school." She rose from her seat in one swift motion. "I can't see Ken without feeling ashamed, and I can't see you without feeling heartbroken."

Needless to say, the man named Will was shocked. And needless to say, Joey had begun to dig into the family size pack of tortilla chips. "Don't eat those!" Ann furiously whispered, and surprisingly, he complied.

As Emma began to walk away, Will grabbed her gloved arm. It seemed forceful, and yet…it wasn't at all. "I just left my wife." His eyes slowly shifted their gaze to Emma's face. He looked ready to cry as well; the tears ready to spill from his eyes shone in the fluorescent light of the reception room, making themselves known to Ann and Joey.

"No, I'm sorry. I, um…I'm going." She slipped out of his grasp and began walking again.

"But I just—" He called again, but was swiftly cut off.

"Just left your wife. Exactly. You just did." She gave a brief smile before more walking.

Before she left for good, he called out one last time. "You make a beautiful bride."

She turned around and gave another small smile through the tears. "Thank you." And five seconds later, he was all alone in the reception room.

Only a slow minute passed before a caterer came into the area to take away the ice sculpture. A group of three was cleaning the buffet tables. The chefs came in and helped put away all of the dishes and utensils. More things were picked up and carried away.

Soon, there was only one table left in the entire room. The man had been sitting there for the past hour, unable to move. Ann and Joey were stuck with the last table while the other untouched items were being carried away. "Will—"

"How do you know my name?" He answered Ann back with only a small amount of anger in his voice.

"The conversation carried. But we need to clean up this last table. Sorry." Joey was already stacking the chairs, so Will rose from his seat and began to slowly take his leave.

As Ann picked up the last rose centerpiece, she noticed that the present was still on the table. "Will, you forgot your present."

He stopped. Without turning around, he called back, "I didn't forget anything." The door slammed, and she was left alone.

Joey was now taking the tablecloth off of the table; the dishes and utensils had long been put away. "Could you move that box off of the table?" Ann silently did as she was told, and in a flash, the cloth was folded up into a neat square. "What's in it anyway?"

"It's not ours! We aren't supposed to know what's inside!"

"That guy left it here for a reason, and I don't think the bride would want it. Not after…that. Besides, it looks nice." He nudged the silver envelope out from behind the ribbon, and began to read the contents of the card aloud. "'Thanks for everything, especially being at Sectionals for the kids. I hope you have a happy life with Ken. Will.'" Joey proceeded to rip off the ribbon and bow, but worked carefully at the wrapping. It revealed a white box, and when it was opened…"Whoa. Ann, look at this."

"What?" She looked into the white box, and saw, buried in tiny bits of popcorn foam packaging was a small cream colored box with gold colored leaves on it. Ann silently and gingerly lifted it out of the box, placed it on the table, wound the key at the back, and opened the lid to reveal—"A music box. My mom had one of these as a gift from her friend." Two figurines, a man wearing a tuxedo and a woman wearing a sparkling white gown in a fixed dance amongst a background of morning glories, seemed to twirl to the melody. "There's a note here too." She picked up the note and read the following aloud, "'Terri always thought this was the most useless of our wedding gifts, even more useless than the colanders we got. I made sure to have this restored by a professional; the mechanism was rusty, and now it's 100% germ free. Hopefully you use it more than we ever did. Will.'"

Her heart seemed to stop beating for a moment. The sadness, for some inexplicable reason, was welling up inside of her. Something had to be done. So she closed the box, ending the melody, and ran out of the reception room in the opposite direction of the catering truck. "Ann! ANN!"

Ann didn't get far from the VFW building. She stopped at a bench in the nearby Warren Gamaliel Harding Park, sat on it, and burst into tears.

Meanwhile, Joey packed the tablecloth and last centerpiece in the truck. "Where's Ann?" One of the guys asked him.

"She ran off. Got upset for some reason." Joey bitterly answered.

"You scared her away, that's why!" The guys in the truck burst out in loud and jeering laughter, high fives all around.

"Shut up, all of you!" The female truck driver answered. She happened to have a soft spot for the two of them, being the youngest caterers in the group. "Joey, make sure she doesn't get herself hurt. I'll be sure to tell the boss about this. Wouldn't want to see news of a car crash on the ten o'clock news…" He nodded and ran back into the now bare reception room. He gave one glance at the music box, and knew exactly what to do.

The sun was almost gone, and by then, Ann was the only being in the park besides the last birds of the day chirping away. She couldn't care less about how long she'd been crying, or that her makeup was running, or that she was curled in a ball on the bench, looking utterly ridiculous and not at all her age—all she wanted was to forget about her day, how horrible it had been, and forget her mother's death, how destitute her family was now. If it wasn't for Ann, her father would've slipped into death's arms years ago.

"I think you need it more than I do." Joey held the tissue in front of her, but as she reached for it, he slipped her the white box, heavy with its contents.

"I don't want it." She uncurled her legs so she had her feet on the ground and pushed the box to the other side of the bench. She could care less about the tissue and how her sadness made her look, and glared at Joey as he picked up the box and sat down next to Ann.

"Then what do you want? The tissue?" He dangled it in front of her, laughing a kind laugh.

"I want to forget. Forget all of the bad stuff. Reverse time and make sure it never happened."

"I thought you'd know why you can't do that. It's one of the oldest rules in the book: you can't know what's good until you've experienced what's bad." He held out the box again.

Ann gave a sob-shaken huff. "Doesn't matter. The bad that I've had is too bad. And I don't need that music box." She added in a mumble, "It reminds me of my mom." Strangely, it made her feel better. But she spoke out loud again. "Besides, I already have one. My mom's."

"Bet you hers isn't as expensive as this one. Anyway, I can't keep it; my mom breaks everything she touches. She'd have a heart attack if she broke this on accident." He leapt off of the bench and stood over Ann. "Way I see it, you've got two choices: you can either sit here on this bench into the cold night, crying until your tear ducts can't produce anymore tears, then leave to your home to do whatever…or you can take the music box, I'll give you the tissue to dry your eyes before they dry out, and then we can get something to eat for dinner."

She did need that tissue. There weren't any in her car. "Are you threatening me into a date?" She spat back with a little bit of a playful twinge.

"Ouch! I prefer coercing you." He gave a wink. "Has a bit of a kinky—"

"Give me that." In a single motion, she rose from the bench and snatched the tissue and the box from his hands, a new glow in her eyes.

"It's a date then? Or are you just going to mug me and leave me here? If so, just avoid the face and my wallet is in my back pocket." He closed his eyes and scrunched his face.

Ann saw an opportunity, so she carefully looped her arms around his neck, traced a finger down his back, and nudged his wallet out of the back pocket. "Not if you can't pay for dinner." And she began to run at a brisk jog out of the park.

"Hey!" He turned around and began to run after her.

"I said mugging, NOT seducing!"

A/N: Alright, so first, there are a few things that have to be cleared up.

--If you didn't realize it yet, Ann is the blonde woman who was looking at Emma forlornly during the reception scene.

--Ann King might sound familiar. Well, good, because it's the same name of a character portrayed by Geraldine Fitzgerald from the movie "Dark Victory".

--Tammi King is the Cheerio that was pushed by Sue as she angrily left Will after her threats.

--There were a few bits of inspiration that went into that music box. The melody is "Unchained Melody" (search it up on YouTube) and the figurines looked a little like a cross between three Llardro Porcelain figurines: "I Love You Truly", "Together Forever", and "Everlasting Love".

There will be a continuation, but not with Ann. As for a continuation after that...well, I'll leave it up to you. So for now, reviews are very much appreciated.

~Lane