The sound of the piano follows her into her office; she gathers together her anti-bacterial bottles and boxes of gloves and tries not to listen to the rich baritone voice competing with the sweet soprano of Rachel Berry in the music room.
It's not worth it anymore. She once thought she was here because she loved children; well, she didn't love their germs, but she loved being able to trace their problems, be the person they could speak to without worrying about their parents finding out. And in this high school, where the class differences are virtually non-existent, the popular and non-popular lines drawn so clearly, she never had more than a teenage pregnancy or two to contend with.
It's breaking her heart to leave; to see the children that she's helped from their freshman year now ready to graduate; to receive their short visits when they feel the need to touch home base those first few months of college. She has each yearbook from the five years she's been at William McKinley High School and they bear signatures from all the students who signed up to visit Miss Pillsbury over the years and found sympathetic eyes and a warm heart instead of judgement.
She packs the last photograph of her cats into her box and adjusts her white beret carefully. She's waiting for a moment when she knows both Will and Ken will be busy, and judging from the shouts of the football team running track outside and the sweet harmony of the Glee Club in the music room, she's picked a good time to finally say goodbye.
She never thought she'd fall in love with him. Sure, Will Schuester is a good looking young man, athletic and nerdy all at once, and she with her wide brown eyes and shy smile was probably beneath his notice since she came. Emma has no idea of her beauty; of the charming way she stutters, or the way her shy smile makes most men melt. And even if she did, she'd think you were lying, that she, a girl from a small Virginia town where people are fixated on good manners, could have an impact on others, when she's been taught to be seen and not heard basically her whole life.
She shifts the box on her hip, she pauses a second outside the door of the choir room and listens to Will's voice congratulate his hardworking Glee Club, those misfit kids who work so hard to build each other up. The sheer amount of talent in that room overwhelms her every time – half those kids should be on Broadway, and yet they're just happy to sing their hearts out in a mouldy music room with rusting instruments.
Most of that is Will. Will is the one who convinces them that they can do it. Will is the one with the perpetual smile; with the hug for shy Tina whose voice cracks from nervousness, the shoulder squeeze for jock Finn whose moral compass prevents him from doing the wrong thing, even at his own expense, and the gentle reprimand for impulsive Rachel, whose eyes shine with stars that tend to blind her to anything else.
And most of the reason she smiles the minute she wakes up in the morning, cuddled in her too-soft bed with her two soft cats, is Will. Because she knows when she gets to school, they'll have a small interlude in the staff room, hands cupping their coffees, smiling and chatting about the latest feat of the Glee Club, and she'll be able to face the day – Sue Sylvester's snide comments, Principal Figgins' constant emails, and the heartbreaking crying children that pass through her office every day with problems that, to them, are the epitome of "the end of the world".
As she passes the window set into the door, she accidentally meets Will's blue eyes, happened at that moment to be staring longingly out the door while Rachel Berry, ever earnest, tells him something that seems to be of the Utmost Importance. And when he meets her eyes, his lips twist, and he immediately excuses himself from Rachel to charge purposefully towards the door.
"Emma!" His voice echoes down the hall as she hurries in her sensible shoes to the end of the hallway, not wanting this right now – not in front of the children, not in this school.
"Will, I can't." Her voice, normally so nervous, sighs out, and he stops, his face confused.
"I told you that I had – "
"I know. You left your wife. And you just did it, Will. You just did it."
His face, so tender, is so sad, and she resists putting the box down to stroke the stubble on his face, the scars where he's nicked with the razor.
Instead, he takes the box from her, places it on the floor, and holds her close to him. And though she promised herself she wouldn't – she told herself she doesn't have the right – her eyes well up with tears and she buries her face in his shoulder, her tears wetting the rough cloth of his shirt.
He breathes into her hair. "Shhh. Emma, shh."
But it's such a fuck-up – she's fucked it all up. This job, and this life, and this privilege, when it was just enough to see him every day. And she's fucked that up, too.
"I messed it up," she hiccups, rubbing a hand across her face like she's seen Quinn Fabray do in the bathroom after one of her marathon crying/throwing up jags. "I can't stay."
"Why?" He's like a little boy, so inquisitive – he just doesn't get it. He doesn't get that it's not just her and him – it's Ken, too, and Ken won't just let it go. Ken, who called her after the night of the failed wedding just to tell her how worthless she really was. Ken, who in a fit of pain, forgot what it's like to be a gentleman and turned into a hurtful asshole who cut her to the core.
Not that she didn't deserve it, but. It happened.
He leads her into her empty office, shuts the door. "I don't want the Glee kids to see this."
"Is it so shameful?" Is she going to get it from him, too?
"No, but I've failed them enough times by getting in trouble." With that, he kisses her, her body melting instantly into his arms.
She often wondered what it would be like to be Terri Schuester. To be able to lie in bed next to Will and listen to him breathing, see the muscles of his chest rise and fall, feel his warmth next to her. To feel him cuddle her to sleep; to have sex with him. Emma imagines he'd be very gentle.
He certainly is now. His sensitive hands trace the curves of her body, tangle in her soft red hair that she carefully curls every morning to get it just-so. He is taking pleasure in messing it up, making her pale skin turn pink, her sweet lips turn cherry-red, her soft brown eyes grow wider and softer.
When the kiss ends, her eyes fill with tears and her lower lip trembles. "I don't want to go," she whispers, and he holds her close to him, knowing simultaneously what he's giving up and what he's gaining.
And he sings a line of one of her favourite songs, softly into her ear, his sweet baritone caressing her every sense. "Smile, and maybe tomorrow, you'll see the sun come shining through, for you . . ."
He holds her closely, feeling the flutter of her heart against his chest, and waits for it. Emma never disappoints him.
And sure enough, her smile breaks over her face, lighting up her eyes and mouth. This time, she's the one that initiates the kiss.
Will Schuester always breaks Emma Pillsbury's mold.