I do not own Glee.

Quinn Fabray wasn't from a small town, by any stretch of the imagination. Milwaukee, Wisconsin had over half of a million occupants, rather large for not being the capital city. Her high school however, was small, with a sense of camaraderie that only comes from knowing your peers since kindergarten. Quinn went to Milwaukee German Immersion School before graduating to Milwaukee School of Languages for middle and high school.

At MSL there are no "cliques" like at your traditional high school. You stick with your own, really. Being a freshman German, that's who she hung out with, unless she was in orchestra, where everyone mixed and mingled. She was relatively popular among all of the languages, and "Quinn Fabray" became a common name for most anyone walking the halls of MSL.

But like everywhere else, each language had their outcast. Among the French students, affectionately named "Frenchies" it was Brittany S. Pierce, because mainly she had a hard time keeping up with the class in its entirety. For the Spanish students, their "popular" kid was Santana Lopez. Their outcast, due to being driven by her goals and need to succeed and outshine them all, was Rachel Berry.

Mike Chang and Artie Abrams sighed as they walked into class, another hour of Japanese. But their parents wanted them at the best school, so it was a small price to be payed. Mike made his way to the back, and sat next to Tina Cohen-Chang, striking up a conversation.

In French class, Kurt and Mercedes were just catching up on all of the last week of summer festivities, and gossiping about the new exchange student, Sam Evans, from Quebec for a year.

Finn and Noah Puckerman were spending their Chinese class making airplanes to throw at their teacher while she was preoccupied. They were just waiting for the end of the day so they could get to football practice to meet the other players from the alliance team. Puck was bored, so he pulled out his phone to text Santana, hoping she wasn't busy, forgetting she was in gym class.

Josh Zallar was excited. He was fresh out of college and ready to jump into this. He was an orchestra teacher, and wanted to start up a choir, much like what they had at his high school back in the day. He walked into his new class and grabbed one of each of the 4 string instruments in the room to demonstrate for the incoming sixth graders, and pushed some stuff around the classroom. He spent his prep hour asking the principal Ms. Smith about his idea for an after school activity.

The afternoon announcements after the first day were full of bus protocol as well as the upcoming electives. Like every year, Quinn kept listening for anything interesting. There was the slam poetry team and the choir. Two new activities, as well as the cheerleading squad, also known as the Drill Team.

Class let out 10 minutes early for everyone to find their bus, but Quinn hung back so she could reorganize her locker, before walking home. After separating her notebooks from her folders and leaving the bottom open for books, which she should be getting in a week, she left out the playground door. Walking past the busses, waving to those who yell out the windows at her, she made her way through the park. Quinn dug her iPod out of her pocket and turned it up full blast, trying to tune out the world around her as she made her lonely 20 minute walk.

She never used to be so alone on her walk, but with Frannie having graduated two years ago, she tries to find a new way to occupy herself every year. Last year, the objective was to see how long she could kick a single rock, or a chunk of ice on her mile walk. She ended that abruptly after slipping on black ice too many times. This year, she's just going to listen to music, and maybe find a friend to walk home with.

Never having looked behind her on her walks home, she never noticed that Rachel Berry lived half a mile further than her.