Glee- The New New Directions

Chapter 1:

Aria Melody Berry took a deep breath as she shoved her hair into a messy bun, then headed to her jewellery box. She was searching for her purple studs that perfectly matched her purple and lime striped dress but they had seemingly disappeared. Aria let out a huffing noise but she didn't have time to look for them- one of The Brats had probably stolen them. Instead she rooted through the box and found some square shaped lime studs that would work and paired them with her signature 'A' necklace. She looked herself over in the mirror briefly and shrugged. Perfect. Well, as close as she could get to perfect living in a house with apes anyway.

"Bye Sam, bye Brats, bye Mom!" Aria attempted to leave the house without bumping into her mother, but it was no use. Rachel was waiting for her daughter at the bottom of the stairs.

"Aria," Rachel said with a teasing tone. "I hope you weren't trying to get out of here without saying goodbye to me first?"

"Nope," Aria shook her head as she dodged past her mother to get her bag from where it was hanging off her chair at the table in the kitchen. She snatched a banana and took a bite, knowing her mother would complain if she didn't eat breakfast. "I just said it- bye mom." She repeated.

"Fine, I'll let you get away with that just this once. You know, Sam could always take you in, he does work at McKinley." Her mom pointed out. True, Sam was the football coach and boy's gym teacher at her school, but Aria didn't want to go with him- it wasn't exactly cool to show up for your first day at high school with a teacher- maybe middle school, but definitely not high school. Anyway, Sam's car always smelt like the odd combination of take-out and lip balm.

"Sorry babe, I can't!" Came Sam's call from upstairs, saving her. "I'm getting Bailey and Travis dressed and it's taking a while." Aria's six and a half year old half-sister was in her second year of kindergarten and her four year old half-brother Travis was starting pre-K. Bailey could get herself dressed but she was a spoilt brat and liked getting attention- whoever said the middle kid got ignored obviously hadn't met this family.

"Fine, love you sweetheart. Have a great day. Tell Beth I hope she has a nice day too." Rachel planted a sloppy kiss on her daughter and then watched Aria run to the flashy red car beeping at them for her first day of high school.

"Mommy!" Came two insistent cries from way behind Aria. And then Bailey's voice took over, "Daddy says he needs you 'cause he can't answer my question about where Travis came from!" Wow, it never stopped in that house.

Aria did her best to block her family out of her mind as she got into her aunt/one of her best friends' car and took a deep breath. "My mom is insane."

Beth Corcoran pulled her hair up into her signature high pony and finished her light make-up before staring at her reflection. Today was her first day of her last year of high school. She had conflicting feelings about it. On the one hand it was sure to be fun and college would be an exciting journey, but on the other hand she didn't want to leave high school. College would be terrifying. But she had a year, a year she could make better than any other.

"Beth," Her mom called. "Hurry up! Aria's starting school this year, remember,so you need to leave earlier than usual if you're going to pick her and Aisha up." Oh yeah, Aria was her adoptive sister's daughter. Other people were a bit surprised when Beth explained that she was friends with her niece but she'd been four years old when Aria was born, they'd grown up together, so it wasn't strange to her. Aria's dad Finn had upsettingly died before Aria was born, so Rachel had been a single mom for the first few years of Aria's life and Shelby often babysat Aria for her. As soon as Beth reached fourteen, Aria was ten and Bailey was two they let Beth babysit the half-sisters herself, whenever Rachel and Sam were out on a date, with friends or busy with work. Beth was glad her sister had found love again- but back to the first day of senior year.

"Bye Mom," Beth kissed her mom on the cheek and then grabbing her WMHS school colour red, white and black bag, hurried out of the door towards her car as her mom shouted after her that she had to go to Puck and Quinn's house today after school, not that she didn't already know that- she went every Monday and Thursday. Beth was proud of her car. It was McKinley red, glistening and drove as smooth as if she were riding on air. As usual she picked up her best friend and fellow cheerleader Aisha first.

"Hey girl," Aisha grinned. "Ready for senior year?"

"Oh you know I am," Beth smiled back and then headed to Rachel's house.

"So how are you and Harvey doing?" Aisha asked, something in her voice, Beth wasn't sure what it was.

"Oh, we broke up." Beth filled her friend in on how she and Harvey did the mature thing and decided that they shouldn't be together seeing as he kept eying Marlene Jennings and that she was Beth's worst enemy since 6th grade and all.

"Too bad," Aisha said, although she didn't seem disappointed. "You two made a cute couple." Beth practically spat out her drink at that.

"He's like ten feet taller than me!" Aisha rolled her eyes. "Fine, he's just over one foot taller than me. But it makes all the difference in prom pictures!" Aisha rolled her eyes again- Beth was slightly prom-obsessed. She had in fact already circled the date on her calendar for Senior Prom and was counting down the days. They pulled up outside Rachel's house.

"Do you want me to go ring the doorbell?" Aisha asked.

Beth shook her head and beeped on the horn. They waited a minute or two, Beth honked on the horn again and as they were about to get out and go ring on the doorbell, Aria came dashing out of the door towards the car, Rachel smiling and waving in the doorway with Aria's half-sister clutching at her mom's leg and saying something about babies. Beth waved back at her adoptive sister and niece quickly before the house's door shut and then her car door slammed as Aria threw herself into the back seat.

"My mom is insane," She announced.

"Well, hello there niece. Nice to see you too." Beth said and Aisha giggled. Her two friends started to talk about something and Beth tuned out of the conversation, staring at the road ahead until Aisha asked her something that she inevitably didn't hear. "Huh?"

Aria snickered, so Beth rolled her eyes at her in the mirror as Aisha explained that she was just asking if Beth knew that the hot Coach Evans was Aria's dad.

"He's not my dad!" Aria complained. She was always quick to make that fact clear that Sam Evans was her stepfather and that they were not at all blood related. Beth never really understood why it would be such a bad thing to have people think you were related to the hottest teacher that ever existed- Aria's father had died before the girl was even born so it wasn't like she'd ever known him- but she let it go as usual with an,

"Of course I knew! He's my sister's husband and I was a bridesmaid at their wedding." The three girls burst out laughing.

Daniel Finnegan Schuester forced a smile at his parents as they beamed across at him at the breakfast table. He smiled with effort at his phone-obsessed twelve year old sister Eleanor and even smiled awkwardly at the dog, Bernie. Daniel's parents were excited that this was his first year of high school. They had both been teachers at the school he would be attending. In fact his father was still sort of a teacher as he was a private vocal coach (and he worked with Aria's mom), although his mother had opened a company that produced pamphlets with helpful advice for problems such as "ouch, that stings!" and "so you like throwing up". Daniel's mother probably had a pamphlet for his problem if he ever got up the courage to tell his parents what it was- but who was he kidding- it was just like all the boys at school said- he was a chicken and an idiot.

Realising that he had only five minutes to get to the bus stop, Danny took off at a run- running back to his house again when he realised that he'd forgotten his bag.

"Hurry up, son!" His dad reminded him. "You're going to miss the bus." Oh, if only.

Danny got to the bus stop just as the doors were slamming shut. Luckily (or unluckily, depending on how he looked at it) at his waving hands the bus driver re-opened the doors and Danny climbed on. He scanned the bus for a safe place to sit but almost everywhere there seemed to be mocking glares, judgemental frowns. The bus jolted forwards and he fell into the lap of a cheerleader who looked to be a senior.

"Ew!" The girl cried out in disgust and he leapt up before her boyfriend could punch him off of her. Finally, he found an empty seat near the back of the bus. He tried to ignore it as spit balls cascaded his way and hissing whispers clearly directed at him called him a retard.

The twenty minute journey to hell felt more like a lifetime but things could only get worse from here. As Danny made his way to the front of the bus someone's leg was purposefully stuck out and he tripped over it- landing face forward.

"Whoops, sorry." Giggled the blonde cheerleader whose lap he'd fallen into as she literally walked all over him to get to the exit. Danny waited until everyone else was off the bus before he pulled himself to his feet and made his way to reception.

The school's reception was brimming with students collecting their timetables. The one good thing about this was that no-one noticed him so Danny could slowly make his way to the front of the line and collect his timetable with fear of neither wedgie nor verbal harassment. He barely glanced at his timetable, he simply took note of the room number of his home room and set off on a search to find it.

Way too terrified to ask for directions from a student, he searched the halls until he found a teacher- thankfully it was one he knew- Aria's stepfather. "Hi, Sam." He smiled nervously. "Do you have any idea where Room 168 is?"

Sam nodded and ruffled Daniel's hair. "Sure, buddy. I'm headed that way so I'll walk you." The walk was silent on Daniel's side, Sam doing most of the talking about sports and asking if Danny would be trying out.

He scoffed in response. "Really? You know me. I can't even catch a ball, let alone run with one or whatever it is you do in football."

Sam ruffled his hair again and smiled. "Sorry to hear it. Well, here's your home room. I'll see you around- have a good day and wish Aria one if you see her too. I didn't see her much this morning." Daniel nodded, took a deep breath and ducked into the room.

It was chaos- people screaming and laughing and hugging and giggling- a paper airplane landed itself at his feet- but at least it wasn't a spit ball.

"Danny!" He spun around although he didn't need to, there was no mistaking that voice.

"Ar!" They collided in a huge hug. When they let go he let back, glancing at her hair and noticed the blue streaks. "Aria! What did you do to your hair? Did your mom ground you, for life?"

"Oh no, it's dip dye, mom won't let me fully dye my hair until I'm fifteen!"

"You say that like it's a long time away."

"It is!"

"It's three months!"

"That's a long time to me. Anyway, I can't believe we haven't seen each other for almost two months. It's so annoying that our holidays clashed. Ooh!" Aria said suddenly. "You've grown."

"Well I needed it- you've been towering over me since pre-K!"

"I didn't mean just in height." She said with a giggle, her eyes scanning his body and resting on his eyes. Suddenly she laced her hand through his and yanked him over to where she was sitting with their two other best friends from middle school, Natalia and Liam. That feeling was pumping through his body again. That feeling that both terrified and excited him. The one he got whenever he was standing touching distance away from Aria Berry.

Aisha Abdi smiled at her best friend Beth Corcoran as they climbed out of Beth's car- Aria following behind them. As soon as they got out of the car a rabble of cheerleaders and footballers ran over to them. But Beth linked one arm through Aria's and one through Aisha's. Beth whispered to them as they marched down the hallways, the others having to follow behind them. People parted like the Red Sea as they walked down the halls and Aisha felt like she was glowing- in fact she probably was. She and Beth had been best friends for as long as Aisha could remember- she couldn't remember a time when the blonde wasn't at her side. They'd gone through everything together. And standing next to Beth, she felt like they could conquer anything together.

People hastily moved out of the way, collecting their timetables as Aisha observed with glum that she had math first, not a good way to start a Monday morning. On the plus side, she and Beth were in the same home room and they could pass notes for those dull minutes as Mrs Hoosenbex read extracts from her autobiography or as Aisha liked to call it, the Tale of a Moody Spinster. But when their teacher walked into the room it wasn't the old woman, it was the man they'd been talking about in the car.

"Woah," She leant forward on her arm, her eyes following him as he moved, although she didn't feel any attraction to him whatsoever, but that was what normal girls did, right? "Hubba, hubba."

Beth leant over to Aisha and whispered in her ear, "that's my adoptive brother-in-law you're ogling there, missy." At which point they both burst out laughing, causing Sam to give them a mock angry expression, "quiet please, ladies."

"As many of you probably know, I'm Coach Evans and as likely all of you will not know, I will be taking over this home room after Mrs Hoosenbex had a mental break-down at the end of the summer vacation." Aisha peered quickly around the room and saw almost all the other girls (except Beth) also staring at their hot new teacher. "Feel free to use this time however you like for today, I need to organise the football team's try-outs."

Aisha turned to Beth but before she'd even opened her mouth the blonde was shaking her head. "No!"

That lunch break they had free as Cheerio's sectionals practise would start after try-outs, next week- there really was no point in them wearing their cheer uniforms today, it was just what they'd always done- so Aisha and Beth decided against eating with the other popular kids and met up with Aria and her friends; Daniel, Natalia and Liam. Despite the others being freshmen, the six of them actually had a lot of fun giggling under the bleachers and at the end of lunch break Aria dragged the others to the notice board- saying that her mom would make her help out at community theatre if she didn't sign up for a club to use as an alibi. Aisha scanned the notice board as she waited but there wasn't anything unusual. Suddenly Beth pointed at something.

"What's 'Glee Club'?" The blonde girl asked the others.

"No clue," Natalia responded, as Aisha noted that the only names on there were fake and what high school boys thought of as 'funny'. Aisha whipped out her new phone and typed in Glee Club at lightning speed without looking at the screen.

"It's like choir." She summarised as she skim-read the Wikipedia page. "They dance and sing and there's competitions- like with Cheerleading- Sectionals, Regionals and Nationals."

"That sounds like it could be fun," Beth grinned. "Why don't we all sign up together?"

Aisha stared at the sign-up sheet and then pulled her blonde friend over and whispered, "It doesn't exactly look like a club for people like us."

Beth just smiled that smile that Aisha knew meant she had a plan. "Maybe not now, but I bet when the two most popular girls in school sign up, that'll change. Please!" She made the puppy dog face she knew Aisha couldn't resist and sure enough the brunette caved in. Beth grabbed a pen from her bag and scribbled both their names on; staring at the others who, hesitantly, followed suite.

"Cool," Beth smiled confidently before waving her fingers in a wave. "See you on Thursday at Glee Club auditions."

Next Time: The kids audition, Aria and Rachel have a fight about Finn, and Quinn, Puck, and Beth talk about Glee Club.