Disclaimer- I own approximately twelve journals…that's about it. Glee belongs to Ryan Murphy.

B R A N D N E W M E

A/N- Selema.C – Rachel would've left during the pilot episode or so. In this story Mr. Schue actually goes through with leaving for a little while but when he finds out Terri lied about the baby he comes back and starts up New Directions again. At that point it's too late for them to compete, they don't have enough people anyways, but they still get together to practice and jam and stuff.

Chapter Three:

Rachel shifted uncomfortably while she waited for Brittany to finish talking to Ms. Sylvester, one of the scariest humans (she was a human right?) alive. She found herself checking the clock and noticing they still had twenty minutes left of their shared study hall before the final bell would ring and they would have to get to glee. She couldn't help but be excited at the thought of performing again.

"Ray!" Ms. Sylvester's voice literally barked through the large gym, making Rachel snap to attention. "Brittany here thinks you're Cheerio material. Now, I was considering giving Preggo her spot back but honestly if I can get myself a great cheerleader who knows the word contraception, and doesn't have all the stretch marks and the baby weight, well than that's all the better. Show me what you've got and I'll try not to choke on my own vomit at how inferior you are to me."

Rachel didn't so much as flinch and she didn't question a word the coach had just said, instead throwing herself into a thoroughly complicated routine that she'd revised from one of her Hip Hop classes in New York. By the time she was finished her chest was heaving and she was preparing herself for the biting remarks that she was sure where about to come out of the "teacher's" (really what does this woman teach except for Fear 101?) mouth. Instead she found herself nearly falling down in surprise when she heard Ms. Sylvester saying "Not half as horrendous as I suspected. Still completely inferior to myself but really, who isn't? You're a midget so you'll fly well. You're in. Don't screw up. Brittany get her what she needs."

Brittany was literally jumping up and down in excitement, dragging Rachel off towards the locker room. "That was so great Ray! I'm so, so, so happy! And now you get to go and try out for glee! Do you know what you're going to sing?"

Rachel merely smiled while she changed, letting Brittany take care of the talking and silently admiring the beauty of her plan and how well it was already working.

XxX

"Okay guys, we've got a new student who's going to be auditioning. I want you all to be a good audience."

Everyone looked to the front of the room where Rachel was sitting holding a purple and teal acoustic guitar, which she started to strum before nodding to the piano guy (who was always just…there). The song started out fairly mellow but by the time she'd gotten to the chorus her voice had grown in strength and the music picked up behind her.

"'Cause I am barely breathing
And I can't find the air
I don't know who I'm kidding
Imagining you care
And I could stand here waiting
A fool for another day
But I don't suppose it's worth the price, worth the price
The price that I would pay"

As the song went on Rachel got more and more into it, remembering for the billionth time how much she loved to perform and forgetting the fact that eleven of her peers were sitting in front of her watching in amazement as she sang.

As the song ended Rachel finally opened her eyes, looking up at the rest of the people in the room who were watching her in states of shock. It was Kurt who finally broke the awkward (for her at least) silence by throwing himself at her in a hug, jumping up and down in what could've been considered, in her opinion, an amazing imitation of Brittany, who was beaming.

"Oh my god, we totally have a new lead and we're gonna kick Vocal Adrenalin's tightly toned tushies up and down that stage!" Kurt's soprano voice rang out through the room and it seemed to wake everyone out of their dazes, each of them nodding their agreement.

"You are most definitely in Ray!" Brittany beamed as she pulled Rachel into the seat next to her with Puck on the other side. He just smiled at her but before he could get a word out Mr. Shue clapped his hands from the front of the room, "Wow Ray that was great. Okay so we need to teach Ray some of out numbers and work her into them. Let's start with Don't Stop Believing, from the top."

XxX

Puck was barely awake as he stumbled into school the next day, having been up and down all night. It was the image of Tina walking down the hallway with Ray who was dressed in a red Cheerio's uniform that truly woke him up (in more ways than one). The short skirt with all the slits in it showed off her long legs even more than her tight jeans had the day before and he almost groaned in satisfaction.

He actually flinched when he saw some jerk from the hockey team douse Tina in slushy, the ice and corn syrup covering her hair and her face, dripping down onto her red shirt. He remembered the feeling of being on either side of that slushy cup, and while he would've always preferred to be the thrower, he'd take twenty slushies in the face before he threw another one. Being either person may suck, but he refused to be that guy again.

He didn't really know whether to be surprised or not when he saw Ray put her arm around Tina, keeping complete composure as she ushered the soaking goth girl into the bathroom.

He didn't know why she did it but he found himself following them into the girls room (he'd never really cared all that much for school rules and he'd done far worse things in this bathroom) where he found Tina in a small tank top (Artie was a lucky, lucky man) sitting with her back to the sink as Ray washed the sticky mess out of her hair.

"You okay Tina? You want me to go kick that fucking puck heads ass for you?" Ray looked up shocked at the sound of his voice and her eyebrows creased in confusion for a second before she smiled and turned her attention to wringing out Tina's now clean hair.

"I'm good Puck; Ray's actually helped a lot. Thanks though, it's…" Tina cut off, a twinkle in her eye because she knew if she called Puck sweet he'd see it as an insult instead of a compliment, "It's totally and completely badass of you."

Puck just smiled at her as Kurt rushed into the room, a tornado in Armani, or Prada or some other equally fruity brand. "Oh gosh Tina I just heard! Are you okay? I brought your clothes and…and Ray. Hi." Rachel smiled over at Kurt as she got to work on getting the blue corn syrup out of Tina's shirt.

"Hey Kurt. We were just getting ready to call you so you could bring clothes but it looks like you're a step ahead."

"Always dear. And well hello tall, dark and broody. You taking care of our girls here?" Kurt had a knowing look in his eyes as his voice rang out through the small bathroom, his gaze straying over to Ray before coming back to meet Puck's eyes, his eyebrows lifting in a question that Puck didn't even want to acknowledge to himself. Instead just telling him how Tina wouldn't let him kick the douche's ass.

As Kurt braided Tina's newly cleaned hair Ray turned from the sink, holding up Tina's shirt which was almost as good as new. "I got out as much as I could."

Kurt's eyes almost fell out of his head when he saw how much of the stain was gone, "Where'd you learn how to get slushy stains out so well? And to get that crap out of her hair?" Kurt didn't try to hide the confusion in his voice. As far as he knew most people didn't have to know the art of Slushy Survival, much less get good at it.

Ray merely shrugged in response, hoping she hadn't blown her cover, "Practice."

Puck stood still as Ray's single word washed over him. What idiot had slushied Ray? She was totally cool, and totally sexy, and completely bad ass. He had an odd feeling in the pit of his stomach at the thought of someone giving her slushy facial until finally he had to ask. "Who would give you a slushy facial Ray? You're totally awesome."

He didn't miss the slight blush that crept up her cheeks as she finished reapplying Tina's eyeliner, "Thanks Puck. And don't worry about it; they were just some idiots from the school I went to before I transferred to New York."

It felt odd for the person who used to slushy Rachel the most to be the one to be the most caring about the fact that she'd gotten slushied before. She wouldn't lie and say she was (totally and completely) shocked when he walked in to check on Tina, but now that that caring was aimed at her in one way or another it felt almost right. He really was a nice guy and Rachel couldn't help but wonder what happened in the last year to change him so drastically.

Puck didn't like the fact that someone had messed with Ray, but he was glad that at the very least she understood and wasn't running for the hills like most people would.

XxX

As the day went by Rachel could feel the eyes of most of the (male) student body on her. She wasn't really used to this kind of attention. In New York there were so many people that even if someone did notice you it didn't feel like you had the eyes of the whole world on you.

She made it all the way through the morning without much more incident, gossip about the fact that she'd helped Tina out that morning making its way through the school like wildfire. She was happy for the break when she got to lunch, plopping herself down in the same seat as the day before, today with Santana sitting across from Brittany and watching her with curious eyes, as though she couldn't decide exactly what her feelings about her where. A part of her wanted to hate Ray because she felt like she was losing Brittany's attention to the new girl, but she knew that that was just her being territorial like she always was of the people she cared about. Another part of her felt like she could totally connect with her. She seemed laid back but she knew when to stand up for herself and she didn't take crap from anyone. Plus, Santana heard that after lunch the day before Ray had walked past a group of guys talking about how Brittany 'had to have been dropped on her head a few too many times as a baby' and how she was 'only really good at one thing' and apparently Ray had totally flipped out on them; calling them 'limp dick idiots who were only taking their problems out on Brittany because they hadn't boned anything but their hands and a blow up doll. Ever.' Anyone who took care of Brittany was automatically someone she respected, and the fact that she'd stood up to people twice her size (at least. Damn that girl was tiny) who she didn't even know without worrying about what it would do to her social status was pretty damn cool.

Finally deciding that she would hold off on passing any real judgment Santana just offered Ray a small smile before turning to Brittany and talking about a mall trip they had coming up.

Rachel was slightly taken aback by the smile that was shot her way. She knew that Santana's smiles were few (like negative number few) and far (like light-years or decades or something) apart and that she didn't hand them out to just anybody. She didn't have time to think about it very long when she felt a hand on her shoulder to get her attention.

When she turned around she saw Dave Karofsky, (what she was good with names? Plus, she'd once considered pressing charges against him for 'accidently' pushing her into a locker and leaving a huge bruise across her side in freshman year.) the jerk who had thrown his slushy at Tina that morning, standing there like he thought he was posing for the cover of GQ or something. But he wasn't Puck (she couldn't believe she'd just thought that) who she was pretty sure was the only one in McKinley who would ever be on that cover. She merely arched an eyebrow in silent question, trying not to notice the fact that the entire cafeteria had basically frozen and had their eyes on her.

"Hey sexy. I was just thinking that you should probably come sit with me and my friends instead of these losers. You don't want to get mixed up with the wrong crowd."

Rachel nodded slightly and stood up from the table while pretty much everyone who was sitting there watched in complete shock. She was really going to just bail on them because some idiot jock came up to her and told her they were 'the wrong crowd'? It wasn't until Puck caught sight of the look on Ray's face that he smirked at the rest of them, nodding his head to try and tell them that this was gonna be good.

"Nope." Rachel only spoke one word but it rang out across the cafeteria to gasps of the (overdramatic) crowd. People couldn't believe that she was actually turning down the chance to sit with the jocks. Especially not so she could sit with the gleeks.

"Excuse me?" Karofsky seemed genuinely confused for a second, almost as though he thought he'd actually misheard him.

Any thought of that left his mind as soon as Ray opened her mouth again, "I said nope. If you think for a second that I'd rather sit here with you and your idiot friends than sit here with the, 'wrong crowd,'" Ray threw in finger quotes for effect, feeling the gazes of every student in the cafeteria on her, "Than honey, you've obviously taken one too many hits to the head."

"Baby you're making a stupid mistake here. You should be grateful that a stud like me wants to spend anytime like a bitch like you." Puck scoffed at Karofsky calling himself a stud, but when he called Ray a bitch he had to restrain himself from punching the bastard. Ray didn't seem like the girl who liked to have someone fight her battles for her.

"Stud. Right, my bad." There was hardly any sincerity in her tone but Karofsky seemed to be believing her, "You do know that the definition of stud is 'U' surrounded by 'STD'." Karofsky stopped for a second but without missing a beat Ray started speaking, that fake concern and sincerity once again dripping from her voice, "Have you been sharing your blow up doll with your friends again?"

Everyone in the cafeteria started laughing like it was the best joke they'd ever heard and after a few seconds Karofsky took off out of the room, people still pointing a laughing by the time Ray sat back down to the dumbfounded stares of everyone else.

"What? He's a jerk who threw a drink on Tina and was talking about Brittany yesterday. He deserved it!" The defensive tone in her voice made everyone start laughing, shaking off their surprise.

"Ray, that was fucking awesome." Puck's voice was loud as he joked, "You're a total badass."

A/N- Okay here's chapter three. This is gonna be a little bit of a long authors not but please bear with me, it's important stuff. I hope you guys like it and it makes up for how short chapter two was. It's still a little filler-ish but I need to get some of this introduction stuff out of the way before I can really get into the story. This was supposed to be up last night but of course things went crazy so it had to wait but I'm actually kind of happy with the way things have worked out.

Quinn and Finn should probably be in the next chapter. I've been trying to figure out exactly what their dynamic is going to be in this story. I have some ideas but I'm really not positive yet.

I hope you guys liked seeing a little bit of Santana's softer side. I know I like writing it. I feel like underneath her tough exterior is just a little girl who's afraid and doesn't know what she's doing. She seems broken in so many ways.

Just a question to you guys, do you want Santana/Brittany to be just friends or do you want them to have more? That was my one problem writing this, I couldn't decide so you guys have to choose for me.

The song that Ray sings for auditions is Barely Breathing by Duncan Sheik. I've been trying to find the perfect song for her to audition with since my last update and I still feel like I've missed the mark but this one works.

Thank you to everyone who has reviewed, favorited, or set an alert for my story. I went over and checked out my stats just a little while ago and you guys are seriously awesome!

Finally what I know you've all been waiting for, T H E N U M B E R S! I'm sure you were all wondering why I asked for those numbers. I averaged out all of them, which is a big deal because I hate math and I think I'm allergic to it, and got 159. Whoever is reviewer 159 will get their own one-shot dedicated to them and written specifically for them. So get out there and review!

Oh and I added a link to Rachel's first day of school outfit on my profile. Take a look!

Okay I've babbled enough. I sound like Rachel. : )