~ First Day of School – Natalie~
Rachel dropped the twins off with a quick good bye hug, and a promise of being home at five to take them to dinner at Breadstix before leaving them in the parking lot to the high school. Natalie would have been lying if she said she wasn't nervous as she turned to the school. This was the school that her mother had gone to before her pregnancy, the one where the Glee club won nationals after only being reinstated for two years. The school her father had gone to. Natalie had always wondered about her father, a man she assumed looked just like Blaine, and she and her brother had spent many of nights in their home discussing him. What he would have been like, what kind of father he would have been.
According to Uncle Kurt, Uncle Blaine, and her mother, her father was a wonderful man. A little immature, but wonderful, so why didn't he stay? Did he have no choice? Or did he just choose to leave them and their mother behind? After hearing about what her birth-grandmother had done to her mother in her sophomore year she had been terrified of finding her father and him doing the same. Just leaving her in the dust for something better.
Over the last couple weeks she had been telling herself it was silly and that she wanted to find her father anyway. Preferably, she added when her brother grabbed her hand and started dragging her to the school entrance with grumbles of how she was 'slow' (she smacked him upside the shoulder for that one), with him right beside her so they could meet their father together.
"What class do you have first?" Natalie shrugged and stopped for a second to dig out her schedule. Quickly scanning over the schedule a smile tugged her lips as she gestured. Spanish 1 with Mr. William Schuester, room 13. Blaine smiled back at her. "Good luck then, I have French room 2." Shame, she had enjoyed the support of her older (she rarely admitted it – ten minutes!) brother.
"Bonne chance! Ne manquez pas! Moi et mon oncle sont Kurt des paris à ce sujet!'' He turned to glare back at her and she just smiled brightly and gave him a little wave. She was, perhaps most like her mother, but her godfather was still Kurt; teasing her brother in French had been taught to her by him.
She continued down the hallway by herself, slightly unnerved at how alone she was. Her brother had woken up late and as such they had been late for school. Hence, besides a few stragglers that paid her no heed, she was by herself. So when a blond girl came around the corner and knocked her flat, she was mostly surprised.
"Watch where you going, will you?" the girl, no lady she realized, was quite rude it seemed but Natalie's mother had always taught her not to retaliate in this type of situation so she apologized. "Why are you even outside of class, I should give you a det-"the woman stopped dead after Natalie got up and brushed herself off. If she hadn't known better she could have sworn the woman was looking at like she was some sort of ghost.
"Who the hell are you?" the snobby part of her was back and she was reminded viciously of the head cheerleader back home.
"I'm new here, my names Natalie," she didn't see any point introducing herself fully; with any luck she would never see this woman again. The woman was back to staring at her in that strange way ever since she opened her mouth and spoke, and Natalie was starting to inwardly freak out.
"Fine, go to class; tell your teacher, whoever it is, that you ran into Mrs. Puckerman and got held up. This is the last time I will ever cover you, got it?" the glare Natalie was sent shocked her and she gave a little squeak and nod before darting off to her class. She found Room 13 in record time and debated a second on whether or not to knock, before the door opened from the inside and she moved quickly out of the way before it could meet her face in the most unpleasant ways.
A man, maybe in his forties, stood in front of her. He was wearing gray sweater vest with a white tie and had a head of hair with more product than Uncle Blaine's. "Hello you must be the new girl. It's very –"Mr. Schuester cut off in a way that reminded her of Mrs. Puckerman in the hallway. He also looked at her like he was seeing someone else and she wondered vaguely if he was seeing her mother, after all, didn't her mother mention a Mr. Schuester being her Glee teacher? Luckily he recovered himself quickly, and offered a pleasant smile and gestured her into the room.
"Class this is Hermione Berry, she will be joining us from now on. Hermione, why don't you say something about yourself?" he normally didn't do that, just showed the new kid where to sit and went on with the lesson, but looking at her was like looking at a blast from the past, like Rachel Berry was standing in front of him again. He half-hoped her voice would ruin the image, but when the girl spoke it was the same high-pitched melodious tone that he had been accustomed to hearing every day for two years of his life.
"My name is Hermione Nataline Berry, but I've always gone by Natalie so please call me that. I've moved here from New York with my mother and brother. I've always been interested in singing and dancing, and my uncle taught me French so I've decided to take Spanish instead." She flashed the class a bright smile before turning back to Mr. Schuester. He had that peculiar look on his face again. Quickly he directed her to an empty seat and continued the lesson.
The class passed quickly and Natalie found herself quite bored but forced herself to take avid notes as she was almost two months behind in the lessons. When the bell rang she was quite relieved, both for the lesson to be over and to get out of the classroom where Mr. Schuester had continued to glance at her with that look on his face every few minutes.
"Hey Natalie, can you stay back for a moment please?" she nearly cursed before turning from the door and walking towards Mr. Schuester's desk.
"Look, I know I'm very far behind, but I can catch up quickly, you don't have to worry about that Mr. Schuester, I promise I will work very – "Mr. Schuester held a hand out and she faltered.
"I have confidence that you will do fine in my class, Natalie. I've held you back to ask you a quick question." The look was back. Natalie was sure he was about to ask her if she was related to Rachel Berry. She could imagine the conversation that followed, maybe even learning of her father. "Are you related to a Shelby Corcoran by any chance?" Natalie blinked. She wouldn't admit it, but she was quite disappointed that he didn't recognize her. Maybe she didn't look as much like her mother as she thought, or maybe Mr. Schuester just didn't remember her mother at all.
"Ummm no, I've never heard of her. Sorry." Mr. Schuester seemed to be surprised but a smile made its way onto his face. He seemed to be relieved by something. With a warm invitation to visit if she never needed someone in the school to talk to (Mr. Schuester was very strict about bullying) and a quickly written note to her next teacher, she was gone.
As she walked to her next class, she pondered on who the hell Shelby Corcoran could be. She was sure her mother had never mentioned someone with the name, but the last name seemed familiar to her, not that she could quite place it.
Blaine was already sitting down in an empty table and after giving her note to the teacher and he grunted that they had a free day before turning back to his computer, she made her way to him.
"Do you, by any chance, remember mom ever mentioning a Shelby Corcoran?" Blaine shot her a weird look above his French homework.
"Never. Why?" if continued to be short with her, she wasn't going to tell him that he put the wrong answer down for number three.
"Because Corcoran sounded familiar to me, that's all." Blaine snorted and she decided to keep the answer to herself. "What's so funny, B?" she demanded instead, giving him a look her mother would have been proud of.
"Oh nothing really, just that you went to a school with a Corcoran for the best two months is all." Natalie's eye brows shot up and she scanned her mind for any memories of someone named Corcoran. It came back blank.
"I don't remember any one?" Blaine shot her an incredulous look.
"Beth Corcoran? Cheerleader? Friend of Alice, the head cheerleader?" Now Natalie remembered vaguely being introduced to her as that, one her first day of school. Beth had quickly been downgraded into the friend of the snobby girl she couldn't stand. Figures Blaine would remember. He had a thing for cheerleaders. She teased him about it and he was quick to tell her to shut up. That made her feel better.
"How was first period?" he asked eventually, when they had lapsed into silence.
"Weird. Mr. Schuester kept looking at me like he'd seen a ghost. It was kind of weird. And before that I met this Mrs. Puckerman lady who gave me the same look." Natalie bit her lip softly, still caught up on why he would ask her if she was related to a Corcoran.
"That's weird. Guess it makes sense though, after all you are hardly 'normal'." He laughed good naturedly when his sister socked him in arm as hard as she could, which, considering her petite size, wasn't very hard. She asked him (demanded) if his first class was any better and spent the rest of period listening as her brother ranted on the evils of his French teacher, trying not to laugh.
The rest of the day past quietly, and Natalie made it out alive and to the front of the school before anything to bad had been done to the new kid. Within a few moments Blaine was with her, a weird look on his face. When she asked what was wrong he told her he had met this weird Latina lady who had demanded who the hell he was. Another lady asked if he was a clone. She had been serious, apparently.
Natalie tried not to laugh but found it really hard at that point and soon Blaine joined in. They found their way home, still chortling at the stupidity of the lady.
Mr. Schuester past the day in relative silence before meeting with Quinn before Glee started. She had said something about meeting a Berry-Mini and demanded to speak with him. The conversation was short though, him telling her shortly that the girl had already denied being related to Rachel's mother and they had both agreed Rachel was too young to have a child that age. Unless of course she got pregnant at sixteen which they both knew wasn't true.
Thinking of Rachel Berry as a teenage mother was funny to him, considering how prude-ish she had been during her years here, even with a long term relationship with Finn, that hadn't changed. So he arrived to Glee in a relatively good mood. At least until Brittany Pierce, his old student and now co-coach to the Cheerios, came to him with something about a 'Finn' clone.
Because then, and only then, did something dawn on Mr. Schuester. The slight bulge that had appeared on Rachel's stomach before she left with her dads. He had paid it no mind then, chalking it up to all of Kurt's frantic stress baking he was doing at the time, but now, with Santana backing up Brittany's claim to Mini-Finn, he started to wonder.