Quinn put Beth in her pram and they started off along the street. Quinn had decided to head to the closest of her friends a little earlier than usual because she need to make sure her mum could drop Beth of at the nursery and then drop her at school. It was early but her and her three best friends were going for a run to keep fit and discuss school out in the open where rumour couldn't fly. Quinn was careful not to voice her views too loudly in school because it's rumour mill was worse than McKinley's.

"Quinn!" she turned round and saw her best friends running up behind her.

"Laura! Dan! Mickey!" she hugged them all. "What are you doing here? Have you started the run yet?"

"No."

"Then what are you doing?"

"Look around you Quinn." said Mickey mischievously. Quinn looked around and noticed she had walked right past Laura's house.

"Oops."

"Yeah come on my mum wants to say high." Laura rolled her eyes. She had always found it strange how well Quinn got on with her mother, but then again Quinn was a mother herself.

"Why's Beth here?" asked Dan jogging next to her.

"Mrs T put her back out this morning, she's off to hospital. I was hoping your mum could take her to nursery and then drop her at school."

"Of course she will." said Laura. "Mum loves Beth, she'd adopt her, and you, if you'd let her."

"Yeah, whatever." Quinn smiled though at the way she had been included in Laura's family. Laura's mum was a big softie and when Dan and Mickey had run into trouble or their family collapsed they went to Mrs Bremmer. So when Quinn had turned up and made friends with Laura her mum had been quick to help her out. Now both Mickey and Dan had sorted out their problems Laura's mum said the house felt empty and had invited Quinn and Beth in but Quinn had declined because she wanted to sustain her own family.

"You might not want to bring Beth today, though, Quinn." said Dan after a they had left Laura's house and were running off down the road.

"Why not?"

"Because we get the letter, duh." answered Mickey. Quinn nodded, she'd forgotten that.

"I'll send her a text asking her to keep Beth, she won't mind."

"I wonder who we'll have?" said Laura to no one in particular.

"I'm more interested in who's hosting." Quinn replied "It could be a lot to organise and raise in just a week."

"I thought they did the organising for us."

"Nope, that's all me."

"We don't have to worry about money Quinn. The donations are coming in by the bucket load since we've hit the winning streaks."

"Yeah I guess."

"Oh don't look so worried, Quinn." Laura said sternly. "We need you for all this." Quinn smiled and said

"You do know I've never actually done any of this before, right?"

"Yes, you told us like five times already." Her friends were clearly not amused by stressing antics.

"I just don't understand what possessed them to tell us a week before."

"Makes it harder I guess." Quinn spoke with authority "If the club you're up against has a certain style than it's easy or their last years champions you know how to beat them but if you've never heard of them and they don't have any kind of style you're just going to have to play to your own strengths."

"And you know this how?"

"Sectionals last year. We were up against an old peoples choir and the Warblers, they don't move around really. So we danced, simple as that. Though we didn't win."

"Yeah but you drew."

"Mmm." was Quinn's reply and her friends stopped talking and sought for a change of topic. They liked Quinn a lot and they had known her for a year and had learnt one very important thing about her. She wasn't too keen on her past. Well that wasn't entirely true. Quinn loved her old Glee club so much, she could reminisce about the good times they'd had but there was only so far she'd go. Of course having Beth told you a lot about her Glee club and when they came back after Christmas she had finally opened up and told the story of Beth's pregnancy and all that followed, she cried a fair bit when she told the story, when she'd explained why she'd left they had all agreed never to pry into her past. She'd give up bits here and there but otherwise they left it well alone.

On arrival at school they split Mickey and Quinn and Laura and Dan. Somehow they had all their lessons in those pairs. This did mean Quinn didn't see much of Laura or Dan but they always met up at lunch when they weren't busy. Lot's of people came up to Mickey and Quinn in the halls and said hey or asked for some advice. One girl pulled Quinn aside and said she that her 'pregnancy' hadn't been real. Quinn breathed a sigh of relief as she collect her books whilst Mickey chatted up some girls, casually leaning against his locker boasting about his baseball wins. Quinn grabbed him and pulled him off before the girls started fainting, amused by his antics.

Mickey reminded her a lot of Puck, generally because he chatted up girls at every spare moment. However Mickey had a lot more tact than Puck and was generally more sensitive. For one when she'd arrived in Mitchell and had joined West Mitchell High School he had tried it once but once she had told him to shut up he stopped and then went and told all the other boys in the school not to make a move on the new girl because she was heartbroken. Mickey was also a better dancer than Puck, in fact Quinn reckoned that he was as good as Mike Chang. He couldn't play guitar and he played hockey and baseball instead of football and basketball and he was captain of those teams. Mickey did, however, have the same badass attitude, 1 time juvie record and the 'I will not be tamed by a women' outlook. Quinn liked Mickey because he was the one who was never afraid to speak his mind, if you asked for the truth you got. He could also keep secrets like a dead man, unlike a heck of a lot of people. Mickey had been the second friend she had made. He had come and apologised for trying to chat her up (something Puck would never do) and they became friends.

The first friend she made was Laura, which was weird, because, at the time, Laura had been head cheerleader. Mind you their cheerleading squad, like every other extra curriculum club/sport, was a complete failure. Their coach was an alcoholic, 40 year old woman who liked nothing more than to shout random things down the loudspeaker at her cheerleaders. It was really how they'd become friends. Quinn had tentatively asked her about the squad, before she knew she was head cheerleader, and once she found out about their coach, Quinn had described hers and they had spent the whole double maths lesson verbally bashing their cheerleading coach. Laura was a very open person who gladly took Quinn under her wing to help her round the schools. Laura had the loyalty and sisterly warmth of Mercedes and the ambitious, talkativeness of Rachel. This made her a interesting person to be around and talking to Laura and Mickey made her feel much more at home.

When Laura had taken her to lunch she had met Dan. Laura ate with Mickey and Dan because they felt ostracised from the rest of the school. Dan was quaterback and captain of the football and basketball team, which was a failure. Being the leaders of failing clubs they had banded together and ate together. Dan was short and had taken one too many balls to the head because his speech was slightly slurred. Quinn felt sorry for him because people mimicked him in the hallways but he didn't seem to care. Quinn nearly didn't become friends with him because the first time she saw him smile she bolted like a hare. Dan had the same lopsided smile as Finn. Well not exactly the same, no one could mimic that goofy grin but it was so similar. Quinn hadn't really likened him to Finn, despite him being quarterback and captain of the basketball and football teams, because he was short with blue eyes, and red hair that was grown long and almost reached his shoulder. After taking sometime in the bathroom she had steeled herself and marched back out to face it.

At lunch Quinn had felt a very strong connection with them because she knew what it was like be at the top of the school and be outcasts, she explained this to them about how she had been in Glee club, she hadn't gone into much detail because it was too painful, and how they had all been losers and despite winning regionals they were still slushied. They had been very curious as to what 'slushying' was and had winced when she explained it. They told her firmly that at this school they drank not tossed they slushys. This brought them onto the subject of Glee club.

It turned out that Laura, Mickey and Dan were the only remaining members of the Glee club. The club had not made it past invitationals and caused all the club to quit. Laura, Mickey and Dan wanted to restart the club but they didn't know how. That was when things really kicked off for Quinn because though she hadn't wanted to join another club when she first moved, but West Mitchell's Glee club, Living Chorus, plight really caught her attention. She felt the need to help.

Quinn took charge of the Glee club, she knew it was allowed because she knew The Warblers were lead by three boys. When she proposed this the ecstatic looks on their faces said it all, she would join Living Chorus and she would be as good a teacher as Mr Schue and make them as good as New Directions. Getting people to join wasn't too hard she simply asked Dan, Mickey and Laura to round up as many of the old group as they could. In the end they came back with two people from Mickey's teams, two from Dan's and four cheerleaders. They were all in the same year.

The main problem Quinn found was that she didn't have a band. After a couple of minutes deliberation she asked if anyone could beep-box. When Jeremiah, a footballer, had said yes she made her decision. They became Living Chorus, an acapella show choir. They had rehearsed weekly after school and though there wasn't much time left in the year they made some progress. She discovered Mickey was an ace dancer she got him to help with the choreography and Dan and Laura to help her arrange the music.

A week before the summer holidays Quinn had, via Mrs Turner, got them a chance to sing in a coffee shop frequented by old people. They decided to perform We'll Meet Again because it was a simple tune and ABC to give them something to dance to. For the first time Quinn found the solo being forced upon her, something she was very unused to. The performance went down very well, but they didn't collect money because that would stop them from being amateurs. It was at this time that Laura and the four other cheerleaders approached her with their idea. They wanted her to coach the cheerleading squad. Laura said she would step down as head cheerleader and give Quinn that role. Quinn was unsure, she had been on and off the team but she did have experience. She eventually agreed yes to them and then was stuck by an idea. She spoke to Mickey and Dan and got them to take up position as coach/captain of their sports teams. That was when everything changed.

West Mitchell's clubs had been jokes last year so everyone was very surprised to see them back with a confidence beyond that of last year. The other teams soon discovered that this confidence was well founded because they had come a long way over the summer. Their team only had the minimum number of players on it so they looked like easy picking but they flattened last years championship winners in their first game, in football and hockey. The year had been their year.

Now it was summer and as Quinn sat in chemistry she thought of how far they'd come since she'd joined. Both the hockey and football teams had won their championships and the baseball and basketball teams looked well on their way to doing the same. The cheerleading squad were heading to nationals and so was the glee club. Quinn was nervous about Nationals because there was quite a high possibility that she would meet McKinley at either, if Sue had got her act together. If she ran into the cheerios it wouldn't be so bad because she wouldn't have to face them in the same way, unless Santana had come back on top, but they would learn where she'd gone. If she ran onto the New Directions it would be bad, really bad. Even the Warblers wouldn't be great.

The schools opinion of the teams had changed dramatically, okay no one had signed up but Quinn knew they were waiting to see what happened. She felt sure that next year the football and hockey sign up list would be full. People had stopped ostracising them, they were welcomed at any table but still ate as a four, occasionally with the rest of the glee club and you never heard a mimicked slur anywhere. People moved aside when they walked down the hallways and whispered good things to each other.

In many ways it made her miss McKinley because it reminded her so much of it. The first time they had parted to let her through she had broken down with tears remembering something she had said to Mr Schue. When they were showered with Valentines it made her cry harder because it reminded her so badly of last year, of Finn. When there was a break up or someone cheating on someone else all that happened in McKinley came back and she found herself wondering what they were doing, what they were singing, whether they still missed her? She often lost her train of thought in Glee because she was thinking about the New Directions, what they might say to her comment, how they would be sitting? Her heart ached for them, but she didn't give in and call them. She would fight back the tears and soldier on but she wasn't a mask, she was a caring mother, a good person. She tried for them.