AU: Many years ago, Shelby Corcoran married, and had three boys. Later, she decided to have a baby girl of her own. The baby girl she wanted to call Elizabeth (like Leezl from the Sound of Music) died five minutes after being born. Eleven years later, teaching middle school was her natural way of helping kids, that is, until a girl named Rachel Berry shows up.

The next day, I made sure to pick on Rachel as many times as I could. By this point, all the other children hated me for sure. Not that I cared. I wanted Rachel to trust me. Because I certainly knew that something was fishy.

"Mrs. Corcoran, I don't understand this, can you please explain?" she huffed at me in frustration after I asked her about twenty questions about improper fractions. The worst part is, I knew she was lying. Besides the fact she was blushing, I looked at her homework. Everything was right. Either I had a math genius on my hands or she was paying someone.

"Rachel, you will never learn how to do it if you don't struggle through it yourself. Now first tell me what you do."

Then she huffed again and explained how to do the whole problem in one breath. All the other kids were looking at each other and mouthing 'woah'. I just smirked at her, "you don't understand?"

She frowned at me. I smiled back at her, raising my eyebrows. I assigned homework and flopped back into my chair behind the desk, pretending to be typing an email to some random person.

After the bell for fifth period rang, Rachel walked past me with a look as soft as thunder (well aren't I punny?) I tried so hard not to laugh at her seriousness. I hoped that this was going to help her trust me (somewhat).

And then it hit me.

The next day during Rachel's math class I hovered over her for the whole class period. The students were taking their first math test of the year. I could clearly see Rachel racing right through it, she was such a natural at math. I felt a pang of guilt for what I was about to do, but I knew I had to.

I pretended to look down at my laptop, clicking random keys. A couple of minutes later I walked around the class, watching all the kids pretend to know what they were doing.

"Rachel!" I shouted. "Hallway! Now."

Surprisingly Rachel did not argue at all. She got up from her desk, flipped the test over, and followed me out. She even managed to ignore all the other kids snickering at her.

Once outside, I put on a mad face. "How could you cheat on the test? Your first test, mind you." I crossed my arms and gave her the classic math teacher glare.

To my surprise, Rachel did not even react. She almost looked happy that I was yelling at her. Did I miss something?

"As punishment you will be receiving a zero on this test." Rachel jumped at this.

"Ms. Corcoran... I..." she almost seemed to be hyperventilating. I felt really guilty for doing this, but I would help her fix her grade later.

"You know, I'm giving extra credit to anyone who tries out for showchoir. It's not too late, they are always looking for new people." I smiled. "Plus, I'm one of the coaches. You can hang out with me!"

Rachel seemed to double take, looking down at her thin little legs. Being in show choir helps you to find your voice, I knew that much from personal experience. Plus I needed the extra time to get to know her.

"How does that work?" She mumbled hesitantly.

"Well, you go to practice after school everyday until 4 except on dance days, which go until 6ish but you also take it as a class during the day. Competitions are either home or at another school nearby." I whipped around to take a packet out of the folders that hung outside both Will's and my classroom doors. Rachel slowly took the papers out of my hand and studied them. After scanning the page, she looked back up.

"And doesn't this cost money?" She said it with an ache in her voice. Maybe I was being too hard on her, clearly she had financial problems at home too.

"We can waive the fee..." I mumbled. I could lie and say that she gave me the money or I guess I could just pay the money for her myself.

"Don't you need certain information to do that?" Man, this girl was way too smart for me. Was there something she didn't already know about?

"I think I can make an exception."

"And you're sure that this is going to help my grade?" She looked hopeful.

I smiled at her. "Positive."

"And, if I don't make the team, I still get the extra credit right? I'm the not the greatest at singing or dancing."

"They don't cut too many people, unless you are tone deaf. It's only happened twice in all of my years." An image of Motta popped in my head and I couldn't help but snicker. Rachel glared at me and I bit my lip.

"Okay then. See you at tryouts!" I said way too happily. Rachel rolled her eyes.

"So today we will be hearing you guys sing and watching you dance!" Will said in a cheery voice. No one else seemed overly enthusiastic to start cutting were a lot of people trying out for the middle school show choir, which is surprising because all of our teaching friends at McKinley aren't too keen on the idea of a glee club. Apparently it has something to do with the cheer coach over there. I have never met her and personally hope I never will.

Usually I was the one who was eager to correct bad dance form or bad singing, but today I was really not feeling it. The kids could break the glass from being so off pitch and I wouldn't move my glance from Rachel. I still felt really bad about tricking her into doing this. But if I was right, I knew that she had a good voice and I could get her to expose it, proving she was like me. Not that that proved anything.

One of our senior dancers warmed up the kids for dancing. I noticed Rachel hiding in the background. Her long brown hair was tied back into a high ponytail and she looked incredibly nervous. She was standing next to a Latina wearing a poms sweatshirt and another heavy set black girl, both of whom I didn't recognize from any of my classes. Grant, the senior dancer, began teaching the kids the tryout routine. It wasn't too hard from what I saw. Most of the kids got it in a matter of minutes. Rachel, however, sat down at some point, and was leaning against the wall reading a book.

"RACHEL!" I screamed. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Uhh.." she stammered before turning a bright reddish color. "Working on my dancing? You know-"

"Uh huh," I quipped. I stepped in front of her and leaned back against the wall, crossing my arms.

"What are you doing?"

"Watching you show me the dance," I glared.

"I'm not good enough to be here." she mumbled.

"Hey." I grumbled. "You just started. If you stick with it, you'll get better. That's how I did it."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Started when I was in sixth grade. I went to Trails you know."

"Really? You don't seem like the type."

"Well it was nothing like it is now. I was in the choir, chamber choir, show choir, and I was in the school play all three years and then all four years in high school. My senior year I was Maria in West Side Story."

"You must have been really good."

"Well I was the youngest of four sisters. The rest of them were on all the teams and Emily, the sister closest to me in age wanted me to do what the others had. The coaches knew my older sisters and offered me spots regardless of the fact that I was bad at the dancing, and I got better. I know you don't like this showchoir thing, but I want you to enjoy it like I did. It was how I decided I wanted to become a teacher."

I looked down at Rachel, and for some reason the moment just felt completely right. I knew that no matter what I did, whatever I was trying to do was not going to work out, she was a student, I was a teacher. While what I wanted was not a sexual or at all romantic relationship, because 1) the age difference is gross, and 2) I am not lesbian and I am in a healthy marriage. (and did I mention how gross that would be?)

"I want to hear that story," she mumbled quietly while still looking forward, the sweat still pouring down her face. She looked up. "But isn't this a little awkward to tell a student you just met?" She actually made eye contact with me at this point, her eyebrows dropping. "I think I'm ready to dance now," She stood up and began practicing the routine. I could tell she was embarrassed at me standing there, her turns got messy. I guess she was desperate to get out of the conversation.

I walk back to the desk where I take a seat next to Will and sniffle so quietly that he could not hear me. Nobody could fix what happened, trying was pointless.

"Are you okay?"

"Uhhh, yeah."

"No you're not." He followed my gaze towards Rachel, awkwardly sitting with the other sixth graders that had decided to ditch the workout.

"Shelby, you know you shouldn't..."

I sighed. "I know, I know... It's just so sad thinking I could have had a daughter's hair to brush, to take shopping, to watch Disney movies. We were gonna do all that and more... but we can't." I looked up at Will, tears slowly falling down my face.

"What...?" He slowly let out. It was then I realized what I had just said. I never told anyone about my baby girl, it was my secret that I didn't need countless people to know.

"I..." Lying was pointless. He was going to figure it out on his own. I knew he would. "I had a baby girl eleven years ago. She was born December 23, and she died after birth from unknown complications."

Will's eyebrows raised. He grabbed my hand and squeezed it. I sniffled, putting my head down on his shoulder. We sat there in silence for a while, watching the dancers practice the routine.

"She's probably following you around in spirit. She's probably a Phantom of the Opera fan too. The idea of jamming out to Phantom with a baby made me laugh out loud. I laughed so hard Will had to stabilize me.

After laughing, I noticed that someone was next to us, probably going to ask for the keys to the building. I turned red when I saw it was Rachel.

"I was hoping you would tell me the story of why you wanted to become a teacher now.." Will looked from me to Rachel.

"Yes Shelby, do tell us." Will put his head into his hands as if to symbolize being super curious.

"Well I-" I was about to begin my story only to be cut off by the alarm going off. Time for auditions!

"Rachel, see you at your turn." Rachel glanced at me before running out of the dance room, along with all the other children trying out.

Usually we try to keep the limit at about 40 kids for sixth,seventh, and eighth grade. We try not to cut anybody unless they really are tone deaf. Base on the list, we have 60 kids trying out total. 10 eighth graders, 15 seventh graders and 35 6th graders. Naturally the people in seventh and eighth are people that were on the team last year with a few exceptions. Sixth graders tend to try out because they don't know how time consuming showchoir is, or what you actually do in it. Point is, they want to be involved in something so that they can brag to their friends.

We had the eighth graders go first, then the seventh graders. We didn't see anything that was cut worthy. Looking down at the list, I saw that Rachel's name was scribbled at the very bottom of the list. I leaned back on my chair. We had a very long way to go.

The sixth graders we ended up keeping were Lucy Fabray, Santana Lopez, Brittany Pierce, Mercedes Jones, Tina Cohen Chang, Mike Chang, and Kurt Hummel. Now all we had left was Rachel.

After singing Defying Gravity, Kurt bowed before walking out the door, signaling Rachel. Rachel walked in with her head shot downward, avoiding eye contact. She was clearly nervous. When she got to the taped line on the ground, she started shaking. Part of me wanted to run up and give her a hug, but I knew I couldn't. Plus, that would probably creep her out.

"Somewhere Over the Rainbow, WAY UP HIGH!" she shrieked and both Will and I jumped back in surprise. Was she actually trying to hit the high note? Her voice cracked at the attempt. "THERE'S A LAND THAT I HEARD OF-" She was serious! She had absolutely no sense of pitch! (or volume for that matter)

"STOP!"

Rachel smiled at us before running out of the room.

Are you surprised?

AN: I probably won't include that many songs. But it is Glee, so there have to be some songs...