Disclaimer: I still do not own Glee Chances are, if you're reading this story and agreeing with everything, you probably wish I did. But I don't. Darn…

Author's Note: Yeah, sorry it took so long. I'm back at uni now so I have no idea when updates will be.

Author's Note 2: If you're confused about Rachel's actions in this chapter, please re-read chapter four. I have hints in there that show what she's feeling. It's not just random, I swear!

xxxxx

The Troubletones sat in a circle in the classroom they practiced in. It was their first meeting after Sectionals.

"I can't tell you girls how proud I am of you."

Santana smirked. "You could try."

"I could, but I won't. I don't want your head to get any bigger than it already is."

Santana scoffed and rolled her eyes and the other girls laughed. In the end, she still had a small grin on her face.

"Anyway, we have two and a half weeks until the Christmas break starts and we need to decide what we're going to do."

Mercedes frowned. "Do? To what?"

"We can always use more singers, and New Directions are no longer part of the competition."

"No way!" Santana shook her head.

Mercedes shook a finger at Shelby. "I agree with Santana. We left to get away from all the stuff that was holding us back. And like it or not, a lot of that was New Directions. I am not going to start singing in the back ground again."

"Not now that we've proved we're better off without them." Brittany grabbed Santana's hand in an effort to calm her girlfriend down (Shelby had been informed by Sugar that they were officially dating now).

Shelby waited until it was quiet again.

"So, you're saying there's not one person in the whole of New Directions you wouldn't want to perform with again? I'm not suggesting we adopt everyone. I was thinking more along the lines of auditions, in which everyone in the Troubletones has a say in who will be offered a place with us. Is that acceptable?"

The Troubletones looked around the room at each other before they all started slowly nodding.

"Good."

/-/-/-/-/

Shelby knew the best way to make sure all of New Directions knew there would be audition for the Troubletones was to tell them during glee practice. But William would hate it. Although he probably deserved to have his face shoved in his loss at Sectionals, Shelby wasn't stupid enough to go out of her way to raise Will's ire. That would only lead to trouble. She even went to the pains of making sure the auditions wouldn't be held on a day that New Directions met up. Anyway, Shelby was pretty sure Sue would murder her if she took away the cheerleading coach's main form of entertainment. Instead, Shelby posted a notice and sign up sheet on all of the notice boards.

Shelby looked up when she heard a knock on her office door.

"Come in."

"Hi, Shelby." Sugar said with a happy smile as she entered and dropped into the chair on the other side of the desk from Shelby.

"Daddy's happy that we won Sectionals. He's going to talk to Principal Figgins about getting us a bigger budget. Isn't that cool? Rhetorical question, you can thank me now."

Shelby still wasn't quite sure if Santana was having a positive or a negative effect on Sugar. The younger girl had certainly picked up a few of the Latina's traits.

"Thank you, Sugar. We couldn't have done it without you."

Which was true. Sugar had come up with a lot of ideas for their Sectionals performance. She wasn't as good a dancer as Brittany was, but she was good and had a real flair for costumes.

"You're welcome. Also, I saw Mr. Schue pull down the Troubletones audition sheets and throw them away."

Shelby frowned. That was really childish.

"So," Sugar continued. "I picked then out of the rubbish bin."

Sugar handed over five very crumpled (but thankfully not smelly or dirty) sheets of paper.

That's when Shelby saw what had obviously made Will angry enough to rip down the audition sheets. Three names.

Quinn Fabray

Tina Choen-Chang

Mike Chang

"Thank you Sugar. That's very resourceful."

"I know."

/-/-/-/-/

It was two days later, directly after New Direction's practice that Shelby was once again interrupted in her office. This time by Tina and Mike.

She motioned for the two teenagers to come in.

"Please, take a seat."

They sat down awkwardly, not meeting her eyes.

"So, what brings you two here?"

Mike glanced at Tina for a second before speaking.

"We've decided not to audition for the Troubletones. We thought you should know before the auditions."

Shelby just stared at them for a few seconds before sighing deeply and rubbing a had over her face.

"May I ask why you've decided this?"

"We want to remain with our friends." Tina said, still not looking at Shelby.

"And why did you decide to audition in the first place?"

Mike opened his mouth and shut it again before looking at Tina.

"Look, Tina, Mike. You don't have to tell me. Just think about it. Mike, I believe you've applied to several schools for dance?"

Mike nodded and glanced fondly at Tina. "Yeah."

"Okay. Well, I understand the pressure you're under to prove to those schools tat you're better than everyone else out there. And I understand that losing at Sectionals was probably hard for you, knowing you wouldn't get a chance at Nationals. I've been in similar situations before, and I can tell you now, it's not an easy path. But I think you'll make it. You're that good."

Shelby chuckled at the confused looks she was getting at her little speech.

"The point I want to make is that you can't let other people decide what you do. Because you'll never get anywhere that way. I'm not going to tell you that you should audition, though I believe my point of view on the subject should be pretty obvious. I just want you to think of why you've made this decision not to audition, and I want you to ask yourself if it's worth it. If you change your mind, you know where my office is. Okay?"

She smiled at them, and they smiled back.

"Thank you for being understanding, Miss Corcoran."

"You're welcome Mike, Tina. Have a good day."

'Remain with their friends.' No, Shelby didn't think so. Translation: Mr. Schuester guilt tripped us into not joining. She couldn't believe that he was threatening his student's future to keep a high school club together. Actually, she could believe that. What was wrong with the man?

Shelby Corcoran - 4

William Schuester – 3

/-/-/-/-/

Another two days later, and three days before auditions, Quinn was still the only person signed up for auditions. Figgins hadn't been particularly receptive to the idea of the Troubletones holding auditions in the first place (he had muttered something about not rocking the boat), and hadn't let Shelby move the date to later back.

Shelby was entering the staff room just as Will was leaving. His head was turned as he said good bye to someone, and he didn't see her enter the room. Shelby went about her morning school routine of coffee making. She was stirring the sugar into her coffee when strong arms wrapped around her waist in a hug. If she didn't know better, Shelby would have sworn it was Brittany. It was such a Brittany thing to do.

"Honey, I'm home."

Shelby turned her head and was met with a wave of blonde hair.

"Holly, what are you doing here?"

Holly jumped back, allowing Shelby to turn around.

"You're not happy to see me?"

Shelby took a slow sip of her coffee. "Last I heard, you were on the other side of Ohio teaching sex ed at a private Christian school."

Holly grinned sheepishly. "Yeah, that didn't work out too well. What about you? I thought you were in New York."

Shelby shrugged. "I was, but then I got head hunted to be the coach for a new show choir here at McKinley."

Holly's eyes widened and she grinned. "Oh! You're the she-devil Will was talking about. Apparently it's war between the two of you."

Shelby snorted. "There's no war. I won."

Shelby suspected that Will had told Holly a very biased account of the situation. However, it seemed that Will hadn't mentioned her by name.

"I don't doubt that. As long as I've known you Shelby, you've always won. One way or another."

"Speaking of one way or another, are you free now?"

Holly nodded. "Yeah. Want to catch up?"

"Actually, I was hoping you could help me."

Holly grinned. "This sounds like that refresher course at teachers college all over again."

/-/-/-/-/

Shelby spent the next hour catching Holly up on what had happened at William McKinley so far that year (which very proudly included a video of Sectionals). Holly's view had been slanted, but she was smart enough to know that the story Will had told wouldn't be the complete one. Holly, in turn explained how Will had asked her to come in and show New Directions that they could still have fun and be a team even though they weren't in the show choir competition.

"So Santana's okay with being out now? And dating Brittany? I saw the campaign ad."

"Yeah. You know them?"

Holly chuckled. "Finally. I substituted for Will last year. From what I understood, they had been, uh, 'friends' for a while when Brittany started dating Artie." She said with air quotation marks. "I'm glad they've finally gotten together. They're good for each other."

Shelby smiled. "They really are. So, will you help me?"

"Of course. What are friends for?"

/-/-/-/-/

Shelby arrived outside of the choir room just in time to hear Holly question why none of the New Directions had decided to join the Troubletones. She asked in innocently enough that Will couldn't fault her.

"I mean, I understand that you guys are a family or something, and I respect that. But, well, it's a really good opportunity."

"They're our enemy. We can't just join them." Finn said with a frown in his voice.

The was a heavy pause before Holly spoke again.

"Since when?"

"What? What do you mean?"

"It's simple Finn. Since when? When did the Troubletones become your enemy?"

"They've always been the enemy." Finn all but shouted.

"No they haven't. They used to be part of New Directions until this year."

"Holly, enough." Will snapped. "This isn't why I asked you to come in."

"No, you asked me to come in to justify to yourself the fact that you are holding students who you claim to care about, back. I get that I'm not really the best person to be talking about this sort of thing, but these kids are good enough to win Nationals and you're stopping them."

Shelby was surprised that the next person who spoke up wasn't Will, objecting to Holly's statement. It was Rachel.

"Miss Holiday is right. They're not our enemy."

"How can you say that, Rach? Santana's always bullied you."

"You seem to have forgotten, Finn Hudson, that once upon a time you weren't much better."

"Rach, I apologised for that. And Santana's…"

"Santana is not my enemy, she's yours. I refuse to let your problems stop me from being a star. Even if that means I'm not the only star."

There was a loud smashing sound, and Shelby guessed Finn had kicked a chair. She had noticed that the boy had a bit on an anger problem when things didn't go his way.

"So you're going to leave New Directions for the Troubletones?"

Rachel sighed. "I haven't decided, Finn, but I haven't ruled out the option either."

"I think I'm just going to leave, Will." Holly said to break the awkward silence. "It was nice to see you again. You guys too."

Shelby had already started walking away when Holly came up behind her and linked their arms together.

"Dinner?"

Holly nodded happily. "Sure, I was meant to have dinner with Will and Emma tonight, but I think Will's going to come down with something."

"If you don't mind, I'd prefer to make dinner at mine. I haven't got anyone to babysit Beth."

"Beth?"

"My daughter. It's complicated."

/-/-/-/-/

Shelby put the audition lists up again as soon as she got to school the next morning. By midday, there were already four names, five including Quinn. By the end of the day, everyone in New Directions had signed up.

Quinn Fabray

Rachel Berry*

Sam Evans

Tina Cohen-Chang

Mike Chang

Kurt Hummel

Blaine Anderson

Artie Abrams

Puckersaurus

Rory Flanagan

Finn Hudson

Shelby Corcoran - 5

William Schuester – 4

xxxxx

pounding of native drums, Blocking Brainwaves, , manatees-have-thick-skin, and OTHangels – I'm glad you guys enjoyed the update, and the Troubletones winning. Heck, they don't even have to be winning to be awesome. I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Too. :) (even though it was late)

chicavolcom89– I miss them too. I want Shelby back, and everything centred around Santana and Brittany. *nods*

kid2150– I'm going to have fun with Finn next chapoter. I'm sure you'll enjoy. :K

HappyHereford– I don't know, can you join the Troubletones? I hoped you liked sneaky Sugar. There will be more of her, at least, I have plans for more of her. She's so cute. On another note, I actually considered bringing Sunshine in, but honestly, that wouldn't really work. It'd be funny though.

Random Dice– That's cause Sue IS a god. :P I like your 'Sandy Jr.' comment. Will is kind of Skleezey (that's skanky and slutty put together). Like that time he broke up the fight between Santana and Quinn and got to second base with both of them.

KS – WOO! LONG COMMENT! I agree with everything (well all but one, but close enough. And even then it's just cause my story is AU and doesn't follow cannon) you said. Including Sue setting fire to Will's vests. That would be funny.