Chapter Seven

The glee club had only existed for a few weeks, but Mr. Schuester was already feeling optimistic. He had a great group of kids. They were all hardworking, driven by a desperate desire to prove themselves and an underlying brokenness. The kids' voices were as unique as their personalities, so they really balanced each other out. Their sound was full, rounded, complete. Mr. Schue was even beginning to convince himself that it didn't matter that they didn't have enough members to compete at sectionals. That wasn't what he wanted them to be about. He wanted them to be a community, a supportive family, and perhaps competitions would only cause conflict, shaking loose the bonds that were slowly forming between the members. But he still couldn't shake that other feeling. That need for a goal to reach, for a purpose.

Rachel and Quinn came to the choir room to talk to him after glee rehearsal. Mr. Schuester was just coming down from the high he felt after listening to his group singing in unison, already better than they were their first week of practice. The sound of the door handle turning broke him out of his thoughts. He looked over expecting to see Tina, arguably his strongest singer. She would often come to him with song suggestions, or to chat, mainly about other students and their singing capabilities. Although she was usually shy and had a stutter, being the lead female singer of the glee club had given her the confidence to form a relationship with Mr. Schuester that was closer than she had ever been to a teacher before. Usually it was only the popular or outgoing students who made friends with their teachers. Having Mr. Schuester as a friend-teacher made Tina feel more normal.

When he saw the two girls in Cheerios uniforms, a slight frown crossed his face. "No, I am not disbanding the glee club, " he called. "So, I don't mean to be rude, but if Sue sent you, just leave now."

Rachel and Quinn stopped in there tracks and exchanged a worried glance.

Rachel, perhaps because she felt insulted or maybe out of the need to defend Quinn, found the courage within herself to step forward. "Actually Mr..."

"Schuester." Will said.

"Actually Mr. Schuester, me and Quinn came here to talk to you about auditioning."

"Auditioning?" Will looked from Rachel to Quinn's face. He couldn't find anything sinister there. The two faces were dominated by apprehension. "Well," He said slowly. He swallowed and managed to force a smile. "The glee club is always happy to welcome new members, why don't you show me what you got." He gestured to the open stage.

"R-right, right now?" Rachel craned her neck forward slightly in disbelief. She exchanged another worried look with Quinn. "Mr. Schuester, we didn't prepare anything yet, we just came here to ask about when-"

"Oh, alright," Mr. Schuester waved them off. He gave himself an internal shake. He had to give every student a fair chance, and even if this hadn't been so deeply ingrained in his moral code, it was also school policy. He was allowing Sue to make him become paranoid, and he decided that needed to end here. "We can squeeze your audition in on our Tuesday rehearsal next week, be at the choir room at three thirty and-"

"Mr. Schuester we have Cheerios practice," Quinn spoke up for the first time.

"Alright," Mr. Schuester said, a remnant of the glare returning to his eyes. "Wednesday then."

He glanced at Rachel with a slightly less harsh expression. "I didn't get your name."

"Rachel, Rachel Berry."

Mr. Schuester scribbled something down on his clipboard. "And your last name, Quinn?"

"Fabray."

Mr Schuester wrote Quinn's name down and didn't say anything else. They took this as a cue to leave.

Rachel breathed a sigh of relief once they were outside the choir room. "Wow, I didn't expect him to be so hostile."

"Its my fault," Quinn apologized. "I should have remembered to have us change out of our uniforms first. Coach Sylvester isn't exactly on great terms with most of the teachers. I just didn't even think of it. I didn't expect her to hate even the Spanish teacher."

"Its okay," Rachel said. "If we had changed he might not have even still been there by the time we got there. Besides, it all worked out, I mean at least we got the audition."

"Yeah, but now he already has a bad first impression of us. That's exactly what you don't want for trying out for something. He'll just be looking for reasons to not let us on the team."

"First of all, its not a tryout," Rachel teased. "And secondly, when has Quinn Fabray ever not gotten what she wanted?"

"You do have a good point there," Quinn laughed and Rachel giggled with her and some of the tension and nerves left them through the noise.

On Wednesday, Quinn made sure neither of them wore their Cheerios uniforms to school. Together Rachel and Quinn decided on their clothes so that they would be coordinated, and look sophisticated. Quinn felt weird as she entered school in the type of clothes that she would normally wear to the mall. She could already imagine what the other Cheerios would be whispering to each other about her.

She wanted to get through the day without being noticed. Perhaps for the first time in her life. Well, at least the first time in her high school life. Throughout elementary school she had been bullied because of the glasses she had to get right before she started kindergarten, and the chubbiness she had acquired after Rachel left. Lucy Caboosey they had called her. She hadn't even gone by the name Lucy in preschool. But in elementary school it had been on the stupid teachers' roll call and she had been too shy to speak up and change it. And she couldn't tell everyone her name was Quinn when they already thought it was stupid Lucy. At least not until middle school, when she finally did speak up. It wasn't until middle school, when she was reunited with her best friends from preschool, Santana and Brittney, that she had regained her position as Quinn, the graceful dancer, and the popular head bitch in charge. And had never wanted to shrink into the shadows again. Except today.

"Hey Quinn!" One of the senior members of the Cheerios called out to her as she made her way to first period. "You quit the squad or something?"

Quinn did her best to ignore her.

Thankfully, she was soon flanked by Santana and Brittney. Who were wearing their cheerleading uniforms.

Santana looked her up in down in concern. "Damn, I can't believe you actually decided to do it."

"Do what?" Brittney asked absently.

"Audition for that stupid, stupid, glee club," Santana said. "Remember Britt?"

"Oh yeah, sorry I forgot." Brittney said. "I thought you were just protesting the fact that fat people can't be cheerleaders. Or cats. Poor Lord Tubbington, his dream of being at the top of the pyramid will never be accomplished."

Santana and Quinn laughed. Brittney had an odd sense of humor, that not many understood. But they, her closest friends, had the privilege of getting all her of her strange jokes. It was just one more thing that made the gentle cat-loving blonde more adorable. She was not stupid like everyone said.

"Well, good luck on the audition," Brittney said, as she and Santana turned the corner and headed for a different hallway than Quinn, "and if you ever want to protest for Lord Tubbington's sake, just tell me and I'll protest with you."

Rachel also felt nervous about the audition. She however, did not get any negative comments on her lack of uniform. She was as invisible as ever.

Rachel didn't pay attention in class. Instead she mentally rehearsed the song she was going to sing. It was a duet. Her and Quinn's voices sounded great on it, flowing together smoothly. Quinn had a pretty voice. It wasn't quite as powerful as her own, but it was pretty in a more simplistic sense.

She was so nervous. It felt like bugs were crawling up her wrists because her hands were numb. Why oh why had she ever let Quinn talk her into this? It was just one more failure to add to her long, long, impressively long list.

The day seemed to be on super-speed-fast-forward-mode, and soon enough Rachel was sitting at the end of seventh period, staring at the clock and counting the minutes until it ended. Willing the minutes to go slower.

When the bell did ring, Rachel took an extra second before standing up from her seat.

'Come on, come on, come on, you can do this,' she thought all the way out to the hall, and to their meeting place that they had decided on earlier, Quinn's locker.

Quinn wasn't there at first, so she started pacing back and forth over the small spot.

Quinn smiled weakly through the crowd when she finally did see Rachel, and rushed over.

"Rachel your so nervous," she said continuing to smile as she looked over Rachel's quivering body.

"You are too," Rachel retorted through slightly vibrating teeth.

Quinn laughed melodiously. It was true that she was focusing on Rachel's nerves in order to stifle her own. "Your right, I am." But she managed to maintain her toothy smile as she held out her arm, as if her own nerves only amused her. "Come on, let's go."

Giving her a giddy smile, Rachel hooked her arm around Quinn's. After a few steps Rachel stumbled and Quinn had to hoist her up to keep her from falling.

"Careful there," Quinn said. She stopped walking and turned to face Rachel. "Do I need to kiss you again to keep you from killing yourself with nerves?"

"I think you may," Rachel replied with shinning eyes.

Quinn made to move her head towards Rachel's then stopped abruptly. Remembering where they were. Quinn looked around frantically, but the students passing by were walking just as quickly as they had been before, giving no clue as to whether they had any idea what the two girls chatting near the wall had been about to do.

"Er, but, after the audition," Quinn said hastily. After glee club was over the school would be practically empty, so they would have no trouble finding a bathroom stall to make out in privately. "Have you ever heard of after stage nerves? They're so much more worse than the before performance kind, And, uh, a lot more dangerous to your health as well. You wouldn't want to trip and fall after you've already performed." Quinn tried to joke, but disappointment was already weighing down Rachel's eyes.

'Well,' Quinn thought in an attempt to comfort herself. 'At least her disappointment seems to have distracted the anxiety out of her.'

Quinn took her hand and gave her a soft smile, trying another tactic. "We both know that you can do this Rachel, if anyone's going to mess up its me." Quinn was even speaking completely honestly. Almost. Rachel did obviously have a better voice than her, but Quinn cared so little about the opinions of the people in the room that she had an advantage where nerves were concerned. She was only nervous for Rachel, and for their relationship, and for what Rachel messing up the audition might do to it.

They were at the choir room door now. Quinn held her hand on the door handle. "Are you ready?" She asked slowly.

Rachel nodded, still vibrating. Quinn took both of her hands in her own and gave them a squeeze. It was now or never. Taking a deep breath, Quinn let go of Rachel's hands and opened the door.

"Ladies! Welcome!" Mr. Schue said with a broad smile, arms wide. But his voice sounded oddly distant to Rachel, as if he was speaking to them through water.

He directed them to take a seat, and Rachel stumbled, nearly falling before she sat down, but managed to catch herself. A few snickers crackled through the water. Rachel felt her cheeks burning, but she was pretty sure they had been burning since she entered the room, as if she were in a gigantic furnace.

Even though they weren't members yet, Mr. Schuster allowed them to join in on the warm-ups, telling them it would help prepare their voices for the audition.

Rachel almost wished that they had gotten the audition over with first. Her throat felt like sandpaper and the dizzy feeling like she was about to pass out only increased as time past. The shitty warm-up only confirmed, in Rachel's mind, that she was going to fail this audition.

"Alright, Quinn and Rachel," Mr. Schuester said finally (and in an annoyingly upbeat tone): "Your up."

When Rachel stepped out onto the makeshift stage, the choir room floor, it was like a bucket of cool water had been thrown over her. All of her senses aligned and she felt an incredible calm.

She shot Quinn a small grin. Quinn, who had been watching her cautiously gave a small uncertain smile in return.

Quinn nodded at the pianist. "We're ready."

The intro to the song began to play.

Rachel felt relaxed at first, a little of her nerves coming back to her and crawling up her arms. Then suddenly it hit her. It felt like something squishy had been wedged into her throat, restricting her airflow, and, Rachel knew, making it impossible for much more than a squeak of noise to come out.

Quinn looked over at Rachel and knew immediately from her expression that something was wrong.

The note signaling Rachel to begin was played, but Rachel just opened her mouth and no sound came out.

Quickly, Quinn took Rachel's hand and began singing Rachel's solo a beat after it was supposed to have begun. It was a cheerful song, chosen to help Rachel with her nerves, so Quinn swayed to the rhythm and shot encouraging smiles at Rachel. Rachel's part was decidedly harder than Quinn's and required a larger vocal range. Quinn did her best to stay on key, and changed or edited out notes that she couldn't hit.

Rachel kept her eyes on Quinn's. She started swaying to the beat of the song with her. She swallowed a couple times, willing her throat to relax. When the part of the song where Rachel and Quinn were supposed to sing together came, Rachel opened her mouth and managed to keep herself from jumping at the sound that came out. After a few seconds, she felt like she was listening to someone else sing, like on the radio, and pretended that she was. She listened to the sound of her voice harmonizing perfectly with Quinn's. The way their voices fit together so perfectly, like puzzle pieces.

She managed to draw her eyes up and around the room. Most of the glee members had somewhere between a squint and a smile on their face. Tina (though Rachel didn't know her name yet) looked a little sulky. Mr. Schue had his hand on his chin and was nodding in approval.

It was now time for Quinn's solo. Quinn met Rachel's eyes and gave a small nod. Quinn stopped singing, and Rachel powered through. Rachel hit all of the notes of Quinn's intended solo, and gave it a lot more vibrato.

Rachel ended the song with a flourish. There was a moment of silence. Then the choir room erupted in clapping and cheers. Quinn was looking at Rachel, laughing and clapping too at her amazing job. She had done it. She had pulled through.

"Well," Mr. Schuester said happily when the noise had finally died down. He clapped Rachel on the back. "It seems we've found our ticket to sectionals!"

The crowd erupted again. Rachel looked up over the faces, her eyes glowing and her smile holding a radiance completely new to her.