Thanks to Alex B. Goode for reviewing.
This chapter is told from Mr. Schuester's point of view. I originally didn't plan this chapter. But then I had my own computer again and I noticed Mae's form didn't make her seem like she did in the last chapter. So I'm finding a way for it to make sense. I hope you're not angry with me and you'll just have to take my word on that soon- very soon Cai will be back in person again.
Guess what?! I finished another story. Actually two more stories but last night I finished "Dancing in the rain" which always had very long chapters to work on and I always felt a bit pressured to make that story as good as possible while the chapters took weeks to finish. I've had fun writing it but I still am so happy it's over. I also finished my O. C- fanfiction "The little girl" so that's nine stories left, among them two that will be finished soon.
Mr. Schuester POV
"Mr. Schue?"
The day after the first glee club rehearsal after the second time with singing downtown with the glee club I was in my office after asking Maëlle coming to me, then she was the bell had rung and it was only five minutes left until glee club.
"Mae." I looked up from the history papers I was going through and pushed them together in a pile. "Come on, close the door after you."
"Whatever it is, I didn't do it."
I couldn't help but smile and shook my head slightly. Mae raised an eyebrow but then did as she was told and came sitting down in the chair on the other side of my desk from me.
"I don't think you've done anything. But Jake came to see me, and he had talked to Pu.. Noah. Who said he had talked to you. And he asked me to… keep an eye on you so to speak. Because he thought that you might not be doing great. And he's worried about you, they both are." Mae looked touched for a second, then shook it off. "And of course, we all know that you just moved half across the world against your will. And no one can just go through that and be okay. And if I can say so myself- you've done a pretty good job…. But after all, I did see the look on your face when we had the glee club yesterday and then I realized something…"
I wasn't proud of anything I had done these past few weeks. The glee club had been great and doing everything I wanted for them and tons more. And I couldn't pay them back- I never could but I haven't ever wanted it more than I did weeks after Cai had disappeared and our singing downtown hadn't lead to anything.
"…I just realized that I've been so concentrated on this with Cai I forgot all about you guys. And I thought I'd make it up to you and start with… I think you might be in need of something I could give you and I just wanted to know if you're okay."
I think you're the one who needs my help the most of you guys.
Silence fell around us. Mae didn't say anything and I could have sworn I could almost see the memories playing like a movie in her eyes.
"Shouldn't today's glee club start like any minute now? Shouldn't we go there like now? I think that you should probably tell what you just said to me to the whole glee club. There might be someone there more willing to hear it because I suddenly don't know what you're talking about. And maybe, if I didn't care about Cai then I wouldn't neither have thought of a song to do now and I have. So maybe…" Mae suddenly hesitated. "…Maybe… Now come on. We've got to get to the choir room, like now."
I couldn't help to clench my jaws hard together and hit my hands against the arm supports of my chair in a frustrated move. But I was a teacher and I couldn't show that to a student.
"You're right… I'll have to talk to the others one on one too…" The last was no more than a mumble when I stood up and reached for my bag. "But I hope you, as well as all of my students. Know that the door to my office is always open if you need anything."
Mae sighed and rolled her eyes, but it didn't quite seem as the way I had seen her before.
"Hey everyone." I and Mae were the last ones to come to the choir room. "What did you say Mae? Did you have a song to show us today? Do you want to go first?" She nodded and stayed by Brad and the piano when I went to sit down and watch and she fixed with her hair to wait for everyone else to watch.
"Well… Look guys…" She started. "We've been doing this… singing… on town and… I really don't think it's going to get us any further than it already have. And well, Gloria agrees with me. And I know I'm being a b*tch but I'm just trying to see it realistically and… I think that Cai could be anywhere not in this town or country but… Well, I guess the song will say it all." She cleared her throat and took a deep breath. "I will be doing it acapella."
I did have a bad feeling about this song.
Although we have run a thousand miles…
During the first verse I tried shoving that feeling away. But it wouldn't leave my body and mind and it soon was proven right.
This song wasn't about trying your best and not ever giving up. Even though it did seem like it at first.
…When we dig for gold in the USA
The whole world had seemed silent except for Mae's voice as long as she sang, especially because there were no instruments.
As soon as the last tone had rang out the whole world really was silent. Next to me sat Kai, and turning and seeing the look in his eyes, it wouldn't have surprised me if he had gotten onto his feet and downright attacked the French girl in front of us.
Maybe it would at least give us some explanation when Mae started speaking.
"I just mean that Cai might be anywhere. She might still be in this town, yes. But if whatever that or who have happened to her. When this much time had passed by we don't even know if she's somewhere in America… She literally could be anywhere in this world so… I don't see where it's going to take us to stand out downtown in such a small town as Lima and singing."
Nobody said anything at all, neither did I. I would have liked to but my throat had suddenly gone dry and I wouldn't have gotten a word out even if I had tried. If I would have thought of something to say.
Maybe the fact that I couldn't speak was because I- and everybody else in here knew that Mae was right. Even though none of us would have admitted it neither to ourselves nor others she was…
"Anyway. I and Gloria said we'd do each song today and I did so… Your turn…"
Mae went to sit down and Gloria stood up and gave Brad some sheet music before she turned to face all of us.
"Look. It won't come as a surprise to you that I don't exactly li… No. To speak the truth- I don't like Cai. I can't stand her. For more reason than only one but there's one that… When she looks at you, she looks at you so weirdly empty. As if she has the whole world's problems on her shoulders and she's just… she's just callous and it's just… It just looks scary somehow. Like it's not even human… And it isn't human. It isn't human to not feel anything. It isn't human not to feel anything after all types of things she must have gone through… Whatever they are. So… I thought this song would suit."
Brad started playing, once again- just like when Mae sang her song this would have been so much easier if I could have been angry. I could have been angry, Gloria didn't even- like she had said herself, not even like Cai.
But I wasn't angry with her, I was angry with whoever had left Cai from the start. I was angry with whoever it was that had hurt her so bad she had ended up where she was. I was angry with the social services for moving her from the loving parents she had had in Burt and Carole, I was angry with whatever had happened after Cai had ran away from the supermarket.
It would have been easy to be angry with Gloria, who didn't seem to understand that Cai was stronger than anyone else in this room. She just didn't seem to understand what had led Cai up to the moment she looked at someone like that. Gloria didn't seem to understand how much there must be hiding behind those eyes.
So yes, it would have been easy for me to be angry with her.
But I couldn't have been angry with one of my kids only because she thought something in certain. I couldn't believe anyone did a song to make fun of or snort at Cai. And therefore I could not be angry, but just watched silently and didn't even say a word as the song finished and the last tone rang out.
"I think… I think it would help me, and help us.. help everyone if Cai could have just showed us anything but those… that look in her eyes… Anyway, that's that. I hope you liked the song."
It was as if everybody had ran out of words to use, both I and everyone else around me…
"I have a song too."
Oh great, at least I could trust Elena to do something else than what Mae and then Gloria just had. Still, after everything she had been through Elena was always kind and positive. Even though it hid a lot, I knew she was thinking about her son Declan when these times had hit. And whatever she would feel if he disappeared.
"As I told you I was in the same school as Cai, years ago. And I was chosen to be her sort of mentor that us older students were to the younger ones. But still, I didn't really get to know her much. But still I noticed that she kept having bruises, or how shy she was, or that she always seemed afraid… It turned out the family she was with right then had abused her… I don't know how many other foster families Cai had ever been in. But I could see. I could know that that one wasn't any good and I… I keep wondering if things had been different… What would have happened if I had just told someone? If I had told a teacher or anyone about what I was seeing? Maybe Cai would have been taken away sooner and no one will ever know what would have been…"
Elena hesitated and made a pause, but she did have more to say I could say…
"But still… Everything we go through. Everything I go through and Cai and all of you. Everything… everyone, it is temporary. HOPE- Hold on pain ends. Or whatever it is they say… Everything's temporary- unfortunately every home Cai ever ended up in was temporary… But I guess… I guess this whole world is our temporary home. Will you?" She looked back on Brad, who started playing without answering while Elena turned back to us and started singing.
Perhaps it was mostly the first verse that sang about Cai's story. Even though this was about a boy. But then as the refrain came I could have started crying on how real it seemed, and how Elena had chosen a whole other song than the ones before her.
I didn't know whether I wanted the song to end as quickly as possible and then maybe I could finally swallow the lump in my throat, or if I just wanted to listen to the beautiful song and meaning forever and ever.
But then once again, as soon as she had finished, for several minuets everyone seemed to have ran out of words.
"I think…" I started at last. "…I think Mae is right. We might want to at least take a break from singing to people like that… I wanted to get something out of it but we didn't…"
"We can't just give up."
I had talked to Kai about things already yesterday, today his protests were short. And that before, without anyone saying anymore people started standing up and taking their things to leave, me too.
I went to my office with my shoulders slumped in disappointment. Somehow I had really thought we'd get somewhere with finding Cai if we just did what we did best.
But I would have to understand that this was the way it must be.
After I got my jacket I went back the same hallway towards my car, I didn't think much about it at first. The glee club members were often in the choir room playing or singing to themselves, minding their own business without having to show off in front of the others.
But still I figured I might still want to check who it was, and quietly opening the door and making my way inside, I recognized his voice long before I saw him. By the piano, playing and singing sat Kai with his back against me. Continuing as if he hadn't noticed me coming- he probably hadn't. Or he would have stopped playing and turned.
I didn't recognize the song at first.
But then, as it came to the refrain and I realized I actually had heard it before. But that Kai had put a slower and sadder tone to it and realizing this sent shivers down my spine.
His words sounded more and more full of tears the closer to the end of the song he got, once I could hear the last few lines I walked into the choir room properly, and when the last tone rang out and I patted Kai's back I had sat down and patted his back.
"We won't find her, will we? Cai is somewhere out there and we'll never know where. What do I know? She might not even be alive…"
Memories had started filling my head passing by, of an episode of Extreme Home Makeover while it was still running and the family of a girl named Morgan who had disappeared after her friends had seen her talking to a strange man, Madeleine McCann who had disappeared from her hotel room. Engla Höglund who had went out riding her bike one day and never made it back because of one strange man and being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Then my mind took me back to that episode of Extreme Home Makeover and all the people who had been there, parents who didn't know where they children were in this world. Parents who hadn't known but at last found out their children were dead.
"I don't know."
Suddenly I couldn't breathe, it felt like an elephant pressing towards my chest and I barely even saw Kai right by my side. I had always just thought that it must be anyone's worst nightmare- especially a parent's to suddenly not knowing where someone they knew and loved were suddenly gone and no one could give them an answer on where.
Then there was one memory who came clearer than the others, one from a day that had started off as any normal day.
"I have to go and talk to Burt and Carole about this. Try not to worry so much Kai. Worrying won't do anyone good."
Elena had met Cai before in school and had wondered about the choices she had made, how Cai' story could have been different if she had made other decisions herself.
There wasn't much I could have done differently when I first met Cai, long before she had come into McKinley High School with Burt and Carole.
I had tried to forget. But how could I such a clear memory, that was as if it had happened yesterday…
Hmmmm… What do you think Mr. Schue's thinking about. I know I know, but there'll be a few chapters before you find out. And also before you find out where Cai is and whether she is actually or not.
Could you imagine the nightmare? Knowing that someone you love is somewhere out there but you don't know where.
Suddenly thinking about that I'm going to just need to do a chapter from Ellie's pov. So this thing with telling chapters from different characters' pov is getting longer than I was planning to. But I'm kind of liking it so I hope you are too.
Playlist
Mae- When we dig for gold in the USA- Amanda Jensen
Gloria- Big girls cry- Sia
Elena- Temporary home- Carrie Underwood
Kai- Two pieces by Demi Lovato
Eurgh! I've been coming down with a massive kind of writer's block. Everything I write turns out boring and bad and slow.
Random fact
The examples Mr. Schue remembers, including the episode of Extreme Home Makeover are all real. I hope nobody think it's offensive or dishonoring to mention them like this.
