CHAPTER 2

"Shalom blogosphere! Jacob Ben Israel here at McKinley High. Sudden death - big stakes senior year. Who will succeed and who will fail?"

Jacob Ben Israel, like a greedy puppy looking for a bone, strided down the hallways of McKinley High. It was the first day of senior year, the beginning of the final stretch of their seemingly endless high school experience. They had 9 months. 9 months and everything they knew would be ending. There would be no more slushies. No more being tossed in dumpsters. No more being bullied for being nerds. Or being Glee losers. Or looking different. However despite all of this, it would be a lie to say that any of them were 100% happy to be leaving. This place, dingey and decrepit as it had become, was their home, and nobody in the school felt that way more than those in the New Directions.

As Jacob scoured the corridors for someone he could interview without being punched in the face, he eventually came to his first subject. Or rather, his first victim.

"Finn Hudson. Mediocre quarterback. Mediocre Glee Club lead. What do you want to be when you grow up?"

As Finn closed his locker, he was taken aback by the question. He had just come from one of the best summers of his life. It had been nothing more than spending time with Rachel, spending time with Kurt and the family, and spending time with the rest of the New Directions. Burt had even given him a part time job at the tire shop so he had been able to start saving for college. Finn was extremely excited to get back to school for senior year, not only because it would be his final opportunity to win Nationals with the Glee club, or defend their Conference Championship for football. He was looking forward to having one more year in this shelter that they called high school, before he would be well and truly thrown out into the cold. Because the truth was he didn't have a clue what he was doing after high school. At least not yet. While everyone around him seemed to be making their plans, he was, quite frankly, lost. But it was a long year, he told himself, and he'd have time to figure out all of that stuff later.

"I'm really excited about this year. It's going to be a good one." Finn managed to stammer out, before turning around and walking away down the hallway. Jacob then proceeded to walk off and search for more people to interview. It didn't take him long to find some more either. As he made it to the choir room, he saw that there were already two people there.

"Rachel Berry and Kurt Hummel. The hottest girl in school and last year's Prom Queen. What do you two have planned for next year?" Jacob asked, not exactly looking Rachel in the eye, and his cameraman following suit.

Unlike Finn, however, Rachel and Kurt did indeed have a plan. It was a plan they had been working on the entire summer, structured almost to the very minute. They needed to do several extra-curricular events both in and outside of school, as well as send in applications to all of the colleges they had decided to apply to together. Both aspired to be on Broadway, and neither would be willing to rest until that dream became a reality.

"I'm glad you asked." Rachel said. "Kurt and I will both be applying to a New York based performing arts school.

"NYADA." Kurt finished his friend's sentence. "Also known as the New York Academy of the Dramatic Arts."

"We'll get an eclectic little apartment on the lower east side…" Rachel said.

"Think Bette and Barbara Hershey in Beaches, pre-cardiomyopathy…" Kurt continued.

"I'll originate a role in the new Sondheim musical, Tony by 25…" Rachel added.

"Married by 30, legally!" Kurt piped up.

"Broadway, Lincoln Center, West End, a tasteful HBO miniseries. It's all right here in my planner, you see?" Rachel finished, with every sentence edging closer to Jacob, brandishing her planner in the air. She continued to list out everything she was going to do over the course of her senior year with fortune-teller like certainty, and it took Jacob and his cameraman making a mad dash out of the room for her to finally draw to a halt.

Meanwhile, amongst the rest of the Glee club, things were going equally swimmingly. Those who were entering their senior year, at least most of them, had big dreams for the year. It didn't matter: football, music, dance, academics… they all had unique dreams that they wanted to accomplish before they stepped out of the gates of McKinley for the final time. However, they did all have a common goal, something that they would not be able to call their high school experience a success without, and that was to be the 2012 National Show Choir Champions.

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As Mr. Schue stepped into the choir room for the first time in nearly 3 months, he couldn't help but stop for a moment, take a deep breath and smile. Home sweet home. The summer had been amazing for almost everyone in the Glee club, and he was no exception. Things between him and Ms. Pillsbury were finally back on track. No, they weren't just back on track. They were going more incredibly than ever before, to the point where the couple had even moved in together! He was deeply in love, and heavily driven to win Nationals before many of his Glee students graduated… things had never been better.

Walking into the choir room and facing his favourite students again, he was immediately greeted by their cheers. A smile crept onto his face as everyone in the room whooped in celebration. Finn, Rachel, Tina, Kurt, Mercedes, Artie, Santana, Brittany, Mike, Puck, Sam… they were all there. Well, everyone but one person. One major voice who nobody had seen the entire summer. Someone who had disappeared ever since they had returned from New York.

"Hey, hey, hey! Welcome back everybody!" He exclaimed. "I hope you all had amazing summers. Plenty of relaxing, plenty of singing I hope too."

The group went around and all caught up with one another, something that was supposed to take just a few minutes but ended up taking quite a while. For good reason too. They all had so much to say to one another, so much they were looking forward to in the coming year. Santana had been made Head Cheerio, and was excited to bring back glory to the Cheerios after their Regionals defeat last year. Finn was once again captain of the football team, and he looked forward to defending McKinley's State Championship alongside the rest of his friends. Artie, Tina and Sam were all still Juniors so didn't have the worries of college on their backs yet. There was so much to talk about, but one question almost all of them had was the one that Puck decided to speak up and ask around 15 minutes into rehearsal.

"Mr. Schue, what's with the chairs?" Puck said. The chairs had been organized in a unique way, something Mr. Schue had personally requested that morning. Rather than all sitting at the back of the room facing Mr. Schuester like they always did, they were all sitting in a circle in the center of the room, facing one another.

Mr. Schue smiled.

"I'm glad you asked, Puck." He said. "So I wanted to inspire you all for Nationals, remind you guys what we're fighting for this year, so I was going to put our 12th place trophy in the middle of the circle for you all to look at."

As he said this, Mr. Schue walked over to the side of the room, picking up their trophy and holding it up so they could all see it.

"That's… depressing." Kurt remarked. He was right. The trophy was smaller than his forearm, definitely unrepresentative of the amount of hard work they had put into getting to Nationals last year.

"You know I thought it would grow over the summer. Guess they forgot to water it or something." Brittany commented. Mr. Schue sighed and put the trophy back down on the piano.

"Then… I realized that I didn't need to. Because some flimsy, plastic trophy is not what we're fighting for." Mr. Schue said. "I want you to look around the circle right now. Look at the person on your left. Look at the person on your right. They might be your friend. Boyfriend. Girlfriend. These are the people we're fighting for this year. For many here, it's their final chance. So at any point this year, if any of you start to lose sight of what we're fighting for, I don't want you to remember the trophy or the title we're trying to win. I want you to remember each other, the people who would walk through fire for you. We are going to win Nationals this year for each other. Because we all love each other and would do anything for each other."

"That was very well put, Mr. Schue." Rachel said, beaming widely. Quite possibly nobody in Lima - heck, nobody in the country - was happier to be back in school that September than her. This was her senior year, her final lap, and she was truly going to conquer the arts at McKinley High. But more than that… she was ecstatic to be back in that familiar choir room with her amazing friends again. It was like a family reunited again, with all of them picking up right where they left off. "You know, I had some ideas that I thought we could try out for Sectionals, and…"

Mr. Schue held up a hand to cut her off.

"Before we start on all of that, Rachel, I think all of you guys have noticed that there's one seat missing."

Every eye in the room flickered over to the chair on the far side of the circle, the chair that their blonde friend should have been sitting in. But she wasn't. Everyone's shoulders slumped slightly at the thought of Quinn, and Mr. Schue noticed. He sighed.

"Look, I know you guys all miss Quinn. I miss her too." Mr. Schue admitted. "And if any of you want to try to convince her to come back, please let her know that she'd be welcomed back with open arms."

"She's not coming back." Santana said, echoing the thoughts of almost everyone in the room. The latina knew better than anyone just how scarred, just how angry Quinn had been after everything that had happened in the past few years.

Mr. Schue shrugged.

"Maybe she will. But in case she doesn't, we still need to find someone else for Glee club. We have 11 people in the room right now and in case you guys don't remember, that is one less than we need to compete in Sectionals."

"Who in God's name wants to join us?" Sam remarked.

"Yeah, Mr. Schue, ever since Nationals, we're even more of a joke to the school. Nobody wants to join us." Tina said.

"Yeah, and those who might actually want to will just get bullied and slushied out of it." Mercedes added. She wasn't wrong. Things at McKinley, particularly between the Glee club and the jocks, were more toxic than ever. There was no chance that anyone would join them, especially knowing what was in store for them at the hands of the football players if they did.

"Well I guess we just have to put our heads down and think." Mr. Schue replied. "This isn't an option. We need to find at least one more person or we can forget about Nationals from now. New Directions, we have some recruiting to do…"