Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Nothing. Nada. Zip.

Author's Note: And here is the next chapter! This was is officially completed, and the next one is already in the works, so this time, I swear that you will get the next update by Monday, just to prove that regular updates are on their way. After that, they will be weekly updates, arriving Monday's.

I've officially decided what characters I plan to include in this story (though it could change, and each submitted character will at least receive a mention), it will be posted underneath the sign up sheet names next chapter. Oh, and by the way! The large chunk of italics is one of Carson's memories from not that long ago.

Also, I know that it's been a little while, but I still find it necessary to say: R.I.P. Cory Monteith. In this story I won't be really mentioning his character Finn, until I find out what Ryan Murphy plans on doing.

8:00am

Holly grinned with a mixture of excitement and anticipation as the three numbers reflected up to her eyes from her watch. It was officially time for their first ever Glee rehearsal; time for her first ever Glee rehearsal as the actual coach, as compared to the substitute.

She could barely contain her excitement as she walked down the hallway towards the choir room. She had eight members. Eight members. Eight incredibly talented members and all she needed was four more. And despite the fact that she only had by the end of Friday (only two days away) to get those four members, she was confident that they could do it.

Her conversation with principal Figgins was both a relief and a hindrance at the same time, because despite needing four more members for the club and an assembly being a very likely way to encourage more students to join, it was in front of the whole school and they had exactly one day to put something together. Her fear was that if they did possibly suck, she would lose her current members, or even if they were good, they would walk away because of the pressure on their reputations.

Nonetheless, Holly could barely contain her enthusiasm as she pushed open the door to the choir room and entered. Her eagerness grew, when she noticed that all eight of her members were already scattered amongst the room waiting patiently, or talking amongst one another.

Setting her music folder down on the piano, she cleared her throat. "Welcome to the first official glee practice!"

Sawyer groaned, throwing a glare in the blonde's direction. "You're late. You told us to be here fifteen minutes ago," he said, as a few people nodded their heads in agreement. "You should probably show up when you say you will."

"I have to agree," Ellie piped up, shaking her head regretfully, almost as if the words were causing her some sort of pain. "If we want any chance at Nationals, or Regionals, or even Sectionals, you need to recognize that you have a responsibility as our supervisor to appear at the specified time."

Holly nodded her head, understanding where the sophomore was coming from. But she had purposely told them to come at 7: 45, despite the fact that she had no intentions of showing up until 8:00. "You guys are a team now, and outside of this room some of you probably haven't even made eye contact in the hallways," Holly started, directing her gaze towards Sawyer and then to Ellie as an example. "I showed up late, so that you could get to know each other a bit better."

It had worked, Holly noticed, to a certain extent. While, they weren't bursting with team unity and most of them were sitting in friendships that were formed prior to Glee, there were a few differences.

Ricky and Ellie sat together, near the front, both wearing a bright smile on their face. Before Holly had entered they had both been talking excitedly, debating what their first assignment would be.

Towards the back, there was Stella and Emily. The particular seating arrangement also was not a surprise, considering that they were also best friends. But instead of talking, Stella was nonchalantly typing out different text messages on her phone, as Emily nervously surveyed her surroundings. Emily didn't really know anyone else in the room, besides Stella, and she felt like her discomfort and anxiety was grossly apparent. So, she straightened up her back and put on a wide dazzling smile, trying to slip back into her regular act.

One of the major differences was JT's seat beside Ricky. While, Ricky was mainly talking to Ellie, and JT kept shooting worried glances towards Tyler who had isolated herself in the far corner, every once in a while they would say a few sentences to each other.

Behind them, but in front of Stella and Emily, sat Sawyer and Hayley. Sawyer didn't seem to be too happy to be there and mainly kept to himself, ignoring Hayley as she kept flicking his ear in an attempt to annoy him. But every few minutes he would turn around, smile at Emily (who would shoot him a nervous smile in return) and sneak a subtle glance at Stella (who would still be texting). Hayley nudged him in the ribs, and raised her eyebrow every time he turned around.

Not many developments had been made, but a few was better than nothing.

Holly stopped her assessment when she noticed the weird looks her students were sending her, and turned to face them again. "But anyways! This is our first official glee club practice. Are you ready to get started?" she asked, expecting to be met with enthusiasm, but instead receiving lacklustre claps, and one sarcastic "Yay!" in response. "So, I'm assuming for the most part, everybody knows each other, so we'll just skip introductions."

"No shit Sherlock," Hayley mumbled. Ellie turned around in her seat to shoot her an unimpressed look, to which the Latina responded with a glare.

"So, I've got some bad news. Mr. Figgins informed me that if we don't get four more members by the end of the week, we will be disbanded," Holly announced. "But, he did say that we are allowed to have a performance in tomorrow morning's assembly. So, does anyone have any ideas on some songs?"

Besides Emily's meek response, "We could sing Call me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen?" the room erupted mainly in protests, as several of the members began to shout at once.

"Tomorrow? We won't be ready in time!"

"Despite the fact that I can flawlessly execute any number and that I have a large repertoire of songs, I doubt that everybody else will up for the challenge."

"Yeah, no."

"Come on guys! It'll be fun. We can do it after we finish painting our nails and sharing secrets!"

"Don't think the sarcasm is necessary."

"Do we have to?"

"Can't we just have one person sing, while the rest of us sway in the background?"

Holly opened her mouth to interject, and tell them that she had already mauled over each other possibility in her head (even considered blackmail, before ultimately deciding that she wouldn't pull a Will) but this was probably their best bet, when a voice spoke up, "Everybody just shut up!"

Holly sighed, as she watched Hayley stand up from her place (where she was being unusually quiet) and make her way to the front of the room. She wanted to interrupt, because if anybody could make this situation worse it was Hayley, but at this point she could see no harm it could do.

"Okay, so you bitches are going to listen to me, and you better listen carefully because I will not repeat myself," she asserted, flipping a hand at Holly when she opened her mouth to chastise Hayley for her language. "All of you pissheads joined this club voluntarily; nobody forced you to be here. You joined, because your ordinary lives are too boring, or you're already so far towards the bottom of the food chain that you're reputation couldn't get any worse, or maybe even because you like to sing. But you still joined. And unless you truly are blind, which judging by some of your outfits some of you might be, you've seen the trophies, which means you know about the competitions. An assembly should be the least of your worries. I repeat: nobody forced you here. You came here by choice."

Hayley snuck a sly glance towards Sawyer, as a smirk settled on her lips. "Well, most of you did."

Sawyer growled at the accomplished look on Hayley's face, as many of the other members shot them a questioning glance.

"She's right," Stella supplied, glancing up from her phone's screen for the first time since she had entered the room. "We need four more members, and the school assembly is probably the only way to do it, and it's practice for future competitions."

Emily expression turned to one of relief, and shot her best friend a look of thanks. She never particularly enjoyed it when people fought. "We could sing Whistle by Flo Rida?"

"Call me Maybe lacks range, and is hardly challenging vocally. If we want to encourage people to join by proving that we can be winners, we need something familiar but that will showcase our talents," Ricky contributed, looking around the group. "Whistle is not appropriate, and unless we want a repeat of the 2009 'Push it' incident, which still litters my Facebook page today, we should probably avoid it."

"How is Whistle inappropriate?" Tyler questioned dubiously, from the corner.

Hayley scoffed, and leaned over the back of Ricky's chair as she directed her attention to the small freshman. "You just put your lips together and you come real close. Can you blow my whistle baby, whistle baby?" she sang, enunciating the key words. Just to highlight her point, she cast her gaze downwards towards Ricky's pants before meeting her eyes again.

Holly watched as realization dawned upon the freshman and a small blush crept out onto her cheeks. She had to agree with Ricky though; Whistle was most definitely not a good idea. As the students continued to offer suggestions, that were all shot down or denied by at least one other member, Holly reached down into her folder and pulled out a set of sheet music.

"This song has been admittedly overdone, but it leaves room for personal interpretation, and most of you probably already know some of the lyrics, so it shouldn't take long to learn," Holly stated, passing the music sheets around the room. "I tried to divide it up as equally as possible, so that we could highlight each member, not just one."

"Titanium?" Stella asked, her coral lips stretching out into a grin.

Sawyer rolled his eyes, as he hiked his backpack over his shoulder. Of course, the entire practice had been wasted doing everything but actually singing. They had "gotten to know" each other, picked a song and discussed who sang what. But they didn't sing, and he's pretty sure that's the whole point of Glee. But because they didn't end up actually practising Titanium, Holly had scheduled another practice after school. He could already tell how great they would be at the assembly, considering they would have practiced once.

Shrugging his thoughts off, Sawyer quickened his pace when he noticed Hayley walking out the door. He wouldn't call her a friend (friends don't corner friends in showers and blackmail them into joining some lame ass club), but he didn't exactly have a wide range of choices. "Ramirez!"

Hayley turned to him, and blew out an exasperated breath. "What do you want Tom Sawyer?"

'Well, I sort of want your picture of my junk deleted and for you to stop flicking my damn ear every time you sit next to me.' He thought to himself vehemently. But based on the scowl gracing Hayley's features, it would most likely be safer not to say that, and to go with something a bit safer.

"I want to know what crawled up your ass and died."

"Maybe, it was your balls. Heard those have been missing," she snarled, pushing her locker open with more force than was necessary. She reached her hand in and started to shove various textbooks into her bag.

Sawyer leaned against the locker next to hers. "Better be careful, your venom is getting on my shoes."

"You're an asshole."

Sawyer nodded, sending a wink to the blonde cheerio who leered at him. "And you're a bitch."

"You say I'm a bitch like it's a bad thing," she retorted, slamming her locker shut. Without a word, Hayley turned to walk off down the hallway, leaving Sawyer to scramble after her.

"So, are you going to tell me who pissed in your cornflakes?" he replied, when he finally caught up to her. But after receiving nothing more than Hayley narrowing her eyes, he continued. "You sort of flipped your shit back in Glee because everyone was hesitant in screeching like a bunch of monkeys in front of dipshits who enjoy seeing the colours of the rainbow dripping down somebody's face."

"I'm surprised you noticed, considerin' your eyes were glued to Stella's ass," Hayley bit back, not noticing the way Sawyer's face lit up at the mention of the girl's name. Throughout the entire practice and the fifteen minutes leading up to it, he hadn't heard one person say her name and her eyes were glued to her phone's screen, so he didn't make an effort to talk to her. But now he knew.

'Stella is her name.'

"I wasn't staring at her ass," Sawyer insisted, silently questioning if he had been that obvious with his occasional glances. He attempted to make it seem as if Emily was the focus of his attention, but apparently that hadn't worked. "She was sitting behind me, sitting on that ass."

Hayley raised her eyebrow. "But if you could've, you would've?"

"Just tell me what the hell has you wound up so tight," Sawyer said, changing the subject. He really didn't want to talk about her right now, especially not with Hayley.

He was worried she was going to push it more based on the mischievous twinkle in her eye, and the slight grin toying at her lips, but instead she just heaved out an aggravated sigh. "My fucking tutor decided to start playing bitch and cancelled until next next Thursday."

Sawyer couldn't help but let out a small snort. The thought of Hayley actually trying at school was odd enough, but her paying for somebody to actually tell her what to do? That shit's gold.

Hayley's eyes darkened a shade, as she glanced at him from the corner of her eye. "Bitch is messing with my future."

He stared at her for a moment, before responding. "Do you know what else is fucking with your future? Rigging the showers with slushy and switching the signs on the bathroom."

"Nah, that shit's too fun to give up," she dismissed. "You still remember the sign thing? Dude, I did that in like middle school."

He remembers it far too well, considering he was one of the victims. All he had tried to do was take a piss but he ended up seeing a bit too much of a few girls and walked out with a red imprinted face. Jennifer Johnson still glares at him in the hallway to this day.

He's a bit caught up in his thoughts (and not really paying attention at all) when he rounds the corner to Spanish, and he ends up colliding with another person. "Oh shit. I'm sorry." And he honestly is, considering the guy ended up dropping all of his stuff and landed flat on his ass.

"Sawyer. Don't apologize! You'll never be queen bitch with that attitude," Hayley chastised him, poking him harshly in the side.

"I'm pretty sure Amber already has that title on lockdown," the boy said from his place on the floor. Sawyer leaned down to offer his help, as Carson hastily gathered all of his papers, but Carson shook his head denying his offer. "I've got this."

Sawyer picked up Carson's cell phone from the ground, wincing when he saw the cracked screen. What was even worse was that it was an Iphone 4 and those things cost a lot of cash. "Dude, seriously, I'm sorry."

Carson stared sceptically at him for a moment before ultimately letting out a sigh and stuffing the phone into his pocket. "It's fine. It still works."

"I can get you the cash for a new one in three weeks," Sawyer offered, still feeling guilty that he had demolished the guy's phone. Slipping a piece of paper out from his pocket, he scribbled his phone number on it and handed it to Carson. "Here's my phone number, so you can make sure you get the money."

Carson visibly hesitated for a moment, not completely trusting him considering that he hung out with the "badasses" and was apart of the football team, and his own history with either wasn't the cleanest. But it was his new phone and god knows his father wouldn't pay for a new one, considering he didn't even pay for the other one, and he ended up grabbing the number from his outstretched palm, and placed it in his bag before he turned to leave.

But as he was halfway down the hallway, absentmindedly straightening out his letterman jacket, he heard Hayley's voice call out to him. "Yo, Jockstrap!" He winced, he still couldn't decide if it was worse than his other nickname, Carsucker, but hearing either still made his blood boil.

"Ignore her; she learned how to turn her dial up to super bitch today."

"You interested in joining Glee club?"

The question stopped him cold in his tracks. The Latina probably didn't even know how much he had been thinking about the particular subject, which was a lot and ever since the first day that Miss Holiday started at the school. But even after weeks of mauling over it in his brain he has made no progress.

In simple terms he does want to join Glee club. He does because he's good at singing and dancing, and he feels at home when he's on a stage, like performing is the only thing he should be doing. When he opens his mouth and lets out a few lyrics of Weezer's new song, everything just slips away and all that's left is him and his music. He does want to join because it would mean being apart of something besides soccer, and maybe even feeling like he belonged somewhere. He does want to join, because even the thought of joining makes him happy.

But he couldn't join, because singing and dancing on some stage was not apart of his plan. He was expected to be a lawyer, or a doctor, or a businessman. Not a performer.

"No I'm not."

"We need to have a conversation, son."

The unfamiliar sentence that left his father's mouth caused him to tense almost immediately. His father and he were on good terms, and as far as he knew he hadn't done anything wrong at all for the past week or so. His room was clean; his grades were still straight A's; he hadn't gotten into any fights with people in or out of school; he was still a standing referee for the youth soccer league; he had even managed to get a job interview at Breadsticks. But though the sentence had become unfamiliar lately, he had still heard it many times before.

"We need to have a conversation, son." Right after he scribbled pictures in crayon all over his mother's notes for an upcoming case, when he was five.

"We need to have a conversation, son." Right after he got his ass kicked by Jake Thomas, and had finally gotten home (following a severely awkward back and forth conversation between his parents and Jake's parents).

"We need to have a conversation, son." Right after his brother had been accepted into a prestigious medical school and his father remembered that his other son had yet to even get a job.

With a fair amount of hesitation, he slowly lowered his history book (that was open to a chapter about Abraham Lincoln and his involvement in the Civil War) and met his father's eyes. "About what, dad?"

"As you know your brother was accepted into John Hopkins," he started.

'Of course I know. How can I not when it's all that you and mom talk about?'

"Yes dad I am aware," he replied, forcing himself to stay collected. All that they ever talked about was John, and how proud of him they were, and how they always knew he had the drive to become something excellent.

"Well, what you don't know, is that the dean himself called us to inform us that John is currently at the top of his class," Alfred boasted, a wide smile stretched across his face. His eyes were crinkled at the ends, partly due to the unfortunate effects of aging, partly due to his face responding in every way possible when he feels an extreme amount of pride. They were always crinkled when John came up, and one of the only things he wanted to do was be the cause of it, just once. "The reason that I bring this up, is to remind you that there are certain expectations that your mother and I have for you. And any failure or shortcomings in your life are not because of your gene pool."

Carson heaved out an aggravated sigh. "I know dad."

"We expect nothing but the best from you Carson and you're already a junior so there is no more time to waste. Your mother and I have discussed it, and we're fine with you doing Soccer, as long as your school work comes first. If you find the need to join any other clubs, they have to be beneficial to your future, because time's running out, son. And it's time to start taking life seriously."

Carson fidgeted in his spot uncomfortably, as he turned around in his seat to once again survey his surroundings with a wary eye.

The room was dead silent, as each student had their head shoved into the same book. Considering it was study hall, the sight of people studying shouldn't be surprising (considering the name of the class literally had study in it) but it was. Normally study hall was code for "let's talk about random crap class" or "let's go and hit second base in the bathroom class" or "let's do everything but study class". But today there was a big test in Chemistry and considering yesterday was Mike Geer's party, he was pretty positive that nobody had even opened their book.

He hadn't even been in the class for five minutes before he felt somebody's eyes piercing his back, but every time he turned around there was no one looking at him. It was really starting to bother him, because he couldn't even focus on the open book in his lap, and while he had already studied all night for the exam, there were still a few things he felt he was a bit shaky on.

"Define Ionization Energies," he quietly recited to himself. "It's how much energy we need to remove one electron. It decreases down the group, but increases across the period. The farther a valence electron is from the nucleus, the easier it is to remove it. If you go down a group (remember that in group 1, all have 1 valence electron but more and more total electrons) theionization energy decreases."

Carson stopped for a moment to glance at the book open in his lap, and let out a relieved breath when he realized that he had gotten it word for word.

"Don't forget that asyou add more valence electrons, it becomes harder to remove an electron because there is more negative charge to be attracted to the positive nucleus. So theionization energy increases across the period from left to right," A voice sounded from behind him. He hissed when he looked down at the book and sure enough there was the exact paragraph right below the definition that he had given. It didn't even sound remotely familiar to him, not as something that he had read, or as something that he had heard in class.

He shifted his eyes slightly, to the direction of the voice, and blinked rapidly as a pair of yellow parachute pants invaded his vision. It took him a second to shift his eyes away from the brash colour, but when he looked up, he didn't recognize the eyes staring back at him.

"I wouldn't worry too much about it; Mr. Thatcher never reviewed it in class, so it's most likely just an extra blurb of information in the textbook. But sometimes those blurbs turn out to be bonus questions," The blue eyed girl replied, finishing her sentence with a pop of the lips. Carson furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, trying to place the face of the person to somebody he might've met, but there was not one person he could think of that would wear bright yellow parachute pants with a plaid tank top. Seeing his eyes surveying her, realization came over the girl's face. "Oh! I'm so sorry, we've never actually met. My name is Emily Quincy. This is my first year at this school, well at any school, you see I was homeschooled before this, my parents decided that it would be good idea for me to go to school, not that I didn't agree, because I did. So, we moved from South Georgia to here. Your name is Carson right?"

Carson nodded. "Carson Aaronson, and this is not my first year at high school or any school," he smiled, a teasing twinkle in his eye. Emily blushed, when she realized that she had been rambling. Since she wasn't the most extraverted person, whenever she got nervous she either rambled or stuttered. Stella even made a game out of guessing which one it would be, each time she met someone new.

She relaxed slightly when he motioned to the desk beside him, and slowly sat down in it. "I'm sorry, but I was sort of watching you before. I know you could tell, because you kept turning around."

"That was you?"

Emily nodded her head, embarrassed. For the last ten minutes she had been debating how she was supposed to approach him, whether she should just walk right up, or get somebody to introduce them, and had ended up just staring at him hoping that he would turn around, make eye contact and then introduce himself. But every time he turned around, she got nervous, and adverted her eyes to a different place.

Miss Holliday had called her name, right as she was grabbing her bags to leave, and asked her to drop back while the other members left. She had, because she considered Miss Holliday her teacher, and she couldn't disrespect an authority figure. Apparently, according to what she had been told, she had a very friendly aura that managed to draw people (even strangers) in, and that aura could be used to get more members for the club. Also, with Hayley also campaigning, the stark contrast between Hayley's aggressive approach and her own friendly approach would be enough to fill up the club.

She was too afraid to approach Hayley directly, and ask about possible performers in the school, so she asked Tyler who replied something about Soccer players having to be very good on their feet, before running off. Then with a few questions to Stella, she had found out that Carson was the friendliest player.

Emily was snapped back into reality when she heard Carson deliberately cough, and a mixture of the sudden silence in the room and his gaze being solely fixed on her, caused her to experience a bad case of word vomit. "I was looking at you, because I joined Glee club the other day, and we only have eight members, and we need twelve by the end of Friday, and Miss Holliday, the glee club director, asked me to try and get some people to join. So, I asked Tyler and she said Soccer players were really good on their feet, and Stella said that you were the nicest player that she knew, and when she pointed you out I recognized you from this class. So, I thought 'Hey why don't I just ask him next time I have Study Hall!' But then I got really nervous, and now I'm just babbling, and will you please join Glee!"

Carson blinked. Then he blinked again.

"Better be careful Aaronson. Leprechaun might be after your pot of gold."

He ignored the laughter that followed Abby's snide comment, as he still tried to absorb everything that the ash blonde had just said. She had been talking really fast, and had said a lot.

After a few more minutes, he cautiously turned his gaze back to her. "You want me to join Glee?" his voice was uncertain; he still has not idea whether or not he heard her right.

"Yes," she confirmed.

"I don't know what the hell is up with people asking me to join Glee today," he groused, rolling his eyes in blatant irritation. "Just like I told Hayley, I do not want to join the Nude Erections."

Emily widened her eyes. "If you don't want to join, that's fine. But there's no need to call us such a filthy name."

"What the Nude Erections? Fine. How about Pack of Losers? Or Ladies, Gays and in-betweeners? Or Homo Explosion? Those are just the alumni of nicknames for your club. You should hear what they say about you guys now," he hissed at her, through clenched teeth. He was so sick of people trying to dictate what he should do or what he shouldn't do. Then there's the fact that he actually wanted to join the club, but he couldn't. He couldn't do what he loved, because it would disappoint his parents. All of his bitterness was seeping into his words, and even no matter how many time's Emily flinched, he couldn't stop. "I'll join your club, when all of the testosterone leaves my body, and I decide that maybe being a Fairy pays better than actually having a job at Breadsticks. Until then, you can have fun dancing around to a Katy Perry remix of 'Ill never kiss a boy', okay Country Bumpkin?"

Tears started to form in her eyes, the sting of his insults piercing her skin like needles, but she couldn't handle crying in front of not only him, but the entire class. Perfection had slipped away from her for a moment when she started to ramble (one of her flaws she could never seem to shake), but she would not let herself lose face once more. "You can spit out insults at me all day, but it's not going to change."

Carson's face hardened, a single eyebrow shooting up in response.

His words didn't need to be vocalized. "I've met people like you before, people who are so scared of disappointment that they force themselves into situations they think are necessary, not situations that they want to be in. You're scared. That twinkle in your eye, the one that's hidden behind the hazel, that's hidden behind a mask, that's fear. You don't want to disappoint someone, whether it's yourself, or your siblings, or your parents, I don't know. But the thing is if you're always afraid of disappointing someone you're never going to truly enjoy your life. You'll wake up, and you'll be stuck in a job that you hate, making a stable income, hiding from disappointment, but also hiding from happiness," she supplied, letting her gaze hold his for a few seconds longer than necessary, before dropping his gaze and lifting herself out of the desk. "There's something else there, in your eyes. Not in front of, or in, but behind the fear. Something about yourself you probably haven't even accepted. Glee might not be the 'coolest' thing in school, or even remotely so, but we would've accepted you no matter what. But now you'll just continue living in constant fear. If you're always afraid, you'll never be happy."

Her voice has an air of finality to it, maybe because she doesn't expect a response, or even because for all that she knows this could be the last time she speaks with him. His eyes follow her as she walks out the door, the same second the bell chimes loudly, there's a certain feeling of fear that's pounding in his chest at the thought that somebody he's never met might know more about himself then he does.

She keeps walking through the hallway, pushing past the various kids all rushing to their next class. Her ears are ringing, and her stomach is twisting, and she's trying to ignore the little voice inside of her head.

'Hypocrite.' It screams, the little voice loud and ruthless, calling her liar, because she just lectured Carson on something she can't even apply to herself.

The second bell rings, just as she plants her two hands on the door to the bathroom and pushes herself inside, the sobs already overtaking her body.

Holly was quickly getting frustrated, as she watched the eight members carry out the performance that they had decided on in the previous meeting. She knew she shouldn't be, considering that most clubs had at least over a week to perfect a performance, but they only had this one practice, and then they had to perform in front of the whole school in the morning. They didn't even have enough time to put together some decent choreography, just a few arm swings and twirls.

After they had finished their eighth attempt at the routine, she shook her head, because despite it being much better than the first time, they still had a long way to go. "One more time from the top!"

Stella came out first, taking long strides. "You shout it out, but I can't hear a word you say,"she sang softly, gently resting her hands on top of her head before dropping her arms to her side.

Emily stepped out, glancing at Stella for a brief fleeting second. "I'm talking loud, not saying much."

Just as Stella dropped back, JT walked up, capturing Emily's hand into his own. "I'm criticized but all your bullets ricochet. You shoot me down, but I get up," He was supposed to gently pull her towards him, and then they would separate to opposite sides of the stage, but he pulled her a little too hard causing her to stumble.

JT met Holly's eyes hesitantly, not sure whether or not they were supposed to continue, or start again. She just nodded, and the boy melted back into the horizontal line at the center of the stage.

"I'm bulletproof, nothing to lose. Fire away, fire away. Ricochet, you take your aim. Fire away, fire away. You shoot me down but I won't fall. I am titanium," They all sing together, standing in the line center stage. Their movements are off, especially their arms (When Ellie raises her arms, Sawyer lowers his arms. When Ricky brings his arms to the left, Stella brings her arms to the right.) but that's not what Holly winces at. She expected the dance moves to be below par, but her major issue currently was with the vocals.

"Cut me down, but it's you who has farther to fall," Ricky belted out, taking four steps forward, as Emily and Tyler planked him on either side.

"Ghost town and haunted love," Emily intoned, gently placing her hand on Ricky's shoulder as she cocked her hip.

"Raise your voice, sticks and stones may break my bones. I'm talking loud not saying much," Tyler sang, as she copied Emily's movement on the other side, before they both moved to circle him, before dropping back into line.

"I'm bulletproof, nothing to lose. Fire away, fire away. Ricochet, you take your aim. Fire away, fire away. You shoot me down but I won't fall. I am titanium," The group sang again, repeating the exact same movements from the previous chorus. Holly noted, with a pleased smile, that only three of the five arm movements were out of sync, as compared to the previous five out of five. She patiently waited as the last three finished there parts, and the combined lines died out into the distance.

"Stone-hard, machine gun." Hayley.

"Firing at the ones who run." Sawyer.

"Stone-hard, those bulletproof glass." Ellie.

"You shoot me down but I won't fall; I am titanium. You shoot me down but I won't fall; I am titanium. I am titanium."

As the final note vibrated off of the walls of the auditorium, Holly quickly wrote down some final thoughts into her black notebook, before standing up and walking to stand in front of the eight teenagers.

They each stared back at her, a different expression painted onto each of their faces (annoyance, expectancy, embarrassment, indifference, etc.).

"I know I don't know a whole lot about pitch, or breath support, or diction, or dynamics. But I'm pretty positive that we suck," Sawyer spoke up. "I'm pretty sure that walruses giving birth sound better than us at this point."

"And how do you know what that sounds like? Does your mother happen to be a walrus?" Ellie asked, quirking a questioning eyebrow. Ricky from his place at her side let out a snort of laughter before unsuccessfully trying to cover it with a cough.

Sawyer feigned shock, as he melodramatically pretended to stumble, grabbing onto Hayley's shoulders as he asked, "You have a sense of humour?"

Holly shook her head as once again they got off base, and she backtracked as she flipped open to the page in her notebook where she had been writing. "The diction, or pronunciation of words, does need some work. One of you is a bit flat, and two of you are sharp. Currently we are on pitch, so that is a bonus. The choreography is quite a bit out of sync, but for one practice you are at the point that should be expected. There a few more minor issues, that we won't address until after the performance."

Stella let out a low whistle, running a hand across her sweaty forehead. "Is there anything we didn't do wrong?"

"But," Holly continued. "None of those are what's really ruining this performance."

"Then what is?" Tyler interjected.

"You're not acting as a team. Teams share the load; they share the work, the responsibility. The individual lines were fine, but when you guys came together for the chorus, you were all trying to out sing one another. You were trying to do better than the people next to you, when you should be trying to harmonize with them, and that was the cause of a few of you going sharp. This is a team, and if you guys remember that, tomorrow's performance should be fine," Holly responded. There had been a lot of issues in the performance, but all of them could be worked out in time, and in front of a bunch of teenagers who probably didn't have the ear to spot out those flaws, they would be fine. But teamwork was something that would either drive them to success, or strand them on the side of the road.

With a single motion of the hand, she gave them the signal to go home.

All she could hope for now was that somehow they would come together over night.

"If you're always afraid, you'll never be happy."

And with a moment of courage, he presses his pen down and jots his name down on the line.

*Glee Club Sign Up*—Auditions held Thursday 3:30pm, Choir Room

Carson Aaronson

A/N: And complete! It was really fun to write this chapter, and at first it started off as this one thing, and just changed into another. Because of the whole sign up sheet dynamic thing now, Holly will most likely see it next chapter, and then the people will come and audition in front of the whole club. So, even though I introduced Carson in this chapter, he probably won't make an appearance until 2 chapters from now, when he's a regular! I'm trying to balance out each character's writing, so if one character was more written in this chapter than another, than the other will be more written next chapter.

Review? :D

I'm also feeling moderately evil right now, so you do not get to know who is getting introduced in the next chapter. :)