Who is this king of Glory

That fills me with his love

Jericho sat at the piano in the empty rehearsal room. He had planned to be alone, made sure this was one of the auditorium rehearsal days for Mr. Schue's club. He liked the room when it was quieter, not that he was ever there very often.

And haunts me with each hearing

Of his softly whispered words

He wasn't trying as hard as he could at church, Jericho recognized that. He also knew what he had told Mr. Schuester and Ms. Pillsbury about his work in choir. Truth was, it wasn't just a transcript buffer. His work in gospel had meant something to him. It had meant a connection with his father, the kind of thing that his mother couldn't pack away or sell. Not like she hadn't tried though.

My conscience a reminder

of forgiveness that I need

Jericho hadn't been much for instruments besides his voice. Sure, he supposed he could pick one up and learn it studiously. He had even toyed with the idea. But he liked the idea of leaving the magic of the instrument intact all the more. He knew enough to play simple melodies, not much more than that. More would be too much like dad, whose fingers ghosted over the keys. Who looked at him approvingly the first time he had a small solo in that almost crowded cathedral.

He is the King of Glory

He is everything to me

"You know, you are quite good."

Jericho's fingers slipped from the keyboard as though they were never there, at the sound of the compliment. He put his arm over his eyes to look as though he had been resting instead of concentrating too hard on the notes.

"You snuck up on me."

"Thanks dude, but its pretty hard for a guy in a wheelchair to sneak up on anybody."

"How you doin' today, Artie?"

Artie wheeled to a stop beside the bench where Tinkles usually sat. "Can't complain. Too much homework, not enough time to work on the rhyme. You know how it goes."

Jericho gave a half-hearted smile and a shrug. "I suppose."

"You know, not to be a ball buster or anything, but you don't have to avoid our table during lunch, Jer."

Jericho shook his head earnestly at Artie. "I promise that I'm not avoiding you guys. I appreciate the invite. I'm just kind of ...a loner. Plus, gotta study for calc. Its one of the few classes that I probably need tutoring in."

Artie thought for a moment. "Hey, there is always a free seat if you change your mind. And let me be the first to invite to you the Glee guys poker night on Thursdays after practice."

Will was walking down the hallway with sheet music when he heard Artie's voice in the practice room. He moved slowly down the hallway, peeking in at the not quite familiar voice seated at the piano. He gasped when he saw that Jericho was in his practice room with Artie. He stayed positioned to eavesdrop.

Jericho chuckled, putting the lid down on the piano. "How many times do I have to remind you guys that I'm not in Glee?"

"But you could be, if you wanted."

Jericho took a deep breath. "I promise I'll think about the poker, no other promises though."

"Alright. I just came in to pick up my bag, then I'll be out of your hair."

Artie rolled over to one of the chairs with his backpack on it. He plucked it up, placing it on his lap, and then turned expertly toward the door where Mr. Schuester was hovering, hoping he could hear an in. All he needed was an in to pry open the door on Jericho. There was something in his eyes that told Will that he needed glee club, even if he couldn't admit it to himself.

Jericho mumbled to himself and then shut his eyes, bracing himself for the dumbest question he had ever asked. "Artie, wait. You got a second?"

Artie halted at the door. "Sure, what can I do for ya?"

"Rachel Berry is lead female vocals here, right?"

"Yeah. Of course, she'd be mascot of the club if she could be. But she doesn't have what Journey, Mercedes' fish, has."

"Scales?"

"The ability to not talk every once in awhile."

"So...she's good?"

Artie rolled his eyes. "That's not the point. She knows she's good and sometimes, thats great. Like at Sectionals, but at other times...its all I can do from grabbing one of Kurt's bedazzled gloves and shoving it down her throat. Why do you ask?"

Jericho nodded to himself, sighing. "Just taking a poll."

"Look, man, you can be honest with me. I'll have your back."

"Alright. Its just...how do you deal with it?"

Artie shrugged. "I ignore her mostly. Its just that...well, you learn to. We're all pretty much either overpowered or annoyed by Rachel Berry and you just kind of get used to it. Is that what this song is about?"

"Kind of. You see, I was digging around in a sheet music bin and I found a dog-eared copy of this song. I'd love to do it for church cause it was...its special, got a great melody and its a good chance to get a couple guitar players involved in choir stuff. But theres this soprano..."

"Talk to the director. As much as Mr. Schue favors Rachel, he tries to help others. Even if subconsciously he always wants to give her and Finn the leads."

"She's interim director though and our choir master went to college with her. They've known each other for longer than my parents had even been at the church."

Artie wheeled over to the sheet music, furrowing his brow. He spoke when he finally looked at Jericho. "Its a great song and you've got a really good point about getting guitars involved. Maybe you could even use me and the jazz club as a gimmick? Its worth a shot to hear what you can do."

Jericho picked up the music and held it close. There must have been something in it that he didn't see. Artie was already heading toward the door when he put it back on the piano. Will was bolting down the hallway so that Artie wouldn't know he had been eavesdropping and so he could come back in from the same direction as the auditorium.

His name is Jesus

Precious Jesus

God Almighty, King of my heart, King of glory

"I think you should take Artie up on his offer."

Jericho sat, his legs extended across the large space where the window had been in the sill. A bag of Oreos sat between himself and Quinn. She was sitting, feet planted downward, on the other side of the window. He had never intended to befriend Quinn, but that one test dive had turned into a tutoring opportunity and then to lunch once a week. She had bargained him down by saying she was glad to have a friend "after the fact." Didn't take a genius to figure out what she had meant. Plus, what guy can refuse a girl that shares Oreos with him?

"Don't you think it sounds tacky?" Jericho countered while licking the frosting off of the middle of his last cookie for lunch.

Quinn noted out of the corner of her eye that Rachel was leading Finn on while they were eating lunch yet again, practically drooling and blushing and doing all those annoying feminine things that made Quinn want to gag up her Activa strawberry yogurt. She turned to look at Jericho. "Look, you've got someone who might deserve to be the best because its the thing that everyone thinks she's better at. But if you've got one chance, one moment...you gotta grab for that."

Jericho turned the licked cookie over so she could see the frosting was gone in record time and then he popped the chocolate victoriously into his mouth, coughing out of the unexpected exuberance. "Food for thought," he choked out over the muffled sound of cookie.

Quinn just shook her head at the general nerdiness of boys. "We should get going to class."

Jericho finally got a breather from the Oreo of death. "Right. Going my way?"

Jericho sat up, humoring everyone since they thought that Jericho was head over heels for Quinn anyways. He extended his arm with a flourish, Puck pretending as though he didn't notice and Finn not noticing since he couldn't see over Rachel's head anyways. Matt and Mike were arm wrestling and Kurt was keeping score, so he couldn't even scoff at the assessment at the moment.

"What a gentleman," Quinn pretending to fawn over Jericho's gallantry and they walked out of the cafeteria with her arm placed delicately in his own. They were headed to class when they passed the announcement board and Quinn had to stop to check and see who was on the list for the different prom courts.

Jericho folded his arms. "These things are rigged you know."

Quinn shrugged, turning from the board to Jericho and back again. "Can't help it. This was my life for a really long time. Call it a character flaw." She continued to scan and Jericho only turned to see when she gasped.

"What?"

"Look at King's Court."

It took Jericho a moment to find it on the yellow sheet. He had already assumed that all three Cheerio Gleeks were nominated for Queen or Princess or whatever and that Kurt might have been thrown in there. He saw Finn's name once, but it wasn't what he didn't see that made his heart jump. It was what he did see.

Jericho didn't get over the shock of nomination right away. It didn't make much sense to him and by the time that he and mom had sat down to dinner, he was almost convinced that it was either a joke or a throwaway nomination and, transcript or not, he wanted no part of it.

It was chicken Alfredo with broccoli that night. Mom had put mozzarella in the dish, dad's favorite cheese. Jericho was suspicious. She only made chicken Alfredo for semi-special occasions.

"How was your day at school dear?" She asked while trying to glance discreetly at the clock.

"Fine," Jericho mumbled. He had already moved on from joke nominations to planning the Saturday soup kitchen fund raiser with the krispy kremes at the policemans relay. It would be like shooting two birds in one barrel. Wait a second, Jericho thought, that metaphor doesn't sound correct.

"I'll get it," Jericho's mom jumped up when the doorbell rang and nearly sprinted to the front door.

"If its the Jehovah's Witnesses again, tell them we've already been sold our tickets out of the 144,00," he called back out to mask his suspicion. And he was right to be suspicious.

Rossi entered right behind Jericho's mom. Of course, Jericho mumbled to himself. To be fair, Rossi wasn't bad looking and she was pretty much throwing herself at him. Her chestnut brown hair was a pretty long length for how wavy it was without getting tangled and her jean skirt matched her white tennis sweater with blue braiding to perfection. Even her overly white and yet adorable hint of buck teeth seemed normal and almost fetching.

"Rossi, how nice to see you. But we're in the middle of dinner."

It was a long night after that. Rossi was trying to cozy up to him or get in league with him or some such nonsense like that. She probably thinks she's losing me to Quinn, if the rumors have reached Mt. Carmel, Jericho thought. Problem with that is that she never had me to begin with.

Jericho was as patient as he could stand to be until the third time she had insinuated that he had really planned to try and usurp the worship leader. As much as he did want more solo time for himself, he wondered exactly how many people were under this same assumption. Its though people wanted intrigue over the commonly known fact that she always took time off in the summer for missions trips.

It was only after she left with her flow charts and romantic ideas that Jericho felt like he could breathe again. He sat at his laptop on the dining room table, his mom in earshot of the clicks. She was pretty adamant about keeping his computer in plain sight, most likely in case she thought he was checking out something less than savory. His mom really did live under rainbows of delusion.

The instant messaging chirp popped up in the middle of his Google search. It was a name he didn't quite recognize.

Titanqb27: hey, is this Jericho Phin?

Mrbkworm: yeah...who's this?

Titanqb27: This is Finn Hudson, from McKinley.

Mrbkworm: how did you get my AIM?

Titanqb27: From Quinn. She said she didn't think you would mind.

Mrbkworm: Okay...what can I do for ya, Finn?

Titanqb27: Dude, I just had to tell you how psyched I was that you got a king's court nom! Congrats

Mrbkworm: Thanks, I guess.

Titanqb27: What, you're not excited?

Mrbkworm: Not really. I think I'm the joke nom.

Titanqb27: That's even better then

Mrbkworm: ...

Titanqb27: Then you can show'em how cool you are. You do a ton of stuff around the school.

Mrbkworm: So, you think I should take this seriously?

Titanqb27: Absolutely.

Jericho made a little clicking noise on the inside of his mouth. If Finn thought it was a good idea, there was a chance it would backfire. Finn was more optimistic than Jericho liked to choose to be. But if Quinn had cared enough to try and convince Jericho through Finn, then maybe it was worth it to try. Even Jericho could admit that being Court King would look pretty good school spirit, and transcript, wise.

He sat back on his chair in the dining room, looking at the blinking cursor. He made a casual fist, resting his lips against one knuckle. If he were to actually take this seriously and host a campaign, he would not only have to take his opponents seriously but the idea of school spirit. It occurred to him that people probably thought he already had Titan Pride by virtue of the fact that he did so much behind the scenes.

Nothing was farther from the truth. Jericho talked longer with Finn about nothing in particular and he went to Google search to look up stuff on McKinley High after he had closed the messaging box for the account that Quinn had urged him to get if she needed homework help. What can Jericho say? He's a sucker to help people succeed who want it.

He furrowed his brow when he saw the link to the Sue's Corner youtube vid. He had never actually watched Sue's Corner, the nightly news made him way too jumpy and paranoid, but he figured if she was any indication of what people at the school actually liked, then he had better brace for impact and watch the video.

What Sue said was shocking and underhanded. Jericho's lips never moved from his knuckle. He was entranced by the rubbernecking that she produced through these segments, an obvious ploy for attention. Did she believe what she was saying? Further, what was the underlying implication there? Jericho was more inclined to believe that she was being sensationalist, and that made sense. No better way to grab Ohioan ratings than to implore to the fear mongering demographic that looked to blame others.

He knew it would be like playing with fire to talk with Coach Sylvester. She had a history of being unhinged and unpredictable and it wasn't as though Jericho had ever had a reason to talk to her before.

"Coach Sylvester, could I have a moment of your time?"

She turned at the sound of her name. Sue was wearing her light blue track suit that hugged her nonexistent curves with headband and bad Raquel Welchian sunglasses. The sound of a whirring Magic Bullet could be heard in her hand.

"You have ten seconds to tell me who you are and why I should care."

Jericho felt a dark thrill talking to Sue Sylvester. "I'm here to talk to you about how you see things," he quipped, juggling the books in his hand so he could make the c with his thumb and index finger.

"I'm listening."

"I know that you have no idea who I am and I might as well be any lemming to you, walking around the hall and kowtowing when you walk by. But I have potential to do a lot of good things. I want to get out of this one horse town and I need to win Kings Court to do it. Thoughts?"

"Let me stop you right there, Jericho. Yes, I know who you are. But I should tell you that you're wasting your time and you can't win."

Jericho quirked his brow. "Really? Are you going with reverse psychology?"

"No. And I'll explain why. Step into my office."

Jericho tried not to bat an eyelash at the office cum shrine to Sue Sylvester's success. He was temporarily blinded by the shine of the trophies and scuttled his way to a seat before she had allowed him. When she finally sat, Jericho thought of a shark bearing down on its prey.

"Here's the reality of the situation. You are the darling of this school. The teachers talk about you like you're the second coming of Bruce Willis. They are enamored with your brilliance and everything that you do to keep this school running. They gush about you. Its disgusting."

"Whats so wrong with that?" Jericho shrugged. "Its simply a product of my personality."

"Yeah," Sue agreed while folding her arms. "But the difference is that the kids out there, lemmings as you put them, don't gush about you. You wanna be popular? You don't have what it takes."

Jericho chuckled. "Still sounds like a challenge to me."

Sue shrugged. "Its not. Now, you have somewhere you need to be Somewhere that's not my office."

Jericho knew that Sue was right. He could look around and name five brands of clothing that he'd never wear and five stores in the mall that he'd never buy them from. If he had an iPod, it would probably be stocked with hours of music that would make most kids cringe and wrinkle their noses at. Jericho entertained the idea of just giving up on the whole farcical idea.

"Why in the world did you talk to her?" Quinn asked at lunch. "You know that she's manipulative."

Jericho shrugged as he munched on a carrot. "I thought it would be a good idea. I mean, if I wanted rainbows and sunshine, I would go to Mr. Schue or Ms. Pillsbury. But Coach Sylvester gave it to me straight and she's not wrong, you know, in her own way. I've had absolutely no vigilance about what my generation likes. I've only just recently even heard about Lady Gaga."

Quinn shook her head, a renegade bang falling across her brow. "You have to take anything she says with a grain of salt. I mean, look at the people she gets to follow her."

Jericho thought for a moment. "Besides the obvious, why did you do it?"

"I don't know," Quinn shrugged thoughtfully, looking over at Santana and Brittany. "I guess those reasons don't matter as much now as they did then. Having a kid puts things in perspective."

"What a way to gain perspective, though."

"Agreed," Quinn nodded.

May's Song Selection: "King of Glory" by Third Day