A/N: Hey! :)

Ok, so in the grand scheme of things, this chapter is not overly important (but don't skip it haha!) but the aim of this chapter was to establish some friendships.

I intended for this to be quite a short chapter since I didn't even intend to write it. It just kind of came out the end of my pen haha :) However, it ended up being just as long as the other chapter lol ;)

Alright, I'm going to shut up now and let you all read it! Let me know what you think!

xoloveJBox

Chapter 5

Nikki stomped angrily into the choir room, brandishing a freshly graded paper.

"If I fail one more English paper because of my spelling, I'm going to flip my lid." She announced to no one in particular.

"I'm sure your spelling can't be that bad Nikki. Let me take a look." Rachel offered. Usually, Nikki would have been a little embarrassed over her bad grade, but she was in too much of a bad mood to care, and she thrust the paper into Rachel's outstretched hand. Nikki sat with her arms folded irritably while Rachel scanned the essay, with Quinn reading it over Rachel's shoulder.

"Well there's your problem Nikki, you're not using the American spellings of some of these words." Rachel told her matter-of-factly, noticing a pattern between all the words underlined in red.

"I know what the problem is Rachel, I just don't know how to stop."

"It can't be that difficult, right?"

"I'll tell you what, why don't you take a letter out of your name Rachel, and see how long it takes you to learn the new spelling. Then times it by however many words are spelt differently in America." Nikki said bitterly, but when she saw the almost hurt look on the other girl's face, a part of her anger ebbed away and was replaced with a sense of guilt.

"I'm sorry," she murmured "I'm in a bad mood. I didn't mean to take it out on you."

"If you want," Quinn interjected, "I can look through your essays before you hand them in, to make sure you haven't missed any spellings."

The offer surprised Nikki. In the weeks since she had joined New Directions, the pretty, slender blonde had barely said two words to her. When they had spoken, it had mostly been pleasantries, and they hadn't had a real conversation.

"It's ok" Nikki dismissed casually "It's not just English anyway."

"I don't mind." Quinn told her. Nikki found herself wandering if the suggestion was a genuine one. But looking carefully at Quinn's face, Nikki could tell that she was serious, and frankly, it shocked her.

"Are you sure?" she queried, unsure whether to accept this unexplained act of kindness.

"Yeah, it's no problem." Quinn told her, laughing a little, finding Nikki's scepticism slightly amusing. When Quinn thought about it, she could remember a time when she would have reacted the same way, and it wasn't really so long ago.

"That would be incredible." Nikki told her.

"We can help too, if you want." Blaine and Kurt added. They were sitting just behind the two girls, though Nikki hadn't been aware that they had been listening. It took her by surprise to see that their conversation had dominated most of the room, and the majority of people were giving her nods of compliance.

"Us too." Agreed Artie and Tina.

Nikki found herself to be speechless. She couldn't explain the seemingly random act of kindness that was happening to her. Ever since she had arrived, she had faced pretty much constant ridicule over her accent at school, and she had lost count how many times she had been told to 'go back to where she came from'. It didn't seem to matter to people that her father was from Boston, and her mother was from Alabama, so she was just as American as the majority of the students at McKinley. Her parents had moved to England when her older brother Tom had been two, and Nikki had been born just a year later. Nikki knew just as much American history as she did British, and her parents had always pushed her to pursue things she enjoyed, which was one of the main reasons she could speak so fluently in not only Spanish, but French, German, Italian and Polish too. There were not a lot of things that Nikki would personally admit to being good at- she didn't like to appear big headed and she felt uncomfortable talking about herself- but languages was definitely one. However, Nikki knew that no matter how much she wanted it, being good at something like speaking foreign languages was not going to make you fit in with the 'it' crowd. Nikki had no interest in being a cheerleader, she didn't keep up with the latest fashion trends, celebrity gossip bored her, and she didn't listen to current or mainstream music. While she may not have been completely comfortable with herself, Nikki accepted that she was who she was, and she liked to think that no one could pressure her into changing herself unless she wanted to.

The look of shock must have been evident on her face, so Quinn simply continued without waiting for Nikki to respond.

"I know what it's like to be an outsider everywhere you look Nikki. I'm sure we all do, and I don't know about anyone else in here, but this choir room is the only place that I always feel like I fit in. I want it to be the same for you" Quinn told her quietly, in a voice so soft it was hard for Nikki not to find it soothing. "It's come to our attention that you maybe haven't received the warmest of welcomes, and we probably could have made more of an effort to change that. We're all sorry for that Nikki. You know, we all talked about it, and we want to make sure you know that we're family. A very mismatched, slightly dysfunctional family, but a family none the less, and you're a part of that."

"You're one of us now Pretty Mama," Mercedes told her, laughing with a broad, cheeky grin. "Whether you like it or not."

Nikki gave a wide, ecstatic, beaming smile. She couldn't help herself. She looked around, and every face was turned to hers. Nikki was completely blown away by what had just happened, and she loved it. It was the first time in longer than she cared to remember that she felt at ease anywhere. And she had to admit that she liked the sound of what Mercedes had said.

One of them.