Disclaimer: I don't own Glee.

Long time, no post! I've recently had some life-changing experiences and I apologize for not getting this up and ready sooner. My bad. I hope you guys don't necessarily hate me after what I did to you in the last chapter. But please, bear with me and I promise there's a silver lining to all this. Forgive me and as always, enjoy.

"So I was going through my bucket list and I noticed that I haven't slushied you yet," Azimio chastised, holding two full cups of red slushie.

"Damn near-broke his heart," Karofsky taunted.

Artie gulped. "What about the moral implications of abusing a kid in a wheelchair?"

"I say, equal opportunity for all," Azimio replied, initiating the first launch. The icy liquid hit Artie square on the face, causing his shoulders to recoil.

Anne's mouth dropped open and she pushed past the football players, throwing her books down and standing in front of Artie in an attempt to shield him.

"Stop it! What are you thinking?" she yelled. She silently thanked glee and Sam for breaking her out of her shell in the first place-otherwise she might not have been able to speak up.

The football players chuckled. "And who is this little pretty thing?"

Karofsky scoffed, "It's that ' kid sister. You know him, the queer that dated the Jewish midget last year."

"The kid with the funny curly hair?"

"That's the one," another replied.

One of them moved closer to Anne, making her slightly uncomfortable. "You're lucky we used all of our ammo on Wheels. Next time, it's you."

Another player snickered, "I don't know about that, she's a pretty young thing. I can think of other things to do to her instead of slushying her."

She made a disgusted face. They were sickening. Anne waited until they retreated down the hallway to turn and face Artie.

"Artie, let me help you," she said.

Artie took off his glasses, a frown plastered on his face. "Assholes, they're all assholes."

"I know, I know," she replied. Anne picked up her books and placed them on Artie's lap before grabbing his wheelchair and wheeling him in the direction of the nearest bathroom.

"You just have to move your feet really fast," Tina instructed to Mike. She was trying to explain a new dance move she'd seen the other night on TV. The bell rang just as Anne wheeled Artie in. He was still shivering.

"Oh my God, Artie," Tina said, noticing the red artificial stains all over his clothes.

Brittany gasped and quickly moved to join Artie and he shook his head in horror.

"It was awful-they just bombarded me in the hallway. All of them."

Anne sighed, letting Brittany take over as she shook her head. "They were just surrounding him like a pack of wild animals."

"They said some pretty disturbing stuff to Anne, too," Artie added. Anne bit her lip, wishing he'd kept it to himself.

Sam stood up. "What?"

"Artie-" Anne started.

Artie ignored her. "They said they'd rather do other stuff to her than slushie her. God only knows what they meant."

"I know exactly what they meant," Sam said, furious. Anne sighed. This was exactly what she wanted to avoid.

"That's it!" Finn exclaimed, shooting up from his seat. "This ends here and now."

The other members that were jocks also stood up and followed Finn's lead to the door.

"We're going to go all thunderdome on those guys," Puck added.

Quinn hid her face in her hands. "I wish he'd just stop the violence."

"Sam-" Anne tried, grabbing a hold of her boyfriend's Letterman jacket. He looked back to her.

"They had no right, Anne. You know it," he said.

She sighed. "I know. But violence doesn't solve violence."

There was shuffling in the doorway and a voice boomed, "So this is what the ladies room looks like."

Sam turned, his expression annoyed. "This is the choir room. Now put up your fists because you and I are going to do some dancing."

The football player who'd made the snide remark laughed. He actually laughed.

"I've got this, Sam," Finn said.

Karofsky rolled his eyes. "Look, Coach Beiste told us to come. Where is she?" he moved around a plastic cup and Artie kept eying it. Karofsky seemed to notice because he snorted. "Relax, nerd. It's water."

"Everybody take a seat," Coach Beiste commanded as she came in. Mr. Schuester motioned for the guys to take their seats as well.

Once everything was settled, Mr. Schuester said, "Please welcome the newest members of glee club."

Everyone erupted at once. "WHAT?!"

"QUIET!" Beiste shouted.

"Mr. Schue, there is no way that I am singing with the guys that made Kurt transfer!" Finn exclaimed.

Rachel nodded. "He drove Kurt away, Mr. Schue. I am not sharing a choir room with a known homophobe."

Mr. Schuester nodded. "I understand your stance, guys. But Coach Beiste and I believe that the kind of bullying Dave does is born out of ignorance. Him, as well as the rest of guys, being in here is a chance for them to see that being in glee club is actually kind of cool."

"All of you are going to be in this club for a week, no exceptions."

"She's bluffing," Karofsky said. "Next week is the championship game. Without us she has no team."

"With you I have no team!" Coach Beiste argued.

"If I stay in here, I ain't singing no show tunes!" Azimio argued back. "That is the music of my oppressors."

"Do you even have any idea what we do in here?" Finn questioned.

"No, none of them do," Mr. Schuester answered. "We have to show them. Quinn, Puck. Weren't you guys working on something?"

Quinn's eyebrows scrunched together. "Well, yeah but that's just on our downtime when Beth isn't craving attention."

Puck shrugged. "I'm down for it if you are," he told her.

Quinn looked back to the football players. "Fine. But I'm doing it for the sake of music, not for them."

"I like those zombie moves. How about we go back to the choir room and have at it with zombie makeup?" Mr. Schuester said.

Azimio protested but Coach Beiste pushed him in the direction of the masses anyway.

Fifteen minutes later, it seemed like both teams were kind of, sort of getting along while applying copious amounts of stage makeup.

"I'm still mad at him," Sam said as Anne applied some red tints to his cheek. For makeup newbies, the zombie look was looking pretty terrifying.

"I know," Anne said. "But I don't want anyone to fight. It was a stupid comment-I'm sure he wouldn't actually do anything."

"You don't know that," Sam replied softly. "These guys, it's like they think they own the world or something. They do whatever the hell they want."

Anne took the blending sponge and began to dab it on his cheek. "Well, nothing is going to happen."

Sam's hand softly grasped her wrist, halting her movements. They made eye contact and he let out a deep breath. "I don't want anything to happen to you. I can't let anything happen."

"Sam," she said. "They're stupid boys and contrary to popular belief, I do know how to defend myself if need be. But please, I need you to stop worrying and being angry over something that was just meant to disturb me. Me. Besides, if any of them do try something, I can always kick their ass."

Sam chuckled lightly. He felt her lips brush his briefly.

"And if bad comes to worse, I've got you to kick their asses for me."

He smiled. "Damn right you do."

Kurt had just finished making a joke about how the Warblers were going to show up New Directions at Regionals when he frowned.

"Guys, relax. I'm just kidding," he said.

"I know, Kurt," Mercedes said. "It's just kind of hard to laugh with everything going at McKinley."

"Not to mention personal struggles," Rachel added.

Blaine and Kurt's shoulders slumped a bit.

"I mean, look at us. The stars of two rival show choirs sitting down and drinking coffee? Our school is so messed up we can't even keep our football team together."

"It's so sad, you guys. Coach Beiste were so close at getting everyone at the school together. "

"Why hasn't Finn told me any of this?" Kurt said. "For crying out loud we live together."

"Maybe it's all those warm glasses of milk you bring him every night," Blaine commented, sipping on his coffee. "Freaks him out, probably."

"That's preposterous," Kurt said. "Warm milk is delicious."

"Finn's too proud to complain to family," Rachel said. "He always tries to keep things inside and try to be strong, but you can see it takes a big toll on him."

Mercedes nodded.

"And the worst part is how bummed the guys are. They get so much crap just by being in glee. I really think that winning the game could ease some of the pressure-at least for a little while."

"Wait, so the whole team quit?" Blaine asked.

"Everybody not in glee," Mercedes explained. "Only five guys are on the team right now and one of them is in a wheelchair."

"The truth is, they just need four more guys so that's a good sign, right?" Kurt offered.

Rachel gathered an idea in her head. Maybe they could recruit some guys, any guys, to play. Maybe the ones that wanted to play were too chicken to sign up with Coach Beiste. Maybe they needed encouragement.

"Well, whatever happens, we'll be there to support you guys," Kurt said. "We love football."

Mercedes gave him a look.

"Well, Blaine loves football. I love scarves," Kurt elaborated.

They were losing the game.

Despite the girls' help, they were losing the game and nobody could remedy the situation. Karofsky along with the rest of the team had backed out of the halftime number. They'd chosen to not participate in the game because they couldn't get over their petty high school ideals.

And that was something Puck couldn't stand. His own girlfriend and mother of his only child, Quinn, had chosen the Cheerios rather than staying in glee because of Coach Sylvester.

No more. Puck thought. No more bullshit.

He walked into the locker room toward the end of the second quarter. Somehow he knew that the rest of the bozos would be in there.

"Looking good out there, Puck."

"I don't want to hear it, Karofsky," Puck bit back. "I don't want to hear it from any of you. You're all a bunch of cowards! Coward losers!"

"You're the only loser loser in this game," Azimio retorted.

Puck rolled his eyes. It was beginning to piss him off; the way Azimio said his comebacks. "You do realize that this is it. This is the moment of our lives. This is the one we can actually look back at and tell our children about. This is our moment to actually win something! And you guys are sitting in the damn stands like a bunch of whiny cowards."

The room stayed silent.

"You're so afraid of being called geeks, nerds, or losers-that you settle for being nothing. Absolutely nothing. We still have a whole half to play and I know we can win this," Puck stated.

"What's the point?" Azimio said solemnly. "You're losing so bad, we can't come back from this. Especially if Beiste has us off the team."

"You can be on the team again if you do the halftime show with us," Puck said.

"I'm in," Azimio said finally. There was a collective murmur of agreements.

"No way," Karofsky objected. "I'm not going out there and singing like a pansy."

"Come on, man," Azimio said. "I really want to win this game. It'll mean so much to my dad."

"No way! Glee club sucks!" Karofsky protested anyway. He was beginning to sound desperate but Puck didn't have time for him to come around.

"Alright, Karofsky's out. The rest of you, let's get your zombie makeup on."

"I just won the Conference Championship," Karofsky said. "Why would I want to change things?"

Finn had relayed Karofsky's words to the rest of the club and, to their dismay, it seemed like the school drama was dying down to its regular status. They would still get picked on by the football team. They would still get slushied here and there.

But something was different in the club itself. It seemed like the strings had become fragile while others had become stronger; more secure. The team as a whole was doing good. They were in talks of the Regionals set list already. But individually, the strings among them were thin, ready to break at any given moment.

Rachel could swear that it felt like the calm before a big storm. A storm that would not be remedied easily.

So she decided to wait it out. Wait out the silence until something happened. Jesse hadn't returned any of her phone calls, texts, emails or Skype messages. Rachel had tried to get Anne to relay messages to him but he would just ignore the topic or hang up on his own sister.

Part of Rachel was beginning to lose hope that Jesse would ever hear her out.

"Don't give up, Rachel," Anne had said. "I'm sure he'll come around and realize how dumb he was to not listen."

"Yeah, he is pretty stubborn," Rachel had responded.

Anne had given her a sympathetic smile. "Everything will be fine."

When Andrea Cohen had heard that Jesse St. James and Rachel Berry had broken up, she knew something was very, very wrong with the world.

She had immediately called up Jesse and heard his side of the story-although it seemed like he had sufficient evidence to prove that Rachel had looked like she'd been cheating, the actual possibility of the Berry girl to actually do such a thing wasn't plausible.

So, being the natural sleuth that she was, she began to investigate. This was her time off from college classes (thanks to her credit-earned hours in high school, she only had to take three academic classes for a semester-the semester was now over).

She had asked and asked but it seemed like the only people aware of the St. James-Berry troubles were herself, Jesse's sister Anne, and the respective two people in the broken relationship.

Well, shit. Andrea thought as she headed up to the former St. James residence. Since Jesse's father had died, the house had gone to Jesse's mom (but they were divorced, you say. True. But Jesse's father hadn't changed his will in ages).

Andrea rang the doorbell and was greeted by the woman. Although she had seemingly become a "widow" in society's eyes, the woman held a sort of earthly glow.

"Andrea! Dear, it's been so long. How's Jesse?"

Andrea shrugged. "Heartbroken. I assume you heard of his break up with Rachel?"

The woman paused her movements briefly before returning to normal. Andrea had caught it, though-it was strange.

"No, no I hadn't. What a shame, I liked her."

"Yeah, me too," Andrea said. "If it wouldn't be too much of a hassle, can I get a glass of water? Crohn's disease..." she said. She didn't have Crohn's-it was just an excuse to get the woman out of the foyer.

Jesse's mother retreated to the kitchen and Andrea waited until the clicking of her heels were far enough to where she was assured it was safe to snoop in the office.

Andrea rummaged through the desk quickly in hopes of God knows what. Maybe Jesse's mother knew more about it-something about the way she had reacted told Andrea that something was funky.

Finally, a red note caught her eye. It had two names and two numbers written on it. Before Andrea could properly assess the note, the heels were sounding closer and closer. She grabbed the note, stuffed it into her pocket, and reappeared in the foyer.

Jesse's mom handed her a glass of water and Andrea took it gingerly, gulping it down and then handing it back.

"I just realized that I have a doctor's appointment-" Andrea started. "I really have to go, sorry. I totally forgot."

The woman laughed dryly. "Understandable with college and all that. Have a safe trip, my dear!"

"Thanks!" Andrea said unenthusiastically as she shut the front door. Once she was safely in her own vehicle, she took out the red note and looked at it right.

Two names. Two numbers.

Santana Lopez.

Giselle...

Now we're in a crap-sandwich, Andrea thought slowly. Because this doesn't make any sense...

For the sake of all of our hearts, I'm going to combine elements of the original couple of episodes that followed this one into two chapters. It condenses the story and it makes us all feel a bit better, yeah?

-Fanatic4Fiction