Si Cela Est Noël
AnniKay

Sam/Mercedes/Puck

Disclaimer: I own Nothing…Murphy, Falchuk, and Brennen along with Fox and others own this fandom and all the characters there in…Anything you recognize obviously belongs to them

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Special thanks to Isis Aurora Tomoe who is my current Beta rock star
Summary: Winter Break for the College Sophomores of the Learning French Series.
A time to reconnect with family and friends.

Deck the Halls

Unique PoV

There are always people who swear that since I'm not an 'over twenty-one years old' adult, I shouldn't be allowed to go through my gender reassignment surgery. That since I am young, I couldn't possibly know what my true gender identity was. But what those people just don't understand is that I've always known that there was something wrong with me. One of my earliest memories was of looking at myself in the mirror, dressed in one of my mother's preferred little 'Boyz to Men' outfits and knowing that I didn't look like what I saw as me in my head. When my mother took me shopping, I gravitated to a section she told me I couldn't shop in. All the pretty clothes I saw and knew were meant for me, she said were for girls and I was a boy. I remember that the first time I told her no I wasn't she slapped me. 'I was her son. If God had meant for me to be a girl I'd have been one', she told me. That was the only time I was punished for saying I wanted to be a girl. But I always knew that it was true. Mom just decided that I really meant I was gay. Gay she could handle. Gay she understood.

I was gay too. I loved boys. Seriously…one of the weirdest things in my head was that I loved the thought of being a girl and licking and sucking and fucking penises…but the thought of having one of my own was completely repugnant to me. By the time I was seven…my family knew I was different. A lot of them had even accepted what Mom couldn't. My Aunt Wynn had a long discussion with Mom about getting me into a group therapy program for kids with gender identity disorder since that would make it easier for me to transition later. There was one in Columbus that Aunt Wynn eventually started taking me to when I moved in with her. That wasn't to say that my mother was still unaccepting of me…when I hit thirteen, the fact that I hated the way my body was developing and felt completely gross all of the time had really forced her to educate herself. So much so that by the time I was a freshman in high school, I'd started seeing a trans-friendly general practitioner and endocrinologist.

But then Rachel 'that muthafucking bitch there' Berry happened. I wasn't full time. I had barely begun the process of transitioning…but I was nowhere near ready for anyone outside my family to know about it. I was pretty out about being gay at school. I'd have needed a complete personality overhaul to even come close to being able to hide that facet of myself. I was kind of effeminate. Woo Lordy, every time I even think that big ass understatement, I cannot help but laugh my fabulous ass off. Any-who, the truth of the matter was that I wasn't ready for the world to know that I was born all wonky, and my mother sure as hell wasn't ready. She was still trying to convince me to go for a 'better' name than Unique for my post transition, female name. I still wasn't exactly sure how Berry found out.

Kurt was pretty sure that given my voice, Berry must have seen me somewhere, thought I was Mercedes and started stalking me. But there weren't many places that I was comfortable dressing as my real self at that time. I sure as hell didn't do it at Carmel. Still, considering that 'dat bitch crazy' I decided not to even try and figure out her mind. I don't do scary places for love nor money and you just know her mind is scarier than Camp Crystal Lake on a Friday the Thirteenth in October. I may have tried to stick it out. I was pretty used to being bullied. But then people started talking about firing my mom from her school board job for some violation of the morality clause in her contract. I was not having that. Especially since their insurance didn't cover my treatments and surgeries anyway…and Uncle Timothy's insurance would if I was his dependent. Mom had been fighting sending me to live with them and giving them what basically amounted to custody of me just to save money on my treatments and surgery. But with all that was going on with me at school and at her job, finding out that the insurance company would have to cover me even though the GID diagnosis wasn't new, thank God for Obamacare, and I'd have the coverage I needed until I was twenty-six years old.

So Mom and I moved me in with Aunt Wynn and Uncle Timothy after Vocal Adrenaline won their sectionals with me having a small solo. When I completed the transfer paperwork at what would be my new school, I asked to meet with Shelby Cochran to audition for the New Directions. It wasn't until I saw her that I remembered the rumors that she was Rachel Berry's birth mother. Still Aunt Wynn encouraged me to give Ms. Cochran the same chance I would want if I had a douche bag relative. I did and I was not disappointed. I even gave her an out letting her know that her daughter was the largest part of the reason for my transfer. She just pointed out that while she biologically had a daughter in Carmel High; legally, and for the most part, emotionally her only child was in a Montessori preschool. She invited me to see the New Directions in action the next day at their sectionals and said that if I was more comfortable being the real me, she hoped to see Unique there.

Of course, hearing that, Aunt Wynn and Uncle Timothy became her besties. She was kind of awesome for that. They encouraged me to go to the sectionals as myself, so I did. I will never regret that decision. Since I met the New Directions, I found a level of acceptance that I never would have thought possible in a town like Lima…definitely more than I'd ever experienced in Akron. Now, it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows at McKinley. There were plenty of people to tell me how wrong I was for being different. But the New Directions always had my back. A few times it was Momma-Cedes that came to my defense. Sometimes it was Kurt…those were the best of times…because if Puck, Sam, Lauren or Santana had to do it, I worried for the bullies' physical safety. Like for real though…one time Tana went into her hair and came out with a razor…that was for serious. I loved her a little bit for that. Then there was the time that Quinn was the only one around when shit went down. I resigned myself to being on my own. I should have known better. I'd been surrounded by three chicks who thought I was an abomination, I was trying to keep myself from snatching a bitch bald when a voice spoke words of truth. "Gail, you're just angry because Unique was born a boy and she still looks better in mini-skirts than you do. I would give you the name of my waxing lady, but I'd hate for her to have to cancel my appointment in a few weeks because she was still working on you, Sasquatch. Maybe you should try electrolysis."

That sent the broads scattering hither and yon like rats deserting a sinking ship. "Thank you." I said simply.

"You are a New Direction…and you're my soul-sister's protégé…of course I had your back. Besides, I'm the only one in this school allowed to make people feel bad about themselves." She gave me a smile then said, "Okay, maybe I don't do that anymore, and Santana's better at it than me, though I will deny that I said that until the day I die…so tell no one."

We shared a laugh and I didn't have to deal with those basic bitches again until the following school year. By then I'd become friends with Jake and Tessa, then Marley and eventually Ryder. Probably, I was closer to Jake and Marley at first than I was Tessa, even though she and I were in the same grade. I just bonded with Jake because he got the way I thought better than anyone else. And Marley was just waiting on her body to betray her and I'd always felt that way so I got her better than most. Since I was rarely, if ever, alone…and Jake got hella pissed. Tessa, along with RJC froze people out of the social strata for trying to bully me and then when some jocks cornered me in the men's room…which Figgins made me use because 'my birth gender was that of male, therefore I had to utilize the bathroom that corresponded to that gender. No matter how I felt about the situation. Yeah, when I told the New Directions, Jake and Ry got mad as hell. Ms. Cochran didn't let them leave the room to go and handle the assholes like they wanted to, but the next day, those same three assholes came to school looking beat for sure. I was seriously shocked when I overheard Ms. Shelby Cochran asking Jake, Ryder and Casey if they had found Lauren's super-secret beat down spot alright. My peeps were hot like fire and I loved all their skinny selves.

I had a far better high school experience than I expected to have. By the summer before my senior year, I had been on hormones for a year and a half. Since my androgen levels were somewhat lower than they should have been for my age when I started the female hormone cocktail of androgen blockers and estrogen, the changes were more pronounced than they could have been. It was also determined that it was a good thing that I'd 'stockpiled' some of my swimmers before I initiated the hormone program because soon after I did begin taking them, I stopped getting erections. Jake told me he felt bad for me…but I was happy as hell. I hated those damn things. To me they were just another example of my body's betrayal. Within a couple of weeks, I had nice soft skin. Granted I was a big devotee of the use of cocoa and shea butter and Lubriderm in any form so that probably helped too. Between the hormones and the fact that my friends all loved doing gym type things, my fat moved from love handles down to my ass and hips and up to my chest. I had been warned that it was unlikely that I'd develop more than a B-Cup chest size and it would probably take up to two years to reach that. Then again, I started as an A-Cup so there was that. I hit a B cup after about three months and then rolled up t couple of months later.

I was so very, very happy to hit that C cup bra…I almost lost my mind. It was ridiculous how many people I made touch my boobs. I was so happy to have them. I groomed as a woman. I dressed as a woman. I lived almost all the time as Unique and sometimes, I could, happily, almost forget that I had ever been Wade. But not all the changes that came about that summer were great. Over the course of the summer, we had a ridiculous encounter with two assholes who embraced every possible kind of bigotry. Jake and Marley broke up. I let Marley convince me that she had not had any part of why they broke up and so I decided that Jake had broken up with her because she wouldn't have sex with him…which in my defense is a HUGE theme in young women's literature, television shows and literature. Then I found out that Marley had been wrong. Jake broke up with her because she felt less than nothing for him while he was falling hard for her. And she couldn't even claim she did once I heard her reaction to Jake saying maybe they should take a break and they date other people. The fact that she honestly and truthfully didn't care if he dated anyone else…yeah…I'd have broken up with her too. So I let my friendship with Marley kind of drift and I rebuilt the one I shared with Jake…which, by the end of the summer built a lot of other friendships even tighter, Tessa, Joe, RJC were all very, very good friends. Almost as good as me and Jake. But nothing topped the relationship I'd built with Ryder Lynn.

Ryder was a hell of a surprise. I never expected someone like him to want someone like me. But he did. We'd actually started off as just friends. Other than Jake, who helped him learn what was stopping him from being able to read and learn, I was the first person he told about his dyslexia. He was the first person outside the immediate crew to stop referring to me as a guy. I kind of cyber stalked him a little bit at one point because…well it seemed like a good idea at the time. But I did stop short of doing something stupid and humiliating for both of us. I was able to be there for him when he told us about having been molested. I talked him into telling his parents and getting the help he really needed. We grew closer and closer. I learned how much I wanted him when he gave me a hug and my nipples got so hard they could be seen even with my bra, dress and cardigan. I had to admit that that was my very first reaction like that to a real person. It threw me. So much so that I tried to kind of distance myself from him for a minute. But when I did, it felt like I'd cut out my own heart with a rusty fucking spoon.

So what was a girl who needed advice on matters to do? I called Momma-Cedes and cried on her shoulder. I was shocked to find out that that same feeling of wonderful, visceral, scary want and desire was how she'd known that Sam and Puck were the ones for her. I decided then and there that I owed it to myself to talk things through with Ryder. That was a hard conversation to have. Though it was emboldening to find out that he was falling for me, just like I was falling for him. He just had a hang up with me still technically being a boy. I didn't get angry or offended by that one…I was having a problem with that fact too. So we decided that we'd take the knowledge of our deepening feelings and experience it as it happened but concentrate on our friendship. Any relationship that was meant to be would happen when it happened. It was a weirdly relieving solution. We hung out. We had fun. We talked and we learned each other's faults and foibles. Since we knew sex wasn't on the table between us at that point…we even made out a few times without things getting weird or awkward or anything.

I started my senior year in the best psychological shape of my life. I was happy with myself when I looked in the mirror. I was happy with myself when I looked at my peer group and friends. I was happy with myself when I looked at my report card. I was pretty ridiculously happy with my SAT score. I had somehow managed to pull a twenty-two fifty-five on the SAT and a thirty-four on the ACT. Ms. Pillsbury pretty much had all of the college bound seniors take both admission tests, just in case. For people like Tessa that turned out to be a great thing. She's aced the ACT with the perfect thirty-six. But she'd not freaked out and almost hyperventilated during that one. Her SAT scores the first go round had been seven ninety-six on the verbal, a perfect eight hundred on the written and five eighty on the math. When she retook it she went up two points on the verbal, down three on the written and came up a hundred and twenty two points on the math. That gave her a final reported total of twenty-two ninety-eight. The relief she experienced could not be quantified. Joe took each test just once and he prepped without doing the class, unlike me and Tessa. He came in just under me on the ACT with a thirty-three and blew us both out the water on the SAT with a twenty-three oh five. Yeah, he crushed it.

Joe and I were cool, but his sister worked my last natural nerve. That was alright…every family has one person who did so much dirt that when they finally find Jesus, they go crazy overboard. Probably because they knew that it was only the angels that made sure their asses made it through their own stupidity. Still when Joe and Tessa weren't out with Jake and Chase or hanging out by their lonesome, they were usually hanging out with me and Ryder. It was strange sometimes how I hadn't realized how much it had taken out of me trying to be Wade when I really was Unique. Right before Thanksgiving break, I got called in for a doctor appointment with my GID team, all of them my doctor-doctor, my psychiatrist and my endocrinologist. Mom, Aunt Wynn, Uncle Timothy and I met in Columbus and spent the night since the team said it would be a full day of meetings.

The meetings were held in Dr. NaToya Blackburn-Knudsen's office. She was my primary care doctor. She, Dr. Elena Meng, my endocrinologist, Dr. Emile Clark, my psychologist came in to the smallish conference room about fifteen minutes after we were seated. They were joined by two more doctors, an Ob-Gyn, urologist and a plastic surgeon who introduced themselves as Dr. Steven Grogg, Dr. Felix Christofiles and Dr. Terry Robinson respectively. Dr. Blackburn-Knudsen smiled brightly. "Unique," I loved the fact that she had never called me Wade after the first appointment. "We called you in today, because you've reached the point in your transition where we can move forward with your surgery. You've completed the mental and hormonal therapy requirements. You've been living full time as a female for twelve consecutive months. You've had enough positive and negative real life experiences that we feel confident saying that you understand the pitfalls and joys of being female. To be honest, you've done better dressing and handling beauty as a woman than I do and I was born one." She teased. "Considering that you turn eighteen in January, we believe that it is time to start the next step…the last one before we can schedule your surgery."

I sat there speechless for a long moment. My mom reached over and grabbed my hand but it was Uncle Timothy who spoke up next. "What's the next step?"

That snapped me out of my stupor. "Oh…yes…what's next?"

"You will need to have electrolysis of your entire genital area, removing all the hair well before surgery." Dr. Grogg explained. "Having hair regrow could interfere with the healing process."

I just shrugged. "I don't really know any of my friends my age or older, anyway, who still have hair…well except Lauren…she absolutely hates getting waxed." I blurted out honestly.

The doctors all laughed. "Well, then it shouldn't be a problem for you." Dr. Robinson added with a grin.

Dr. Blackburn-Knudsen smiled at me. "While you are undergoing the electrolysis treatment, you'll need to come in after you turn eighteen to sign the paperwork so we can get everything settled with your insurance company."

"While you are here for that, we'd probably go ahead and schedule your actual surgery. It's usually easier to get the approvals if we can present them with a date and time." Dr. Robinson chuckled.

Wow. "Wow." My mother said with a small smile. "It could be that soon? What about school? She's almost done with her senior year…then there is college?"

Dr. Christofiles spoke for the first time since he'd been introduced. "That is why we'd ideally like to do the surgery the Monday after your graduation, Unique. Given the length of your penis, we are able to use the penile inversion technique. Traditionally that method has a significantly shorter recovery. The surgery can take up to seven hours and afterwards you would be in the hospital for ten nights. Though if we can get Aetna to let us keep you for twelve to fourteen, ideally, we'd prefer to do so. That will allow for better pain management."

"I'm sorry but better pain management?" Aunt Wynn asked.

It was Dr. Clark who answered. "While Unique is in the hospital, they can help her manage her pain with options other than intravenous painkillers. The total reassignment surgery in Unique's case will include an orchiectomy, the vaginoplasty, as well as some fat transfer to sculpt her waistline and augment her backside. She won't need implants unless she decides she wants them after she is fully recovered…maybe even a year or so down the line. But still it will be quite a toll on your body. We'd actually give you a prescription of Celebrex to take starting on Saturday before you come to the hospital that Sunday evening. We'd manage your pain with morphine for only the first twenty-four to forty-eight hours, then epidurals for the next one to two days and then move you to oral pain relief. Given your age, we want to try and avoid some of the things that can lead to opioid addiction."

"Yeah, I so want to avoid that. This Diva in training is not trying to end up in nobody's rehab…or worse crack house." I told them with brutal honesty. "No…this Diva is meant for the highest heights, just like my mentor and spirit guide the Fabulous Diva Miz Mercedes Jones."

Dr. Grogg cut a weird look at Dr. Clark. "She's fine. She really does know all three members of KAMA, several of their band members, their stylist and most of their families. Unique is a member of the New Directions…the show choir they sang in before they were discovered." Dr. Clark assured the obstetrician who nodded in relief.

Aunt Wynn smirked a little. "Okay, so eleven days to two weeks in the hospital then how long at home?"

Dr. Robinson took that question. "Two to three weeks at home before she can really start getting a little more active. Not to say that she won't be getting up and a round every day during both her hospital and at home recovery, but after about six weeks, she'll be able to go to the bathroom again."

"So what, I can't use the bathroom for six weeks?" I squawked.

The adults in the room all laughed and then the doctors spent the next fifteen minutes summarizing the post op recovery timetable. It was kind of scary, but I looked forward to it. After the appointment, we had dinner and Mom came back to Lima with us to celebrate the holiday. Which was really awesome. I still had weekly therapy meetings, group therapy sessions, started bi-weekly electrolysis treatments and we learned more and more about what the surgery and recover would be like. It was going to be hard…according to one blog I read it hurt like childbirth but constantly and for the first like week or two. Then there would be the vaginal dilations that I'd have to do like three times every day to keep me from healing wrong. But the more I read, the happier I was that my penis, which I'd always hated, was the size it was because I was more than positive that the other method sounded so very, very, very, very much worse. Still, it was all going to be worth it.

Of course I shared all of it with Tessa and Jake and Joe and just the fam. The very next day, Mary Hart came over and she and Aunt Wynn work things out so that during my at home recovery period, Mary will come over and help out during the day so neither Aunt Wynn nor Uncle Timothy or Mom will have to miss a metric fuckload of work. I loved that woman in that moment. When I expressed my gratitude…she literally laughed in my face. "Darling, you're Joe's friend and you're a New Direction…that means we're family."

While she was there, I got her to read over my essays for me, one last time before I officially hit send. Tessa had applied to like all the schools, I'd literally googled for 'trans-friendliest colleges in the US'. There were ten schools that had either a four and a half or five-star rating from the LGBTQ college resource 'Campus Pride'. I applied to those ten schools and prayed that I'd like the one I got into. But with schools like Ithaca College, NYU and UCLA on that list, I was fairly sure that I would probably like it. I kind of did the stupid thing and applied to Princeton since it was on the list. But that one was actually on the bottom of my list. Ivy League scared me. I was a black, gay male turned transgender woman…no, Ivy League scared the shit out of me. This diva wasn't getting lynched by some rich, entitled white guy with an inferiority complex who took offense to my existence. I wasn't sure if that shit still happened, but like drinking from an open container at a Q party…I wasn't willing to take that risk.

Since Mom had come to Lima for Thanksgiving, we spent Christmas at home in Akron. I missed my peeps, but it was cool sleeping in my old bedroom. Granted I spent a lot of time cleaning it out for the post-Christmas sales redecorating that was my mom's Christmas gift to me. Wade's room was going to become Unique's room. My room at Aunt Wynn and Uncle Timothy's house had been decorated with Unique in the forefront of everyone's mind. The furniture remained the same, but we painted and changed all the pictures and posters and the bedding and just made it me. The food was amazing as always. The company was perfect. But eventually we had to go home. Since Jake and Tessa and their fam was in New York and Ryder was still visiting his family in Iowa, Joe, RJC and I hung out together to usher in the New Year. We babysat for all Joe's little brothers and sisters. It was cool. The Hart family was good people…other than that one broad. Still, no matter that the end was a little bit boring, I'd had a freaking fantabulous twenty-fourteen and I couldn't wait for two-thousand and fifteen because it was going to be the year of UNIQUE.

Many PoV

Rick Nelson knew that he wasn't the smartest guy. Being smart had never been that important to him. It didn't bother him at all that the last book he'd successfully read cover to cover was one of R.L. Stine's Goosebump books in seventh grade. When Puckerman punked him out for reading a baby book, he'd put those down and not picked up anything else rather than admit that he couldn't read anything harder and it had taken him almost a month to read that 'baby book'. He had never really liked books anyway. His father had put him on ice skates at three and Hank Nelson was determined that his boy was going to be greater than Gretzky. That had been Hank's dream. He'd even spent a year playing in the NHL before he'd gotten taken out by a career ending knee injury. He was determined that any son of his would live the dream. When Wayne, who'd been born the year after Rick got his first pair of skates, got on the ice for the first time when he was three and Rick was seven, Hank encouraged a fierce rivalry on the ice and a tight bond of brotherhood off it. He encouraged both his sons to live and die by aggression and the sport.

He did such a great job convincing his sons that life began and ended with hockey, that both Rick and Wayne decided early that learning or having good grades were unimportant in their world view. Their mother, Avelyn and all of their grandparents tried to tell them how having good grades would improve their likely hood of going to a good college with a great hockey program…thus bettering their chances of being drafted to the NHL…but they were sure that all they needed was to be better than 'the Great One' or 'Super Mario' or 'Mr. Hockey'. Rick never doubted that he was just that good. He just knew that he would go to college on a hockey scholarship, get drafted by the NHL and 'live the dream'. He'd been well on his way; captain of the hockey team both his junior and senior years, scouted by the best hockey schools. Guys had come all the way from Boston to see how he handled the puck. Rick had ended up with his choice of schools.

Ultimately, he had decided to go the same college as his dad and the greats; Keith Magnuson, Cliff Koroll and Glenn Anderson. Once he made his decision and completed the acceptance paperwork, Rick had thought he was home free. So much so that he'd stopped paying the nerds who did all his homework. Granted, he only paid them but making sure they weren't slushied, swirlied or otherwise bullied…too badly, but he pulled his protections from all of them. He'd been so positive that nothing could stop him, he'd even graciously given Figgin's but-her face secretary back the blackmail pictures he'd taken of her engaging in some immoral behavior with the school janitor that he'd used to get her to change his grades when even the nerds couldn't help. After all, they couldn't actually take the tests and exams for him. He had managed to graduate, but as far as he was concerned that was a sure thing. Hell, even Puckerman had managed to get his diploma with their class. And that fool didn't even bother to use his good looks to bang teachers for good grades and he'd stopped getting chicks to do his homework for him during their freshman year. Yet, despite the fact that as far as Rick believed, Puckerman was a real idiot because he took a full course load of hard ass classes the badass playboy had graduated and gotten into a major school. Still, even if Zizes had the fullest of full rides to OSU for wrestling and Hudson had that football scholarship and Puck, Evans, and Jones were going to some prissy school in New York, nothing could convince Richard Henry Nelson that he wasn't destined to be even more successful than any of them.

At least, he'd been positive of that until that July afternoon, the summer after graduation when he'd come home to a letter from the University of Denver. When he opened it, he had done so believing that it was simply the sports camps summer schedule. Coach Montgomery, the hockey program's head coach, had told Rick and his family that he usually ran a camp for freshmen to work on their conditioning and stamina. When it hadn't been from the coach or the sports department at all, he took it to his younger sister for translation from nerd to something he could understand. Drusilla had been born when Rick was nine and he'd never particularly cared for her. She was smart and could read almost before she got her first pair of skates. He'd given up on her completely when she decided that she didn't like any of the sports their father tried to get her into. "Hey Dork-silla," he chuckled at his 'witty' remix of her name. "What does all this mean?"

She quickly read it through once, then again before dissolving into slightly mean laughter. When she could breathe again, Drusilla looked up at her brother, "It means that I can have faith in the state of the American collegiate education system again." Her ensuing laughter was filled with vengeful delight.

Rick made a threatening move towards her before he caught himself. The one time he'd hit his sister their father had beaten Rick's ass so bad he couldn't sit for a week. Hank Nelson may have been an asshole and a prick and a bully…but he didn't believe that any male should touch a woman in anger or to hurt her. It was probably the only measure of decent humanity he'd tried to instill in his sons. That was the real reason Rick had never admitted who had knocked out his teeth. If his father knew that he'd been bullying and harassing a girl…the pain in his mouth would have been the least of his worries. "What the hell does that mean?"

"It means, PuckHead, that they are revoking your admission to the University of Denver because your last semester GPA was a 1.25. Wow…did you do anything after Christmas break? Between that and your final behavioral report…no third strike. You're just out." she shook her head and handed him back the letter. "Look, I'm gonna call Amy and see if I can sleep over there tonight. I don't want to be home when you give that to Daddy. Want me to text Wayne and let him know that coming home is a bad idea too?"

All Rick could do was nod then he headed back to his room to try and figure out if there was some way he could avoid telling his parents. Unfortunately by the time they got home from work, the house was empty and Rick had not come up with one, single idea. He gave them their twenty minutes of silent down time that they had trained their kids to give them after work before heading out to face the disappointment and anger that he was sure to experience. He tried to hit and run, give his dad the letter and get out the house before he could read it. But Hank Nelson wasn't a slow man, not mentally or physically. He had the gist of the letter in a second and grabbed his fleeing son by the collar as Rick tried to rush past. Hank handed the letter to his wife of almost eighteen years. "Richard…what the ever-loving hell did you do?"

Rick sagged in defeat and more than a little fear. "I play hockey…I don't do all that other school stuff. Once I was in…we'd signed all the paperwork and I was going to school to play hockey. So I stopped holding the guys back from making sure the nerds who did my homework knew their place at school." No way was he stupid enough to mention the very illegal actions he'd undertaken with Figgin's secretary.

"So, wait, you've basically been paying people to do your school work?" His mother gasped.

"And you were still only making Cs." His dad asked angrily.

Rick looked down at his scuffed sneakers. "Yeah, they couldn't really take the tests for me." he muttered.

Hank shook his son by the collar of his shirt. "Rick…you're telling me that you've been getting by having other people do your schoolwork and couldn't even be bothered to study for the damn test? You thought you were home free…so you stopped protecting them from your meat head friends. But you couldn't even keep up the bare minimum to keep your scholarship. So now you have no prospects…no future…no nothing. If you think you're gonna sit your ass around this house…you've lost your damn mind. In this house you're either a student or a worker. So, since you already had your fun, you have two weeks to get a job. And it better be a decent one. If you're gonna live in this house…you're going to pull your own weight. Two hundred bucks a month in rent and you can take over the cable bill every month…that's another two hundred."

"Hank…" Avelyn began gently. "Let him have a month to find a job…it's a tough market out there and he only has a high school diploma." Rick felt his heart sink. He'd hoped that his mother would have taken his side. "Oh, and you're grounded for the rest of the summer. The only way you can leave this house is to go and look for work, but most places you have to apply online anyway…so you probably won't be going out all that much. Maybe now you'll stop harassing your sister for actually doing her school work and getting good grades. I've been telling you since you were a child that you had to do well in school if you wanted to do anything in your life. Well, I guess now you'll believe me. I suggest you let your brother know so that maybe…just maybe he won't screw up his life too."

Over the next month, Rick found that his parents were serious. He didn't get to leave the house other than to go to church unless he was heading to an interview. He finally found a job at the Fairfield Inn. It was only a part time front desk associate position, so to make the money his parents said he had to pay to stay at home, he looked for a second job. Eventually he got a more regular nine to five as a receptionist for a day care center and then he moved to the two am to seven am shift at the hotel. Even with both a full and a part time job, he had less than a hundred and fifty bucks left after paying the cable bill and his 'rent'. Once he paid his car insurance and for the gas to get back and forth to his jobs that was usually down to fifteen or twenty buck. At least paying rent meant that he didn't have a curfew. Though working nights, six days a week and having a full time job Monday through Friday didn't leave him for much time to do more than sleep.

Many people who'd found themselves in similar situations would have accepted the responsibility for their actions and choices. Many people who'd found themselves looking at a bleak future due to their own lack of accountability would gain a backbone and increase their work ethic. Rick hated having to hold down two jobs and have no fun. He hated the fact that most of his classmates were gone and only coming home for breaks and holidays. He hated seeing them across the desk at his job when he couldn't afford a night at the hotel he worked for even though it wasn't a higher end chain. Rick hated himself, but was, quite honestly, too conceited and selfish to ever internalize that hatred. Instead he turned it outward. He began to blame others for his own short comings, his own lack of success. He seethed in rage and loathing and projected culpability as he saw his classmates become more and more successful. It was made even worse by the fact that it wasn't just the famous trio that had success. Michael Chang bragged all over town when Mike's grades came out. Hank and Avelyn could only shake their heads. Mike and Rick had once been teammates on a peewee hockey team. They couldn't understand how two little boys who had started off so equally could have such divergent outcomes. Hank Nelson never thought about his own culpability either.

So while the world moved on around him. Rick became bitter. While he brooded, Wayne worked hard to raise his grades and Drusilla excelled beyond anyone's expectations. Primarily because, though she was an avowed nerd, she found McKinley to be far less hostile to people like her than it had been just the year before. She found friends among the school's newspaper staff and even submitted a few poems and a short story to the literary magazine. She joined the debate team and several other clubs. Very few people at the school even realized that she and Wayne were related, though he had put out the word that the new nerd with the mousy brown, waist length hair was not to be touched or bullied in any way so the smarter jocks figured it out quickly enough. Eventually Rick reached such a level of acrimony that even his siblings' success was a slight against him. By the summer before his brother's junior year, Rick was ridiculously spiteful. Hence, why he encouraged Wayne, Bree and their friend in their idea to harass Jake Puckerman and his friends. He went along with them, rather than sitting back to watch the fallout as had been his plan, because Bree's friend gave him a blow job to gain his cooperation.

That idea had ended poorly for all involved. Rick had had been arrested and charged with simple battery. He'd managed to get a fine he couldn't pay, and time served. Thankfully it was a misdemeanor charge, so it didn't affect his job at the hotel. But the day care center fired him because he 'had a criminal record'. It took him three months to find a job working the day shift at a gas station near the hotel. He'd changed hours at the Fairfield Inn when he was finally able to take the promotion he'd not been able to accept due to the rigid hours associated with the day care center. The 'promotion' moved him up to a full time evening shift that paid a whole eight dollars and twenty-five cents an hour. Bree and her friend had been kicked off the Cheerios by Jake's very, very irate big sister. And Coach Sylvester backed Tessa on the move when she and RJC told her it was either Bree and the other chicken head, or them, Sue liked their initiative and wasn't a fan of either Nelson brother. Wayne was not kicked off the hockey team, but he wasn't elevated to captain in his junior year either.

Summer drifted into fall and fall cooled into winter, and the holiday season was upon the Nelson household. A few days before they drove to Missouri to spend Christmas with Avelyn's family, Hank and Avelyn pulled Rick to the side. "Alright, Rick…for the past two years, you've seen that it's almost impossible to get by in this world with just a high school diploma. So we think it's time that you start looking at going to community college or a trade school." Avelyn said to her oldest child with a motherly grin.

Hank continued where she left off. "We've saved your rent money every month, that should get you through two, maybe three semesters. You keep your night job and go to school during the day. We'll buy your books and whatever you need this first semester…next semester if you have at least a B average, we'll foot the bill for that stuff again. That will be the way it works until you finish school. You work hard and make good grades and all you have to work for is to handle the cable bill and for spending money. Maybe when you finish the two years at community college, your grades will be high enough to get you to the next level and you can get a bachelors."

Rick looked at them in almost confusion. It had taken his father months to look at him without cursing and now they were…what, trying to help him? 'Then again,' a voice reasoned inside Rick's head, 'maybe they've been helping you all along.' "Can I even go to a community college?"

"You'll probably have to write an essay convincing them to give you a chance and take some remedial classes. But Dru says she'd help you with the essay if you need it." Avelyn smiled gently. "I know we were hard on you Rick, but if we hadn't been…you'd have still been mucking around acting like the world was your oyster rather than knowing how to work for what you want."

He wasn't sure what to say and he had learned a lot from the struggles that he'd had since he lost his chance to be more than a Lima Loser. Still he was carrying a lot of resentment. "Okay, I'll try and get in for the fall." He told his parents, surprised to see relief on their faces. All through the Christmas holiday, Rick was pretty quiet. His family assumed that he was thinking hard about how to get the second chance at higher education he desperately needed. But the truth was Rick was trying to figure out how to avoid it. He'd envisioned going to a real college where there would be nerds he could force to do his work…not a school where everyone there was just like him, only more devoted to their education. After the two days he had off for the holiday, he returned to both his jobs and he looked for ways to leave Lima behind for good. The year hadn't been great for Rick 'The Stick' Nelson, and the following one would be no better unless he found a way to learn from his own mistakes.

New York was a very cold city for a man who had no friends and served only as a false friend, false comfort or empty pleasure. Will Schuester was a man who readily made acquaintances, but rarely made true friends. He'd lost those he'd made in Lima through his own foolishness and lack of care for their feelings. He hadn't made any in New York. However, in the three months since Will had completed his probationary period with the 'firm' he worked for, he had very much found and settled into his niche. While many of his co-workers were young and extremely attractive and buff, like Brody who had recruited Will, they were better suited to a different aspect of the business than the former Spanish teacher. Standing a nice, above average at six foot even, with his light brown hair, changeable green eye and tepidly handsome face…he looked like 'that one guy' everyone knew, a nice looking, guy next door. Most of the men employed by the 'firm' were walking, talking wet dreams Will and a few others filled a different purpose. They were perfect 'boyfriends'.

He still had his 'afternoon delight' clients who paid his rent, but like his coworkers in his 'division' of the firm, the regulars of Will's client base consisted mainly of women who were considered by society to be plain or even ugly. They were more often than not uninterested in a sexual partner, instead needing a mildly attractive man on their arms at social functions and family gatherings. As New York entered the Holiday Season, Will found his calendar completely filled for the first time since he'd started working in his current avocation. Between office parties, friend group holiday gatherings and family dinners he sometimes had two bookings per day. The 'firm' provided their employees with a fitness center where they could work on keeping their bodies in peak physical condition and have some place where they could socialize among themselves since it wasn't like they could speak about their jobs with people in their normal social interactions. It was in the employee fitness center, few days after Thanksgiving, that Schue received some advice from one of the other gentlemen in the 'boyfriend' division.

"Willie-Fly, since you haven't done this over a holiday before…let me hip you to some game. First of all…keep your story simple and believable…but you're gonna want to google the details for sure. I know you used to be a teacher…but do not use that as your background gig…teachers don't make much scratch at all. Try something boring that people are not going to want to know more about like an accountant. Nobody will ask you anything beyond, 'wow, tax season must be a bitch'. Even other accountants don't want to talk about that job. That being said…go online and read a couple of indeed articles or blogs that tell you what accountants actually do. Just in case you need to pull that knowledge out your ass or something."

"Wow, Herman, thanks. I hadn't thought of things like that." Will said honestly.

Herman Washington looked much like the black version of Will Schuester; attractive but not too much so. Tall, but not too tall with muscles that were defined, but didn't look threatening or as if he spent his life in the gym. "Yeah, but you also want to have a few different bios in your head. Shit, I have a spreadsheet that basically outline my five 'different' bios and which of my clients get which persona. It's good to have because New York is the biggest city ever and yet there are always times I run into some overlap. The good thing about guys like us is that we look like everyone, so it's kind of easy to convince people that they are thinking of someone who just shares a few features or something."

Will was mentally taking notes. He had learned the lessons he'd failed to understand when he was at McKinley. When someone who has been doing the same job for a lot longer gave him advice…he should listen. "So five would be enough?"

Herman nodded. "Yeah, more than that is too confusing to me. I can't remember the details of more than five. But by the same turn, less than three is just not enough to really cover your ass." He smiled wickedly. "The last thing is only really useful this time of year or if you get called on for like a grandparent's birthday…women never want to go around their hot sisters and cousins alone when it's time to go to Nana Ethel's ninetieth…but make sure you take at least a small gift. Doesn't have to be expensive, in fact, you really shouldn't spend more than forty or fifty bucks. But never, never ever never, show up empty handed. It makes your clients look like their 'man' doesn't have any ready cash. That is not a good look for them and it sure as hell isn't the one they are forking out an ass load of money to portray."

That actually made a lot of sense to Will so he thanked Herman for the advice and when he finished his work out he showered and changed and headed straight to the Target he had found in Brooklyn. He had glanced through the dossiers for his engagements for the week but soon realized that personalizing the gifts to personalities was not only not feasible but completely silly since the gifts may well end up in someone else's hands. Instead, with a small, sad grin Will decided to get gifts that would probably go over well universally and that meant something to him even if none of his clients or the recipients would know that. Will had a total of five office parties, four during the day and one early evening dinner party, and five family gatherings that coming week alone. He bought ten copies of 'Necessity 4 Existence., ten copies of KAMA's 'ChristmaKah' and five copies of the blue ray DVD of 'SongBird'. He grabbed some holiday unspecific wrapping paper and a package of silver bows and checked out. When he got back to his Hell's Kitchen apartment, he painstakingly paired one each of KAMA's debut and holiday albums together and wrapped them carefully. Then he wrapped the five DVDs separately to act as hostess gifts for the family gatherings.

Will liked the thought of finally doing something to help the kids he'd always cared about. He knew that they didn't really believe that. He even understood why they didn't believe it. But the truth was that no matter how much he had, very wrongly, played favorites, he had cared for all of his New Direction Kids. When the debut album had dropped he'd had to do without his usual hair products to buy a copy of it…but he had done so. He'd gotten a copy of the Christmas album for himself as well, but over the course of the holiday season, he bought forty-one of each CD and twenty-one of the DVDs. In his heart, he knew that even if the kids never forgave him, he would always support them by buying their records.

After attending the first of his office parties, Will had completely understood the magnitude of the information Herman had shared with him. Having a solid background story in place and gifts in hand elevated the clients' cache among their peers, friend and family. In turn, the women all tipped two, and in some cases three times as much as they normally would have. The Monday before Christmas, Will's small gifts paid off in huge dividends. The upper level executive at Colgate-Palmolive for whom Will was playing 'boyfriend' that afternoon at her division's Christmas Party was a big KAMA fan. When one of her employees had opened Will's contribution to the gift grab, the man had laughed and showed everyone what Ms. March's boyfriend had given for the grab. "Were you a KAMA fan before you two met…Ms. March LOVES them. I didn't think anyone loved them as much as she does. You two are perfect for each other." The entire assembled room shared a nice, warm laugh and it was very easy to see that many of the people in the room were looking at their leader with a bit more respect than before.

Very happy with the outcome of the party, Ms. March, a relatively new client of the firm Will worked for, had tipped him over a grand for just a few hours of work. After the end of their 'date' she had ushered him into her office and pulled up her personal calendar. She booked Will's services for all her business events where she would be expected to bring a date and even just those where it was reasonably possible that a date could improve her standing and status. "William, how far in advance would I need to schedule something should the need arise?"

"My firm requires five days' notice for meetings of one to five hours but seven days' notice for overnight engagements for me." He answered, almost by rote. Certain things were drilled into the escorts' heads during their training and one of those was the required amount of time for scheduling appointments. Not only did it make the clients believe that the man was in very high demand…but it also made them more willing to pay the exorbitant fees associated with a short notice booking. "Otherwise we can schedule things further out as we just did…or if you choose, you may make a standing reservation. Those are especially useful if you'd like to ensure my availability for overnight stays."

Daphne March looked at William Schuester and thought for just a moment. She knew how she appeared to her employees and her employers. During her previous yearly review, she had basically been told that while her dedication was valued, they didn't like the fact that she seemed not to have a live outside of her work. "Colgate Palmolive really is a family oriented company", was repeated several times. That was the only reason that she'd approached the firm that employed Will. She didn't want the burden of finding, vetting and dating someone. Daphne knew who she was. She was a nerdy, workaholic of a woman. She wasn't beautiful, tall and lean. She wasn't pretty and petite. She was of average height, average build, average looks. But her intelligence, attention to detail and work ethic were all far, far above average. She was only thirty-nine years old and she had already fought and clawed her way to the position she currently held as the VP of global oral care. Part of what had helped her to be so successful was that she wasn't concerned with all the things most women her age were concerned with. She didn't want a husband, had no desire to have children, no need either. Her parents had had three children, her older brother had two sons and a daughter and her younger sister had taken the whole 'be fruitful and multiply' a little too literally.

While Daphne enjoyed many pleasures, especially designer shoes, clothing and French wines, she had never possessed a strong sex drive. Interactive sex two or three times a year with self-maintenance in between suited her fine. Still, Will Schuester was reasonably attractive, but not so much so that people would find it unbelievable that they could be in a relationship. He would suit her needs perfectly. "I would like to book you for one overnight stay every quarter of the coming year in addition to the dates we've already agreed upon." She finally stated. She preferred Saturday to Sunday so as to not impact her work weeks. That far in advance, Will was able to work her around any important family dates, like his parent's coming thirty-fifth wedding anniversary weekend and his own birthday weekend. Happily, they parted ways and Will was actually rather pleased with the thought of utilizing his training with that particular client.

He was booked up through the weekend after the New Year began. Then he had decided to take a week off and visit his parents, since he'd worked through the holiday. Will Schuester was fairly sure that he finally felt like the adult his age made him legally. He was shocked by the fact that it had taken a year of the highest highs and lowest of lows to make him understand that acting like mature man was entirely different from actually being one. He could only hope that two thousand and fifteen would be his year of repentance…he knew his New Directions needed the closure and the truth was that so did he.

Christmas in prison wasn't anything like Christmas outside the tall concrete walls, but at the end of the day it was still Christmas and the effort was made at some institutions to allow the inmates feel the holiday cheer. Ohio's Northwest Community Corrections Center was not really one of those institutions. Their nod to the holiday was extended visiting hours and a Christmas dinner that was comprised of stuffing, corn, pie and large Cornish Hens. The kitchen staff was kind enough to fill the prisoners' trays up to capacity and they were allowed their feast. But the big feasting came afterward. If there were no fights or drama during the meal the guards looked the other way as the kitchen workers smuggle everything that wasn't chained down back to the units. Later that night after the Christmas meal it was possible for any prisoner with something to trade to get pecan pies, ice cream and more Cornish hens. As long as it was gone by morning, and there were no fights or anything to bring extra attention to the unit, none of the guards said a word.

That one day of semi-pleasant ness would be the last one Shane Tinsley would have for quite some time. His father and mother had visited separately. It had taken his mother quite a bit of time to be able to do so, but she'd finally managed to squirrel away enough money to leave her verbally, physically and sexually abusive husband. She had even taken out a restraining order against the elder Tinsley man and the guards at the prison had been very kind about helping her see her son on Christmas without having to deal with his father. Upon hearing that his parents were divorcing, Shane got very angry. Fortunately for him and all those on his unit, even Tinsley knew better than to show his ass on Christmas. However, the next day, all bets were off. Tinsley managed to end Boxing Day in solitary.

That was extremely unfortunate for him, since the Chaplain received an email saying that Tinsley had been the one to kill Paul Puckerman in such a heinous and vicious fashion. Given that it had been well over a month and the guards' investigations had gone nowhere, they took the chance that the anonymous tip may have been correct and searched Tinsley's cell. Inside the small six by eight-foot cell, they found minor contraband, including some candy and a pack of cigarettes, things they had expected to find. But they also found much more illicit items like a smart phone, steroids and two handmade shanks one made from an old toothbrush and one made from an old spoon. The sharpened toothbrush handle looked clean and unused, but the wrappings around the handle of the sharpened spoon were clearly bloodied. The cell was stripped of all personal items and Tinsley earned an extra three days in solitary for the cell phone and the drugs.

It took several weeks for the Ohio State Police to determine that the shiv found in Tinsley's cell had been the murder weapon that killed Paul Puckerman. Which then gave them probable cause for DNA testing to verify that the semen found inside and on the victim matched Tinsley. That process took longer still. Despite having gathered the evidence before the new year began, it was half way through twenty-fifteen before the Ohio state's Attorney General office got the trial date set. Trials of prisoners were much more perfunctory. They were usually handled quietly and without media or very many witnesses. By the time the case had come to trial, Shane Tinsley had spent more time in administrative segregation…or solitary confinement…than he'd spent out of it. Two days had left him very angry so he'd beaten a guard. Then the news that he'd raped a fellow prisoner hit the still vengeful guards and he was given more solitary time. Upon his conviction for second degree murder with a sexual component or motivation, Shane Tinsley went from having served half his sentence to having added another thirty years to his original term and he was moved to a much higher security prison. It would take some time before his victim's family would find out that the man who killed Paul Puckerman would serve his sentence at Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown. Shane Tinsley would have best been served by remembering the Chinese proverb about those who seek revenge… "When one begins a journey of revenge, start by digging two graves: one for your enemy, and one for yourself."

As usual I implore my readers to let me know what you like or hate about this Chapter. I had to do an entire ton of research for this one, so let me know how it worked.

If you're an American, Tuesday is Election Day. Every person over 18 must Go Vote!

If you're not an American, Pray for Us.

TTFN,

Anni