Disclaimer: I don't own Glee or any of its characters. I do, however, own Maria Arioso :)

A/N: I opened up my inbox the other day and was AWED by the response. So I took the time to write out another chapter, just because so many of you amazing people took the time to review. Big thanks to romangst, clouddreamzz, grangergirl22, Gleeeek, BabyTigerVampire, Glowbee St. James, umbrellaleg, Chilipeppers1980, spizle, RUMad, karlymorrig, Buffy-Obssessed, k-la15, tori348, onesmartmess, Achelette, tsketch, kbells, sapphiclove21, clenche, sillysah, breaking on the inside, bandie3565, m-cooper, babygirlicetee, MysNiWol, bluhawk, RandomOtakuFromTumblr, BrittanaCan'tCook, JustNerd, patrishis, Kitfah, Gleek Faberry-Achele Fan, HappyLaura, randomkeyboard, Musicmakesmehigh, slamdimekicks, Dartee, always-smile15, Stessa, pumpkin514, Sannie, Laila The Lost Princess, celebritygrl09, RunningHome72, sugarspiceandnotsonice, Omgoth, Talk2Someone, aquarius127, smartblonde317, and Music and Reading Lover for their amazing support. I DEFINITELY wouldn't have written this chapter so soon, if not for all the overwhelming amount of positive comments I'd gotten. If you'd like to see more, then just leave a review when you're done reading, yeah? :)

Chapter 2: Haunting

"Are you sure that you want to do this, Rachel?"

A question Rachel's father continually asked for the past two months, ever since his daughter decided to carry out this decision.

A decision to live a whole year with her other Father, Leroy, in Lima, Ohio. A decision to leave him in San Diego, alone. A year without his heart, his little star. A year in which Leroy might convince her to stay.

A year in which he might lose someone so near and dear to his heart all over again.

There had been yelling. There had been tears. For a moment, it almost seemed like five years ago all over again. But Rachel knew her Papa. She knew exactly how to soothe his worries, and exactly how to reassure him that she would always come back to him.

Rachel never wanted to leave her Papa. He'd been good to her through the years. Given her everything that she needed. Held her when she cried. Reassured her, given her everything a teenager could have ever needed.

But Rachel needed her Daddy. This was something she had to do. Because there was an emptiness in her heart which could not be filled without seeing Leroy Johnson again. It couldn't be filled until she smelled his sand-oil cologne fresh against her nose, or the feel of his large, gentle hands grasping her fingers in their reverent hold.

Five years. Five years since giving her Daddy, Leroy, that one last kiss on the cheek before she boarded the airplane bound for the sunny state of California.

Five years since Rachel's naïve, argyle wearing, boisterous personality faded from existence. Since the little girl that Hiram doted and spoiled so transformed into the introverted, yet solid teen that stood before him in the sun-drenched and white-washed LAX terminal.

"I'm absolutely sure, Papa," the girl soothed her father, placing her arms around his stocky shoulders. Reddish brown eyes found their way to a tear-filled, matching set as petite hands smoothed the front of Hiram's blazer. "You know this is something I have to do."

"I know, my heart," her father replied, smoothing wavy brown bangs from his daughter's tanned forehead. "But that does not mean that I am ready to let you go."

The girl laughed, tears sparkling fresh in her eyes. "Papa, I'm not leaving you. It's just one year. And a year can go by so quickly. You and I both know that."

Hiram breathed a shuddering sigh. Yes, the years did go by so quickly. The first few months in San Diego had been hard for the two of them. Rachel was just as friendless at her new school as she had been and Belleville, and Hiram struggled to find a medical practice that would need his expertise. There had been plenty of crying on both ends, and an endless array of nightmares.

But things changed. Rachel's clothing dimmed to the wear of a casual teenager, and the bright sparkles in her eyes died and gave way to quiet resignation. It killed Hiram to see his daughter's star die with each day, but Rachel started to bring home friends from school, and a smile finally started to work its way across her face again. He got hired after a few odd end jobs, and finally things fell into place.

And now Rachel was leaving him.

The girl, as though sensing his anxiety, linked fingers with her father and smiled gently. She reached into the pocket of her corduroy jacket and pulled out a badly wrinkled photo of the two of them.

"Papa, you're always with me," she said in that wonderfully musical voice of hers, pressing a kiss to his tear stained cheek. "You're the person who's always looked after me. You gave me everything. It's just a year, I promise. I'm never going to leave you all alone. You raised me, and you've been so good to me."

"I'm just so worried about you, sweetheart," Hiram's eyes fell to the floor. "Lima was never good to us. You and I both know that. I don't want you to get hurt anymore."

"I don't want to be hurt, either, Papa," Rachel replied. "But if I don't do this, I'm never going to gain any closure. I need to see him again. And you know he wouldn't do anything to hurt me. You can at least trust him with that, right?"

"Yes, I know," Hiram clasped the girl's hands to his chest. "He'd never do you wrong, kochav, never. But promise me that you will be careful… Lima is filled with intolerant people, and they are not kind to people who are different."

And that was something that Rachel remembered all too well. The faint shadows of taunting and teasing that she'd been subject to during her twelve years in Lima.

The people she knew were a haze, yet the jeering and mockery she'd endured were still fresh in her mind. It was a sort of specter that haunted her all the way to San Diego, where she endured similar treatment the first few months in her new Middle School.

But Rachel wasn't afraid anymore. She could deal with this sort of thing if it meant seeing her Father again.

The gate call rang out throughout the airport, jarring the father and daughter from their individual thoughts.

It was time.

"I have to go now, Papa," Rachel whispered softly. She pressed a final kiss to her father's cheeks, tears settling in her eyes and falling down her cheeks as she embraced him, taking in his scent.

"I love you, my beautiful Rachel," he dotted her cheeks with small pecks, withdrawing from the embrace. "Call me when you arrive… and be careful."

"I will be, Papa…"

The brunette slowly backed away from her father, fighting to hold back the oncoming wave of tears. She could do this, she had to do this. She would see her Papa again… she would.

And so, with a final wave to Hiram, Rachel turned and walked into the gate. She walked out of her safe, wonderful life, and into the past.

Back to Lima, Ohio.

Lima, Ohio was just as small as Rachel could faintly remember it being.

In fact, it seemed even smaller than Rachel recollected. But she chalked it up to the fact that a.) she'd been pretty small the last time she'd been here (not that she'd grown much taller within the past few years…) b.) San Diego was a huge, sprawling metropolis in comparison to the tiny, quaint streets of Lima.

So when the plane landed in the middle of an airport in the middle of nowhere, Rachel put her best foot forward and resolved to adjust.

The first thing that caught her, though, was the radical change in weather from San Diego to Ohio.

Though the sun was high in the air, and there was not a single cloud in the sky, the air was frigid and unpleasant. Almost as though a bucket of ice water had been thrown into the air.

Rachel had long since lost her tolerance for this sort of cool weather and adjusted to San Diego's balmy, sunny existence.

The girl praised herself mentally for going shopping weeks before the trip (she'd foreseen this type of problem and begged her father for a clothing budget), and having the foresight to layer instead of wearing the nice, albeit flimsy dress that Papa bought her for the occasion.

As Rachel stepped into the main body of the airport, she searched about the starch white halls for some sort of glimpse of her Father. He said that he was going to come retrieve her at the airport when she'd spoken to him the night before, so she didn't book the Taxi from the airport to his house.

But as she scanned the massive crowd, Rachel saw no sign of her Father's hulking, unmistakable figure. A frown etched its way across full lips as she stood on her toes, trying to see above the small crowd gathered about the foot of the escalator leading from the terminal.

Maybe her Dad wasn't as tall as Rachel remembered him. What if he was actually quite average, and to her young self, his height had been stressed? Was she looking for the wrong man, if that was the case?

Had Rachel forgotten her own father? Had five years really taken that much of a toll on her memory?

The little brunette shook her head. No, she couldn't think such things. She had to see things through. This was no time to be emotionally insecure. So what if her memory lacked in some places? She would soon have newer ones to fill them.

She'd soon know why things went to Hell all those years ago. Because, try as she might, her Papa would never speak a world on the subject, beyond a wounded stare and a silent trip to his room, where she could hear him sob from her bed, all the way across the hallway.

Rachel jogged over to baggage claim, pushing through the masses of tall people as she fought her way through to a small piece of conveyer belt, eager to get her hands on her luggage.

She swore as several boneheads knocked her forward and into other people, who stared stonily at her as she hurriedly apologized to them. Several others regarded her angrily as she attempted to get at her rather large guitar case, nor did anyone offer to help her as she attempted to yank in out from beneath a stack of heavy suitcases.

By the time the petite teenager amassed her large collection of luggage (two large suitcases, a duffel full of all sorts of odds and ends, and her guitar's bulky, leather bound container), she found herself panting outside the airport on the curb, collar of her tan corduroy jacket turned up, gray scarf curled about her throat as her teeth chattered.

The girl shivered violently as she reached into her pocket, pulling out her iPhone and nearly groaning at the nauseatingly bright display proclaiming the time as '9:00' in the morning. As she unlocked the phone, Rachel ran over her conversation with her Father.

She was almost certain that she had told him her flight would arrive at 8:40. She'd even texted him this morning to make sure that he knew. Leroy Berry was often disorganized and rather scatterbrained in the way he approached his work. But when it came to arriving on time, he always punctual to every event, as he believed it showed a certain level of professionalism.

A trait which Rachel exhibited she was younger to downright anal levels (right down to the amount of time she would exercise, to the precise moments she would eat, all written down and color coded).

Scrolling down to Leroy's number, Rachel pressed 'dial' and placed the cold metal against her ear, pulling the front of her coat tighter against her body.

She idly tapped her fingers against the body of her guitar case as the phone rang, looking up into the annoyingly cheerful sky as she waited for Leroy to answer.

"Hello?" a deep, rich baritone sounded at the other end of the line.

"Dad, it's Rachel." Rachel's fingers halted in their steady, rhythmic fall. "I'm waiting out here on the street outside the airport… the plane landed about twenty minutes ago. Are you coming to get me?"

"Of course, Sweetheart," the voice instantly softened, losing the sharp, menacing edge in its tone. "I'm so sorry I'm late, hon. I got off a little late, and then I had to go get some paperwork from your new school… Are you safe?"

"Yeah, Dad," Rachel replied. Her eyes wandered to the empty streets outside the airport. "How far away are you?"

"I'll be there in at least five, sweetheart, I promise you," Leroy's voice rumbled through the phone. "You'll see me in a sec… There, the silver Elantra right there?"

True to form, a glint of silver pulled its way into the beaten driveway, racing toward Rachel at almost breakneck speeds. The line dropped as soon as the car hit the entrance of the airport, leaving the diva to watch, wide-eyed, as her Father broke several traffic laws in his haste to meet her.

The Hyundai came to a screeching halt mere feet from the guitarist's mound of luggage, the roar of the engine dying down almost immediately as the click of the driver's door followed soon thereafter.

Rachel stood as Leroy Johnson, every bit as tall, dark, and handsome in his gorgeous Alfani blazer and hand-stitched, leather shoes as she remembered, took long strides toward his daughter.

Large, muscular arms opened as silvery eyes glistened with unshed tears. Within moments, Rachel found herself pressed to a firm chest, the reassuring scent of her father's cologne flooding her nostrils.

She could feel Leroy's tall frame shake against the sobs that fell against her ear, the familiar rocking motion that her father would use to soothe her with as a little girl making her sway on her feet. She placed her arms hesitantly around the emotional man, fighting off the violent onslaught of tears threatening to escape.

"Hi, Dad," she whispered softly, smiling against the lapel of his jacket, tightening her hold on him.

"Oh my little star," the man's voice trembled with emotion. "You are really here… How I've missed that voice."

He pulled back from the embrace, running his hand across her cheek gently as the little brunette gave him a small smile. "How I've missed that smile… Look how you've grown, sweetheart. You've become so beautiful."

"I've missed you too, Dad," Rachel pressed a kiss to each of her father's cheeks. "You have no idea how much…"

There was a momentary lapse in conversation as daughter and father studied each other, learning every feature and committing it to memory.

Leroy quickly shook his head after some moments of silence, laughing tearfully, wiping at the stains on his dark cheeks. "Well, let's get you home! You're going to catch your death if you stay out here any longer. This isn't the sunny California weather you're used to, sweetheart."

"That sounds really nice," the guitarist smiled. Home. She hadn't heard that term fall from her Dad's mouth in five years. It sounded odd after so long, though it sent a satisfied sort of hum through her veins. This was why she had come back. The pieces were starting to fit together again.

Leroy bent down and scooped the plethora of suitcases into his strong arms, throwing open one of the back doors and carefully arranging the load inside. Rachel stacked her guitar gently against the inside before opening the passenger side door and situating herself.

Her father joined her soon after, slamming the door shut, pushing the key into the ignition, and carefully pulling out onto the road (he'd mercifully cranked the heater up, driving the chill from Rachel's stiff fingers).

"So what have you been up to the past couple years, beautiful girl?" A single silver, twinkling eye observed Rachel as a smile spread across thin lips and exposed blindingly white teeth. "Do you still dazzle people with that overwhelmingly gorgeous voice of yours?"

"I was in Chamber Singers at my old school," Rachel's eyes studied the passing scenery outside the window. "First alto. And I was the singer for our school's Jazz Ensemble."

"You'll have to sing me a little something later on," chocolate hands executed a smooth right turn. "Are you doing well in school? Making the grade?"

"I get A's and B's well enough," the edges of the little diva's lips quirked upwards. "I haven't gotten a C or D… so my 'veil of invincibility' has yet to be penetrated."

Leroy let out a harsh bark of laughter. "So you still remember my terms, little girl?"

"Oh, Daddy," the singer's voice grew matter-of-fact. "I don't think anyone could forget your patented ridiculousness. Even a twelve year old kid that put far too much sugar in her protein shakes."

"Honey, the amount of energy you had, while hardly normal," Leroy smirked, "had little to do with the sugar contents of your breakfast. Genetics are a powerful thing."

The laughter faded from the interior of the car. Chocolate eyes suddenly found the floor increasingly interesting as a flash of regret played through Leroy's system. He never should have said something about genetics.

It brought back memories of the day Rachel refused to go see the doctor to allow for DNA evidence to be collected. It had taken two months of kicking and screaming (between Rachel and Hiram, and Leroy and the latter) to finally get Rachel into the office, and two hours before she opened her mouth for the cotton swab.

During the dinner following the appointment, there had been reasonable silence at the table, just the clatter of dishes against the table as the separated family passed the food amongst themselves. There had been a point in which Rachel had looked up at Leroy, sometime in the midst of the tension, and looked at Leroy with resignation in her eyes.

In eyes that matched the hue and shape of Hiram Berry's to a t.

And it made Leroy want to cry, because that was the first moment that he realized that he was going to lose his daughter. Because she wasn't his, at least not genetically.

He was a father in action, he had done all the late night bottle feeds, he'd spoiled Rachel rotten, indulged her love of musical theatre (a shared passion between the two of them), and held her when she came home from school crying her blessed little heart out.

But he had absolutely no claim over her biologically. And he would lose her.

It was a haunting advantage that Hiram Berry exploited in the custody battle trail, in fine print and with an official letter of authenticity over that damned certificate.

And even though Leroy Johnson was the best lawyer in the city of Lima, that cursed certificate sealed his doom. Soon enough, he was signing away the rights to his child, and letting Hiram stuff her little body into some car bound miles and miles from Lima, Ohio while he was left in pieces.

"I'm sorry I said that, Rachel," he murmured, pulling a large hand from the wheel and placing it gently over hers. "…I know it dredges up some unpleasant memories, Sweetheart."

"It's alright, Dad," the girl responded softly, entwining their fingers. "I've had some time to heal. I really don't remember most of it anymore. It doesn't hurt."

She was lying. Of course she could still remember things. The fights were as vivid and real as the day they occurred, and haunted Rachel in her sleep. She could hear the shouting, the voices of the two people she loved the most mixing and blending in a loathsome cacophony. Those two rich voices that used to sing 'I'll Cover You' to her ritually, that mixed together so beautifully, sounded so ugly in those moments. It was something that Rachel's young mind couldn't comprehend.

And then she remembered the sound of her Dad's car speeding out of the driveway. Away from Rachel. He just left her there… crying, broken. He knew how she felt, but did nothing about it.

Instead, he left her Papa there to pick up the pieces and put her back together into his perfect little girl again before he decided to speed off to some nameless place.

She was good at lying. Shamefully so.

But some part of her sick mind didn't care that she was lying to her Father. He'd asked for it the moment he'd broken her sweet Papa into little shards and then made him fix his daughter when he couldn't even pick himself up off the floor.

She watched Leroy smile out of the corner of his eye, oblivious.

Yes… she was good at lying.

But he had never been good at catching on.

Rachel's room looked as though it hadn't been touched in years.

The room was still an annoying shade of Pepto Bismol pink (she remembered it being slightly more attractive in her hazy, pre-teen mind) with an annoying amount of Broadway posters covering every single inch of available wall space.

The singer sighed as she threw the last of her luggage down onto the carpeted floor. The room needed some serious redecorating. And a nice coat of some mellower paint.

But right now, she was honestly too tired to care about refurnishing her room. Because despite her father's protestations of 'waiting to blend in for a few days,' Rachel was going to go to school tomorrow.

The thought of falling behind irked her more than anything in the world. One thing that had not changed over her years spent in San Diego? Her goal of academic perfection.

Spending a few days to adjust to Lima was simply not in the cards. It was still early in the school year, and thus the work would be easier to catch up to. She wouldn't fall behind just because she was the 'new kid' on the block.

The brunette fell onto the soft, pink (of course, she thought, rather frustratedly) sheets of the queen-sized bed, groaning as she took weight off her sore legs (she'd had a particularly difficult day at dance class the other day, because she worked in extra time to try to feel a bit less nervous about the trip).

This reunion had taken a little more out of her than she'd thought possible.

Dinner had been slightly awkward. They'd never regained the amount of comfort they had when Leroy had initially picked her up from the airport. The man was stepping over glass in all directions, and it again made Rachel feel even more guilty than before, because she was holding out on him.

But right now, she needed to put all this to rest. She needed to go to sleep, because tomorrow would bring a whole new set of challenges.

Just as the singer had begun to drift off, a loud buzz from her pocket jolted her into awareness.

She groaned, pulling her phone from her pocket, squinting through the darkness of her room.

"Shit," Rachel cursed, opening the text message, the id reading 'Maria Arioso' in blindingly white letters.

'Hey, bitch! You said you'd call me when you landed, so I'm just going to pretend that you got caught up in the soap opera-y reunion between you and your long lost Daddy. But seriously, send me a text at least, so I know you're alive, yeah?'

Maria Arioso, a sassy, half Italian, half Irish dancer that Rachel had met only moments after arriving at the condo her father had bought in downtown San Diego. The girl came up to her, shook her father's hand respectively, turned to Rachel, told her to stop being such a 'goddamned crybaby' (which Rachel was appalled at, since she had never heard a twelve year old girl use such foul language so bluntly) and proceeded to become her best friend.

The red-head was a hip hop dancer and a singer (soprano) in the school's Chamber Singers group, where she was the life of the room and Rachel's loud partner in crime.

Rachel owed a large amount of her sanity to Maria, since the girl was amazing at listening and offering advice. She jokingly called the Italian her 'personal therapist' (to which Maria responded 'you're fucking right I am, and you're lucky I ain't chargin' a fee, because I'm worth a fortune.'), since she sat down and took the time to offer her insight into any sort of sticky situation.

'Hey, I'm doing fine. But I'm really tired right now. It's six here, and three over there… and I am tired from all the teenage angst around here.' Rachel typed out, before pressing send.

The reply was almost instantaneous. 'Well tough shit, because you're not going to sleep until you give me an abridged summary.'

'Got here, met Dad, brought up crappy memories, ate dinner, got home, got your text, cursed you to Hell, tried to sleep, you texted me again, I cursed you to hell again, now I'm texting back.'

'Oh, so the same old same old for you.'

'You think you're so clever, don't you, you smart ass?'

'I don't think I'm clever, I know it, girl. And you know that I'm right, you've always been a magnet for teenage angst.'

Rachel scowled. 'I have not.'

'Brody Jameson and your on again off again? Jacob Bergmann and your constant 'I love him/I hate him?' You can't argue it, Rach.'

Dammit. 'I hate it when you're right.'

'So first day at McDonald's… McNugget High?'

'McKinley High, moron. And yes, tomorrow's the first day.'

'Well, I want you to be super careful. Don't be such a heartbreaker at this school, don't be too smokin' the first day, and if there's any stupid fucks that try to hurt you, tell them Maria Arioso will be on their ass by sundown.'

'Of course, because a rabid Italian/Irish hybrid is a force to be reckoned with,' Rachel laughed. 'I love you, you smart ass.'

'Not as much as I love you, you little adorable smurf, you.'

'I really hate you.'

'Go to sleep already, grumpy midget.'

McKinley High sucked.

Rachel decided that the first moment she set eyes on the rundown, beat up, paint chipped building looming high above her.

Her school back in San Diego was at least as old as (Rachel had done her research last week) McKinley, and it looked in far better shape than this sad school. Her first impression: what kind of greasy, dirty, crappy school did my Dad put me in?

The things she saw as she walked through the parking lot toward the red, dented door solidified her observations and astounded her to no end.

Nerds were lined up outside a dumpster, being tossed one by one into the top as Jocks (at least, that's who she guessed those oversized Neanderthals committing the garbage throws were) high fived and laughed like boneheads.

On the other end of the parking lot, several rather gothic/band geekish looking kids stood in colored puddles, shivering against the cold as chips of ice fell from their clothing. The empty 'Big Quench' cups littered around their feet made Rachel double take. The dots began to connect when she saw a Cheerleader, clad in a skimpy, pleated skirt and top, throw a purple helping of colored ice directly into the face of an incoming freshman with a series of annoying giggles to follow.

It was clear that she had entered into an Elite ruled school. Something that she didn't quite have to worry about back in San Diego.

Rachel's school lacked an impressive cheer team, and had a rather sucky football team. Drama and ASB instead made up the 'elite' of the school. Since the Chamber Singers garnered so much attention for their multiple wins, including their remarkable concert at Carnegie Hall, each member was well respected on campus.

The Chamber Singers weren't popular, but they weren't at the bottom of the food chain either. So Rachel never had to endure the torments of not fitting in. But she did know for a fact that at her school, throwing kids into a dumpster or throwing a cold beverage in their face would never fly.

The school district would have the principal's ass before it happened.

But the apparent distribution of classes at McKinley was apparent. The jocks and cheerleaders were on top, the losers were on the bottom.

There was no in between. No neutral territory like back home.

Rachel would have to tread lightly.

The girl proceeded into the school, tightening a hand on the shoulder strap of her leather messenger bag as she made her way down dingy, sour smelling halls lined with red lockers.

Reaching into her jean pocket, the girl pulled out the crinkled post-it that her father handed her this morning, complete with her locker number and lock combo. Her eyes scanned the numbers on each locker, only to find herself miserably far away from said destination.

The singer could see people looking at her, leaning in to their companions to start gossiping. So some things were the same at McKinley as they were at her old school after all, hm? Gossip was still the main form of entertainment. Good to see all teenagers were annoyingly alike.

Then again, she couldn't blame them. It probably wasn't everyday when a new student suddenly popped out of nowhere in frickin' Lima, Ohio. She had probably been the newest transfer in quite some time.

If they wanted to stare, let them stare. Rachel had nothing to hide, nor did she care what others thought of her. She never really had, because she'd learned not to seek approval from anyone other than herself.

Rachel, after several minutes of searching, finally found her way to her locker. A pathetic, dented, marked thing with an equally crappy lock that took several spins to ungum the crud from within it.

As Rachel entered the code and unsnapped the lock, she paused, hand on the knob. She had this strange, unnerving little feeling that someone was watching her. Staring at her.

It wasn't the same vibe that she felt all about from curious onlookers. No, this was an intense, penetrating sort of itch that made Rachel want to turn around and see exactly who was looking. It made the singer feel uncomfortable.

But still, she ignored it. Maybe she was feeling a little bit jumpy. Perhaps she shouldn't have had so much coffee with her pancakes this morning. Her fingers shook as she pulled against the locker, swearing as it failed to give.

She struggled for several minutes before a huge hand placed itself on the locker before her, smacking it roughly, sending the door sprawling open for use before her.

"These lockers are a bit sticky," a deep, friendly voice stated boyishly, "you need to give a bit of elbow grease when you first break 'em in at the start of the school year."

Rachel turned, looking up to see a messy haired, rather muscular boy grinning down at her with shining light brown eyes.

"Thank you so much," the singer said, giving the boy a tiny smile. "I'm new, so I hardly have any sort of idea of what I'm doing."

"Oh, I heard about you from my Dad!" the boy, his dopey grin widening considerably. "You're Mr. Johnson's daughter, right?"

"Yes. I'm Rachel Berry," the brunette cocked her head to the side. "You?"

"Finn Hudson," he supplied. "So Rachel, where are you from?"

"San Diego, California," the girl took the opportunity to start loading her spare books into her locker.

"Whoa, you lived in California?" Finn's eyes widened considerably. "What's it like there?"

"Warm… sunny?" Rachel laughed, scratching the back of her neck. "The total opposite of this place in every way, shape, and form?"

"Yeah, Lima's pretty quiet," the giant stroked his chin thoughtfully (it made Rachel want to laugh, because Finn was clearly trying to appear so suave). "Small town. Not many people. All that sorta stuff."

"It's nice though," Rachel replied absentmindedly as her eyes began to dart about the hallway. Why did it still feel like someone was watching her? At first, she'd thought it was Finn… but now, if anything, the intensity of that annoying itch had since doubled. Maybe tripled.

As Rachel leaned back against her locker, settling in to listen to Finn talk endlessly (the boy was quite the chatterbox, it turned out), her head fell to the side and she closed tanned lids over chocolate orbs to take a moment to think.

The girl opened her eyes slowly, startled as she found something quite unusual.

A cheerleader stared quite openly at her from a few lockers down.

The girl, like her peers, had gleaming golden locks up in a high ponytail, not a single strand of blonde out of place. She looked to be at least as old as Rachel, since her face was devoid of any sort of baby fat that the awkward freshmen possessed. In fact, the girl was lean, toned, and gorgeous, with nicely chiseled features and a regal bearing.

But the girl looked as though she'd seen a ghost, skin already as pale as alabaster devoid of any sort of rosy tint. The grasp around the binders in her arms was tense, almost strangling as taut arms shook.

Of all these things, however, Rachel noticed one thing above all others.

The girl's eyes.

They were hazel. A startling amber flecked with chits of malachite that shifted in the light and flickered with some sort of unreadable emotion as the nameless girl peered into Rachel's own brown orbs.

These eyes were so unique, and they provoked something deep within Rachel. Almost a sick sort of nostalgia mixed with a fair hint of melancholy.

This cocktail of emotions made no sense to the singer, because she was positive she'd never seen this girl before. She would've remembered if she had met someone who looked like that. Someone as pretty and as high up on the social ladder as this girl was.

The blonde worried her bottom lip between a pair of blindingly white, perfectly aligned teeth as her eyes raked up and down Rachel's figure. She stared a moment more, hard and penetrating, before slamming her locker shut and proceeding down the hall in a swift trot.

"…Rachel?"

The girl shook forth from her thoughts, peering back at the overeager boy standing before her. "I-'m sorry, Finn, what did you say?"

Thin lips drew into a large smile. "I was asking if you'd like me to… you know, walk you to your first class, since it's your first day and all."

The singer smiled. "That'd be wonderful, Finn."

"First period?"

"Ummm, Mr. Schuester? Spanish III HP?"

The two of them idly chatted as Finn raved about the amazingness of Mr. 'Schue', who had taken over the school's Glee club after some sort of perverted man named Mr. Ryerson had been caught harassing his vocal students (which made Rachel sick to her stomach).

Apparently the Glee Club, New Directions (Rachel wouldn't comment about the level of cheesiness in the name), had taken first at Sectionals, and never placed at Regionals. The thought of Glee club intrigued Rachel, who had never done anything beyond standstill choir performances. Perhaps this would be a good way to incorporate her dance skills at last.

Finn apparently shared this class with Rachel, as he followed her through the door and took a seat in the very front row, boyish smile still very much plastered all over his face.

Rachel handed her slip to Mr. Schuester, a rather curly haired, kindly looking man. The teacher looked down at the slip a moment, before looking up at Rachhel and speaking.

"¿Puedes entender español mucho?" he asked, a bit of a 'wisconsin' (at least, that's what Señor Cortez had called the pathetically 'white' accent that some kids used when speaking to him) accent plaguing his speech.

"Sí, Señor. He tomado tres años," Rachel readily responded, pausing, before continuing. "Pero, gracias por su preocupación." The hiss of Castilian Spanish made Mr. Schue's eyebrows arch in surprise.

"Class," he began, rapping lightly on his desk with a nearby ruler. "I'd like to introduce a new student today. This is Rachel Berry. She's from San Diego, California."

"Hola!" Rachel smiled. And then, suddenly, that unsettling feeling fell in her gut again as she raised her hand in greeting. Faking an air of confidence, the singer let her eyes wander across the room, before meeting hazel eyes once more.

The mysterious cheerleader was again staring at her.

Haunting her.

A/N: Thank you once more to all you amazing people out there who read my work. The update for my other story, Denial, is in the works. If you'd like to read another chapter of this, just leave a review :)