Glee 1. Chapter 1

Will woke slowly. At first it felt like any other day, as he reached blindly to turn off the alarm on his phone before it woke Terri. He reached it and shut it off, blearily looking at the time. He lay back on the bed, and it was then that he realized something was different. No pillow. No blankets. No Terri...No baby...No marriage...No...nothing. He swung his arm over his face to shut out the images and words that assaulted him behind his eyes. But he could not shut out the sound of Terri begging him not to leave, or the sound of finality as he slammed the apartment door shut behind him.

God knows where the mattresses in the choir room had come from, but he was thankful for them last night, as his only recourse beyond that would have been to sleep upright in his office chair. That would not have worked well, but he was damned if he would go home. Ever. Not after the lies...day after day, so many lies...When he thought about it all and it unravelled into the complex web of deceit that Terri had woven around him for the past 6 months. Deceit that had included Kendra, Quinn, an OBGYN, and god knows who else. Deceit on a level he could not have ever imagined her capable of before last night. He felt like the world's biggest fool. If he weren't so damn angry, he would cry...but he only had about an hour to get himself and the choir room together for his first period class, and that left no time to really let himself feel anything close to what was under the surface.

And so, he got up and applied himself to the task of moving the mattress back into place. He made a mental note to ask the Glee kids what was up with 12 mattresses and a thank you note from the King of Mattress Land in his choir room. As he tied his tie, he made sure to plaster a smile on his face that passed for pleasant, if not completely sincere. Just then his phone rang. He looked at the display, which read "home" and he laughed harshly... "Hardly..." he spat as he declined the call. Let her simmer, let her lay in the bed she made... alone. He looked back up in the mirror, rearranged the smile, only to see Sue staring back at him over his shoulder.

His smile faded. Oh shit. Not today. God he didn't feel like he could take another blow. Even so, he turned to face whatever it was Sue was dishing out this morning. It was unavoidable with Sue, and usually just best to get it over with.

Author's note: Just an introduction really - be kind. Constructive reviews appreciated. Really just want to write some Will POV for Glee Story line to date...


	2. Chapter 2

"What can I do for you, Sue?" Will asked, not unpleasantly he thought.

"Oh, nothing, buddy. You and your sad excuse for a glee club have already done everything you can to prove that you are not worthy to compete in Sectionals this year, and to secure the return of my full budget. I just came by to say thanks!" Her over-confident smirk made him feel apprehensive in a corner of his brain that was not yet front and center.

"Also, I see you still have some of your ill-gotten gains cluttering up your choir room. Thought I'd offer to take a few mattresses off your hands. I need a crash-landing bin for my Cheerios to practice their round-offs. Figured I could get them from you cheap, seeing as you had so many."

He found it very hard to concentrate on what she was saying. Her normally convoluted syntax was particularly hard to follow this morning. Partly because he was trying very hard to stay in the present moment, and not return to the place in his heart that was completely deconstructed by the events of the past 12 hours. And, partly because as a general rule, he really didn't give a shit what Sue had to say. It was never good, and rarely interesting.

He shook his head, more to clear his thoughts than anything, "Sue...I don't know what you are talking about..."

"Oh, I'm sorry buddy. Guess you haven't see the fruits of your labor yet. Thought not. You're always too busy chasing your mentally impaired ginger to pay any attention to that motley crew of yours anyway...So I bought you a copy! It's too bad, really...They're not untalented...but we'll never know how far they could have gone, given the right guidance. Guess that would be your fault, huh?"

Sue threw a CD at him and saluted him. "See you in Figgins office once you've had a chance to let the full impact of your defeat sink in. Oh...and you might want to shave, William. Not sure what you've been up to on that mattress, but you might want to do a little better job of hiding the evidence of your depravity." With that she left him staring at the CD in his hand, which was labeled, "Victory is Mine."

He looked at the clock on the wall. Still 30 minutes before he had to be in his AP Spanish class. He turned on his laptop and with a sense of dread, loaded the CD. At first, what he saw didn't really compute. The kids appeared to be performing "Jump" and doing a really great job of it, jumping on giant mattresses. He couldn't help smiling...

God he loved them. All of them...for their talent, and all their flaws; for who they were, and who they were just beginning to become. They were the best and brightest thing in his life. He knew it when he woke up every morning. He knew it when he went to bed every night. At school, he couldn't wait to see them, he searched them out through the sea of adolescent faces as he moved through the halls. They were the best part of his day, every day.

His thoughts were brought to a screeching halt when he heard Rachel's voice say, "Chipper up! And head on down to Mattress Land." As if all life's problems could be solved by sleeping on the right mattress. Not hardly.

"Oh God...No..."

His eyes shifted to the great pile of mattresses in the choir room, and he vaguely remembered the note he had found attached to them last night.

_Hey kids! _

_Thanks for all your hard work! _

_Cusperberg _

A million thoughts raced through his brain at once, but one thought loomed largest: disqualified. They would be disqualified. After all their hard work, and their amazing progress as a team, they would not be allowed to compete. And it was his fault. He hadn't told them the rules. "No professional activity of any kind..."

"No Not this too..." He pulled the CD out of the drive, grabbed his copy of the 2009 show choir rule book, and picked up the note from the King of Mattress Land. Slowly he made his way to Figgins' office.

He didn't know if there was anything he could do to fix this, but as sure as he was that his marriage was not something he had the heart to try and fix, he knew he would do anything, _anything, _to fix this for his kids. He had to. He didn't think he could take another loss today. Not this loss, anyway.


	3. Chapter 3

The meeting after his AP Spanish class has not gone well. Will left Figgins office with Sue's final salvo ringing in his ears, "It's OVER!" He knew she was right. I _was _over. how would he tell the kids? How could he ever tell them that all their hard work had been for nothing? As he turned the corner, he didn't see Emma, until he was right on top of her. Literally.

"Oh, darn!" Every paper and file that she had been carrying went up around them like a shower of heavy ticker tape, and fell in a highly disorganized, and he could tell by the anxiety on her face, it was a highly _contaminated, _pile around their feet.

"God, Em, I'm so sorry...I wasn't paying attention to where I was going. I'll get them for you." He knelt and quickly gathered the files and papers. He went to hand them to her, saw her hesitation, and then recovered for her, "Can I walk you to...Um... wherever you were going?"

"Oh gosh, Will... That would be great. Just to my office..." her voice trailed off and she eyed the pile of files and papers in his hand warily. But then she looked up at him, and she looked so grateful, and so glad to see him, even if he had contaminated her files, that he cracked. He just couldn't keep up the facade any longer. His heart was broken into a million pieces in a million different ways, and he was standing in front of the one person that he couldn't hide it from. He realized that he was not far from losing it completely.

"I'm sorry...I need..." his voice cracked, "Emma, I have to go..."

"Oh my god, Will...are you okay? What's wrong? Is it one of the glee kids?" She touched his arm, and he knew he was that much closer to actually losing his shit in the hallway. And he refused to lose it where Sue, or worse one of the kids, could see him. He shook his head, because he couldn't trust himself to speak, then turned and walked away from her, toward the choir room. It was a free period and hopefully it was long enough to get himself under control.

He could her her behind him, the click of her heels as she tried to keep up; the sound of her voice, so concerned, as she tried to get him to slow down, but he couldn't stop. Not until he was safely in his office, with the choir door closed behind him. Finally he made it, and Emma had caught up and followed him into the choir room. He closed and locked the door. He walked by her to his office, shaking his head at the pile of mattresses that served as a reminder of his failure to protect the glee kids. He stood facing the wall in his office, and he heard Emma walk in.

"Will...What's happened...God...What can I do?" It wasn't so much what she said, but how she said it. So much concern, so much caring. He knew that besides himself, she was the one person who cared the most about his glee kids. In the same way and for the same reasons. And if he admitted it to himself, he knew that Emma was the one person in the world he could count on. Because he knew that she cared about him as well. And that was what did it. Emma would never hurt him. He could tell her the truth, and she would never judge him, or use it against him. Where Terri in some twisted way needed him to feel bad about himself, so that she could feel good about herself, it was exactly the opposite with Emma. She was the one person in the world who only ever wanted him to feel good about himself. To live a life he was passionate about. The one person who always supported him, no matter what. That made her the one safe place. And that was what undid him. And once it began, there was no stopping it.

He turned to face her and sank to his knees. He could not hold back the sobs that wracked his whole body. He cried for the end of his marriage. He cried for the loss of the daughter he had already grown to love. He cried for his failure to protect the glee kids and their opportunity to shine. He cried because the one person in the world that he trusted enough to cry with, belonged to another. As he cried, he poured out his heart. He told her everything. Left nothing out. Not the fake pregnancy. Not Terri's plan to use Quinn's baby. Not even his own part in it all. How he failed Terri. How he failed the kids. But he stopped short of telling her how much she meant to him.

And while he cried, he didn't know that while Emma knelt and held him, she cried with him. He didn't know that she didn't even think about the dirt on the floor, soiling her skirt and her knees. All she could think of was how much she loved him.

For his part, Will just knew that she stroked his hair and kept saying that it would all be okay. They would figure something out. She knew it would be okay. And it was enough for him. He thought he could believe her, because she was Emma. And she never lied to him. Not even to make things easier. Maybe they could figure it out. Together. It was more that he had thought possible.

The ache in his heart receded a little bit, and he could breathe again.


End file.

Glee, Hurt-Comfort, Romance