𝐛𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐧 𝐚𝐠𝐚𝐢𝐧 | r. berry

Funk

The New Directions were in the auditorium for an emergency meeting that Rachel had called. Autumn stood with her jaw clenched when she saw Jesse and the rest of Vocal Adrenaline on their stage. She looked over to Rachel, who looked absolutely heartbroken.

"Jesse?" Rachel asked, disbelief in her voice. "What are you doing up there with them?"

"I've transferred back to Carmel High," said Jesse.

"This fucking–" Autumn growled, clenching her fists and making a move to the stage as Brittany grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

"Deep breaths, Auttie," Brittany whispered in the shorter girl's ear. "Stop the violence."

"I'm sorry that it's come to this, but you guys were awful to me," Jesse continued. "You never accepted me. You never listened to my clearly superior ideas."

"Why are you here?" Autumn asked. "In our auditorium?"

"The blogs and chat rooms say that we're finished and that you are ripe to topple us. We just wanted to show you something that we came up with a few days ago to see if you agree with that assessment."

****

Autumn sat with Rachel at the piano, holding the diva and comfortingly rubbing her back while whispering comforting words in an attempt to make her feel better.

"Alright, guys," Mr. Schue said as he came into the choir room. "Today I want to talk to you about regrets. Who has some?"

"Giving my heart to Jesse, just to have it crushed like the stage floor at Stomp," Rachel mumbled, burying her face in the crook of Autumn's neck as the cheerleader held her tighter.

"Thinking 'trust me' was a sensible birth control option," said Quinn.

"We all have them," said Mr. Schue. "I just finalized my divorce."

"Does that mean you and Autumn aren't related anymore?" Finn asked, glancing over at his friend, who was too busy comforting a broken-hearted Rachel to pay attention to the conversations in the room.

"Yes, but I want her to know that she's still family to me," the curly haired man said, looking over at Autumn, who still wasn't paying attention. He sighed and turned back to the rest of the club. "I regret living in a relationship that wasn't working, letting her put me in these deep funks, and not fighting back."

"Besides creeping us out, why are you telling us this?" Santana asked.

"Because if we lose to Vocal Adrenaline at regionals, none of us will regret it," said Mr. Schue. "We will have given it our best shot, and we won't look back. But we will regret letting them get the best of us before the competition, which is why we need to hit them back just like they hit us."

"So, you want us to T.P. their choir room?" Quinn asked.

"Whatever the better, cooler version of that is, like... maybe we should steal their school statue."

"Their school statue is a giant bronze of a great white shark eating a seal pup," said Kurt. "It weighs three tons."

"Okay, well, how about this..."

As Mr. Schue continued to brainstorm ideas to mess with Vocal Adrenaline, Autumn ran a comforting hand up and down Rachel's back, the diva relaxing in her arms and sighing softly.