Glee: Race to the Finish (the fifth book in the Glee series)

Chapter 37: California Gurls

Ok I lied. There's a lot more of Julie in this one, too! I thought it was going to be focused on Alex and Jake and their storyline with Bree next while Julie's stuff happened in the background but then I just got really into her storyline and what was meant to be one or two scenes turned into multiple excerpts about her and some singing, too! Oopsie daisy. Well, she's the main character so it happens. This time, Santana and a few others are in the mix so it's not completely a Julie chapter but I did want to spend more time developing the changes she is experiencing instead of watching Alex trying to catch a criminal (which would be fun too, but it's not as complex for me to write and I'd probably butcher it anyway, so that's a background, off-screen story for now). Enjoy! xx

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Julie stood in her living room, alone. Everything was spiraling out of control. Bree had been gone for days and Kara was nowhere to be found either. She'd just arrived home after being interrogated at the police station by people trying to find out where they were. And now that she was back in her house it no longer felt like home.

Nothing was different. Nothing had changed at all. But it didn't feel the same anymore. 

At least she had her music to keep her busy. 

She took a seat behind the piano and hit a few keys. That morning before going down to the station, she'd gotten a call from Sebastian telling her that she was asked to do an extra song for the Cursed soundtrack, one as an artist and not as a character. It had been months since she'd finished working on the movie and they seemed to have forgotten all about her but they were finally getting ready to make more progress.

"It's a Disney movie," Sebastian explained. "They take forever to make for many reasons but it's going to be released in the fall so now it's where things get a little interesting for it."

And now Julie was ready for interesting which started with her writing a song. She sat down for about two hours, writing and playing, and just when she thought she was finally getting somewhere with the song, the baby monitor went off. 

She turned to look at it, watching as it lit up red and the cries from upstairs filled downstairs from it. "Not now..." she mumbled, continuing to play. "Please stop..."

But it didn't stop. She continued to play, doing her best to drown out the cries until she just couldn't. Angrily getting off of the piano bench, she made her way up the stairs and into the nursery. There, she saw that it was only one baby that was crying. Isabella.

"Why can't you just learn to be more like your little sister?" she asked her as she approached her crib. Her face growing hot and red from the frustration, she let out a deep breath as she stared at the crying baby. "What am I going to do with you?" she asked. Wanting more than anything to leave her and go back to the piano, she let go of whatever she was feeling and picked her up. "It's ok," she said, bouncing her in her arms. "Mommy's here..."

She stayed with her until she was quiet again and immediately set her back down when she no longer felt needed. With that weight off her shoulders, Julie began to make her way back outside but as soon as she had left the room, the crying started again.

"You're doing it on purpose," she said in what was almost a cry. She looked around the room for some sort of sign on how to calm her down when she saw that her guitar was there. "How did this get here?" she mumbled out loud as she picked up, not knowing that John and Kitty had spent some time there during her absence singing to them. And she had the same instinct, so she began strumming a few notes and suddenly she was playing a song, though she didn't realize what it was until it was already on the first verse.