It was almost perfect, she thought. She was an almost mother, and he was an almost father. He propped her up against the onslaught of high school cruelty when no one else did.

"You really think that I can get it all back one day?"

"No. I think you can get something even better."

She gave him absolution when no one else would.

"You're a really good teacher. Even if everybody is calling you a man whore."

They were almost perfect.

Fifteen years lay between them – an impassable chasm during the day. Under the fluorescent lights of the choir room, and the hot spotlights of the auditorium they never seemed further apart, or more different. A teacher and student who walked the same halls everyday but led such different lives. She was supposed to imagine herself wrapped around a boy in a varsity jacket, not a man in a cardigan sweater. She was supposed to feel tingles up her spine when Puck leaned across the lunch table with a grin and pushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Not when her teacher handed her sheet music with a lopsided smile.

At night she imagined the gap between them shrinking. Curled up in Mercedes' brother's old room, the canned laughter of a sitcom wafting upstairs, she shut her eyes tight and let her imagination take her someplace else. To the dark of his apartment where the only sounds would be their whispers and the light scratching of skin against skin.

It was at the end of last year, faced with everything she had already lost, when she realized what else she had stood to lose.

"If you wanted the moon I would try to make a start, but I would rather you let me give my heart..."

They had run into each other (literally) at Starbucks on a Wednesday afternoon a few weeks after school let out. She was reading a text from Puck - 'hey babe kicked finn out so u could come ovr and chill where r u?' - when she slammed into him. At first it was awkward – seeing a teacher outside of their day-to-day role is a shock to the system. He was in a t-shirt and jeans, his hair was shorter and he was unshaven. He looked young, but so did she, in yoga pants and a tank top with her hair falling into her face. After the perfunctory "How are you?" "How's your summer?" They sat down with their drinks and fell into a comfortable, but slightly unexpected conversation. She could count on one hand the number of real conversations she'd had with Mr. Schuester. She couldn't really blame him, she had in one way or another helped his wife (ex-wife, she reminded herself) deceive him into thinking he was going to become a father. He never seemed to hold it against her though. He gave her the same heartfelt encouragement he did the rest of the club, and helped keep her together in the aftermath of the glists.

She found it easy to fall into conversation with him, though she didn't tell him about Puck trying to woo her back into his house and into a relationship. And how all she felt was a hollow ache every time he touched her. And he didn't explain to her why his jaw tightened and his back stiffened when he saw a billboard for Lima Dental Associates outside the coffee shop window.

They did talk – about Glee at first, and then music in general (they both had Stevie Wonder on their iPods, and agreed that Superstition would be a fun number to do for next year's sectionals). As she started her second drink she told him about how when she was young, her mother would play her old funk records softly before her father came home from work. By the time she had finished she had quietly confided that she had rejected her mother's invitation to come 'home', instead choosing to stay with Mercedes' family while her brother was studying abroad.

He smiled and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, and when he moved away she still felt his thumb rubbing gently against her collarbone.

It was then that her phone chimed from where it lay on the table. It was Mercedes, wondering where she had gotten to.

"I should...um...probably get going," she said, shoving her phone back into pocket. "She thought I was just going to grab something and come back." He pushed his chair back with a guilty look on his face, like he had been caught stealing change out of the tip jar on the counter.

"Of course," he said, with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "I didn't mean to hold you up." She wanted to reassure him that sitting in a crowded Starbucks, talking with him about 70's funk was the most fun she'd had all summer. It was the 'with him' part that troubled her.

"No...I mean, it's really nice to talk to someone that's not Mercedes or..or Puck." They both stood and she cleared her throat awkwardly. "If you're not busy...not that I'm saying you don't have anything to do..." What is wrong with you?, shouted a voice in her head that sounded disturbingly like Coach Sylvester, Get it together! Mr. Schuester interrupted her internal diatribe with a genuine smile.

"You mentioned something about the Ohio Players?" he asked as he threw both of their cups into the trash and walked with her towards the door. "I have a few cd's at home I can dig up, maybe you'd like to borrow them?" She knew it was a veiled invitation to meet again. He was giving her an out if she felt uncomfortable, or just bored by him.

"I'd love to."