A/N: This story takes place before Kurt joins the Warblers. Reviews are love!

Songs Without Words

"Okay, folks, let's quiet down," Mr. Schuester said as he entered the choir room, holding a sheaf of music. "As you know, we're going to start working on this new number today – so show up on time this afternoon!"

"Oh, Mr. Shu, we're tired," Mercedes said from the back row.

"Don't give me that," Mr. Schuester said with a grin. "You guys just got back from spring break."

"And it was rough," Kurt said, pushing a pair of sunglasses up on his forehead.

"What'd you do for spring break, Mr. Shu?" Artie asked.

"Worked on this," Mr. Schuester said. "Now, come on, we've got to get started."

He handed out the music, and stood expectantly before the glee club as they looked over it.

"A song without words, Mr. Shu?" Rachel asked, looking up at him, obviously frightened that her ability to show off would be severely hampered by a song that had no words.

"Think of it as something new," Mr. Schuester suggested. "No words – just tones. We'll fill them with emotion, give them meaning. In time they will come to replace words. We may even find that we don't need words to create feelings and images. Start by focusing on the tones! Know the tones! Love the tones!"

"I don't want to say you wasted your time," Santana said, crossing her legs demurely, "but I think you wasted your time."

"Well, thankfully, it was spring break," Mr. Schuester said, "so it was mine to waste."

"Is there going to be a solo?" Rachel wanted to know.

"There might be," Mr. Schuester said. "Unfortunately I've got to run off to a staff meeting, so you'll just have to wait for this afternoon's rehearsal to find out. And I meant it when I said be on time – we have a new member coming in to meet all of you today."

"Somebody new? Did they audition?"

"Don't worry about it," Mr. Schuester said to Rachel as the bell rang. "Just be on time!"

"He better not have gotten one of those girls from Our Lady of Heaven Catholic Prep," Rachel said to Kurt and Mercedes as they walked down the hall. "Those girls have been blessed by the Pope – there's no way I'd ever get a solo again if one of them showed up!"

"Maybe it's that girl whose sister had a crush on Mr. Shu," Mercedes said.

"I thought they had to move to Newark," Kurt said.

"Oh, yeah, some sort of Mob thing."

"It was a shame, too," Kurt said. "I mean, Benny the Grape owned the fiercest fashion boutique Lima's ever seen."

"Do you think this new girl has Mr. Shu's ear?" Rachel demanded, stopping and whirling to face Mercedes and Kurt.

"Ew," Mercedes said.

"How do you know it's a girl?" Kurt wanted to know.

Rachel held up her sheaf of music. "Mr. Schuester always does his own arranging," she said, pointing to a name printed at the top of the first page. "This one says it was co-arranged by Skyler Howard."

"Skyler could be a boy's name," Mercedes said.

"It's just not," Rachel insisted. "I'm telling you, some new girl is going to come in here and knock Mr. Schuester's socks off him. Well, I'm not going to stand by and let it happen!"

She stomped off down the hall.

"Girl is nuts," Mercedes said, and rolled her eyes.

"It's always been my theory," Kurt agreed.