A/N: There are two of us writing this fic for you and we hope you enjoy it as much as we doing writing it! This should be around 8 chapters long so keep an eye out for more.

Emma Pillsbury was 6 years old when she realized her love for singing. She would put on shows and perform for her parents and her brother Ethan to entertain them after dinner on a Friday night. Bouncing around in her Annie themed costumes and singing "Tomorrow" to anyone who would listen, she just loved the attention.

Before every performance for her family or even the whole neighborhood sometimes, her mother would pull back her long, red curls into a soft ponytail and clip a bow in for "good luck". She would enter the makeshift wooden stage her dad had made, always gleaming with excitement and fill the room with her beautiful soprano vocals. Everyone was always in awe of such a delicate, little girl holding such a powerful voice.

That was before everything changed.

Eleven years later, Emma Pillsbury entered McKinley High for another mundane day of school. An oily freshman brushed past her arm with his grungy sneakers and papers haphazardly flying out of his backpack and Emma nearly vomited at the contact. She was a junior at McKinley and had yet to get used to the germs and grime of every other peer in her school.

With a quick swipe of a wet wipe off her shoulder from her backpack, she tossed it into a nearby trashcan and headed for her locker.

"Emma! Emma!" A cheerful petite brunette jogged up to Emma with one too many books in her hands.

"What is it now, Natalie?" Emma turned around, rolling her eyes at her best friend's upbeat attitude on a Monday morning.

"You know how Glee club is putting on their first performance of the year next Saturday!?"

"Yes, what's your point?" Emma asked, growing impatient.

Of course she knew it was next Saturday because she had been dreading the day since Glee coach, Mr. Adams, announced it last week during practice. Emma had developed terrible stage fright once she got into middle school and withdrew to becoming a shy, timid girl with an irrational fear of germs and an even greater fear of rejection.

She had joined the Glee club this year on a whim hoping to get closer to golden boy, Will Schuester. He was the best one in the club and the top scoring forward on the school's state-winning soccer team. He was smart, good-looking, and had a charm and charisma that drew all the girls to him.

Emma had developed a crush on him two summers ago when he started lifeguarding at her neighborhood pool. His family had just moved into a nearby neighborhood and even as a freshman then, he was quite a catch. Emma had hated the pool with all the rowdy kids peeing in the water and the moms who applied too much tanning lotion to their bodies while thumbing through gossip magazines.

But one afternoon, she was forced to take her little sister to the pool while her parents were out of town for her older brother's soccer tournament. Emma walked up to the pool and almost dropped her towel when she saw him.

He was sitting up in his chair with his shades on and she immediately noticed his toned muscles and the tan radiating off of his body. She couldn't help but stare and spent the rest of that summer offering to take her sister to the pool every weekend. They had hardly held a conversation other than a "how are you?" from him but other than that it was always quiet. She was too afraid to approach him so she would just stare at him past her book when he was looking away.

Occasionally, he would bring his perfect girlfriend Terri Griffin around and she always made Emma uncomfortably jealous with her little tan body in a skimpy swimsuit. Every time they snuck a kiss or he'd grab her up and throw her into the pool jokingly, Emma would imagine it was her in his arms…

He had stopped working at her pool this last summer going into their junior year and Emma resulted to finding another way to see him everyday. She was a very talented singer but she had never thought to join Glee club because she wasn't sure she could sing in front of people, let alone her long-time crush. Emma had finally decided to go for it and every time he sung for the group at practice she fell a little harder for him and his voice…

"Emma! God, are you even listening anymore? I told Jacob you had been daydreaming a lot lately and he said germophobic people have tendencies to slip outside of reality to escape their real problems…"

Snapping back into reality, she sighed. Jacob was Natalie's boyfriend who was always trying to psychoanalyze Emma's germophobia since his dad was a psychologist and she could hardly stand his therapy jargon.

"He doesn't know what he's talking about…I'm perfectly normal with a heightened sense of awareness about germs, there is nothing wrong with me. And why are you and Jacob talking about me anyway?"

"That's not important right now! What's important is that Will has taken the lead vocal in the new duet and word around school is that he needs a partner to sing with him in the show."

"Wait…he's doing the duet?" Emma was suddenly surged with excitement at the thought of singing with him before remembering that she can barely talk around him without clamming up.

"Gosh, I don't know Nat… I'm sure Mr. Adams will pick someone who has a stronger voice than me."

"Are you joking right now? You have the strongest voice in the club this year. You don't have to be so modest all the time, Em."

Natalie was in fact pretty accurate with that statement. Emma had the prettiest soprano of any other girl in the club but her shyness allowed other girls to get most of the parts.

It also didn't help that other members messed with her because of her cleanliness and intelligence. Emma was one of the smartest girls in her grade and always had a book in her nose, but she kept her composure when she was picked on. It had only been two months into the year with the Glee club and she had already seen a new, compassionate side of Will. Anytime the girls or even one of the guys would make fun of her flowery tops or called her a "ginger", Will was always defending her and telling everyone to cut it out. Afterwards, he would always just give her a light smile and they would continue practicing.

He was her Prince Charming and everything she wanted, but Emma was a logical person. She just reasoned that they would always only be friends because he was too much out of her league on the social chain with the popular girlfriend and he was only nice to her because he was genuinely a good guy.

"Maybe I'll go for it this time, we'll see. He probably wants to do the duet with Ella or Molly though. They're a lot prettier than me."

"I don't understand why you won't give yourself enough credit. You have clear, porcelain skin that any girl in this school would kill for and you're a size, what—0? You've gotta take a chance on this or why did you even join Glee in the first place?"

Just as Natalie said this, the bell rang signaling the end of classes passing and Emma was about to be late for 5th period Glee.

"Oh gosh! I've got to go if I'm gonna try for that part.."

"Yes, you are going for that part! Now get going!"

Emma turned on her ballet flats, headed towards the Glee room with a new sense of confidence.

So what if they're prettier or more popular? It's about the vocals anyway…course Will has never heard me sing a solo before. Oh gosh, can I really do this?

Just as Emma was starting to let her doubting thoughts arise, she was nearing the Glee room when she turned the last corner bumping into someone headed in the same direction.

"Oh—I'm so sorr—Emma? Is that you?"

Emma had bumped into him and fell backwards to the ground. Her head was hung low looking at her hands now feeling heavy with the weight of the germs when she heard his voice.

"Will? I'm terribly sorry, I wasn't paying attention and just—"

"Don't even worry about, it was my fault. I was running late and decided to jog it over. Here,"

He smiled down at her and held out his hand.

"Let me help you up."

Emma blushed in her embarrassment and looked at his hand for a moment with slight hesitation before suddenly grabbing it.

"Thanks, Will."

"No problem,"

He pulled her up and Emma's hand tingled with delight from the contact. She had forgotten about the bacteria and dirt that had taken flight under her fingernails as he looked at her. They began walking together in a comfortable silence until Will spoke up.

"Did you hear about the last minute duet Mr. Adams has decided to put into the program?"

"Oh—oh yes, I heard something about that. I heard you got the male part in it already too."

Will grabbed the back of his neck almost looking bashful that she had already known about his role.

"Ah yeah, that was just luck. With Roger still in Peru with his parents it really doesn't leave a ton of male competition for now."

"Oh don't be silly, you're definitely the best singer we have in there."

She hadn't meant to say it quite like that but she certainly believed it.

"Well thanks, Em."

Her heart skipped a beat at his nickname for her. She liked it. A lot.

"Are—are you, well do you have anyone in mind for the girl part?"

"I have no clue, if it's up to me I'm—I'm not sure who I'd pick. We have some really great singers in there."

"Oh… yeah, we really do." Emma was unsure what to say now; he probably had his eye on another girl to sing with him.

"Are you…well, um, were you thinking about going for the part?"

Emma laughed nervously, "I—I don't know, I mean a lot of people will be there…"

Will noticed her big brown eyes growing wider as she thought about the crowds of people who would be at the show.

"Don't even worry about the people, you uh, should—you should go for it if we do a singoff."

And with that, he winked at her before they entered into the Glee room for afternoon practice.

Emma almost grabbed the door handle without a wet wipe in her dreamy state. Almost.

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