Just before lunch on Monday, Ryan was greeted by Brittany pushing a pack of Pixie Sticks at him. "Hi Ryan!" she said sweetly. "You want one?"

Ryan took one of the candies from the box. "Thank you Brittany. How is your campaign going?" After Kurt had turned down Brittany's poster designs for his student class president campaign, Brittany had decided to run for the position herself with Santana's encouragement. Brittany had announced her campaign by leading a rousing flashmob of Who Runs the World this morning in front of the whole school.

"It's going awesome," Brittany smiled. "So, Ryan, do you like my posters? Lord Tubbington led on the designs."

"Yes, Brittany, they're very..." Ryan took a moment to look for the right words to describe the glittery pink posters. "Delightful. Very you."

"That's exactly what I was going for," the blonde said, pleased. "So can I count on your vote for the student elections? I'm pushing the fact that we've had nothing but male student presidents in the past, and look what that's got us - double digit inflation, economic freefall, oil spills, war in Afghanistan. So we don't want another guy as a president."

Ryan tilted his head. "Okay... I should probably take that as an offense to my gender."

"Don't worry, I totally know you're a bicorn like me."

Again, Ryan let that comment pass, unsure of what that meant. "... But I do agree that you might make a better president that Kurt." Not to mention he was still mad at Kurt, but he wouldn't let that get in the way of his voting sensibilities. All right, maybe he would, a little. It wasn't like student council president counted for that much. "So yes, you have my vote."

"Awesome!" Brittany leaned over, pinning a bright pink badge to the front of his sweater. Yes, he was still wearing sweaters, but they were more tasteful now, at least according to his mom and his girlfriend. "Also, can I tell you a secret?"

"Yeah, sure."

"There's a leprechaun living in my house."

Ryan blinked. "Excuse me?"

"His name's Rory. He's from Ireland, and he wears green like all the time, so he's totally a leprechaun. He's disguising himself as a foreign exchange student."

"Ohhh." Realization dawned. "That's... nice."

"Yeah," Brittany nodded enthusiastically. "It's a secret, 'cause everyone knows leprechauns have the power to grant wishes, so if everybody knew about it his magic might go out. But anyways, the reason I'm telling you is 'cause I heard Rory Leprechaun singing the other day, and I thought -"

"You thought maybe he could join the glee club," Ryan grinned.

"Well, actually I thought you could use a wish to get more members, but I guess that might be a tall order. Your idea could work too," the cheerleader shrugged.

"That's great, Brittany," Ryan said happily. "I'll go talk to him and try to convince him to join. Do you know where he is?"

"I'm not really sure," Brittany said. "He can, you know, make himself invisible. But if I see him I'll tell him to let you see him, okay? Now, I'll see you later, Ry, I've got to give out more of these Pixie Sticks."

Ryan blinked again in surprise as Brittany skipped off to a group of students, handing out her candy. He shook his head. Talking to Brittany was always an adventure. Anyways, it looked like he had a new recruit to hunt down. This would bring the new club's numbers up to ten. Just two more and they'd be in business.

..

Meanwhile, Quinn opened her locker before heading to the lunchroom. She checked her appearance in the mirror, fingering the tips of her bright pink hair. Her bet with Santana had been up for a while, but the color had sort of grown on her. Not to mention Ryan thought it was hot. Still, maybe it was time to go back to blonde.

Her eyes flicked to the side when Santana appeared out of thin air, leaning against the wall of lockers next to her. "Did you want something?"

Santana shrugged. "The list for the new glee club just went up. Everybody got in - no surprises there," she said ironically. Quinn nodded. They needed everyone they could get, and Shelby had Sugar Motta. Compared to her, everyone else could sing like an angel. "So, the school's latest exchange student is living at the Pierce's," Santana mentioned casually.

"Good to know." She didn't know how this was relevant to her at all.

"The new kid's from Ireland, he wears green all the time and he talks like he swallowed a kazoo or something."

Quinn smirked knowingly. "You're just mad you can't make out with Brittany in her house anymore."

Santana glared at her venomously. "Shut up." Quinn just kept her smirk, used to her friend's antics. "You know what, whatever. Imma go find Britts and get her away from that green kazoo kid. You coming?"

She shook her head. "You go ahead."

"Suit yourself." Santana stalked off in search of her secret girlfriend, and Quinn shut her locker. She started to head to the cafeteria before deciding to make a pit stop at the ladies' room first. When she pushed the door open, she was greeted by a student wearing a grape slushy all over her front. She took a second before recognizing the girl as one of the new glee club members. "Need some help over there?"

The girl whipped around at her voice, surprise ad embarrassment in her eyes. "I..."

Quinn sighed, before going over to help the girl rinse out the slushy. "You should get that out before it dries up, it's harder to get out." She motioned for the brunette to lean over the sink. After a moment's hesitation, the girl complied, and Quinn turned the faucet on, running long brown hair under the stream. "You're Marley, right?"

"Um, yeah," the girl started to nod, before thinking better of it and keeping her head still. Quinn finished rinsing the worst of the syrup off and let Marley straighten. "You're Quinn Fabray."

"Right," Quinn nodded. Marley started to say something else before ducking her head shyly. She fell into a shy silence as she continued to try to get as much slushy as possible out of her hair. "You know who did this?"

Marley shook her head. "No. But the list for glee club just went up, and this happened right after."

Quinn just nodded again. Understandable, she supposed. The top of the food chain probably wanted to establish the hierarchy over the latest gleeks. She'd sort of expected something like this. "So, you just moved here to Lima, right?" she asked, trying for some small talk as she helped the younger girl wash the syrup from her long brown hair. "Must be weird, huh? New school, new... everything."

"Yeah," Marley sighed, running a particularly sticky lock of hair under the faucet. "It's not as bad as my old school I guess."

"Really? You don't miss your friends?"

The brunette shrugged as she wrung her hair out over the sink. "I didn't really have any. I sort of stuck to myself a lot. The kids there were the same as they are here."

"Ah." Quinn nodded, digging around in her bag and handing Marley a small towel. The girl was shy - not painfully so, but enough that it might hamper her making friends. She reminded Quinn of... she shook her head. "There, you should be good to go."

"Thanks," Marley said, smiling at Quinn with grateful blue eyes. "You know, for helping. Not that I couldn't have done it myself, but... yeah."

Quinn just nodded in response. "Come on, we should go head to the cafeteria," she said. "We'll have just enough time to have lunch."

"Okay." The freshman opened the door, letting Quinn exit the bathroom first. Ryan immediately spotted them as soon as they exited the ladies' room.

"There you are, I've been looking all over for you," he said distractedly, giving Quinn a quick kiss on the cheek. "Hi Marley."

Marley smiled a bit shyly. "Hi Ryan."

"I heard about the slushy," Ryan continued. "I'm very sorry that happened; rest assured I will be speaking to both Rick and Dylan about the incident. Are you alright?"

"Yeah, it was just a shock," Marley nodded. "Quinn helped me clean it off."

"That's good," Ryan smiled. "I know firsthand how difficult it can be to remove all that colored corn syrup from one's hair. Of course, I assume it must be endlessly worse for someone with long hair such as yours..."

Quinn just smiled as she let her boyfriend ramble on. She'd gotten used to his verbose speeches, and while she occasionally found them a bit trying - keeping track of things was rather exhausting - she did find it cute. And it seemed to bring Marley a little out of her shell, because soon the freshman was talking and laughing as well. Quinn just followed them, lost in her own thoughts.

Soon enough the three of them reached the lunchroom, where they lined up to pick up their food. Fortunately with it being the tail end of the lunch hour there was a relatively short line. Marley was giggling at Ryan's theatrical retelling of some of last year's glee antics when Quinn reached the front of the line. The lunchlady on duty was the same big one that she'd sort of defended last week. She was smiling almost fondly at Marley when Quinn cleared her throat, and the woman looked at her with an apologetic smile before handing her a tray. The lunchlady smiled at her with an expression that sent Quinn's mind into a sensation of deja vu. She stopped for a moment in confusion, wondering what that smile reminded her of, before shaking her head in dismissal as she took her tray and followed Ryan and Marley to a table.

..

That afternoon, Ryan headed to Miss Pillsbury's office to await the ultimate decision of who would be playing Tony in West Side Story. He and Blaine sat in front of the panel of directors, everybody awkwardly waiting for someone to speak. Blaine cleared his throat. "Do we have to audition again?"

"No, we've come to a decision," Artie said quickly.

"It was one of the hardest decisions of my life," Coach Beiste added. "Like the time when I had to sell one of my prize donkeys to pay my gas bills. I sold Kim, but I kept Chloe."

Ryan wasn't sure how the picking the lead of a high school musical could be the hardest decision of a teacher's life - it was important to him, but in the grand scheme of things it didn't really matter that much - and he could tell Miss Pillsbury agreed. "So," the ginger guidance counselor said, "In the grand tradition of the special Olympics... everybody wins! We're double-casting Tony."

She watched them with a bit of trepidation as they absorbed the news. "So we'll both get to play Tony," Ryan concluded. He glanced at Blaine. "Who gets the night shows and who gets the matinees?"

"Oh, we're adding a week," Artie answered. "You'll both get four nights and two matinees."

"Fair enough." Ryan nodded, turning to Blaine. "Blaine, it'll be a pleasure to share the stage with you." He saw Miss Pillsbury let out a relieved breath, and he almost rolled his eyes. He wasn't that much of a diva, was he? He understood that sometimes decisions were too close to call. Besides, this was actually a good outcome. At least he got half the role. And there had been a fair auditioning process. In the New Directions he'd had to put up with other people getting roles that he knew he deserved more.

Blaine nodded. "Likewise."

Now Ryan himself felt mildly relieved. He hadn't really thought that Blaine would fight him on this, especially after offering to concede the role, but he was used to people - namely Kurt, Finn, and Mercedes - putting up a fight whenever he got a solo. "Excellent." He returned his attention to the directors. "Thank you very much for your consideration. I know it must have been a difficult decision to choose between two candidates such as ourselves. I'd like to say on both of our behalves that we will do our utmost to represent Tony to the best of our abilities. Furthermore -"

"Yeah, that's great Ryan," Artie cut in hastily. "So, we'll see both of you tomorrow in the auditorium at four for rehearsals."

Blaine nodded. "Okay then." He stood up, Ryan following a second later. The two boys exited Miss Pillsbury's office together, stopping a few feet away. Blaine glanced at Ryan expectantly. "So."

"So." Ryan offered him a slight smile. "Congratulations."

"You too," Blaine grinned. "I'm surprised they double-cast us, but it's great. At least we both get the chance to be Tony."

"I know," Ryan agreed. "And this way we don't have to fight. As I said, I think we'll both do Tony justice."

"Oh, I don't know," Blaine said casually. "I bet I'll be a better Tony."

Ryan let out a mock gasp. "We'll see about that." He checked his watch. "I have to go, we're having our first glee rehearsal this afternoon."

Blaine nodded. "Break a leg, then."

"Thanks." Ryan hurried towards the classroom that Figgins had designated for the new glee club. Shelby had had a piano moved in there in time for their first glee club meeting. "Hi Mom."

Shelby flashed him a smile from her seat at the piano bench. "Hi. You're early," she commented.

"Of course. As captain, I'm expected to set an example for the rest of the club, and arriving late would hardly set the appropriate tone," he nodded. "You're early too," he added approvingly. It was one of his pet peeves with Mr. Schuester, among many others. The man was chronically late, arriving at least ten minutes after everyone else. Then he spent the first few minutes absolutely clueless as to whatever issue everyone was arguing over.

"Oh, you're captain, are you?" Shelby teased.

"Well, I assume that you would want the most dedicated and talented person to captain the team," Ryan countered confidently. "That would be me. Not to mention, I'm your undisputable male lead, so it just makes sense for me to be the captain." His voice lost a little of his confidence. "I guess we could have a sing-off or something and then vote to determine who should be captain, that's how Mr. Schue used to do things." Unfortunately the system had always worked against Ryan, as his peers voted based who they liked better rather than who had more merit.

Shelby just hummed in response, still working on her papers. "Well, I am expecting you to be captain, but it wouldn't hurt to get the opinions of the other members," she said absently. "Wouldn't want to be accused of nepotism and all." She looked up, giving him a smirk. "Besides, it'll be easier for me to tell you what I want done when I have access to you 24/7."

"Oh joy." He relaxed a little though, pleased to finally have a coach who could see his value. "Are you going to run this group like Vocal Adrenaline?" he asked curiously. "You did have a four-year winning streak with them, but from what I've heard you methods are a bit..."

"Brutal?"

"I was going to say exacting, but brutal works too."

"Hmm." Shelby glanced at him in amusement. "You should take those horror stories with a grain of salt, show choir kids are notorious for over-dramatization."

Ryan looked at her skeptically. "So you didn't keep VA up until midnight one week in a row in preparation for Nationals three years ago?"

"Oh, no, that part's true." She smirked at him. "But one thing you'll learn when working with performers is that you need to know how much they can take, and how to motivate them. The first few meetings will be all of us getting a feel for each other, to see what we can do and how to work together to get Nationals."

That made sense. "Okay." He moved to stand next to the piano. He grinned as he remembered his bit of news. "Also, in case you didn't know... I got Tony!" he said proudly. "Well, double-cast with Blaine. But it's still great!"

"Yes, it is," Shelby agreed, smiling widely. "Congratulations, sweetie, I'm so proud of you!" She stood up, giving him a hug that he happily accepted. Ryan caught sight of some movement out of the corner of his eye, and he pulled back, glancing at the door to see Sugar Motta watching them with an almost wistful expression. It disappeared as soon as she saw him watching though, and she entered the room with a smile.

"I'm ready for the first glee rehearsal," she said happily. "I mean, not that I need it 'cause I'm so much better than everyone already, but it'll be good for team spirit."

Ryan had no idea what to say to that. He glanced at Shelby in confusion, and she just gave him a nice smile. He'd never had experience with someone with that much confidence before, besides... well, himself. He remembered what Shelby had said about Sugar reminding her of himself, but he hadn't been that bad, had he?

"Yes, ah, hello Sugar," he finally settled. "As you can see, nobody's here yet."

"Oh, that's okay, I don't really know anybody yet, so I don't have anything else to do. Everyone's probably too amazed by my awesomeness to talk to me."

Ryan tilted his head. "Okay..." That sounded eerily similar to the things he'd used to tell himself: It's okay, everyone's just intimidated by talent, that's why it's hard for them to approach you. It'll be fine, just don't let them see it's getting to you. He shook himself. "Well, I'm sure you'll be able to make some friends in here," he said. The way he wasn't really able to in the New Directions. "Even if they aren't quite as talented as you are," he added a bit dryly.

"Exactly," Sugar exclaimed with a pleased smile. "And look, here they come!"

Sure enough, the rest of the members of the new club started to shuffle in. Marley and Ryder came in first, followed by Kitty and Quinn. Tina and Mike showed up soon, and finally Santana and Brittany brought up the rear, pinkies linked as they came into the room giggling slightly. Ryan was pretty sure they'd been making out in the nearby janitor's closet.

Shelby waited for a moment to let them get settled before moving to the front of the group of chairs, watching them. These kids were completely different from Vocal Adrenaline, which meant she'd need to get to know them in order to get them to the tops of their games. Finally everybody had seated themselves, and she cleared her throat.

"Hello everyone, and welcome to the first meeting of the new glee club," she said, smiling at the students. "You all performed very well at the auditions. However, we're going to have to kick it up a bit so we can win all our competitions." She smirked slightly. "And make no mistake, I am definitely planning on winning." That got her a ripple of laughter from the kids. "Now. The first thing I need from you is teamwork." She surveyed the students with a firm eye. "I won't have any infighting here. If you've got a problem with someone else, you come out and say it properly, and we'll work through it. But I won't tolerate any student trying to tear another one down, clear?"

An affirmative sound rang through the room, and she nodded. They needed to work together, something Will Schuester didn't seem to grasp. She'd watched him let the fighting inside his team run rampant, and look where it had gotten them. "So for today, we're not going to do any singing just yet. We're going to go around the room and introduce ourselves, try to build our rapport as a team. I'll start. My name is Shelby Corcoran, I'm the English teacher and now your vocal coach. In case you're wondering about my credentials, I've been a voice teacher for over a decade, and I have been in several Off-Broadway productions in New York. I was also the coach of Vocal Adrenaline, whom I coached to four consecutive National Championships." An impressed murmur rose up. "So yes, I do know what I'm doing," she added dryly, earning another laugh. She nodded at Ryan,