titanium - glee

nine ; chocolate peanut butter brownies

Mr. Schue had informed the glee club that they were going to be holding a bake sale this week to raise money to get the handicap-accessible bus for Sectionals. Rosy had been shocked at the way no one had seemed to care about Artie's feelings and how some had even complained, so she had decided to make her own special dish for the bake sale to make it up to Artie in a way. She was standing on a stool in her kitchen, trying to reach the cookbook on the top shelf of the pantry, her fingers barely grazing the spine. She tried to jump a little to reach it, but misjudged the location of the stool and missed, falling to the floor with a little scream.

"Rosy? Rosy, are you okay?" Her father asked, running to help her up and she accepted his hand and allowed him to pull her to her feet.

"Yeah, I'm fine, I was just trying to reach the cookbook." Rosy explained and her dad easily pulled the cookbook off the shelf and handed it to her. "Thanks. How come you're home so early today?" Rosy asked, walking over to the counter and setting the cookbook on it.

"It was a fast case today, open and shut. We won." Her dad explained, smiling a bit. He was a lawyer at the only firm in Lima and he was one of the best ones there. His job stressed him out, more than he let on, but Rosy could tell that he really enjoyed what he did. He was a family lawyer, which meant he worked on adoption, child custody, and divorce cases mainly, which was ironic considering he and his wife, Clara, Rosy's mom, had never actually legally divorced. "Why were you looking for the cookbook?"

"The Glee Club is holding a bake sale and I'm looking for ideas of what to bake," Rosy explained, flipping the cookbook open to a random page that was marked and pausing to read it. "Chocolate peanut butter brownies, these look good!" Rosy said and her father walked over to read the recipe too, a sad smile on his face. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, it's just that your mom used to make those for your birthday every year up until she..." He said, not finishing the sentence, but Rosy knew what he was going to say. He never actually said that Rosy's mother had left, never really talked about her at all, that was his way of coping, but once when Rosy was staying up late to study for a test, she thought she heard him crying in his room. Rosy stared down at the picture of the brownies again, before quickly flipping to another random page, snickerdoodle cookies.

"You know what, this looks better." Rosy decided and her dad started to say something, before shaking his head and kissing her forehead, telling her that he'd be in his office if she needed him. Once Rosy was sure that he was gone, she flipped back to the brownie page and looked at the notes in the margins that she recognized were in her mother's handwriting. There was one with a star next to it that said, Rosy likes these with extra chocolate chips. She traced the writing with her finger, feeling tears start to form in her eyes, and she quickly blinked them away and flipped back to the cookie recipe.

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Rosy had finished her required wheelchair time that day, so she was walking down the hallway to Spanish class when she saw a big crowd gathering. Her curiosity got the better of her and she tapped a girl she recognized from her math class on the shoulder.

"Hey, what's going on?" Rosy asked.

"Noah Puckerman and Finn Hudson are fighting." The girl replied, laughing a little and Rosy's mouth dropped open, before she elbowed her way through the crowd to the front to see Finn and Puck wrestling on the floor.

"Stop it! Stop fighting!" Rosy yelled at the pair, but neither of them seemed to hear her and Rosy looked around, trying to find something to make them stop when she spotted a girl watching holding a water bottle. She grabbed the water bottle from the girl, mumbling a quick apology before turning back to the fighting boys, unscrewing the water bottle, and throwing the water on them. Both boys stopped fighting and looked up at her in surprise.