Yes or no - The prequel

Pilot

A/N: The season 1 of the Yes or No series is finally here! AAAAAAH, I'm excited! Now, this book focuses more on Emily's relationships with the kids in glee and how she ended up friends with everyone, but it also focuses a lot on character development and how she got to be the girl you met in the first few books I've posted. So, as much as I feel like you guys will want to kill me - and probably her too - in the first few chapters, it'll get better eventually, so just bear with me for a while ha ha!

"You think this is hard? Try being waterboarded. That's hard!"

Emily sat by herself at the very top of the bleachers, watching the first ever Cheerios practice of the year to decide if she would try out for it or not. She smiled as she watched the kids there doing their back-flips and pyramids and pirouettes and she thought back to her middle school, remembering how much she enjoyed their cheer team then. Another thing that kept lurring Emily in? Quinn Fabray was on the team. Not only that, she was the captain this year. How cool would it be for Emily to not only be in the cheer squad, but best friends with their captain? And Emily truly enjoyed Quinn's company, so she was pretty sure the slightly older girl could make even the worst times more enjoyable just by being there.

The only problem with this? Their coach. Emily knew all there was to be known about Coach Sue Sylvester. She was a savage. Sure she had already five consecutive National Championships with the Cheerios but she went hard on practices. Quinn told a few things she did to them last year. She pretty much terrorized the kids and Quinn had been only a freshman the year before when she joined the Cheerios, but she was a tough girl and she made it through. Not only that, she had managed to impress coach Sylvester so much that she had been offered the captaincy of the team — and as a sophomore, that was pretty impressive.

Now, Quinn never sugar coated anything with Emily. Fully aware that, as soon as her best friend was done with middle school she'd be transferring to McKinley to do her high school with her, Quinn had made sure to tell Emily exactly how things worked there: you needed to be popular to survive and the best way to do that was to be in the Cheerios or dating a football guy. Quinn was doing both and she was doing both well, dating the Quarterback and all, and she promised she'd help her out the first few weeks, making sure to hype her up to everyone so she would, eventually, be able to spread her own wings.

"But I need you to help me." Quinn had told her the first day of the year, as she walked inside the school with her arm linked through Emily's. "Because I can only do so much. And if you want to survive here, you need that Cheerios uniform."

"That was horrendous! The whole thing! Just pure garbage!" Coach Sylvester yelled through her megaphone again, as the kids in the field started to come down from the pyramid they were in. "Get out of my sight before I lose more of my brain cells just by looking at you! Hit the showers!"

And so they did. Emily watched Quinn walking away toward the locker rooms with two friends beside her, but before she could get out of her sight, Quinn turned back around and looked at the bleachers to Emily. Quinn smiled then, silently asking if she would join the squad and as she thought about it, she decided that, with Quinn beside her, she could endure a few offensive words thrown her way by the blonde coach. So she nodded, laughing quietly as Quinn cheered. And as her best friend rushed toward the showers, Emily could swear she almost heard her excited squeals all the way from the top of the bleachers.

***

"Oh, you look so good!" Quinn gushed as soon as Emily stepped out of the bathroom stall in her brand new Cheerios uniform, after having been accepted in the squad. "Come here, let me help you with your hair."

Emily smiled then, walking toward Quinn and allowing her to sit her down in one of the chairs they always had around as she started to brush out her hair.