Title: Behind Closed Doors 
Pairing: Michellie 
Rating: PG 
Word count: 3,207

Main characters: Nellie Veitenheimer, Michael Weisman 
Secondary characters: Shanna Henderson, Blake Jenner 
Tertiary characters: Abraham Lim

Summary: Nellie is eliminated in Theatricality, but not for the reason most people would assume. 

A/N: This is my first RL ship fic… which also means it’s the first Michellie/TGP fic I’ve written… ever. Wow.

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The door closed behind her. The latch taunted her as it slid home. It mocked her. It said “haha, you weren’t called back. Welcome to the dorm of isolation.” For the first time in years, she felt truly alone. She hadn’t felt this alone since her sister’s passing, and now it felt like that wound had been reopened and stabbed repeatedly with a knife. She wanted to break down and cry right there, but she couldn’t. Her friends were just on the other side, and she couldn’t risk letting them see her so distraught again.

She shut her eyes in an attempt to block the pain, but it only worsened. She could see “NOT CALLED BACK: NELLIE” clearly in her mind, and she swung her head in an attempt to shake the image from her thoughts. When the effort came to no avail, she threw herself against the wall with a fitful groan. Sinking to the ground, she leaned against the wall and drew her knees to her chest. She crossed her arms across her knees and buried her head as she stifled sobs.

She had rocked that Last Chance Performance, and she knew it. The theme for the week was Theatricality and, as she remembered, she had definitely turned on the theatrics. She had blown it out of the water, forced Ryan Murphy into silence, and reduced Zach, Robert, and Nikki to tears. She had even reduced herself to tears as she belted “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” Solo performances were her strength, and Ryan had even managed to tell her that it was the best performance he had ever seen on The Glee Project. She had given him something more, something unique and powerful. And yet here she was, alone, not called back.

She could still feel the group’s arms around her. Michael and Shanna had been the first to fly through the doors and embrace her in hugs, followed closely by Blake and the remaining contenders. The room was virtually silent except for the scattered sobs and pitiful attempts at comfort. They did nothing for her; she knew she was going home from the minute she approached the call back list. She accepted their words with small nods, withholding tears as she looked around at her new family. It wasn’t until Shanna whispered “I’m gonna miss you, Nellis” that she let the first of her tears fall. She couldn’t bring herself to look at Michael or Blake, so she moved silently past them and exited the choir room alone.

She was in the dorm now, her suitcase not yet packed and still stuffed away somewhere. She had spent the better half of an hour by the door, trying to convince herself it wasn’t a nightmare. She was eliminated. She was going back home. And while she missed her family… she would miss this family just a little bit more. She would miss the opportunity she had been given; she had come so close…

Sighing, and refusing to let herself wallow any longer, she stood up and shuffled towards her bed. She dug out her suitcase and began packing. She had one night left in the house; by mid-morning tomorrow, she would be gone. It was an unspoken rule that the contenders be allowed to pack by themselves until after dinner. A recent agreement (it had been concocted with Charlie’s elimination), it had seemed appropriate at the time. Their friendships had grown over the weeks, and it had been almost unbearable for Charlie to pack when everyone was crowded into the boys’ dorm with him. He made everyone leave. Now it was her turn, and it seemed that the contenders had agreed to let her pack in peace. In a way, they were right to do so; it would be too painful for her to pack when her friends weren’t.

But now, as she stared forlornly down at her empty suitcase and the clothes scattered around it, Nellie wished someone was there to talk to her—to take her mind off this awful twist of fate.

- - - - - - - - - - - - {♥} - - - - - - - - - - - - 

The remaining contenders had scattered, avoiding the girls’ dormitory at all costs. Aylin, Ali, and Lily were in the kitchen preparing dinner. Since Maxfield’s elimination, the remaining contenders prepared the eliminated contender’s favorite foods as a last meal in the house. Blake, Shanna, and Michael were in the living room, talking quietly. Michael and Blake reclined on the couch while Shanna sat on the floor beside Michael, her legs crossed as she stared up at them both.

“I can’t believe it,” Blake muttered.

“I know,” Shanna agreed with wide eyes, “she’s so good!”

“I thought I was going home,” Michael admitted. “I don’t think I impressed Ryan very much. And remember when Robert came in to tell us the list was up? He looked like he had been crying. Nellie was the last to perform…”

“You think she was that good?” Blake asked.

“I know she was that good. It’s Nellie, Blake. Of course she was that good.”

“Why was she sent home, then? What about Lily’s performance?” Blake asked.

“Lily seemed pretty confident,” Michael remembered everyone together on the couches only a few hours before. If anyone should have been sent home, Michael was confident that it should have been him.

“Lily’s always confident,” Shanna reminded pointedly.

“True, but that’s not always a bad thing, Shanna,” Michael joked.

“Touché, Fitzy,” she teased with a smile.

Abraham approached the trio and sank into the couch beside Michael. “So what are you gonna do, Michael?”

“What do you mean?” he asked confusedly.

“I overheard Robert back in the choir room.”

“Oh, yeah?”

He nodded. “He was talking to one of the crew members filming us. He told him that Nellie asked to be eliminated.”

“She couldn’t have been that bad!” Shanna argued.

“No, no, not like that. She asked Ryan to send her home. Robert asked why and she just said that Lily and Michael deserved another chance.” He turned to Michael now, straight-faced. “She said you deserve the chance more than she does.”

“Wh-what? Are you sure you heard right?” Michael asked. “She wouldn’t just give this up…”

“Definitely. I was pretty close when they were talking. I think—I think Robert might have wanted me to know.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Come on, Michael. He’s not blind. He’s seen how you two act around each other. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he wanted someone to know why she was eliminated and do something about it.”

“He ships mih-shellie?” Shanna asked.

“Mih-kellie,” Blake and Abraham corrected almost immediately.

“Shut up, Blabraham.” Shanna rolled her eyes and glared up at Abraham. The two were both silent for several heartbeats before they both erupted in laughter, Shanna leaning against his leg for support.

“Wait,” Michael argued, holding up his hands in protest, “I—I don’t like Nellie. I mean, I do, but… not like that. I—I have a girlfriend.”

“I thought you broke up with her last month,” Blake said in confusion.

Michael turned to glare at him, and Blake mumbled “oops” under his breath. Michael sighed and leaned forward on his elbows. He stared at the ground to avoid meeting eyes with the others.

“You broke up with Meghan? Why didn’t you say anything?” Shanna asked in concern.

“I didn’t think it was important,” he sighed.

“You’ve been dating for almost two years,” she argued, “of course it’s important. What happened?”

“We just haven’t been as close recently. Even before I came here… we just haven’t been as connected. She was hiding things from me… information…”

“Did she…?”

“No, no,” Michael shook his head adamantly, “Meghan would never cheat. We just… weren’t working out.”

“Oh. I’m sorry,” Shanna frowned.

“He’s not wrong, though… you know,” Abraham said, “we all see how you two act together. It’s pretty obvious you like her.” Then, he excused himself and joined the other contenders in the kitchen.

“It’s really that obvious?” Michael asked.

Blake and Shanna looked at each other and nodded.

He groaned. “What should I do?”

“Go talk to her,” Blake answered quickly.

“But what abou—“

“Screw the rule,” Blake interrupted. “It’s not a real rule anyway.”

“Shanna?” Michael turned to her, searching her pale blue eyes for answers.

Shanna hesitated. “Blake’s right,” she said at last, “you need to talk to her.”

“But what do I say?”

“I don’t know. ‘Hello, I love you,’” Blake suggested.

“Won’t you tell me your name?” Shanna burst into soft song. “Hello, I love you. Let me jump in your game!”

Blake joined her. “She’s walking down the streeeeet, blind to every eye she meets. Do you think you’ll be the guuuuyy to make the quee—“

“Guys,” Michael sighed, “I’m serious.”

“Just go in,” Shanna said, “the words will come to you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Go. You got this,” Shanna smiled.

“Thanks, Sally,” he patted her shoulder and grinned. He stood up and walked determinedly towards the girls’ dorm, laughing as he heard Blake ask Shanna why he didn’t have a nickname.

He froze at the door. Go in, Weisman. You can do it, he told himself. You weren’t this nervous when you first asked Meghan to dinner. This isn’t any different. Buck up.

But it was different. It was different in so many ways. He had known Meghan for a few years; she had been in several of his high school classes. He had only known Nellie for roughly seven weeks and he already knew he loved her. It was different in that he and Meghan were never really friends before they started dating. For a year, it was an infatuation where he would admire her from afar, but never really said anything to her. He had become close with Nellie in the seven weeks they had spent together, and he didn’t want to ruin what they had. Abraham’s words flashed through his mind and gave him strength.

He knocked once and opened the door.

“Nells?”

“Michael?”

“Hi,” he mumbled awkwardly as he slid inside. The door eased shut behind him and he released the breath he had been holding as the latch slid into place.

“Uh… hi,” she laughed, tucking a stray piece of hair behind her ear. She stopped packing her suitcase and sat on the edge of the bed, motioning for him to join her. “Something wrong?”

“No, not really,” he answered quietly. He had no idea where to begin. Did he jump right into it? But no, that seemed too sudden. Ease her into it, perhaps… but he knew she’d get impatient and ask him to just spit it out, so he couldn’t do that either because he knew he would change his mind. He decided to start with the beginning, which was, in fact, a very good place to start. He had learned many things from Maria von Trapp. “I, uh… Meghan and I… we broke up.”

“What?” she gasped, “but… I thought you two were… what happened?”

“We just weren’t working out.” He stared down at his hands, fiddling with them absently as a sudden wave of nervousness enveloped his system.

“Why?” her brow knit in confusion, and Michael smiled as he looked up at her. She was so cute when she was confused. Her nose scrunched up just a tiny bit, and her head tilted to one side like a confused puppy. His eyes found hers, and he stared at her in an attempt decipher his feelings. He could tell her now—it would be easy. A simple ‘Nellie, I love you’ would do the job… but it wasn’t exactly sufficient. He still felt like it was too forced, and he wanted this to be anything but forced.

He sighed. The truth hurt. And this was going to hurt… massively. He hadn’t told Blake, Shanna, and Abraham the entire truth. Yes, he and Meghan were no longer together… but it wasn’t because of her.

“She… thought I was cheating on her.”

“What?” Nellie laughed. “That’s crazy! You wouldn’t cheat on her.”

“Not intentionally, anyway…” Michael mumbled.

“What?” she narrowed her eyes, but she was still laughing as if she hadn’t quite heard right.

“What?” he echoed, feigning confusion.

“You… unintentionally cheated on her? What do you mean?” Nellie asked.

He hesitated, but he pushed on. It was now or never, and it was better now than never because… never would suck. Never would mean that he would continue as simply her friend for the remainder of his life. He wasn’t sure he could do that. He couldn’t stand to just be the person who made her laugh with his math humor, or listened when she needed to vent. He wanted more; he needed more. He inhaled deeply, allowing his newfound courage to take root in his mind. He would definitely need it.

“I… she started to get a little jealous because I’m here filming… and she’s not with me. I didn’t make it a whole lot easier because all I could ever think to talk to her about involved you.”

There was awkward silence between them before Nellie whispered, “Oh.”

“Yeah, so… she decided that I needed to take some time to figure out… things.”

“And?” Nellie questioned.

“And what?”

“What have you figured out in that math brain of yours?” she asked with a teasing smile.

He stared at her for a moment, lost in her mirth. Even when he was here, basically—sort of, in a way—pouring his emotions out to her, she was laughing. She hadn’t withdrawn into a shell of herself, closing off her heart. She was here, laughing with him. She was still herself, even though he knew she would desperately rather be someone else.

“I think I love you,” he said.

She froze, staring blankly at him as he stared back. Her mouth had fallen open slightly, and her eyes were widened in shock. “You what?”

“I—I think I love you,” he stammered.

“So, this is a theory?” she asked apprehensively.

“It’s a theorem,” he said with a shrug, “based on another theorem.”

“Which is what?”

“That you love me, too.” Nellie’s smile disappeared quickly. Her gaze faltered and fell to the floor. She pulled her bottom lip into her mouth, shuffling her weight nervously.

She had told herself for the past several months that even thinking about Michael in that way was forbidden; he had a girlfriend. But she couldn’t stop herself. Ali had teased her earlier that she and Michael hung out a lot, but she didn’t think she meant anything by that. Shanna had mentioned how she always seemed to brighten a little when Michael entered the room or spoke for the first time in several minutes, but she hadn’t taken the words to heart. Abraham had asked her if she was planning to return to Chicago with Michael, but she thought he was joking. They had become immeasurably close over the past weeks, and their friendship had flourished into something unbreakable. It had become quite clear that there were feelings there, but Nellie had never even thought about acting on them. He had Meghan… keyword: had. The news that they had split hit her like a ton of bricks. It felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders while another weight simultaneously crashed down.

It pained her even more to know that he loved her—to know that she was a tiny factor in his terminated relationship. It was never her intention to get between them. He was happy, after all, and if he was happy then so was she. She had been perfectly content to let Meghan and him continue on their merry way to marriage—to let fate take its course. But fate clearly had a different plan in mind, and here they sat.

She stood up and paced back and forth, her eyes on the ground as she lost herself in thought.

“Nellie?” he asked tentatively.

“What… what is this theorem based on?” she asked, stealing a quick glance at him.

“On the fact that you threw away the chance to be on Glee for me.”

“What?” She looked up in surprise, freezing on the spot.

“I know you did, Nellie,” Michael said. “Abraham overheard Robert talking about it.”

“I didn’t—I wouldn—” she trailed off as he stared at her with his eyebrows raised. There was no fooling him. She hated that about their friendship. He could easily tell when she was lying. She would be at a loss for words, hesitate. She would pick at her fingers and her mouth would twitch ever so slightly. He knew all this about her, and he could tell she was lying now. “You weren’t supposed to know,” she muttered softly.

“So you did, then? You asked to be sent home so I could stay?”

“I… may have… done something like that…” she admitted, crossing her arms across her stomach. She looked away nervously.

“But why would you do that? This is the opportunity of a lifetime… you’ve worked so hard. You could have won this, Nellie.”

“I could have,” she nodded, “but… I didn’t want to.”

“But… why not?”

“I think you’ve already answered that,” she said.

 “Nellie—“ he started.

She shook her head, “you need it more than I do.”

Michael said nothing, staring at her in surprise. She had willingly quit the show to save him. She had given up her opportunity to help him. Some part of him had hoped that Abraham had misheard; Nellie couldn’t leave! Half the reason he was able to survive the week was because of Nellie; her advice always seemed to give him the strength he needed to make it through another rigorous week of choreography and filming. Aside from Shanna and Aylin, he felt most threatened by Nellie. It was his competitive side that also drove him to do well each week. And she had given up the opportunity to star on Glee… for him? He stood up and moved towards her fluidly. He reached out, but she stepped backwards hesitantly.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he answered innocently before pulling her closer. Their lips met softly, and Nellie moved closer as his hands wove around her back. Her arms draped across his shoulders and folded behind his neck as his arms locked around her waist, crushing her against his stocky frame. They broke apart mere seconds later, staring at each other in surprise. Nellie was the first to speak.

“Didn’t seem like nothing…” she mumbled as a small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. She looked away sheepishly and was surprised to find that, somehow, her hands had woven with his. She hadn’t remembered doing that, allowing that. She peered up at him nervously, but a more confident smile displayed itself on her lips, and he grinned back.

“Maybe not ‘nothing,’” he agreed with a nod, pulling her closer.

“Maybe not?”

“Definitely not,” he clarified, grinning.

And just like that, all the inhibitions she had about a possible relationship between them disappeared. This felt right—more right than anything ever had before.

“Good,” she grinned back, stretching on her toes as she captured him in another fiery kiss.