Title: Funny, in a certain light, how we all look the same
Chapter: (4/4) And I'll learn to get by, with little victories or Day Four
Fandom: Glee
Characters/Pairings: ensemble, pairings include [deep breath]: Puck/Quinn, Finn/Rachel, Tina/Artie, Brittany/Santana, Will/Emma, Mercedes/Matt (squint and you'll see Will/Rachel, Finn/Brittany, Puck/Rachel, and canon-references to Finn/Quinn, Matt/Santana, Puck/Santana, Will/Terri, one-sided Kurt/Finn etcetera.)
Genre: angst/romance/friendship/campfire fun
Rating: PG-13
Warnings/Spoilers: If you're up-to-date with Glee, you're golden.
Word Count: 7265, approx
Summary: Bags are shrugged onto shoulders, faces dropped as they realise that no, Mr Schue really wasn’t joking when he said the words team-building weekend.
In which Sectionals leaves Glee Club broken, and looking to be fixed.
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libellous, defamatory, or in any way factual. All song-lyrics mentioned belong to their respective owners, not to me.
Author’s Note: written for the wonderful
_takemeaway_ who bought me for
help_haiti , and only abused her power a little, but then it turned out I kind of liked it, so there we go. Beta’d by the splendid
waltzmatildah and
yesssirrr , who I am fairly indebted to.
I suggest you read the first part, you know, first:
I love the rain the most, when it stops or Day One-- And then the second,
I am damaged at best, like you've already figured out or Day Two and then the traditional order of numbers dictates that maybe you should read the third chapter
Lost and insecure, you found me or Day Three just so you have a clue about what’s going on.
Please, read and review, but be gentle. I bruise like bad fruit.
And I'll learn to get by, with little victories
or Day Four
It’s less than a year ago but it’s stretched out into a whole other life.
Finn and Quinn are in love in exactly the way high school kids are. Which is that they aren’t. They peck in the halls and his hand skims over her cheerleading uniform and she plucks it off easily.
Rachel watches from afar. Puck watches from a little closer. Both of them sigh in the same places.
Chunks of grape slushie get picked out of strands of hair.
Tina smudges her make-up most days, and fakes a stutter for all of them. Artie lets her push him around even though he can do it himself because he’s hoping one day he has the confidence to reach up and pull her face down to meet his. Close the gap between their mouths. He doesn’t, and Tina gets told to let the man make the first move.
Mercedes spends all of her time just on the outside of the crowd. Nice enough to laugh with, mean enough to be careful with. She really only sings in the shower.
Kurt sings in his closet.
There are football players and cheerleaders and boxes to fit in. And this might be the one test they actually pass.
Santana cries once in the shower when some Goth with psoriasis spits “no one will remember you” in the halls. Sue doesn’t hear. Brittany wraps her arms around Santana’s waist and gets her uniform wet and doesn’t ask why.
They are shadows across lockers and echoes down halls. They are lives unlived.
---
Puck moves sometime in the morning to go the bathroom, Quinn barely stirring- like she’s made of stone, like all that practising not-listening and not-learning has worked and now she can’t even be touched. Or maybe she just doesn’t think she deserves it.
He rests his head back onto the plastic wall, his eyes shutting of their own accord. He runs his palms over his Mohawk and down his face, stretching the skin and then letting it spring back. His hands throb with the cold, pale and red at the same time, hardly able to manoeuvre his zip and button.
“Come on…” he mutters to himself, getting more and more frustrated with every misjudged fumble.
When he finally unlocks the door and walks out, she’s gone. The cold wind and the empty space she used to occupy smacking him in the face. Her duffel bag is still there like she knew he’d need some evidence that it had all happened. That they’d both left each other relatively intact, no limbs missing or internal bruising to find later. That they might have had a moment that was almost like being human.
He ducks down, crouching just above the khaki canvas, and wraps the strap around his hand. When he lifts it onto his back, a hard jar thuds against his ribs and he groans before he smiles and carries it just to the opening of her tent.
He leaves it like he knew she’d need some evidence that he was good for more than just disappointing her.
---
Will wakes up to find Emma turned in his arms, their faces almost touching. Her chest rises and falls slowly and evenly and she’s tucked herself in the curve of his body without even realising. Maybe that’s what she’s always done, patiently become everything he ever needed before he could notice it had happened.
She moves her hands between the two of them, pulling them down over her cheekbones and then rubbing her eyes, her fragile wrists flexing and relaxing in the dim light. Her eyes twitch open and then widen when she sees Will.
He smiles hesitantly, waiting for her to back away, douse her hands with Purell and return to her nice little home back on Square One. Her breath catches in her throat, her gaze switching about to every feature on his face and then back to his eyes. Her shoulders ease up, cheek resting back on the pillow. He reaches forward slightly and takes a hold of her hand, her fingers tingle.
She nods once, mouth parted slightly. “Wow.”
---
Brittany pulls her still-wet hair up and sneaks out of the changing rooms. She looks back over her shoulder a few times, hums her own version of the Mission Impossible theme tune and makes her way to the minibus.
She steps on and looks through Mr. Schuester’s bags till she feels her nails scrape against the glitter and dried PVA glue. “Got it,” she murmurs to herself.
“Brittany?” Santana pokes her head over the back of one of the chairs, “What the hell are you doing?”
“I just wanted to hold the talking stick,” she says, pulling it out of the bag like it’s a magic trick, like a ‘voila’ and jazz hands should accompany it. “Before we leave.”
“Right.” Santana pulls her hair back behind her ears, combing it through with her fingers so it doesn’t look like she just woke up, so it doesn’t look like she just slept on a bus seat with her toes curled in her sneakers and her jacket pulled over her shoulders.
“It’s pretty cool,” Brittany adds, filling the silence. She twirls it in her fingers lightly, barely thinking about it, swaying her head side to side in the same rhythm. “Why are you here?” she asks, her eyes stuck on Santana’s.
She shrugs, “I just--” She looks away. “I’m looking for my cellphone. Reception’s pretty bad, so it’s not like I could use it all weekend. But now I can’t find it.”
“Right,” Brittany repeats, nodding, her face hardly changing. “I better put this back.” She carefully unzips Mr. Schue’s bags and slides it back in. “I’m going to breakfast.”
“I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Your cellphone’s in your pocket,” she says, smiling slightly, hopping off the last two steps and onto the ground outside.
Santana runs her hand down her side and pats the just-revealed screen, still eying Brittany through the window as she bounds off to the others, ponytail swinging behind her.
---
Rachel’s packing the last of her things away, colour co-ordinated and by function like she has since she was five years old. (A star always has to be ready to leave her hotel room whenever she needs to.)
“Rachel?”
She looks up, her hands halfway through folding a skirt. “Hello, Finn.”
“I-- Can I talk to you?”
Her brown eyes look rounder (and redder) than usual, she shrugs, and tucks away the skirt into her suitcase. “Sure.”
Finn slides his hand into hers and pulls her away from her tent, away from the prying eyes and ready-to-gossip lips of Mercedes and Kurt.
“I’m not in a good… place right now. I keep screwing up… and hurting people. And I feel like I should have that police tape across me or something. But I didn’t realise how much I wanted you until--”
“Until you thought you were gonna lose me? Finn, I won’t be your consolation prize. I wasn’t giving you an ultimatum--”
“No, I know. I just… I feel… weird. Like, kind of broken. I don’t want to be with you when I’m broken. I don’t want to be someone you have to take care of-- I definitely don’t want you to be a- a punching bag. I just… I don’t want you to get over me. Not before we’ve even had a shot.”
She breathes out, crossing her arms. “You expect me to just wait around forever?”
He leans in, rests his hand on her waist and kisses her cheek, “Not forever.”
Her lips tremble, “W-Why should I even believe you?”
“Because you’re the only person who does most of the time.” He smiles, “And because I like the way your boots match your skirt, Rach.” He glances down, “…Blue today.”
She looks away from him, moving back and forth on the balls of her feet. “I get them from a website.”
He nods, “Cool.”
“I’ll think about it, Finn,” she says, finally looking up at him.
“Thanks.”
---
Tina’s voice is shaking with cold as opposed to a well-planned lie. “Artie?” He doesn’t hear her (or he pretends not to with some conviction), so she walks in front of his chair, feeling the dew soak through her shoes and leaning in till she’s a few inches from his face. “Artie.” He may not want to talk, but he’s going to listen.
His eyes meet hers, “Tina,” his voice blunt and nostalgic.
She stands back slightly and then returns her hands to his armrests. “Hey,” she whispers, her eyes twinkling in the morning light.
“Hi.”
“I’m… Not saying sorry anymore.”
“What?”
“It’s your turn to apologise.”
“I don’t--”
“I know that--” She starts before remembering that she really doesn’t know anything, let alone anything that she hasn’t said (and he hasn’t ignored) a thousand times before. She stares down at one confused Artie, two raised eyebrows and thickset glasses that are just watching her until she becomes something else. “I did a horrible thing. I know that I should have said something sooner. I know that you hate me.” She doesn’t leave him time to agree or disagree. “But I, uh… I’m more than just my stutter.” Her head shakes quietly at him, “And you’re more than just your chair.” Her face pulls into a crooked smile that he remembers over brown bag lunches and shared earphones. “And, the thing is-- I like… all of you.”
His eyes drift down towards his lap and he smiles in the same way he did when their lips came unstuck after their first date.
“And I told you… About everything. Because why would I want to lie to the one person who makes me feel okay?” She stands back up, straightening her back, and looking down on him. “So you can not talk to me, but I’m not saying sorry anymore.”
Their eyes stay locked for a few silent moments, till she nods once and smiles like she’s just started breathing again.
She turns away from him, and he catches her hand in his. He tugs her lightly down to his level again, gaze meeting briefly before her eyes flutter shut and his cool breath breezes over her face. “I’m sorry,” he says, perfectly hushed. “You’re right.”
(And the awesome thing about being best friends is that that’s all he needs to say.)
He smiles and leans in the final distance between them, tasting lip gloss and toothpaste and the way everything feels right with the world again.
---
The sun is weak and poking through the clouds like Quinn’s stomach from t-shirts that used to be too big. There’s a breeze in the air, cold, nipping at her bare arms. She digs her heels into the earth, watches her white sneakers get muddy and stay that way even when she lifts them. She likes that she could brush them off if she wanted. She likes that some things are temporary like that.
“Quinn? You missed breakfast.”
She runs her teeth along her bottom lip, because it could have been Tina, or Rachel- it even could have been Ms. Pillsbury but instead it’s him, and his stupid curly hair and his stupid chin and his stupid tendency to remind her of everything she’s ever done wrong. Mr. Schuester slides down next to her, her stomach turns, and this time it’s not morning sickness.
“I’m not hungry.”
He lets out a breath, steadies himself on the ground with two hands that might have held a baby if things had gone to plan. “Quinn, are you okay? You’ve been kinda quiet all weekend.”
She shrugs once before turning to meet his cautious eyes. “I don’t really have much to say,” she breathes out. “It just feels so strange. How can I talk when this whole weekend is about fixing what I did?”
“Hey, other people messed up too. You shouldn’t put all that blame on yourself. You didn’t--”
“I did, Mr. Schue. It’s okay. I mean, it’s not… okay. But I know it’s my fault.”
She’s not sure how many apologies she’s up to now. But this feels like a big one.
He looks down at his fingers laced together in his lap, she smiles, “Now look who’s not talking.”
“Sorry.”
Her brow furrows, the quiet stretches between them. “I, uh, I wrote this really… lame letter to you once. Saying sorry--”
“Quinn, you don’t-- You really don’t have to.”
“No, I do. I can’t--” She wipes her nose with her wrist, “I didn’t mean to hurt you, Mr. Schu. In fact, you know what--” She shuts her eyes and tries to think.“If you’d asked me a few months ago, I wouldn’t have cared. I didn’t know you, you were just some guy who gave me homework. And then you became the guy who was going to have my baby. And then you were the man who believed in me more than my parents. And I convinced myself that you didn’t need to know, and that I was doing the right thing.” She wipes at her cheeks, at the mascara-stained marks, fresh ones appearing in their place, “But I know I was wrong. And I’m sorry.”
Truth be told, he can’t keep his eyes off of the bump through her sweater. “This is a very… weird situation, Quinn,” is what he finally manages, his throat clenching over the syllables and he wonders if this is how it feels to have stage fright. “I’m trying to be your teacher in all of this, but-- you know… Sometimes--” and he stops himself because that infamous Schuester niceness has suddenly kicked in, and he doesn’t know how she’s going to take the next thing, “I find it really difficult to look at you some days.” She shuts her eyes, he sees the bruise form on her face, no ice pack or Advil to numb it, “I just-- I know why you did it. And believe me, of all the people in this, I understand your position. Probably the most. And it’s not even about you… It’s just, sometimes, I see you with your hand over your stomach or-- And I think, ‘that could have been mine’, that… little baby would have been mine. And I guess I’m finding that a little hard. Being your teacher when I could have been-” he doesn’t really think about the end of that statement. He tries not to. “But I still believe in you.”
“You don’t have to say that, Mr. Schue.”
“No, I--” he bumps her shoulder with his own, “I mean it.”
“…Really?”
“Quinn, I think you’re extraordinary. You’re going to be fine.”
---
“Ms. Pillsbury?”
“Oh, Rachel--” She stands up, gesturing to the seat across the desk from her, “Is there-- Is there something wrong?”
“I just wanted someone to talk to,” Rachel murmurs, running her hands along the strap of her bag and then sitting down.
“Well, you’ve come to the right place. That’s-- That’s what I’m here for. Guidance…
Counselling…” She smoothes down impossible creases in the desk, her fingers making light rasping noises against the wood veneer. “Anything in particular?”
“Boys.”
Her face drops, “Oh.”
“One… Boy.”
“Do I know this boy?”
“Everyone knows this boy.”
“I see.” Emma sucks her lips in and breathes through her nose, her fingers now drumming along the edge down to the corners and rubbing the pads of her fingers across it.
“Maybe he just doesn’t like me,” Rachel finally says, answering her own question. “In that way.” She finally looks up, finally remembers there’s someone else in the room. “Maybe I’m just one of his friends from Glee. Like… Artie.”
“You know, when I was younger-- a teenager. I didn’t really have guy friends.” Both of them ignore the fact that this seems to be the most obvious thing ever said. “I just had a best friend from my chemistry class called Lydia- Oh, and a pen pal from Nicaragua- but not really any boys. I was too nervous, too shy, and boys just didn’t find me… sexy.”
“And were you horribly depressed?”
“Uh… No, not exactly. I was… happy. I did well in school and I had a nice family, and I was healthy. And that was enough.” (Emma silently hopes that at least one of them believes that.)
“What are you trying to tell me, Ms. Pillsbury?”
“I’m trying to tell you that you don’t have to define yourself by the men in your life.”
“I have two gay dads…”
“Right, well--” She takes a deep breath, “The… Romantic leads.”
Rachel nods, “I understand.”
“Mm. You know, you can be a totally whole, totally amazing person without a boy.”
“But what about if you’re a totally whole, amazing person with them?”
Emma’s voice comes out a little more than a whisper, “Then you’re very lucky…”
“Exactly.”
“Rachel… You’re an extremely talented, beautiful young girl and you will meet hundreds, maybe thousands of men in your life. And some of them will be right for you. But you will always be there. Just you, all the time. The sooner you learn to love yourself, the more time you’re gonna spend happy.”
“I am very talented…”
“That’s a good start.”
She smiles, nodding to herself, mentally checking off all the things that she knows about herself. Knows, without question. The list that nobody can take away from her. She won’t be a Santana or a Quinn.
But Fanny Brice couldn’t roller-skate and she was still Fanny Brice.
She dabs at her wet mascara, “What about now?”
“Excuse me?”
“Now that you’re older… Is all that stuff still enough? Even without a romantic lead-- You’re not afraid you’re going to be found half-eaten by rats one day?”
“That would be messy,” she mutters under her breath, imagining the stains and smells, imagining the coroner deducing that she must have slipped on the wet floor after cleaning it for the third time that day, hit her head and never woke up. She looks up, “But-- No, Rachel. It’s… enough.”
She says it, even though she knows this time no one’s believing it.
---
“So everyone gets two,” Ms. Pillsbury hands out puzzle pieces, always keeping her fingers just on the edge, as far from theirs as possible.
“What is this?” Mercedes asks.
“So, as you all know, and are probably extremely grateful for, today is the last day,” Mr. Schuester starts. “You didn’t think you’d get out of this place without one last game?”
Santana shakes her head, “Mr. S, we kind of got the point of this weekend on the first day--”
“Yeah, you can stop with the Dead Poet’s Society act, Mr. Schue.”
Artie punches his fist into the air, “O Captain, My Captain.”
Mr. Schuester laughs, holding up his hands, “I get it, I get it. But you’re not getting out of this one now. Everyone gets two pieces of the puzzle and you’re going to guess what it is, what the big picture is.”
Brittany holds hers up, “I think mine’s broken.”
Emma turns it in her hands for her, “Wrong way, sweetie.”
“Oh.”
Mr. Schuester claps, “So anyone got any ideas?”
Quinn looks up, “It could be anything?”
He nods, “Anything.”
Finn laughs, “Hey, maybe it’s like-- I got-- There’s some--”
“Don’t hurt yourself, Finn,” Mercedes giggles, patting him on the back and squeezing his shoulder slightly.
“You think it’s dirty?” Puck says, “You know, if you squint it sort of looks like a d--”
Rachel puts her hand up, “Is it something from The Sound Of Music?” Everyone hushes, “My bit kind of looks like a… goat.”
Kurt looks over at her piece, “You know it does. And mine’s a foot. Maybe one of the Hummels?”
Mike’s forehead creases, “That was based on your family?”
“Yeah, it’s biographical. My dad’s cold heart was warmed by Julie Andrews’ high C.”
“…Wow…”
Mercedes smirks. “I guess it could be something like that? Hey-- Maybe it’s a picture of us?”
“How’d he get it on a puzzle?”
“I don’t know, but you can get anything on a cake.”
Finn’s face lights up, “That’s true. I had that for my twelfth birthday.”
“I remember that,” Puck interrupts. “That was a good cake. Even with your ugly face on it.”
“Guys, it isn’t a cake!” Santana yells over everyone, “It’s gotta be-- I don’t know, something… What’s Mr. Schue into?”
“Bad haircuts.”
“Speeches.”
“Tight t-shirts.”
“Chin dimples?”
“My piece doesn’t look like a chin…” Brittany sighs, “And I don’t think a speech would fit.”
“Guys--” Mr Schuester steps forward, “You’re not thinking. You’re all stood on the edges. You need to come together, work this out…”
“Maybe we can work this out, if we just think…” Rachel droans off, “What would Mr. Schuester be trying to teach us?”
“With a puzzle?”
Artie rolls forward, “She’s right. He’s always got some kind of lesson.”
Finn smiles, “I’ve got it.” He walks over to Quinn and takes her piece, laying it on the floor and slotting his next to it, “He’s telling us to come together.”
Puck walks between the two of them and crouches down, his piece fits next to Finn’s. “It’s sand or something,” he says, almost reluctantly. “Finn’s right.”
Rachel smiles, “We’re trying to do it apart. But-- We need to be a team.”
“I’ve got more sand,” Tina mumbles, walking closer, “And some kind of shell-thing?”
“It’s a snail,” Artie replies, holding his piece up to her. “I think I know what this is.”
One-by-one everyone huddles together and pieces the thing together. Their hands linking and unlinking, their arms crossing and uncrossing, their feet getting trampled on, their shoulders touching, their smiles getting broader till they step back.
Brittany tilts her head, “It’s Spongebob.”
Puck’s eyebrows pull together, “Mr. Schue, you got us a freakin’ Spongebob puzzle?”
“What are we, five?” Mercedes asks, pouting.
“I like it,” Matt grins, “Patrick’s the man.” He high-fives Mike.
Mr. Schue clears his throat. “Hey, hey. I didn’t have that much money, and it was the last one they had in the store.”
Quinn smirks, “I know Glee Club’s underfunded, but this is the best you can do?”
“Okay, so-- Maybe my choice of puzzle was a bust. And maybe you guys don’t need another lesson, but I’m gonna give you one anyway,” he laughs. “So when you’re apart, with these pieces, you just-- You don’t make anything. When you work as a team, you make the whole picture.”
“Yeah, sir, we--”
“What I’m saying is-- You’re all amazing, you’ve got these incredible raw materials, but together… You guys make something inspiring. Being a part of something special, has made you all special.”
Rachel’s smile gleams above everyone else’s.
“So go finish getting packed up,” he finishes with, gesturing his head at the tents. “I bet you’ll all be glad to get out of here.”
---
Matt laughs, “There’s no way. It’s not happening.”
“I’m telling you, bro. Fifteen minutes.”
“Chang, I’m not even sure it’s healthy.”
“Only one way to find out.” He flips onto his hands, and stays perfectly still, his feet curling over slightly for balance. “Start timing.” He travels a little bit before stabilising himself.
Matt looks down at his watch, “Okay--”
---
Santana’s lugging her suitcases onto the coach, too tired to think about how she looks and that she doesn’t have lipgloss on and that this one stray hair keeps sneaking out from behind her ear.
“That doesn’t cut you in half?”
“Excuse me?” she scowls, turning. Mercedes is carrying her own bags, stood just behind her. She glances down and Santana notices that her already-low trousers are hanging down and her pink g-string’s peeking out from the denim. “Oh.”
“Seriously-- That isn’t uncomfortable?”
“Better than granny panties,” she says, wedging her suitcases in. “It’s not always about being comfortable.”
“Being sexy is better?”
“Always.”
“Yeah, I guess that makes sense,” she shrugs, feeling her own comparatively-huge underwear itch against her skin.
“Mercedes, is this disturbing conversation coming to a question, or is this you coming out of the closet?”
Mercedes cocks her head, “What?!”
“Get to a point.”
“I was just wondering how you… you know, make yourself--”
“Mercedes, you have a gay best friend. You should be getting makeovers like everyday.”
“I’m not talking about changing… I’m talking about making me sexy. I know what I’ve got. I’m just-- I want to know how to make everyone else see all this brown sugar.”
Santana smiles, and then gets it. “This about Rutherford?”
“No,” she answers entirely too quickly.
“Once more with feeling?”
“His ex-girlfriend was a Cheerio. How do I compete with that?”
“You can’t.”
Mercedes rolls her eyes, “Santana…”
“You don’t need to.” She crosses her arms and slumps, “Look, we’re not about to have an Oprah moment. Cheerios have perfect bodies and perfect boyfriends and that’s just the way it is. But most of the time, they’re just waiting to screw things up. Girls sign up for Celibacy Club and then sleep around, they cheat on their boyfriends, flunk out of school, wear underwear that’s like a constant wedgie. You see them ten years down the line with their rich husbands and their four kids. And everyone knew it was coming. It’s a mould, and we fit into it pretty well.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“I’m trying to say that the sexiest thing about you is the fact that you don’t fit.”
She raises one eyebrow, tightens her arms around herself a little- like she’s waiting for Mercedes to speak and tell her to shut up and give her make-up advice. Like she’s waiting to get slapped for accidentally implying that Mercedes is fat. Like Sue Sylvester’s going to jump out from behind one of those trees and burn her at the stake for even thinking something like all that.
“You’re really beautiful, Santana.” Mercedes mutters, finally, a grin stretching out across her face. “I only just realised.”
She starts to walk off, smiling to herself. “Save your lesbian experience for college, Mercedes.”
---
“Hey, Puck,” Finn calls, his voice echoing through the space between them.
Puck turns, squinting as he looks into the sun, “Yeah?” He may or not be bracing himself for another punch in the face, because though he’ll never admit it (or he’ll at least say that he taught him how to do it), Finn’s got a pretty decent right hook.
He walks closer, “We’re, uh… We’re on fire, we spit, okay?”
Puck smirks, mouth twisting, “Yeah. We spit.”
---
“Kurt, you need help packing?”
He looks up, “No, thanks.”
“You sure?” Artie says, rolling forward, “You’ve got like double the amount of luggage as everyone else and I’ve got two legs that won’t even feel it.”
“I’m fine, Artie,” he says, looking up. “You go be happy with Tina.” His portable trouser press hisses. He folds his khakis and stacks them into piles.
He feels Artie’s hand on his shoulder- a gentle squeeze to let him know he sees things too. “There’s someone out there for you. Someone who wants you back.”
He zips one of his suitcases, then reaches up and returns the pressure briefly, pushing Artie’s fingers together for a moment and then letting go before turning his nose up so subtly no one would notice. “I certainly hope so.”
---
Mercedes blows up into her fringe, “What are you guys up to?”
“Mike reckons he can stand on his hands for fifteen minutes before he has to come back down.”
“Minimum,” Mike replies, his voice strained.
Mercedes points, “And Brittany?”
“I only just found out what we were doing,” she replies, earnestly, her arms trembling underneath her own weight.
Mercedes bends to meet his eyes, “How are you holding up?”
“Fine… No… Problem…”
“He’s not gonna do it.” Matt says, checking his watch. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he passed out.”
“He is looking pretty purple.”
Mike slumps on the ground, creasing over and then lying flat with his limbs stretched out across the grass. He laughs, out of breath, “Britt, you can come down now, you’ve got to be dizzy.”
“I kind of like it.”
He reaches up and pulls her legs down, she lands opposite him, looking over and facing his sneakers. Matt slumps next to them, their bodies making a triangle. He clears his throat, raising his watch above his face. “Nine minutes. Not bad.”
“Argh,” Mike groans, hitting his head back on the ground. “Bet you couldn’t beat it.”
Matt raises an eyebrow, “What?!”
“Bring it.”
Mercedes laughs, “You’re actually considering this?”
“Hey, my honour has been bruised-- and in front of a lady no less.”
“Matt, this isn’t medieval times…”
She‘s not sure whether he ignores that on purpose. “Challenge accepted.” he says, getting up and wiping off his hands. He lifts his feet off of the ground, trying to get his balance. “Go.” Mike starts his watch, looking back and forth from Matt to the time.
“You guys are insane.”
Mike barely looks up from his watch, “That’s what they said about Neil Armstrong.” And then he looks her straight in the eyes. “And the guys from Jackass.”
---
“Puck! Puck!” Quinn hisses, panting heavily. “Puck!”
“Quinn? What are you doing hanging out by the can? We gotta get on the bus.”
She puffs her cheeks up and blows out, “Get your stupid butt over here.”
He laughs, dropping his head to one side and smiling lazily, dragging his feet closer to her. “Stupid butt?”
“I’m in too much pain to think of a decent insult right now, just--”
His face suddenly goes white, “What’s happening? Is it baby time already?”
“Baby time? What-- No, it’s-- She’s kicking.”
He straightens up, “Why, what’d you do?”
She rolls her eyes. “You’re an idiot.”
“Smart enough to get the head cheerio.”
“God, this was a mistake. Just go. You can just--”
“Should I get Mr. Schue?”
“No!” she yells, leaning further back onto the port-o-potty. “I don’t want anyone else…”
“What?”
“--To see me like this.”
He nods, rams his hands in his pockets. “Alright, so-- What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to-- I don’t know! I don’t know what you can do. But I’m sick of doing this alone. I need--” She reaches forward and grabs his arm, her fingernails instantly leaving tiny grooves in his skin. “I swear, it’s--”
“Okay! Okay, I’ve got-- I’ve got something…” He drops to his knees, his face inches away from her round stomach.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Look, I saw it on ‘16 And Pregnant’, and I don’t have any better ideas.” He sighs, “Hey, baby… I, uh, you don’t really know me that well. And you might not ever get the chance to ‘cause you’re mom’s kind of deciding that for us-- Don’t worry though, she’s smart.”
Quinn’s face softens, “Look, you don’t--”
Ignoring her, he wonders where his daughter is in relation to him, whether her hand is pressed against her mother reaching out for him. “You know, I once-- I once dropped my sister, when she was a baby. My mom’s got it on home video, I’m sat with her on my knee and then I just… let go. Or something. Anyway, she slips. No one ever let me live that one down. When I get new cousins and stuff, everyone always tells that story. Then I tell Sarah she hit her head and that’s why she’s so freakin’ stupid.”
Her eyes close briefly, “Puck…”
“And, you know, if we do choose someone, it won’t be some freak who home schools their nine kids, or-- Or someone who listens to techno. And they won’t let you fall off the couch. It’ll be-- They’ll be good for you.” Quinn’s eyes glisten from above. “So I guess what I’m saying is-- I may not turn out to be your dad or anything-- Just-- Please, stop kicking your mom. She’s, uh, she’s kind of a bitch already at the moment, what with her cankles and stuff and I’m trying to get into her good books again, so if you could just--”
“It’s better--” she breathes out.
“…Stop,” he finishes, his breath blowing the sheer fabric of her camisole slightly. He clears his throat, eyes staring straight ahead at her abdomen, almost in a trance- almost like his daughter’s looking back at him. He looks up, meeting Quinn’s eyes, “What, it’s done?”
“Not entirely…” she draws out slowly, rocking her head back onto the plastic behind her. “But almost.” She leans forward, taking his hand in hers and placing it on her swollen belly, threading her fingers through his before letting go and just watching him. Watching his long eyelashes rest on his cheeks, watching his lip tremble and then move under his tongue, watching his eyes watch her back.
“Cool…” he almost whispers, voice shaking.
She grimaces, “Try feeling it from the inside.”
“That is… so…” he laughs, as a foot bashes against his hand, “badass…”
“Yeah, it’s pretty--” She raises one eyebrow, “Yeah, I guess she’s badass.”
“You guess?” He says, smiling, placing the other hand onto her stomach. “She’s awesome.”
Quinn’s eyes well up as she slowly puts her hands over his. “She’ll be pretty easy to love,” she says, after a while. “By whoever.”
He leans forward, resting his cheek on her stomach, feeling the light motion underneath his face. Quinn moves her hands to his hair, tracing where the Mohawk meets the rest of him, balancing on the edge between caring and not, feeling the wind whip through her face as she stands looking out over the cliff- waiting to jump.
“She’s stopped.” Quinn mutters, already missing it.
“I know…” She feels his eyes flutter shut and then open again. He stands up and looks her in the eyes, “Thanks.”
“It’s fine.”
His hands go back in his pocket, wedged deep down so she can’t see his fingers stretch out for her. (For both of them.) “Whatever you decide, Quinn… Just don’t call her, you know, something from the bible. My mom’ll kill me.”
She laughs under her breath, starting to walk. She looks back over her shoulder at him, “Do you even know any names from the bible?”
“…Jesus?”
---
Mr. Schuester calls over to the patch of footballers hanging upside down, eyebrows knitted together in confusion- and then awe. “Hey, guys! We’re getting ready to go now.”
Matt goes right side up again, “How long?”
“Eleven.”
“Hell yeah!”
“Do-over back at school?” Mike asks, already knowing the answer.
“Definitely.” They pump fists, laughing and then Matt’s face drops.
“Dude, what is it?”
“You think we might have missed the point of this whole weekend?”
---
Rachel hooks her fingers around Finn’s forearm, stopping him in his tracks. He leans back onto the minibus, warm from the sun, “Finn, I heard what you said. And while I appreciate the sentiment, I just don’t know whether I can trust you.”
“Oh… Yeah, okay.”
“But I’ve worked too hard on this relationship and I’ve seen enough romantic comedies to know that the popular jock just needs to learn the error of his ways and finally see the albeit-unorthodox beauty of the socially-rejected girl. That when all that happens, they might just work together. Even though all the forces of the universe are telling them they shouldn’t.”
“So, you want me to… have a musical montage or something?”
“No, I just--” She holds her wrists behind her back, rocking back and forth on her feet. “I want you to know that I’m giving you… some time.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She goes to walk away before clarifying, “But not forever. And you’re going to have to earn my trust again.”
(This is the high school version of self-respect.)
“That sounds fair.”
She nods, and turns away from him, stepping onto the coach and smiling at him through the window.
“Huh,” Finn murmurs to himself, pulling his bag onto his shoulder and starting to walk. A blur of pre-planned outfits (the result of one late night fashion session, because there is no way he’s letting Mercedes say goodbye to the wilderness in those cowboy boots she seriously needs to rethink) step in front of him- a wall of steely eyes and practised pouts.
Mercedes cocks her head to the side. “Finn--”
“Hey, guys…”
“Me and Kurt need to talk to you.”
“Yeah, I figured.”
Mercedes glances upwards into the bus, Rachel’s already listening to the Les Mis soundtrack, mentally Photoshopping her face onto Lea Salonga’s. “So here’s the thing. We may not have always liked Rachel--”
“But this weekend, we’ve come to see the appeal she’s always seen in herself,” Kurt interjects. “And while she may still have her flaws, while she may still have a lot of them--”
“She’s our friend.”
Kurt smirks, “For better or for worse.”
Finn shakes his head. “What are you guys talking about?”
Mercedes steps forward. “We’re talking about the fact that she may see the good in you, but she’s not the only one you have to convince. She’s our girl now, so you do anything that breaks her heart--”
“We may not be able to hurt you physically, and we don’t do slushies in the face. But I can destroy your self-esteem in exactly three well-planned comments.” He shrugs, “Two, on a good day.”
“You understand?”
“Uh, I think so.”
“Good. See you on the bus, Finn.”
Finn is fairly certain that a Slushie facial would be less scary.
---
Santana slides herself into the window seat, the cheap material scratching against her thighs as her shorts ride up. She watches Brittany step up onto the bus and walk down the aisle, she watches Brittany’s eyes dash between the empty seat next to her and the one next to Mike, and she watches Brittany’s chest rise and fall as she tries to make the decision.
“Britt?”
She blinks, as if woken from a trance, “Yeah.”
“You wanna sit by me?”
She smiles, “Awesome.”
Santana moves her bag, and lets Brittany wedge herself between her and the armrest. “I’ve been a bitch.”
She shrugs, “I get it.”
“… You do?”
Brittany turns to face her, resting her cheek on the back of the seat and watching her so intensely she’s practically looking through her. “Yeah.”
She links her fingers between Brittany’s. “Cool.”
---
Quinn’s flicking her hair away from her face and trying to pretend she won’t miss this weekend, as she edges down the aisle of the bus. Her feet tentative, she feels someone’s hand at the small of her back, helping her on. She looks back, Kurt’s mouth is pulled into a smirk, he shrugs once, stepping up out of his seat and holding her by the shoulders.
“Thank you, Kurt.”
He smiles, grabbing her carry-on bag off of her shoulder and lugging it onto his own. “Trust me, I’ve shopped on Black Friday. I can carry bags.”
He bucks his chin in the direction of the empty seat next to Finn (a.k.a what-kind-of-luck-is-it-that-this-is-the-only-seat-left?) and takes her bag back off of Kurt, “Thank you…” she repeats, trying to cover as much of her stomach as she possibly can because she figures maybe they can pretend she isn’t the elephant in the room.
Finn clears his throat “Is… everything okay with her?” he mutters close to her face, nodding ever-so-slightly towards the baby. “I know she’s not mine, but--” He laughs nervously. “But I already loved her.”
She cups his face, feeling him fill her palm for a second before she retreats back to her lap. “She’s fine. Everything’s good… Except for the situation.” she replies, her long eyelashes drooping onto her cheeks. He nods, keeps nodding into the chair in front until he’s looking away and she thinks she hears him sniff.
“Hey, look,” he smiles, turning back to face her. “Whole sentences…”
“Yeah.”
“You think everything’s going to be okay?”
“I think it has to be.”
---
Monday morning, Will steps onto the bus for the second significant time this weekend.
He remembers Friday and the quiet pulsing through everyone- too many lies and too much truth and not enough life experience to know how to handle any of it. He remembers looking over at Emma, eyes glued to the outside world and thinking about how quickly it would be to just walk away, leaving nothing but the echo of her high heels on the pavement as she looked back over her shoulder and pretended that she ever thought she could be someone different than who she’s always been. He looks over at Quinn who seems to be growing before him, ankles and wrists and cheeks swelling, ignoring how cold the cross around her neck is. And finally at the ruins of something he thought would be pretty amazing; his Glee Club too tired and bored and nothing like how they all started- and he can’t tell if it’s for the better or not.
And then he musters up every ounce of energy and conviction and make-believe that he can: “Everyone ready?”
This time the chatter kind of clouds everything. In a good way. This time the pairs of eyes all look back at him, not away- not at their laps, or hands, or cellphone screens.
He breathes in to speak, mouth parted and a speech just inside, till he feels Emma’s cold fingertips brush against his wrist. “Will,” her small Southern voice whispers. “You think maybe they’ve had enough speeches?”
He laughs, nodding, “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
Rachel unclips her seatbelt and stands, “Sir, I think this would be a perfect opportunity to start practising for Regionals.”
Everyone groans, Tina looks around before saying: “Why don’t we just… sing for fun?” reaching down and lacing her fingers between Artie’s at the same time.
“Kumbaya?” Puck calls out, eyebrow raised.
“What about duets?” Kurt asks, grin spreading across his face. “Rachel and Mr. Schue can show us Endless Love again.”
Rachel turns to face Will with wide hopeful eyes, “I’ve been working on my lower register.”
“Yeah, that’s not happening, Kurt.”
He smirks, turning back to Mercedes and telling her that guess what just because things come in eight different colours, you don’t have to put them all on at once.
Quinn’s voice peeks through everyone else’s, “What about Madonna?”
Brittany wrinkles her nose, “Her arms look like beef jerkey.” Kurt gasps in horror somewhere in the background.
“Yeah, I’m kind of sick of her,” Santana adds, “Like stop with the Greatest Hits-- We get it, you’re old.”
“What about The Beatles?” Artie offers.
“What about Tupac?!” Matt jumps in.
“Something from Westside Story?”
Puck laughs, “No, thank you, Maria.”
Finn looks over his chair, “You watch musicals?”
“No.” Finn snorts dubious. Puck jerks about nervously, “Doesn’t everyone know the names?”
Mike sticks his hand up, “…I don’t.”
“Shut it, Chang.”
Mercedes lays her hands out flat, rolling her eyes, “Okay, you guys-- Beyonce. Come on, she’s good.”
“What is it with you guys and chick songs?”
“We’re girls.”
The sound of their bickering gets swallowed by the trees and fresh air and blue sky that went largely unnoticed this whole weekend. No one’s entirely sure what gets decided in the end and next week something else crops up that means people yell and cry and smile and laugh and kiss and stare and throw slushies.
Yeah, it’s not exactly a happy ending. More the start of one.
But they’ve always been the underdogs.