butterflies ⋮ sam evans

23 | "pot o' gold"

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The first New Directions rehearsal after Mercedes quit was an incredibly tense one to say the least. Keilani and Mike both had their arms wrapped around Tina's shoulder, who had been crying ever since she stepped into the room over the loss of Mercedes.

"You know what, girl Chang?" Santana said in an annoyed tone of voice as she filed her nails. "If you start crying every time someone gets a hangnail, it really starts to lose its effect."

"It's not a hangnail!" Tina cried. "Mercedes was one of Glee's original members. I feel naked in here without her."

"Yeah, well get used to it!" Puck added in, crossing his arms over his chest. "Cause without her singing for us, we're going to have to perform naked for the judges to vote for us at Sectionals.'

Mr. Shue shook his head. He too was upset at the loss of Mercedes, but he was determined to not let it show to the New Directions out of fear of what would happen if they saw him worried. "No, I will not let this setback crush our spirits."

"Than losing one of our best singers?" Mike asked.

"Kind of hard not to blame you, Mr. Shue," Quinn chimed in, raising an eyebrow as she stared down the choir teacher. "Think you were too hard at Booty Camp."

Wiping her tears and wanting to add her input in the conversation, Tina leaned forward in her seat to get a better look at one of the boys in the front row and said, "I blame Artie. Why couldn't you just have given the part of Maria to Mercedes?"

"It would've damaged my integrity as an artist!"

The two continued arguing as Rachel strode into the room, several minutes late to rehearsal and seemingly not caring in the slightest. When she revealed that she was putting up posters for her presidential campaign, Kurt sent her a nasty look and make a comment about how Rachel would need to use airbrush on her posters.

Feeling the room delving into chaos, Finn threw his arms out and exclaimed, "So we lost a singer! So they canceled the musical."

Rachel was close to tears as she leapt up from her chair, interrupting what was likely going to be a motivational speech from Finn. "Wait, what? You can't cancel my musical!" She exclaimed, earning an annoyed eye roll out of Keilani. "I was considering changing my middle name to 'Maria'! Natalie Woods was a Jew too, you know!"

"Natalie Woods should've also never been playing that part in the first place," Keilani pointed out. "She wasn't Puerto Rican, let alone Latina, and neither are you."

"And you are?"

"Yes."

Sensing that yet another major fight was brewing with the way Rachel was staring at Keilani with murder in her eyes, Finn cut in with, "The point is that we shouldn't be turning on each other right now. We need to stop the fighting!"