Damaged Goods

Chapter 11

"Welcome, welcome, welcome everybody!" Mr. Schue exclaimed as he walked into the choir room on Friday morning. The assignment practice period was officially over, so it was time for everyone to perform. Quinn and Finn had spent almost the entire week together, spending every afternoon supposedly doing the assignment and getting to know each other. But truth be told, they were really just enjoying one another's company. It had become really each to talk to each other, and so they talked about everything under the sun. They talked about their passions, their hobbies, their aspirations for the future, their upbringings. Marcus felt horrible as he lied to Quinn about everything to do with his mother, but he couldn't gather the strength to tell her.

"Mr. Schue, are we performing today?" Rachel asked almost as soon as he walked in. "Because I feel like as soon as we can finish this assignment and move onto Sectionals prep, the better."

"What's with you and Sectionals prep, Rachel? Relax. We've got a long time until then." Mr. Schue chuckled. "But in answer to your question... yes. Performances today."

Marcus glanced at Quinn across the room, and as her hazel eyes met his amber ones, she sensed his unease and smiled. She knew that he was nervous about performing. His audition song had been something he had sung in the shower for years, so he had polished it plenty through constant repetition. This song, however, he had just learned that week so it would be a much truer test of his singing ability.

"But before we begin... Finn, Puck, Sam, Mike, Artie... how are you guys feeling? You guys ready for the game this evening?"

It was the football team's first game of the season that evening, the first game in their journey to go back to back as State Champions. The feelings within the team were extremely anxious, more so than any other year, for a number of reasons. First off, on normal years, there was little to no expectations on them to perform. After all, they were a random public school in the dump of a city that Lima is. However, this year, as the state champions, they were no longer the hunters but rather the hunted, and that was a very new feeling to them. This feeling was also made even more nerve wracking by the fact that a lot of their key players had graduated at the end of last year, leaving quite a few question marks over whether or not their new recruits that would be replacing them would perform. There were definitely key offensive players still there - Finn, Puck, Mike and Sam being some of them, but it was defense where things got a little more uncertain. Despite all this though, they were all extremely excited for the game that night.

"Heck yeah, Mr. Schue." Finn replied. "Coach Beiste has been putting us through an insane training camp to get us ready for the season, so it'll be nice to showcase what we've learned and improved on."

"Yeah, that is if our defence doesn't completely choke." Puck grumbled. "I swear, the Glee girls who played for us last season are better than some of these new recruits."

"Woah, woah, woah... wait... the Glee girls played football last year?" Marcus asked, confused.

"Yeah, they played the first half in our Championship game." Sam chuckled. Marcus' eyes widened.

"How'd that go?" He remarked.

"Well Tina probably made more yards in one play than anyone else on our team." Mike responded, cracking a grin as he recollected that fateful evening.

"Yeah, then like 5 seconds later, she got her clock absolutely cleaned by some ogre linebacker. It was brutal." Puck grinned. Marcus shuddered and turned to Tina, who was looking on with a proud smile on her face.

"That must've hurt." Marcus remarked.

"Marcus, I think the point of the story here is that some of the guys in the Glee club needed help. The whole football team quit a week before the Championship game. And like a family does, the rest of the Glee club stepped in and helped them." Mr. Schue said.