The Quarterback's Bestfriend

Nationals

Mr. Schue rushes into our hotel room, "What's going on? How bad is it?"

Sue checks the thermometer that she'd just used for Mercedes, shaking it once she read the three digits, "Her temperature's 101 degrees. Given the fact that Weezy's complaining about an upset stomach, it's either Amazonian dengue fever or the H1N1 super virus."

"Or I have food poisoning," Mercedes groans, clutching her stomach.

"We all wanted burritos for lunch, so we went to Chipotle, but Mercedes tried some dive called "Señora Salsation"," Santana informs our chaperones, frustrated that Mercedes got sick because she didn't eat at the same restaurant as everyone else.

Sue pulls our curly haired leader away from us to discuss the situation, murmuring in low voices thinking we couldn't hear them. I press a cold washrag onto Mercedes' sweating forehead in attempt to lower her fever, hoping that something will make her magically feel well enough to perform later this week.

She looks up curiously at my wrist while I do this, "I've been meaning to ask you, why did you get that tattoo when you left town?"

"Yeah, what is it anyways?" Santana asks, sitting on the edge of the bed.

I hold out my left arm to examine my tattoo. It resembled a big cross with flares on the end. To most it would look like a religious symbol, but to those who got reference it mean something much different. "It comes from the Mortal Instruments books. It means to 'calm anger', so you can only guess why I got it."

Sugar looks at it more closely, faintly tracing the flares with her fingertip, "Well I like it."

Mr. Schue raises his voice so us girls could hear him, clapping in the process, "Mercedes, you're on bed rest, Quinn, Lia, you're stepping in."

"No, no, no, I can't dance that number. I can't sing it, either, not like-" Quinn protests, merging with my own complaints, "Oh, no! I can't do that!"

"The Trouble Tones need you," Mr. Schue urges, trying to appeal to us in a logical sense.

"And you're better than you think you are," Tina compliments Quinn, who's concerned about her dancing ability, knowing that she'd be the one out of the two of us who'd need more convincing than a few words from Mr. Schue.  

Mr. Schue points at Tina, "Tina, you, too. You're in the Trouble Tones."

"Mr. Schue, this is my last competition. I don't want to miss it," Mercedes moans, pushing herself up on her elbows.

"Amen, to that, sister. That's why I'm putting you on a vitamin B-12 drip." Sue grabs the hotel ice bucket, "We're flushing your system with Pedialyte, and I'm gonna fill that bathtub with ice and see if we can't get your ambient body temperature back down to normal. Worked in Jacob's Ladder."

"All right, we all have our marching orders. Let's do it," Mr. Schue claps to signal the end of the conversation, sending us on our way downstairs to rehearse.

When I walk in to the conference room, Sam and Kaydon are coming straight toward Puck, ready to fight. Unaware of why my two friends want to fight Puck, I jump into the mix, holding Kaydon back while Mike held back Sam. Mr. Schue, Ms. Pillsbury, and Coach Beiste come in, seeing us yelling at each other.

Mr. Schue stands between the trio too, "Hey, calm down! Hey, hey, calm down! Calm down!"

"Fight, fight, fight!" Sugar chants, too eager to see the boys throw punches at one another.

"Hey, cool out!" Mr. Schue tells the boys, pushing them apart yet again.  

Sam pushes against Mike, trying to get to Puck, "He's studying for geography while we're trying to rehearse! It's bogus!"