♪breathe♪

♪nationals♪

mercedes woke up their second day in chicago, feeling as though the room was on fire, "cassie i don't feel so good."

cass pressed the back of her hand, feeling the heat radiating from her best friend's forehead, "oh mama, i think you have a fever. hey sugar, can you go get sue and tina please go get my dad?"

"i can't be sick cass it's nationals."

cass looked to a growingly concerned quinn, addressing mercedes, "i know baby, shush."

the moment sue walked in, cass got up off the bed making from for sue, "sue, she's burning up."

william schuester walked in seeing all the girls watching sue take mercedes' temperature, "what's going on? how bad is it?"

"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."

mercedes groans at sue's ridiculous explanations, "or i have food poisoning."

"we all wanted burritos for lunch, so we went to chipotle, but mercedes tried some dive called "señora salsation"," santana explained.

sue beckoned will to the door of the hotel room, "will, word, please."

"nationals is in two days, i'm not missing nationals," mercedes tells cass in between dry heaves.

cass nodded, stroking the top of mercedes' head, "you'll be fine, sue's gonna take care of you."

"so here's what's gonna happen: mercedes, you're on bed rest, quinn, cassie you're stepping in."

quinn's eyes grew wider than saucers, rapidly shaking her head no, "no, no, no, i can't dance that number."

"i can't sing it, either, not like," cass trailed off pointing to the sick new direction. 

will silenced the both of them, "the troubletones need you. and you're better than you think you are. tina, you, too. you're in the troubletones."

"mr. schue, this is my last competition. i don't want to miss it."

"amen, to that, sister. that's why I'm putting you on a vitamin b-12 drip. 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," sue shrugged.

will clapped loudly, pushing the healthy girl's out of the room, "all right, we all have our marching orders. let's do it."

in a conference room the hotel was allowing the new directions to rehearse in, sam was getting frustrated by the lack of effort puckerman was putting forth, "puck come on, we need to run "dashboard"."

he looked to cass, who's been helping him study since coach beiste got him a retest, "10 more minutes, i need to pass that test to graduate."

"okay," cass gave in, going to help tina and quinn with their new parts in "edge of glory".

sam yelled at puck, unsatisfied with how easy cass gave in, "no that's not okay, get off your ass and help us."

"i have the steps because unlike you i can pick up choreography."

sam scoffed stepping towards him as though he were going to hit him, "but you can't pick up basic geography."

logan got in between them, putting his hand on sam's chest to lightly push him back, "man, back off. he's fine, i taught him the steps last night."

"no, it's ridiculous. he's getting a free pass to be lazy because he's a dumbass who can't pass a test," sam yelled, taunting puck.

puck slammed his textbook down onto the table, "that's it!"