Perfectly Imperfect

Hold On To Sixteen

Quinn and Dani left their English class, walking arm in arm through the halls, "Which one of us do you think Mr. Schue is going to put on lead vocals now that Rachel's banned from competition?"

Dani looked down at her phone, seeing the text message from Finn, "Lowkey want it to be you because I don't know if I have a good enough voice to replace Rachel Berry."

Quinn rolled her eyes at her best friend's self-doubt, turning the corner, "Well I'm sure it's not gonna be Tina, he never pays attention to her. But of course you could, you have one of the best voices in the club. Arguably better than-"

"Rachel Berry. She's here?" Dani finished, pointing down the hall where Rachel was retrieving her binders and textbooks from her locker.

The pair walked over to Rachel as she closed her locker door shut, Quinn frowning at the brunette's presence, "I thought you weren't allowed here."

"I'm permitted on school grounds as long as I'm getting my work. Oh, I wanted to tell you two I'm available for vocal coaching if you need any help. We need to bring our "A" game if we have any chance of beating the Trouble Tones."

"Oh, we're not gonna have any trouble with them. Not as soon as I have Shelby Corcoran fired." Quinn looks around, lowering her voice to a whisper as she shares the information to Rachel, "She's sleeping with Puck."

Rachel looked around, keeping her voice in a low volume so passersby couldn't overhear, "Look, that's a really, really dangerous rumor to make up, okay? You're gonna ruin her entire reputation."

Quinn smirked evilly, "That's the plan."

"And it's not a lie," Dani affirmed, surprising the brunette with the information about her birth mother.

Quinn smirked at Rachel's surprise, "I heard it from Puck."

"First of all, Puck is 18, so what he and Shelby are doing, even though it's just wrong and so gross, it's not illegal. So all you're doing is you're just, you're getting her fired, which is gonna take away her income to provide food and clothes and put a roof over her child's tiny little blonde head."

Quinn shrugged, rolling her eyes at Rachel, "Sounds like an unfit mother. And I'll be waiting in the wings when they take Beth away from her."

"Beth loves her mom. Shelby is her real mom. Look, you've done a lot of really bad things, Quinn, but if you tell people about this Puck-and-Shelby thing, you'll be ruining this little girl's life, and then you'll have really hit rock bottom," Rachel spat, leaving the girls standing at her locker as she goes to find Nathan.

Dani looked to see how Quinn reacted to Rachel advising her against her plan, seeing Quinn's expectant look, waiting for Dani to agree with Rachel, "Don't give me those eyes, you know I'll always back you up and never agree with Rachel Berry when she's close enough to hear. Even if I agreed with her and I'm not saying I do, but if I did I'll be there to help no matter how the chips fall. Now I've got to help Mr. Schue and Finn pick the setlist if you need me."

Dani and Finn sat in the plastic chairs, watching Mr. Schue shuffle through multiple stacks of sheet music. Finn watched Dani flip through the Michael Jackson book, with almost every song he'd ever published, listening to her talk to herself, "Sectionals is in our auditorium for the first time since 1963."

Mr. Schue, frantic to find something that would work well for his group of eight men and three girls, ignored her reminder, "Too much talking, not enough looking for songs for Sectionals. We need to do something upbeat."

Finn followed Dani over to the piano as she showed him her top three picks, "Mr. Schue, maybe we need to concentrate on our performer problem before we set a set list. I mean, at least the Cheerios! can dance. We need star power. We need Sam Evans."