Missy Gunderson stared in the mirror as her mascara ringed her pretty brown eyes. How had this happened to her? Did she expect to win Prom Queen? Not really. Quinn "I wish I had legs" Fabray was a formidable opponent. No shame in losing to Santana "Don't make me cut you" Lopez either. But to lose to whats-her-name? To hear the whole gym go "Who?" That was humiliating.

"Are you done yet?" her best friend Alice asked. "It sucks, I know that. I wouldn't believe she could get the votes of the other members of the glee club, let alone enough votes to win." The light-skinned brown girl put her put her arm around Missy. "But look at it this way, at least it was a girl. Last year Quinn lost to a boy."

"She did?"

"Yeah, this was before you came here. Some kind of a sick practical joke. Why people would go to that much effort I don't know but that's how it went down. That gay kid that ran for class president?"

"At my old school they didn't allow write-in votes. Too much opportunity for harassment and pranks."

"Well, that's how we roll here at McKinley." She laughed and tickled Missy. "Ready to come out now? The editor of the school paper wants to hear your reaction." Missy rolled her eyes and Alice agreed. "Yeah, he is the type that stands in front of house fires and asks the victims how they feel."

"Whatever." Missy wiped off her makeup, stiffened her spine, and walked out of the bathroom. One good thing about being an Army brat, you're Army strong. This was nothing Missy couldn't handle.

"So, Missy, how does it feel to lose to Rachel Berry, a write-in candidate who didn't campaign?" the short boy with the jewfro asked.

"Rachel Berry? That's her name?" Missy asked in a tone designed to show indifference.

"Rachel Berry, prom queen. Get used to it." he snarked.

"I guess I'm going to have to, cause I never heard that name before. And nobody I know has ever heard that name before." Well Alice has from being a TroubleTone and according to Alice not even the Glee kids like her. An idea formed in Missy's mind. No, why would two cheerleaders do that? "Don't you think it odd" she asked Jacob, "that the candidates for prom queen got to count the votes? That useless class president wouldn't let me go in the room with them."

"Yeah, but they hate Berry. Hate her with a burning passion. It must have killed them to see her name come up on top."

Missy thought about that hug-fest she saw in the hallway right before Santana walked by with the ballots. Hell of a coincidence, wasn't it? "Well Jacob, let me just say soon we'll all be sure that the best woman is wearing the crown." Her smile sent chills down Jacob's back. "Now, if you'll excuse me?" Missy "Shock and Awe" Gunderson stood up, dismissing Jacob from her presence.

Missy stood with her hand on the door to the Spanish room. Alice thought this idea was crazy and Patrice kept repeating "You've got five minutes. I didn't like the way Shane was making googly eyes at his ex." Missy opened the door and the girls slipped in.

"What we're looking for is evidence. I know they counted the ballots in here." She put air-quotes around the word counted. "A big green box with dinosaurs on it. Looks like it was painted by three-year olds. Not very bright three-year olds. And the trash cans, check the trash cans."

Alice spun around slowly on one heel like the dancer she was, stopping with her hand pointed at the blackboard. "Would that count as evidence?"

Quinn - 150

Santana - 149

Missy - 135

"So where's Rachel's name?" Missy wondered, spotting the over-flowing trash can. "Alice, can you go find Figgins?"

Monday morning

Will looked at the black board in horror. Rachel's name wasn't even on the list of vote totals. How in the world? He heard footsteps and quickly started erasing.

"It's too late, Will." Figgins said ruefully "I saw it already." Three girls Will didn't recognise, even though they were in his Spanish class and one of them was a TroubleTone, stood behind the principal. "Come with me, please."

That afternoon

"Mercedes! What's wrong?" Tina asked the crying diva. "And where is everybody?" She walked in a wide circle around Coach Sylvester, who was rubbing her temples and mumbling about shredders.

"Suspended." Mercedes choked out. "They've all been suspended."

"What the fuck!" Tina slapped her hand over her mouth and looked over at Coach Sylvester, who didn't respond. "What happened?"

"Vote fraud." Blaine and Kurt entered the room clutching hands and sat down in the back of the room. "Rachel didn't really win prom queen. Santana and Quinn got suspended for cheating on the Prom Queen vote, Brittany for fiscal incompetence after the prom committee turned on her. They did a lot of work and she threw it all out and did it her way, insulting them the whole time. Do you know how much those dinosaur heads cost? Thousands! Mr. Schuester." Tina sat down with her head in her hands and let out a small groan. "Mr. Schuester for trying to cover the prom queen thing up."

Sam put his hand on Mercedes' shoulder in what he hoped was a comforting motion. She shrugged his hand off.

"What are we going to do?" she cried.

"We're gonna put on a show!" Sam said cheerfully.

"What?" Kurt asked, on the edge of getting hysterical. "This isn't some 1930's Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney musical!"

"What else can we do?" He sat down next to Mercedes. "We have great singers in Mercedes and Tina. That plus the TroubleTones is plenty of warm bodies of the lovely female persuasion. We've got boys, we've got girls, we've got a show!"

"I can't do it without Santana!" Mercedes insisted.

"Sure you can! And you will. I meant it when I said you're gonna rise to the top. Here's your chance!"

"What about Rachel?" Tina asked. "She's not getting suspended again, is she?" Once she got past the initial shock, Tina wasn't too opposed to another suspension for Miss Berry. That was about the only way she ever got to sing lead.

"That's up in the air." Blaine said. "Santana swore Rachel was innocent, Figgins said Rachel has a history of ballot tampering. In any case, Rachel's embarrassed to show her face in the building. First NAYDA, now this. Well anyway..." He clapped, rubbed his hands together, and stood up. "Ideas?"

"But Rachel's our star!" Kurt insisted.

"Rachel's not our only star." Sam stood up next to Blaine. "Those of us who aren't graduating are going to have to start performing without Rachel anyway. As good a time as any to learn."

"That place is going to be packed with girls like Berry so that's not an insurmountable loss there." Coach Sylvester said suddenly, startling Tina. "Vocal Adrenaline is featuring Unique. That's their gimmick. We need a hook, something different."

At Nationals

Focus Jones. Focus. Mercedes stood in the wings of the auditorium. She should be happy, this is what she always wanted, singing an undisputed lead for New Directions. But how it happened, that's the part that sucked.

Half the girls were suspended. And Santana and Quinn threw the election to Berry. Talk about ingrates. After begging Quinn to come live with her, begging Santana to join the TroubleTones for a guaranteed lead, that that's the thanks she gets. If they were going to throw an election they could have thrown it her way, she and Sam could have been the first interracial prom royalty. Make a difference Santana said. Give Berry everything she wants? Again? How's that different?

And Sam, what the hell is wrong with him? Is he her boyfriend or not, she can barely tell these days. Is you is or is you ain't my baby? Shit, that's not what she's singing. Don't pull a Berry. Focus. She took a deep breath and looked at Blaine on the other side of the stage. He's jumping up and down and giving her a thumbs up, when he's not smooching with Kurt. Sam's winking at her. Idiot. Artie's sitting there with his eyes closed. She heard the opening strains of the song Tina's singing and gave her a hug for luck. It's show time!

Monday morning

Mercedes pressed her hand against the glass case. That's one freaking huge trophy she thought with a pleased sigh. First place, New Directions.

"That's one freaking huge trophy." Shane said from behind her. She jumped, damn he's quiet. She'd forgotten how such a big guy is so light on his feet. "Congratulations. Alice said you beat them over the head with Stephanie Mills. Home?"

"Yes, that was it." His girlfriend Patrice escaped from his arms. "Now shoo, pookie. Mercy and I have business to discuss." Shane chuckled and left.

"No wonder you kicked him to the curb." Patrice said as soon as Shane was out of earshot. "A girl can hardly go to the bathroom when he's around. He can't go to Ohio State fast enough to suit me." But she said it with a wistful smile. "So, how long are you going to stand here staring at your precious?"

"I can hardly believe we won. I'm sure Alice told you all about it but Unique was fierce, I mean fierce! And Jesse works them like slaves. They operate like a machine. And then it was a tie! They got more points for choreography, and damn you could see why, but we got more points for going all vintage, they did a mix of old and new songs. It was Show Choir sudden death."

"Never heard of that. Course I never heard of show choir so there you go."

"Well, we had the same number of points. We had to do another song but – and here's the catch, we had to use somebody new. Almost all of us had done solos already, all except Kurt. He sang "Trains and Boats and Planes". Never heard of it? Anyway, it was awesome. Take my word for it. The other team was all Unique. Jesse hadn't prepped anybody else. No contest."

"Cool!" Patrice said in a tone meant to get Mercedes on another track. "Anyway, you still on for tonight?"

"Of course. I need to get started on my career as a starving singer."

"You won't starve." Alice and Missy walked up to the display case. "My dad will give you dinner at the coffeehouse tonight. As long as you're in Lima you won't starve. And you can sing every week if you want. He loved your performance, but not so loud he said, it's a small place." Alice glanced at the trophy. As a Troubletone her name was on the winner's certificate too. "I hope Grammies are smaller than that. You don't want to have to build an addition to hold them all."

Mercedes laughed. "That's probably not going to be a problem."

"Probably you'll just collect gold records. They don't take much room and you can hang them on the wall." The four girls watched the unholy trinity, Quinn, Santana and Brittany walk by without saying a word. Britt gave Mercedes a small wave but didn't stop.

"So," Missy said, noticing the sad expression on Mercedes' face. "You want to go to the coffeehouse early? That place is full of college students. Men, not boys like they have here and the the Lima Bean."

"Thanks. That should be fun. We don't have practice today. Yes, let's go, assuming Patrice can give Shane the slip." She turned and nearly tripped over Rachel.

"Rachel, I didn't see you there."

"I didn't mean to interrupt" she said softly.

"No, we're just going out for coffee." The other girls looked at Rachel, nodded, but didn't say anything. Mercedes looked at Rachel, she wanted to say something. "Hey, can I catch up to you guys there?"

"How can you hang out with them?" Rachel asked angrily after the girls left. "After what they did to me?"

"What did they do to you?" Mercedes was patient with the damaged diva.

"You know." Her voice cracked a little. "They stole my prom queen crown!"

"No, Quinn and Santana stole the crown and gave it to you. It wasn't their crown to give away. If they didn't want it Missy was next in line. That's only fair."

"But did Patrice have to write that overwrought article about democracy being in danger right her in Ohio? Tyrannical dictators and puppet governments?" She shook her head. "I thought Jacob was a hack."

"Well, Alice, Missy and I all have older brothers or sisters in the military. I didn't realize that until I talked to Alice on the bus to Chicago. I thought the article was a bit much but they're all fighting for democracy and here we are, throwing ballots in the trash. That's what she was getting at. And Patrice got a promotion to co-editor of the school paper."

"And Missy got to be prom queen and a special appointment as Senior Class president. And Alice got to be on a Nationals winning show choir. All very nice. Anyway, I wanted to congratulate you on your win."

"It was our win. And without you at Regionals we would never have made it to Nationals." Which was true enough, Mercedes thought.

"Thank you. I really wanted to be there." Rachel stared at the trophy.

"You could have been there." Mercedes pointed out.

"Yes, but..."

"But it was too late to change the set list. Coach Sylvester isn't like Schuester, she's more like Shelby, plan your work and work your plan. By the time you made up your mind..." And Coach Sylvester knows how to do something other than scream at a sick student the added mentally.

"Got it. It was too late for me to do anything but sing backup. Anyway," Rachel got to her point. "I heard you're singing at commencement."

"Not me, New Directions. We voted Kurt MVP and he's doing the solo."

"But if Kurt gave me his solo?" She asked hopefully.

"That's between you and Kurt." She wondered if Rachel had the nerve to ask him for it. Yes, nerve she's got plenty of. "I gotta get going. Goodbye Rachel."

Mercedes turned and walked into her future.

National's set list

Somewhere Out There (1986) – Linda Ronstadt/James Ingram (Tina, Artie, Puck)

Chattanooga Choo Choo (1941) – Dorothy Dandridge and the Nicholas Brothers (Blaine, Mike, Sam, New Directions and Troubletones)

Home (1975) – Stephanie Mills (Mercedes)

Tie Breaker

Trains And Boats And Planes (1966) – Dionne Warwick (Kurt)

Totally irrelevant but "Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby" is from 1944. I like Dinah Washington's version.

Rants

I can't believe Missy didn't demand a recount and nobody found that prom queen thing the least bit suspicious.

Prom/Props/Nationals really bummed me out cause I can't figure out if Sam and Mercedes are a couple or not. Actually I can barely tell if Kurt and Blaine are a couple any more. I'm hoping the finale twist is the fact that the whole second half of the season took place in somebody's imagination. Schuester as teacher of the year? On what planet?

And Tina in Props? Not since Imitation of Life have I seen such groveling by someone who deserves better.