"Alright, guys, listen up! Sectionals are this Saturday which means that we need to start working on our set list. We need to choose three songs that'll show the judges exactly what New Directions is all about."
Quinn smirked as Ryan grumbled beside her. He'd been on at Mr. Schuester about finalizing a setlist for weeks and frequently complained to her about their show choir director's complete lack of preparation for the upcoming competition. Quinn had to agree with him; she knew that their teacher had a lot going on in his life lately what with finding out that his crazy wife was faking her pregnancy and all, but Mr. Schue had really dropped the ball on this one.
"Well, we have to do Proud Mary in wheelchairs. That's in," Artie said immediately, to which Mr. Schue nodded acceptingly.
Meanwhile, Ryan actually physically facepalmed. Did none of them understand what a logistical nightmare it would be? It had taken them two days to set up the ramps in their own auditorium for that number and he highly doubted that they'd be allowed to make such considerable alterations to the stage at Sectionals which meant that all the choreography would have to be changed and then relearned.
But, in the interest of keeping the peace, he held his tongue for now. He and Quinn would just approach Mr. Schuester later in private, in their capacity as captains, and make him see sense. Quinn had impressed on him the need to be diplomatic about these things; it would be far better to make Mr. Schuester look like the bad guy than to pick a fight, one that he probably wouldn't win anyway, with Artie in front of everyone.
"And Don't Stop Believing for sure," said Finn, which was surprisingly a suggestion that Ryan actually approved of, even if Mr. Schue had given away his part in the song to Santana Lopez because he decided that it sounded better with two opposite sex leads. At least, that's what the teacher claimed but Ryan had a sneaking suspicion he'd done it to punish him for the brief time he'd quit the glee club to pursue a lead role in Mr Ryerson's ill fated production of Chicago.
"What about the ballad?" Tina asked.
Finally it was Ryan's time to shine. "I would be thrilled to contribute a ballad from my repertoire," he announced, his confidence buoyed by Quinn's encouraging smile.
"Actually, Ryan, I was thinking that we would hold auditions for the ballad," Mr. Schue immediately shot him down.
Ryan's jaw clenched and Quinn's grip on his hand tightened. "Auditions?"
"Yeah, your assignment the other week really opened my eyes to the fact that we have plenty of talented balladeers in this room. It's only fair that they all get a chance to try out for the solo."
"I see," Ryan said, tersely. "And who would be judging these auditions? You?"
"No. I thought I'd leave it up to you guys, that way everyone gets a say," Mr. Schue said with an oblivious smile. "So those of you who are thinking of auditioning, take the time tonight to prepare your ballads, auditions will be first thing tomorrow. Now, our Don't Stop is a little rusty so we'll start rehearsing that first."
Quinn sighed and snuggled up to her fuming boyfriend who was slumped down in his chair. They both knew that he'd already lost, Mr. Schuester had guaranteed that by turning the competition into a popularity contest and leaving the decision up to their peers rather than an impartial third party. It didn't matter what he sang or how good he was, their teammates would never vote for him, some of them -namely Finn- purely out of spite.
But that didn't mean he was just going give up. Ryan Berry did not just roll over and accept defeat. Tomorrow he was going to get up there and he was going to give the performance of his life because that's just who he was.
#
"Alright, guys," Mr Schuester said as he entered the room, full of enthusiasm. "It's sing off time! Now who's got something prepared for us?"
It was no surprise when Ryan's hand shot up, although it did come as a bit of a shock when Finn also raised his hand. However, what surprised Will the most was that out of the twelve kids they were the only two volunteering.
"Kurt, Mercedes, do you guys need some more time to prepare?" he asked, his brow furrowed in confusion and concern. Kurt and Mercedes were undoubtedly the most vocal in expressing their feelings that they didn't get to sing enough but here he was, offering them the chance at a solo, in a competition no less, and they weren't even going to bother trying to audition for it? Something wasn't right.
"No, Mr Schue, we've talked about it and we've decided that we're not going to audition," Mercedes explained.
"Although, if I may add," Kurt interjected, holding up his finger. "My rendition of Defying Gravity would blow all of you out of the water."
Will chuckled, amused by Kurt's hubris. "So why don't you get on up here and show us what you've got?"
"Because we don't want to risk splitting the vote."
Quinn felt Ryan's grip on her hand tighten and she knew that they shared the same suspicions of what was happening. She saw the crushingly disheartened look on his face that he instantly transformed into an overconfident smile the second he realized she was looking at him.
Will was a little confused by Mercedes reasoning but if that was their choice then he'd respect it. "Okay, well if that's what you guys really want. I guess it's just down to Ryan and Finn. Ryan, why don't you go first?" he said, stepping to the side and letting the boy take the floor.
Ryan took a deep breath and squared his shoulders before plastering a wide smile on his face as he began to address his teammates. "Today I will be singing 'What I Did For Love' from the legendary Broadway musical A Chorus Line. Now I know what you're thinking and yes, it is a song traditionally sung by a female, however it has been covered many a time by male performers and-"
"Get on with it!" Puck yelled, already bored.
Ryan's smile faltered only for a moment. "You're absolutely right, Noah, I should simply let my outstanding performance speak for itself," he said boastfully but Quinn could see right through her boyfriend's bravado and knew that his confidence had been shaken, she just hoped that he wouldn't let it affect his performance.
But she needn't have been worried. From the opening low notes to the final soaring high ones that never failed to send shivers down Quinn's spine, it was a trademark pitch perfect Ryan Berry gold star worthy performance that Finn could never even dream of coming close to matching on his best day.
Quinn's enthusiastic clapping stood out amongst the others decidedly lacklustre applause.
"That was great, Ryan, thank you," Mr Schuester said, sending him back to his seat where he was rewarded with a kiss from Quinn. "Finn, you're up."
Finn lumbered to his feet and turned to address the group. "Before I start singing I just want to say something, if that's okay. It's no secret that I've been having a pretty tough time lately and I just really wanted to thank everybody who's been supporting me through it all. Now I don't know if the song that I've chosen is technically a ballad but Mr. Schue said that ballads are supposed to be an expression of what you're feeling inside and I think that this song really sums up what I've been feeling these past couple of weeks."
He nodded to the band and they started to play. Santana's eyes widened as she instantly recognized the opening piano riff that Finn was trying to tap his foot along to in an awkward, jerky motion. She leaned down in between Ryan and Quinn and said, "Isn't this-"
Quinn's eyebrows shot up in disbelief as she too realized what song it was. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me."
"You're as cold as ice!" Finn sang, his arm shooting out to point an accusatory finger at Quinn. "You're willing to sacrifice our love."
Ryan covered his mouth to try and stifle a laugh. There was no way Finn could beat him now, not with that song. The others may have been biased but they would have to be insane to vote for him if they wanted to win at Sectionals.
Quinn couldn't even bring herself to be angry as her ex-boyfriend aggressively sang about her being an unfeeling gold digger. She was more bemused than anything and a little guilty that Finn still seemed to be taking it all so hard.
Finn was red-faced and breathing hard by the time he finished his song to raucous applause.
"That was fantastic, Finn! Well done," Mr. Schuester said, proudly clapping his protege on the shoulder and sending him back to his seat. "Alright, this is going to be a tough choice, we have two great ballads to choose from. Now I want you guys to take this seriously and vote for the song that you think will win us Sectionals, okay?"
"Sure thing, Mr. Schue," Puck said with a smirk.
"Alright, now raise your hand if you think that Ryan should perform the ballad at Sectionals."
Ryan, Quinn, Brittany and Santana's hands all shot up. They were the only ones.
"And now if you think Finn should take it."
The remaining club members hands all went up. Mike and Tina's were raised more hesitantly than the others; they liked Finn and felt bad for him after what Quinn and Ryan had put him through but there was no denying that Ryan's performance was a hundred times better. But they had made an agreement with their friends to vote for Finn no matter what and they felt like they had to honor that.
Not that their votes would have made a difference, even if they had voted for Ryan it only would've tied things up and Mr Schue's vote would be the tiebreaker and everybody knew where his loyalties lay.
Ryan hung his head in defeat, seething internally. How could he have lost? He was better. His voice, his song choice, his stage presence, all better than Finn's. He should have won. That solo was his and he wasn't not going to let it go without a fight.
"Okay." Mr. Schuester clapped his hands together. "By a margin of eight votes to four, Finn wins! Congratulations!"
"This is ridiculous!" Ryan protested loudly, shrugging off Quinn's comforting hand and shooting up from his chair. "He was terrible, did you even hear the way his voice cracked on that high note? There is no way we can win at Sectionals with him singing that song, surely even you can see that."
Mr. Schuester sighed in frustration. Obviously it was too much to ask for Ryan Berry to let this go without complaint. "Look, Ryan, I'm sorry that you're upset but you need to accept your teammates decision here."
"But it's the wrong one! They only voted for him because they like him better than me. I never stood a chance, you made sure of that when you turned this into a popularity contest," he argued, advancing on the show choir director who was getting more and more fed up with him by the second.
"That's enough!" Mr. Schuester shouted, the sudden surge of anger startling his students. "I've had it up to here with you and your attitude, Ryan, I really have. Now you need to accept that this is a democracy, not a dictatorship, and you don't have to like your teammates decision but you will respect it! And if you can't do that, then you can leave, because there's no place for you here."
Ryan jaw clenched as he held Schuester's glare. "Fine. Good luck winning without me. I'm done trying to save this sinking ship," he snarled, before storming out of the room.
Quinn calmly stood from her seat, gathering her things and the bag that Ryan had left behind.
She glared at the people she had once, fleetingly, called friends. "Well, I hope you're all pleased with yourselves," she said, glaring accusingly at them -Only a few of them had the decency to look guilty for the part that they'd played in what had just happened- before following in her boyfriend's footsteps out the door.
#
It wasn't exactly hard to figure out where Ryan would go to lick his wounds after his storm out.
"I thought I'd find you here," Quinn said as she ascended the steps onto the stage in the auditorium where Ryan was sitting at the piano, listlessly pressing down keys random keys.
"Are you saying that I'm predictable?"
"Only to me," she teased gently as she dropped their bags next to the bench and sat down next to her boyfriend, letting her head against his shoulder. "Did you mean what you said? Are you really quitting Glee for good?"
Ryan's face hardened. "I did, Quinn. You know, everyone in Glee is getting something out of being there. Everyone except for me. So why should I continue to waste my talents where they're so clearly not appreciated?"
Being part of something special was supposed to make him feel special but lately being in Glee club was doing exactly the opposite. He just couldn't take being passed over in favor of Finn Hudson -who sang and danced like a zombie that had to poop- anymore, it hurt too much.
He could have dealt with losing to Mercedes or even Kurt -at least they were marginally near his level of talent- but losing to Finn? No. It was a travesty. It was a humiliation of the highest order and Ryan wasn't going to stand for it any longer.
"You know that without you, we're not going to have enough members to compete."
"I'm sure that Mr. Schue will be able to find someone to take my place swaying in the background," he scoffed bitterly. But Quinn could see right through him and knew that he was more hurt than angry. "I'd recommend one of the band members, they already know the songs and most of the choreography from watching us perform. You should suggest that to him."
"I will...You know, I kind of feel like this is my fault," she admitted.
"Why?"
"If I hadn't hurt Finn like I did-"
"No," Ryan cut her off, not wanting her to feel guilty for something that wasn't her fault. "This isn't about you, it's me...People just don't like me."
Quinn tightened her grip around his arm and sighed, he was right -people didn't like him- and she wasn't about to patronize him by lying about it. "I like you," she said, resting her chin on his shoulder.
The corners of Ryan's mouth quirked up and he rested his forehead against Quinn's. "I like you too," he said softly.
They sat that way in silence for a few moments until Ryan pulled back.
"You know, if it wasn't for me the New Directions wouldn't even exist. If I hadn't gotten rid of that despicable closet case Sandy Ryerson then Tina, Mercedes and Kurt would still be stuck languishing in Rhythm Explosion, watching Hank Saunders get all the solos because he occasionally let Ryerson feel him up-"
"So the rumors were true, you did get Mr. Ryerson fired!" Quinn exclaimed, gleefully. He was so good to her that she often forgot that Ryan was quite capable of being even more ruthless and underhanded than she was, when it came to getting something he wanted. It was actually kind of a turn on.
Ryan smirked at her. "Schuester's lucky I don't do the same to him. With the way he behaves, it probably wouldn't be hard to get Figgins to believe that he was carrying on an affair with Hudson."
Quinn chuckled, amused. "I think it might look a little suspicious if you accuse both show choir directors who denied you solos of sleeping with their students, babe."
"You could do it," Ryan suggested, his eyes lighting up. "Or maybe Coach Sylvester, I know she's dying for an excuse to get rid of him-"
"Ry, you know I love a good evil scheme as much as the next girl but we are not getting Mr. Schuester fired, it'd ruin his life," Quinn said in serious tone, shutting him down before the idea had time to really take hold.
Ryan pouted but he guessed Quinn was right. By all accounts, Schuester's life was already in shambles, getting him fired from the one good thing he had left in his life would've just been cruel, not to mention possibly a slight overreaction on his part.
"Just give it some time," Quinn urged him, stroking her hand through his silky hair. "We'll work something out."
#
The Saturday morning of the competition, Ryan drove Quinn to the school to meet up with the others but that was as far as he was willing to go.
He'd already explained several times to Quinn that he did not want to subject himself to the other's snide remarks or Mr Schuester's attempts to guilt him into rejoining the group just so that he could stand in the background and watch as Finn torpedoed their chances of winning.
And on the one hand, Quinn could understand where he was coming from but on the other, she just wished that her boyfriend would stop being so stubborn and come to support her.
So they sat in silence in Ryan's car, watching as their fellow glee clubbers arrived in dribs and drabs, slowly filing into the yellow school bus. Finn and Puck were the first to arrive, then the shaggy haired bass player from the Jazz Band that they'd recruited to replace Ryan, and then Kurt and Mercedes had rolled up in Kurt's Escalade. Quinn would rather chew her own arm off than be forced to share a confined space with four out of five of those people so she was waiting until Santana and Brittany arrived to join them.
Sighing, she turned to Ryan and tried one last time to try and convince him to join them. "Are you sure that you won't come with us?"
Ryan grimaced. He felt awful about making Quinn do this on her own but if he backed down now, he knew that he'd never be taken seriously by the others. No, he had to stand firm on this. "I am. Quinn...I'm sorry, I know that I'm disappointing you."
"You're not disappointing me, Ry." Qkay, that was kind of a lie but she knew how guilty he was already feeling about this. "It'd just be nice if you were there to support us." Support me. "That's all."
He bowed his head. "I really wish it didn't have to be like this."
"So do I."
"If you need anything at all-"
"I'll call you." And he'd come running, Quinn had no doubt about that. She spotted Santana's black Mustang pulling into the parking lot and undid her seatbelt.
"Good luck," Ryan said, surprising her. "Usually I'd say 'break a leg' but, considering your rather delicate condition, I felt like that may be considered tempting fate."
Quinn chuckled and leaned across to kiss him goodbye. "Thank you." She kissed him again. "Bye."
"Bye," Ryan echoed, regretfully watching his girlfriend get out off his car and head towards the bus to Sectionals without him.
#
Quinn was surprised when she rounded the bus to find, not the sweater vested Spanish teacher she'd been expecting, but a ginger haired guidance counsellor instead.
"Ms. Pillsbury? Where's Mr. Schue?" she asked the woman who was nervously watching Artie strapping himself into the wheelchair lift.
"Oh, Quinn, I'm afraid that Mr. Schuester had a family emergency and he couldn't make it, so I'll be chaperoning you today," Ms. Pillsbury explained, anxiously wringing her hands together. "But not to worry. I mean, you kids have been rehearsing all week, you know what you're doing. I'll just be there for moral support, really. It'll be fine."
"I'm sure it will be," Quinn agreed, taking pity on the poor woman who looked like she was on the verge of a panic attack. She offered Ms. Pillsbury what she hoped was a reassuring smile then boarded the bus.
She kept her head down to avoid making eye contact as she passed Finn and the others and joined Brittany and Santana up the back of the bus.
"Loverboy still sulking?" Santana remarked, causing Quinn to glare at her as she slid into the empty seat in front of them. "Hey, don't look at me like that, Q, we're not the ones who voted for the not so jolly green giant."
"Finn isn't green," said Brittany, peering over Quinn's head to look at Finn, just to make sure.
"Metaphorically, he is," Santana explained. "He's green with envy that Berry's able to get into Quinn's not so pure white panties whenever he feels like it when his tubby ass was never allowed to get past first base."
"Oh." Brittany didn't get what any of that had to do with meteors but she nodded understandingly anyway. "Totally."
Quinn just rolled her eyes, wondering, not for the first time, how she ever became friends with the two of them. "Do either of you know what happened to Mr. Schue?"
Santana smirked at the sudden change in topic. "As a matter of fact, I do. You see, my cousin Javier lives on the same block as Mr. Schue's folks and I heard from him that last night they went on this huge bender after finding out that Mr. Schue's crazy wife was faking being pregnant and ended up burning their house down."
"Oh my God!" Quinn gasped. "Are they alright?"
"They're fine, just a little smoke inhalation, they didn't even have to go to hospital. But Javi said that their house was totally gutted and believe it or not but this is actually the second time this has happened. Anyway, I guess that Schuester's going to be stuck with them for a while."
"That's terrible," Quinn muttered, racked with guilt for the part she'd played in Terri Scuester's deception.
"But without Ryan or Mr. Schue how are we going to win at Sectionals?" Brittany pondered out loud.
"Don't worry about it, Britts, we're up against a bunch of deaf kids and lady criminals. This is going to be a freaking cakewalk."
Famous last words.