"Hey Rach?"
"Yeah?"
"How much underwear am I supposed to pack?"
With a sigh Rachel set down the apple she had been about to eat and headed back to Finn's bedroom. Inside, she found her gangly boyfriend looking down into an empty suitcase lying open on his bed and what appeared to be his entire wardrobe strewn across the room. He glanced up at her and frowned helplessly.
"I've never had to pack for something like this before."
Rachel rolled her eyes and moved to sit on his bed, pushing a pile of clothes out of the way to make room for herself.
"Fine, but I'm not digging through your stuff. I'll just supervise."
He nodded. "That works."
"Alright, first of all we're going to be gone for four days. And since you're supposed to wear clean underwear each day for sanitary purposes you'll need….."
Finn's face lit up with realization. "Four pairs. Thanks babe."
Rachel chuckled. "You're welcome. And you'll need something to sleep in, and socks for each day. The weather is supposed to be warm but I'd bring a pair of jeans and dress pants in case we go out to dinner or there's a breeze." She listed as he grabbed each item and tossed it into the suitcase.
"Shirts, deodorant, sandals, bathing suit, toothbrush, cell phone charger, iPod…." This continued for another few minutes before she smiled. "I think that's it!"
Finn let out a sigh of relief, closing the suitcase and tossing it on the floor before flopping down onto the bed with her, exhausted. "I owe you."
Rachel shrugged. "You can make it up to me by being my pillow on the flight."
"Deal." He leaned in to press a kiss to her lips. "I'm guessing you're packed already?"
"My bags have been sitting by the door for the last nine days ready to go."
Finn laughed. "Of course they have."
"It's never a bad thing to be prepared Finn. This way I have plenty of time to make sure I didn't forget anything."
"You didn't." he stated simply. "You never do. Unless I make you forget something, but that's not your fault."
Rachel's face wrinkled in confusion. "What do you mean you make me forget things?"
The glint in her boyfriend's eye should have tipped her off sooner, but before Rachel could realize what was happening Finn had flipped them over so that his body loomed over her own, pinning her arms gently above her head. Leaning down to take her lips in his own, he wasted no time in slipping his tongue into her awaiting mouth, threading their fingers together and rubbing against her leg intimately.
"Wanna try and go over that packing list again?" he mumbled after a few minutes.
"Nuuuygh," Rachel replied unintelligently. Opening her eyes to see his smiling face just inches from her own, she reached up to fuse her mouth over his, untangling one arm from above her head and using it to stroke the hair on the nape of his neck.
"Tell them how I
Am defying gravity!
I'm flying high
Defying gravity!"
The bubble around them was broken as the ringing of Rachel's cell phone filled the small room. Finn groaned as they were forced to separate, allowing Rachel to dig her phone out of her pocket.
"And soon I'll match them in renown
And nobody in all of-"
"Hello?"
"Rachel? It's Mr. Schuester." Came the voice from the phone.
"Hey Mr. Schue!" Rachel struggled a bit as she climbed back into a sitting position on the bed, Finn's arms instantly wrapping around her waist from behind.
"Is Finn there with you? I needed to talk to you both about tomorrow." Rachel immediately understood. They were all meeting tomorrow morning at the airport to finally leave for Orlando and compete at Nationals.
"Oh, yeah, he's here. Let me put you on speaker."
Pressing a few buttons on her phone, Rachel leaned back against her boyfriend's chest while holding the small pink device in her hand.
"Hey Mr. Schue," Finn greeted.
"Hey Finn, I'm glad I got a hold of both of you. I just wanted to go over a few things about our trip before we leave tomorrow morning."
"That's cool. What's up?"
"Well, I know we've been on trips together as a group before but this is a bit bigger than the Regionals trip." Will began. "And I realize that everyone is a young adult and responsible, but it's still going to be kind of crazy. So I was hoping that as co-captains you guys would be willing to help keep an eye on things and make sure everyone stays under control."
"Of course we'll help Mr. Schuester. We take our positions as leaders very seriously." Rachel said confidently.
Finn nodded. "Yeah, no problem."
"Great. Obviously Em- I mean, Ms. Pillsbury will be there helping too, but I just wanted to make sure that nothing goes wrong." Will answered sounding relieved.
They had gone over the schedule as a group yesterday at practice. A bunch of parents would be flying down too, but they weren't showing up until Wednesday to see the performance. All of the competitors had to be in Orlando a day early to check in to the hotel, start rehearsing, and have time to get a general lay of the land. On Wednesday, each club would have to perform two numbers and the seven groups that advanced to the finals would perform one last group number on Thursday and fly home Friday evening after the awards ceremony.
Finn let out a breath. "This is gonna be intense."
"Yes, it is." His teacher agreed. "But I really believe that you guys have what it takes to win."
Rachel smiled determinedly. "I know we do."
glee
Eight thirty the next morning came after a long night without much rest on anyone's part, many of the kids simply too excited to sleep or their nerves making the option impossible. The ten teenagers were now scattered around the small area they had claimed while waiting to go through security and drop their luggage off.
"Rachel, I need you to do one more head count for me please!" Will announced as he and Emma went over last minute papers fastened to a clipboard that seemed permanently attached to Emma's hands.
"No problem Mr. Schue." Accepting Finn's offered hand to assist her, she stepped onto the chair she had just been sitting in and looked over her peers, checking names off the attendance sheet she held.
"Abrams, Berry, Chang, Cohen-Chang, Hudson, Hummel, Jones, Lopez, Rutherford, and-
"Me! Right here! Rachel, I'm here too! Don't forget me!" Came the unmistakable voice of a peppy blonde. Clad in pajama bottoms the girl was bouncing around and waving her arms wildly.
Rachel rolled her eyes. "Brittany, for at least the fifth time, we haven't forgotten you."
The blonde smiled, relief flooding her face. "Oh, okay. Just checking."
Adding the final check to her list Rachel turned back to her teacher. "We're all accounted for and ready to go Mr. Schuester!"
Will smiled. "Okay, great! I think all we need to do now is-"
"WAIT! WAIT! STOP!"
"HOLD IT! HOLD UP!"
The entire group of twelve turned to the direction of noise and found none other than Quinn Fabray and Noah Puckerman running towards them, baby Madeline strapped to her mother's chest in a black Velcro carrier and Puck's arms filled with luggage.
"Quinn? Puck? What are you guys doing here?" Will's eyes widened to the size of saucers as the two teens came to a halting stop right in front of him, breathing heavily.
Quinn smiled. "Are you kidding? We're not missing Nationals."
Puck nodded in agreement, his cockiness evident. "No way are we letting you win this thing without us."
"But you two don't have-" Emma stopped mid sentence when Puck held up two airplane tickets grinning.
"Turns out they sent us our flight tickets anyway." He said with a shrug. "We just got 'em last night so we packed up our crap and got here as soon as we could."
"But what about the baby?"
Quinn bit her lip. "We were hoping maybe you and Ms. Pillsbury wouldn't mind helping us out there, Mr. Schue. Just while we compete; we brought the playpen so she'll be fine during rehearsals."
"But that still doesn't change the fact that they don't know the choreography." Kurt pointed out.
Mercedes nodded. "Or the harmonies. I mean, I love that y'all want to come and compete, but this is gonna be impossible to pull off. We've already got a lot goin' against us."
The group remained silent for a minute, obviously upset that none of them were able to disagree with Mercedes and Kurt's valid points, before Rachel spoke.
"Then we're just going to have to work really hard to prepare them." She said firmly. "They already know the harmonies from the practice CDs I've loaned them, so that's one problem down. As far as the dance steps go, we'll just have to squeeze in a lot of extra practice between now and when we go on tomorrow." Glancing around at her peers, her tone clearly left no room for argument. "We're a team- all thirteen of us. And we are going to Nationals and we're going to win this."
Will glanced at the newest 'trainee' member of New Directions gurgling happily from her mother's embrace and looking around the airport with wide eyes. The rest of New Directions seemed to have reached the same conclusion, each now sporting fresh looks of determination.
"Alright." Will smiled and clapped his hands together. "Let's go to Nationals!"
glee
A/N: Get ready kids, here we go! Review and tell me how excited you are!