is that a wizard?
In true Sam and Charlotte fashion, the couple were bonding over their favourite of Sam's chapsticks as they stood at his locker. The pair tended to have a lot of conversations at either of their lockers before school every morning, and today they were doing just that.
After Puck had sung Schools Out, everyone was concerned for their friend. No one wanted Puck to just give up on school this close to the end when he'd made it so far, and that seemed to be the topic of conversation for this mornings chat.
"You think Puck is gonna graduate?" Sam asked Charlotte, popping a chapstick back into his locker after applying it to his lips.
Charlotte sighed with a shrug. "I hope so. He does want to deep down, I think he just doesn't believe he can."
"We're gonna help him, okay?" Sam assured, placing a hand on her shoulder. "The boys all want to study with him so he passes that one test. I'll sneak you there."
Charlotte giggled a bit at his idea to get her to help without the guys knowing. "You know I'm pretty sure they'd let me come. Mike would probably fight for me."
"Yeah, Puck does think you're one of the boys." Sam shrugged with a chuckle.
"That's just because I'm cooler than all of you guys combined." She pointed out with a grin.
With an amused expression, Sam nodded, unable to deny that statement. "Totally."
As the couple started walking down the hall, they swung their hands back and forth before Charlotte sighed. "Speaking of me being amazing, I promised Rachel and Kurt I'd help them with their NYADA auditions and it's literal torture."
"I'm so glad you're the helpful one out of the two of us." Sam laughed.
"I'm not the helpful one, I'm just the pushover." She retorted. "You think I know how to impress Carmen Tibideaux?"
"Is that a wizard?" Sam asked confused with wide eyes.
With a very amused laugh, Charlotte shook her head as Sam smiled at how he could make her happy. "She's not a Wizard, but I did think she'd be a crazy cat lady at first, I don't know why."
"Well I'd hate for Rachel to fight you for being late because of me. Otherwise she might fight me too." Sam chuckled poking Charlotte in the side. "So you best get to being your helpful self."
"Alright." She smiled up at him. "I'll see you later."
"I'll see you in Spanish." He said, giving her a quick kiss goodbye and watching her rush off to the auditorium, bumping into a grumpy senior on her way.
***
After a lot of hours helping Kurt and Rachel prepare for their auditions, the moment was finally here. Charlotte had said her good lucks to the anxious pair before running off into the audience, sitting beside Blaine ready to watch them both.
Once she finally heard who Carmen Tibideux actually was, she understood why the two seniors were nervous wrecks, but she couldn't help but wonder how many cats she had, or if Sam's new theory was true that maybe she could magic herself into a cat.
"Kurt Hummel." The very intimidating Carmen Tibideux called through a mic, ready for the first audition.
Both feeling anxious for Kurt and Rachel, Blaine and Charlotte quickly grabbed each other's hands for support as Kurt walked out in his costume, full of nerves.
"Hello. I'm Kurt Hummel." Kurt said shakily, knowing he needed to ace this audition. "I'll be performing Music of the Night from the seminal Phantom of the Opera by Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber."
With the lack of reaction and enthusiasm from Carmen, Kurt shook his head realising that wasn't the song he should do. "Which I bet you hear a lot of. That song."
"That, The Impossible Dream from La Mancha and Being Alive from Company, yes." Carmen nodded her head.
"It's a safe and standard choice." Kurt said and Blaine and Charlotte looked to each other, not sure where he was going with this. "Which is why I've decided to change things up a bit.
Here, in the 11th hour, I've decided to go in a different direction. Something that's a little more out there, but much more me. Not the Boy Next Door, from the Peter Allen bio-musical, The Boy from Oz."
Kurt called Brittany, Mercedes and Tina on stage as his backup, having had a feeling this was going to be the right choice. "I had my swans on standby."
(Not The Boy Next Door~ Performed by Kurt Hummel)
As soon as Kurt had belted his last note, Blaine, Charlotte, Rachel and Mr Schue went to give him a standing ovation, incredibly proud of him, but quickly stopped when they realised it might not be the professional thing to do.
"You know, Hugh Jackman won a Tony Award for playing Peter Allen." Carmen spoke up after writing notes and Kurt violently nodded his head. "Hugh trained with me the summer I was in residence at the Sydney Opera House, and I'm certain that he would have been as impressed with what you did with that song as I am."
Blaine and Charlotte took one look at each other and almost squealed out of pride and happiness for Kurt. They knew he deserved the world and they also were certain that upon hearing that news, he would have been over the moon.
"A bold choice, young man. I congratulate you
for taking such a risk today." Carmen finished.
"Thank you." Kurt said, almost speechless as he beamed, blowing a kiss to his friends on stage with him before running off.
After engulfing Kurt into the biggest hugs they could, everyone finally settled down to watch Rachel's audition. Stood on stage, trying to ooze with confidence, Rachel looked out into the audience with a grin. "Hi. I'm Rachel Berry, and I'll be singing Don't Rain on My Parade from my favorite musical, Funny Girl."
The start of her audition seemed to be okay, Rachel Berry could sing this song in her sleep. Everyone smiled along until she messed up. In the audience everyone's faces dropped in shock.
"I'm so sorry. I'm so, so, so sorry." Rachel apologised. "Please, let me just start over
one more time."
As she went to begin the song again, Charlotte looked over to see a very anxious Finn sat in front of her and patted his shoulder in hopes that would give him the assurance that she'd be perfect in this next attempt.
However, the song wasn't perfect this next attempt. "Oh, God." Finn muttered anxiously.
"This isn't happening." Kurt whispered after Rachel messed up again.
Charlotte sighed, feeling bad for the girl. "She had this down. She worked so hard on this."
Close to tears, Rachel put her head in her hands, feeling incredibly disappointed. "I'm-I'm so sorry. I don't know...I know this song backwards. I know this..."
"Come on, Rach, breathe." Charlotte whispered despite being in her seat so Rachel couldn't even hear her.
Rachel took a deep breath quickly before recomposing herself. "Okay. Please, let me just do it one more time. I can start it over one more time."
"No."
"Excuse me?" Rachel asked, realising this might be it, all her dreams might be crushed.
"You get eight bars. I gave you 16." Carmen said. "Do you know what happens when you forget the words on Broadway? They give the job to your understudy. I'm very sorry, but this audition is over."
As Carmen Tibideux packed up her stuff, leaving the auditorium, Rachel couldn't hold in her desperation and was begging for another chance. "No, please. please, please, please. You have to believe me. You just have to...please just give me one more chance, please. Please.
Please."
As Rachel broke down on stage as the lights went out, everyone stared in shock before Charlotte took it upon herself to comfort the girl. Wrapping her into a hug, Charlotte whispered encouragement to her, "It's okay, Rach. Just let it all out, alright."
***
Somehow the glee guys and Charlotte had managed to stay in school all night to help Puck cram as much as he could for his European Geography test the next day. As they all sat around, Puck still didn't have much faith in himself and tired Charlotte was getting sick of all the complaining.
"What's the biggest city in Ireland?" Rory asked tiredly, pointing to it on the big map.
"Blarneycock." Puck answered sarcastically.
With Charlotte falling asleep on his shoulder, Sam groaned at Puck. "Dude, he's pointing right at it. Come on."
"My brain is fried. It's freaking 3 in the morning." Puck argued, leaning his head on the piano, probably feeling even more exhausted than most of them.
"That's awesome." Artie wheeled himself forward. "we've still got nine hours to cram
before your test."
As everyone groaned at the thought, the subject quickly changed as Joe went to sit with Finn. "How's Rachel?"
"Uh upset. Devastated. Wants to be alone." Finn listened. "Her dads are doing something
called sitting shivah. I mean, I just don't get it. It was a total choke."
Since everyone started to go off topic, Charlotte looked up from her comfortable sleeping position and tried to keep everyone focused. "Okay, as much as I'm very sympathetic about Rachel, this isn't helping Puck graduate so come on, let's keep going."
"Alright, let's hop on back to sunny Spain." Finn opened a textbook, walking over to another board they had managed to get into the choir room. "Hey, look, here's a fun fact: Spain is considered a mostly mountainous country, interspersed with picturesque plateaus and arid valleys."
"That's fascinating." Joe said with forced enthusiasm, trying to make the topic more interesting to a very bored Puck.
"No, it's not." Puck shouted, very cranky. "Who the hell cares? Not even Einstein uses this crap."
"So wipe it from your memory tomorrow, after your test." Blaine told the boy, each person wanting nothing more than to help Puck.
"Now, for the bonus round." Finn called as Puck rolled his eyes. "Which region of Spain
receives the most rainfall?"
"I don't know." Puck yelled immediately, and everyone sighed at how- at this point- he wasn't even willing to try.
"You do. Just think about it, dude." Charlotte encouraged. "The rain in Spain falls mainly..." she started, gesturing at him to come up with the answer.
"Whatever. In the flatlands." Puck said. "The plains."
Finally hearing a correct answer, Charlotte pointed at Puck with a smile. "What was that?"
"The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain." Puck said.
"Again." Finn said.
Suddenly, the boys all burst into a song all about European Geography. Or maybe Charlotte just imagined it, considering how tried she was that seemed highly likely.
"Moving on." Artie said after Puck had livened up a bit. "What rhymes with preindustrial European deforestation?"
***
The guys and Charlotte were stood outside a classroom, waiting for Puck to finish his test. As they waited, a tired Charlotte became very clingy and she practically was hugging Sam the whole time they waited, but he wasn't complaining.
"If you decided to flunk out next year, I don't think I can pull an all nighter to help you." Charlotte said, looking up at Sam who gave her an amused smile.
"I think with our study dates these past two years I'll be okay." He chuckled, kissing her forehead as she smiled.
Becoming the ultimate third wheel, Mike decided to join the couples hug, resting his head on Sam's shoulder and tiredly closing his eyes. "Lottie, you just have to make a song about whatever crap he needs to revise. Hopefully it worked for Puck."
"Oh so you did sing a song." Charlotte realised, giggling to herself. "I thought my tired ass imagined that."
"Well you did spend most of the night sleeping on Sam's shoulder, staring off into the distance or telling us to stop going off track." Mike pointed out to which Sam nodded as confirmation.
Charlotte laughed with a shake of her head. "I seriously don't remember much. I don't do well on no sleep."
Breaking the three out of their conversation, Puck came through the door and everyone looked at him expectantly. He didn't really give them the impression of doing good or bad so they couldn't work it out from his facial expressions.
"How do you think you did?" Mike was the first to ask.
"My best." Puck said.
"Does your head hurt?" Sam asked. "Cause sometimes after I take a test, my head hurts. It's usually a good sign."
"You know, it's weird, but... I think I did. Thanks to you guys." Puck said, getting smiles and fist bumps from all his friends.
"So thank you. All of you." Puck continued. "You know, it's hard growing up without a dad,
because you don't have any dude role models, except NFL players and video game characters.
But I lucked out because instead of one dad, I got a whole gang of them. And a Charlotte. You guys showed me what it means to be a man. Not just last night, but for four years. Even you, Blaine."
"Thanks?" Blaine said in a questioning tone, not sure if that was a good or a bad thing.
With a smile, Sam looked around to all his friends. "Let's hug it out."
As the whole group fell into a hug, everyone made sure Puck knew they were proud of him. It was moments like these that made Charlotte realised just how much she would miss these people and she wasn't sure she was ready for them all to leave quite yet.