The kids were in the choir room waiting for Mr. Schue to start the lesson of the week. They were still coming off the high of winning Regionals and the trophy stood proudly in the case, the light reflecting of it.
Mr. Schue entered the room and clapped his hands, getting their attention. On top of the piano were set some boxes that were put there by the jazz team, "all right, we need $5,000 to pay for our trip to Nationals in New York."
The announcement made Bea confused, since she really thought the Glee club still had some money resources, "what happened to the money that we got from the Cheerios?"
"I guess Sue was hiding it in offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands and we're having some trouble accessing some of it," Mr. Schue replied, "any of it."
Nathalie hummed in shock and pointed towards the boxes, eager to know what's on the inside, "and the boxes?"
The teacher turned his attention to the boxes on the table and smiled at them, "this is saltwater taffy."
"I love saltwater," Brittany gushed with a large smile on her face.
"When I was a student here, we paid for our entire trip to Nationals selling this classroom to classroom, door to door," Mr. Schue explained, "we pushed this stuff like crack. And so will we," he walked over to the whiteboard and wrote down a summary to work out how many they needed to sell, "so to make $5,000 at 25 cents apiece we need to sell 20,000 pieces of taffy."
"Wait," Santana looked at the teacher confused, "do you honestly think that we can sell 20,000 anythings?"
"We won regionals for the first time since dinosaurs roamed the planet and I still got a freakin' cherry ICEE facial," Bea agreed and Nathalie felt bad for her sister for getting slushees almost every single day, "it's not like anyone cares about us."
"Yeah, Bea's right. Nobody cares about us," Quinn agreed.
"I can't listen to this," Mike spoke in annoyance and walked over to the middle of the room, making everyone look at him in shock, especially the teacher
"Mike, are you okay?"
"No," Mike answered in annoyance, "you guys complain all the time about being mistreated but you have no idea what it's like to work your butt off for something and have everyone, even your friends, ignore you."
"I'm so trying to remember his name right now," Tina and Bea heard Lauren murmured to Puck and the two gave her a glare.
"Artie, Tina, Brittany and I are on the Brainiacs," Mike continued, ignoring what Lauren had said.
"Isn't that the Academic Decathlon team?" Bea wondered and Sam looked at her in shock, "we have one of those?"
"Yes, we do," Artie replied and stood beside his friend, "and the four of us went on the Smarty Pants Show and beat Carmel High to go to the Academic Decathlon finals in Detroit next week."
"You go guys," Nathalie congratulated them proudly.
Questions about if they appeared on the tv and why they didn't tell them were made, but Tina shut those questions down when she remained that they did told them about the competition, but no one really heard her.
"Wait. I-I get the three of you being on the team," Mr. Schue interrupted.
Santana rolled her eyes, already knowing what he was going to say next, "is it because two of them are Asian and Artie wears glasses?"
"No. But Brittany?" Mr. Schue defended himself, sounding confused at their choice in a fourth member.
"Britt is a genius," Nathalie was quick to defend her best friend and Brittany gave her a smile.
"The other girl, I don't actually remember her name, something starting with H or M, whatever, she was our fourth, but she got really sick. Brittany was the only person we could find on short notice. We bribed her with Dots," Artie explained and the mention of the initials caught Nathalie's attention; and wondered if the girl on their team was the same one who sent the letter to her.
"That Sunshine Corazon, that Rachel sent to a crack house," Tina gave a look towards Rachel's direction and the girl coward away, "was on the other team. Luckily, we had our own secret weapon. Sadly, we can't afford to go to the finals, so we're gonna have to forfeit."
"Why don't you just have your parents pay for it?" Mercedes asked.
"Because we shouldn't have to. We're a school club. The school should pay for it. It's a matter of pride," Tina pointed out but she knew that the school only cared about two things, and those things were football and cheerios, not glee club or the brainiacs.
"You guys are absolutely right," Mr. Schue finally agreed with Tina and went to grab a pen, "how much do you need to make the trip?"
"With gas and motels, if we only ate Funyuns, uh, $250," Tina replied.
"Which means we just need to sell more taffy!"
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Holly and Mr. Schue discussed the Glee Club and Brainiacs fundraising troubles while on a date but Holly thought his idea was terrible, and even blamed Terri for crushing the man's dreams and gave the idea that they should hold a benefit concert, titled A Night of Neglect, comparing the situation to a sad disease.
Mr. Schue really loved the idea and told the glee club members that they will only do songs by neglected artists. The Glee kids took this to mean artists that are underappreciated in the music industry as a whole and by the Glee club's choice of artists so far. And the teacher further explained that a neglected artist is someone whose brilliance isn't always appreciated, and Rachel thought he was talking about herself, to which Nathalie and Bea were so close to punch her in the face.
Carry on, Nathalie decided to go to the school library trying to find some neglected artists that she could sing. She had some in mind, ABBA, The Beach Boys, Metro Station, Aretha Franklin, and others. She felt like no one in the Glee club appreciated these artists and she wanted to change that. She was inclined to sing Take a Chance on Me by ABBA, or even Good Vibrations by The Beach Boys.
But in the end she chose ABBA because she's a sucker for that band.
The girl smiled in victory as she took the vinyl record and looked at the front and back covers. On the front was a photo of the four dressed in colorful clothes, and on the back the names of the songs.
"Didn't know you like ABBA."
Nathalie looked up and her smile faltered as she watched Rachel Berry sitting in front of her, intrigued about her choice, "why? Are you planning on stealing my choice?"
"No," Rachel answered, "because I'm going to sing My Heart Will Go On by Céline Dion," then she gave her a look, "you know who she is, right?"
"Of course I know," Nathalie rolled her eyes, "why did you choose her?"
"I chose this song and artist because I'm honoring myself, because I'm the neglected artist," Rachel spoke full of herself.
"I don't get paid to listen to this bullshit," Nathalie murmured to herself and Rachel dismissed the conversation.
"Anyway, this is not I wanted to talk to you. It's about what happened in the Glee club."
"A lot happens in the Glee club, Rachel," Nathalie gave her a look, "you need to be more specific."
"Artie mentioned something that that made you really interested in the conversation. The letters H and M," Nathalie tensed in her spot, proving Rachel's point, "and now that I'm mentioning it, you become quiet. Tell me, are you cheating on Quinn with this HM person?"
"I'm not," Nathalie spoke angrily, "I would never cheat on Quinn. I love her and only her."
"Well," Rachel shrugged, "wouldn't be the first time."
"If you're talking about Jesse, I wasn't the one in a relationship. He was. And I already apologized to you about it," the girl started to grab her things to leave the library, "but if you really want to know, when Jesse and I were together, we only had one thing in mind. Do you what is?"
Nathalie made sure to get as close as possible to her ear to whispered, making Rachel shocked and had trouble breathing at how close they were, "sex. Nothing more."
And with that, Nathalie walked out of the library with a smirk on her face, knowing fully well that she got under Rachel's skin.
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The Glee Club members were still deciding on their performances for the benefit. Tina announced she will perform a song by Lykke Li, Mike decided to put on a dance number and Mercedes will perform a number by Aretha Franklin, since they haven't done any of her songs to date. Rachel was still determined to perform the closing number My Heart Will Go On by Céline Dion.
If that wasn't enough, Finn ran to his friends and announced that Sunshine was back.
Sunshine came back to McKinley's auditorium after hearing about the benefit concert on Facebook and wanted to perform All By Myself. However most of New Directions object, calling her a spy, until Sunshine mentioned she could get all 600 of her Twitter followers to come.
Rachel was still opposed to Sunshine but everyone else agreed she should be allowed.
Nathalie felt like there was something off about the girl, but she shrugged it off for now because Quinn decided to tell her about the problems with Mercedes' demands about being the star of the show, which included a small barrel of green M&Ms, a room full of humidifiers and a fresh puppy on which to dry her hands.
"Wait," Nathalie looked at her girlfriend in shock as they exited the auditorium, "you're joking right?"
"I wish," Quinn sighed, "you know I love Mercedes, but she's driving me crazy. And you thought that was the worst part? Well, since Sunshine's bringing in hundreds of people, she's going to be the last number and Mercedes didn't like that at all and had the audacity to demand us that during the day of the benefit her feet never touch the ground."
"Excuse me?"
"I don't know what to do and why she's throwing me a diva fit."
Nathalie interlaced their fingers and stood on her tiptoes to give Quinn a peck on the cheek, "you'll figure it out. And you also have me to help."
"I know," Quinn smiled and bent down to give Nathalie a proper kiss on the lips, making the latter blush and smile during the kiss, enjoying every second of it.
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The day of the benefit concert finally came and everything was going... alright. Well, Kurt and Blaine had a rude encounter with Karofsky, in which Santana was quick to shut it down, and Sunshine wasn't going to come, neither her followers.
"I knew that she was bad news," Nathalie murmured and crossed her arms annoyed.
"Well, we have to keep going," Bea shrugged and Finn agreed with his sister, "exactly, these 6 people in the audience paid to see us sing," he pointed out and looked at Nathalie for help, "what's that saying? The show's gotta go...all over the place or something."
Quinn and Nathalie shared a look of disbelief and the latter was quick to correct him, "you mean, the show must go on?"
"Yeah," Finn agreed.
In the end, they all agreed they had to keep going. While Quinn and Nathalie were selling taffy, Tina went first to perform I Follow Rivers but was cut short when she ran off the stage after being heckled off by the Heckling Club and cried for over an hour. Nathalie looked at the group and glared holes, making everyone stop laughing.
No one messes with her best friend and gets away with it.
Artie and Mike wanted to called off the concert for making Tina cry, but Mr. Schue gave them and encouraging speech, and Mike felt ready and went on stage to do a dance performance to Jack Johnson's Bubble Toes, and it was a hit.
Intermission came and the members congratulated Mike for his amazing performance and Nathalie and Quinn pointed out they were almost out of taffy, which meant they were having a huge success with the sales.
Bea wondered what they should do next with the Heckling Club, and Mr. Schue suggested they'll simply have to leave them in awe of their terrific performances, so there will be nothing to heckle about. He then looked around for Mercedes but she had left the benefit after how she was treated. Rachel decided she should go find Mercedes and Nathalie thought it was her time to go on stage and face the rest.
Nathalie signaled Sam, telling him she was ready, and walked on stage towards the piano, not before she politely greeted everyone.
Take a Chance on Me by ABBA
sang by Nathalie
Everyone knew the song was ABBA's, but Nathalie made a new version of the song that made it feel like hers, presenting it to the audience for the first time. Bea, Tina and Quinn couldn't help but feel emotional; Nathalie had been working on the song for the past few days and were extremely proud of the result.
The performance was a huge success.
︶ ︶ ︶ ︶ ︶ ︶
After Rachel was able to bring back Mercedes to sing her amazing interpretation of Ain't No Way with a gospel choir, it caused Sandy Ryerson to reconnect with his love of the arts and music.
As the Glee club was celebrating the successful night they had, suddenly Sandy came into the room, taking everyone by surprise, even Mr. Schue, "Sandy. What are you doing here?"
"I tried to be a hater, but I just couldn't do it. That song and the weed I smoked immediately prior; it gave me a change of heart," Sandy replied and got closer to Mr. Schue, whispering something in his ear and giving him a bag, before leaving the room without another word.
The teacher blinked his eyes in shock and opened the back, gasping at it, and Nathalie ( who was next to the teacher ) also widened his eyes in shock at the bag full of money, "holy shit."
The rest of the kids looked at Mr. Schue with their eyebrows furrowed, asking what Sandy told him, "Mr. Ryerson offered to pay for our trip."
Everyone gasped in joy and started celebrating that finally they were able to go to Nationals and the Brainiacs to go to their competition, even thought that money was actually drug money.
But no one didn't care about that because it was time to party.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
HM girlie be like: I'm here but at the same time I'm not