𝐬ongbird, chapter seventeen
— the leak
elle and mike were still reeling from mercedes performance at glee club that morning, they honestly couldn't believe that rachel had given up the ballad for their sectionals setlist.
no one thought that anything could top the spectacle that was mercedes jones, but when finn rushed into the choir room that afternoon and began beating the holy hell out of puckerman, accusing him of knocking quinn up, no one could think of anything else.
elle and the rest of the girls were frozen while mr schue pried finn away from puck and pushed the enraged boy in the direction of mike and matt who were struggling to hold him back.
"tell the truth!" finn seethed, fighting to get back to puck so that he could continue to hurl punches his way.
"he just walked in here, and sucker punched me!" puck quickly defended himself, somehow making finn even angrier.
"don't play dumb, you're too freaking dumb to play dumb!"
"who told you this, finn?" quinn choked, tears spilling from her eyes.
"obviously it was rachel." kurt spoke up, making the quite obviously guilt brunette girl tense up.
"what? i didn't do anything!" she defended, only to get shut down by finn immediately after as he eventually got free from mike and matt.
"i wanna hear it from you, i wanna hear it from both of you." he demanded.
"finn, just calm down!" mr schue told him firmly, causing the boy to flip out again.
"no, they're both lying to me!" he shouted before his gaze fell on quinn. "is it true? just tell me, is it true?" he asked her.
quinn walked forward, still blubbering. "yes." she whispered. "puck is the father."
finn looked unsure for a moment, struggling to speak while everyone in the room watched him expectantly. "so, all that stuff about the hot tub.. you just made that up?" he asked quinn, his voice breaking.
"you were stupid enough to buy it." puck quipped, only angering finn again, making him snap and try to reach his once best friend.
"i'm so sorry." quinn cried.
finn shook his head. "screw this!" he seethed, pushing mr schue's hands away from him. "i'm done with you." he pointed at quinn who flinched.
"i'm done with all of you!" he yelled before storming out of the room, kicking over a chair on his way out.
in that moment, elle flocked to quinn's side and took the distraught girl into her arms, but she knew deep down that she needed to go and find finn.
she learnt about quinn and puck's betrayal just as he burst into the choir room, so she knew that she was the only one well equipped enough to try and make things right.
so once brittany and santana had ushered quinn to the bathroom to try and calm her down, elle rushed for the front doors and sprinted outside to try and find finn.
she spied him at the football field, sitting at the furthest top corner of the bleachers, with his head in his hands.
"i'm not in the mood to talk right now, rachel." finn spoke up, not looking up from his hands.
"it's not rachel." elle told him, her voice soft. "finn, i'm so sorry." she began, getting closer to him but still standing up.
finn shook his head. "how could you not tell me, elle?" he asked, raking his fingers through his hair. "i thought we were friends."
"we are friends, finn." elle argued. "but i promise you, i didn't know." she explained, meekly sitting down on the bench, leaving an arms length of distance between them.
finn looked up at her. "you really didn't know?" he asked making elle shake her head.
"promise." she told him.
finn nodded slowly before his guard fell and he was in floods of tears. "i feel so stupid, elle." he admitted, lowering his head.
elle immediately slid across the bench and put one arm around finn while the other cradled the side of his face, and she just sat there with finn while he cried into her shoulder and desperately held onto the girl who, in that moment, felt like his only friend.
"it's gonna be okay." she told him, leaning her head against his. "everything's gonna be okay."
though as it turned out, it wasn't okay as on the day of sectionals, finn was no where to be seen.
elle took her seat on the bus beside mike, and hopelessly leaned her head on his shoulder. "i feel so bad for him." she whispered. "it's no wonder he didn't show."
just as eleanor thought that the mood couldn't get any duller, once the show had started the new directions were stunned into anguish and worry as both of the other teams performed the numbers from their setlist.
"i can't believe this." elle whined, sitting on the floor infront of santana who was toying with her hair in an attempt to both calm eleanor and herself.
"what're we gonna do?" tina asked from her place on the couch opposite them, where she was consoling mercedes who had been silent since the show started.
"lose, probably." brittany stated as the bell that signalled the end of the break sounded and the new directions rose from their seats.
once the kids from the school for the deaf reached the forst chorus of 'don't stop believing', the new directions were certain that someone had leaked the setlist, and so rachel called for a meeting to figure exactly who it was.
"you leaked the setlist," kurt immediately accused santana and brittany. "you don't really wanna be here, you're just sue sylvester's little moles."
"i know for a fact that's true," quinn backed kurt up as she entered the room and stood behind the couch that elle had sat on. "sue asked us to spy for her."
santana scoffed. "look, we may still be cheerio's, but neither of us gave sue the setlist," santana defended with an exhasperated shrug of her shoulders.
"well," brittany mumbled. "i did, but i didn't know what she was gonna do with it." she admitted, earning exasperated sighs from most of the people in the room.
elle reached back across the couch and squeezed brittany's forearm, knowing that her alibi was solid and that she really didn't mean any harm by what she had done.
"okay, believe what you want." santana interrupted, moving to the centre of the room. "but no one's forcing me to be here.. and if you ever tell anyone this, i'll deny it, but i like being in glee club.." she admitted.
"it's the best part of my day, okay? i wasn't gonna go and mess it up."
everyone was silent for a moment, while santana sat down and looked desperately around the room for someone to back her up.
"i believe you." elle noted, breaking the silence and smiling reassuringly at santana. "guys, there's no use arguing about this anymore. we need to figure something out."
"eleanor's right." rachel said. "we go on in an hour-,"
"and we have no songs." tina interrupted.
just as the team began to squabble about what their third song would be, their saving grace walked meekly into the room.
"i have a song." finn told them. "i found the sheet music online, used the cheerio's copier to make copies, then i trashed the thing." he explained as the copies of the sheet music were distributed amongst the group.
"mike, matt, brittany, elle, you're our best dancers." finn continued. "figure something out and we'll follow your lead.
elle glanced at mike who looked nervous. "it's gonna be choppy," he told finn.
"good." finn nodded. "we're best when we're loose."
mike glanced back at elle, who was smiling meekly, and returned the gesture before the pair of them stood up and moved to the back of the room with brittany and matt.
"all we have going for us is that we believe in ourselves, and what we're singing about. if we can show the judges that, we might have a shot at this thing."