BUT AT LEAST I'M A COOL LOSER!

IT FELT STRANGE TO BE WALKING DOWN THE HALLS WITHOUT SO MANY FAMILIAR FACES. This year at McKinley had felt different to the past three thanks to a Nationals championship skyrocketing the glee club's popularity meaning that Jacob Ben Israel's blog wasn't giving harsh reviews and the fear of being slusheed had practically disappeared.

On a mission to interview the whole glee club before the morning was over, Jacob Ben Israel had snuck up on Sam Evans and Tessa Swann laughing and holding hands at his locker, forcefully pushing Tessa to the side and allowing a swarm of girls to crowd around Sam for an interview.

Just laughing along, Tessa took a step backwards to watch the interview play out, raising an eyebrow as Jacob spun round to flash her occasional looks before focusing on the interview in hand, "Sam Evans — from hobo stripper to glee club celebrity. How does it feel?"

"Awesome and about time." Sam smiled into the microphone, taking it all in his stride.

Whipping round immediately, Jacob was eager to fuel some drama this year and gestured to the group of giggling girls surrounding Sam, "and how do you feel about this? Jealous?"

Shaking her head, Tessa wasn't going to let his antics get the better of her and crossed her arms over her chest, "I also think it's about time you guys realised how awesome and talented my Sam Evans is. If only you'd appreciated him sooner am I right?"

On the mention of Sam's talents, the crowd grew excited once again and one of the girls called out, "do Taylor Lautner again!"

"Bella I love you and I'm a werewolf." Sam looked over the group of girls, focusing all his attention on Tessa as she looked down, giggling.

Realising they weren't going to grab his attention any time soon, the group of girls had become disinterested as quickly as they'd become interested, scurrying away allowing Tessa to take back her original spot next to Sam, both their grins growing as their hands fell into one another's once more.

Jacob on the other hand wasn't finished and was still searching for all the glee drama now that they were one of the most popular clubs in the school, "so, are either of you going to be 'The New Rachel?'" Seeing them exchange a confused glance he rolled his eyes, "the New Rachel? The new star of glee club?"

"Can't we just be Tessa and Sam?" Tessa chuckled awkwardly.

"Do you actually want any solos this year?" Jacob said bluntly, sarcasm dripping off his voice, "that's the point of the New Rachel."

Reluctantly agreeing to answer as he shoved his microphone in her face, Tessa replied, "I'll be the New Mike — cool, the best dancer I've ever known and an awesome friend."

"So I'll be the New Tina." Sam pitched in as Jacob just stared at them as if they were the weird ones. The image of Tina bossing around her new freshman assistant Dottie coming to his mind, Sam furrowed his eyebrows becoming deep in thought, "the New Old Tina."

Slowly spinning back to the camera, Jacob Ben Israel had decided that he'd had enough of Sam and Tessa, "right." He said simply before rushing off down the hall at the sight of Artie Abrams at his own locker in the hopes of grabbing an interview with someone more invested in the New Directions drama that year.

"He still thinks we're losers." Tessa laughed loudly.

"But he can't do anything about it with Miss Head Cheerio stood right here." Sam teased wiggling his eyebrows excitedly as he poked her in the side.

"Miss Co-captain of the Cheerios." Tessa corrected him, her cheeks heating up as Sam brushed this off without a care in the world feeling proud enough, "true though, Coach Sue would throw him down a flight of stairs."

Having to agree, Sam chuckled to himself at the thought, wrapping his arm around her waist as the bell rang and taking them to their first class of their senior year.

　　　　　　　 ☆

WITH THE NEW RACHEL BEING THE MAIN TOPIC OF CONVERSATION, TESSA WAS CLOSE TO FALLING ASLEEP. Not wanting anything to do with the conversation either, Sam was eager for some fun, throwing a limp fry across the table at Blaine as he was clearly sucking up to Artie, shrugging whilst he turned around in deep offence.

However, Tessa quickly perked up when a brunette nervously approached the glee club table, taking a deep breathe before introducing herself, "you guys are the glee club right?" Seeing their nods, she continued, "I'm gonna try out. I'm a sophomore, my name is Marley."

"Okay, well there's lots of competition so good luck to you." Tina shot back with her fakest smile, clearly desperate for Marley to disappear and stop bothering her making Tessa give her a harsh kick underneath the table.

Taking the opposite approach, she turned back to Marley with a genuine smile catching her before she could leave, "why don't you sit with us? If you're gonna be in the glee club —"

"Which there's no guarantee you are!" Tina cut in, not wanting any new members coming in and stealing her spotlight just as she'd managed to grab it away from Rachel Berry.

"— we might as well get to know you. I'm Tessa by the way." Tessa finished off, tuning out Tina completely and budging up closer to Sam and reaching round to pull up an extra chair, patting it as an indication for Marley to sit down besides her.

Hesitating as she saw the less welcoming faces of a good majority of the group, Marley met Tessa's eyes and saw her encouraging nod and slowly placed her tray down on the table and then sat down besides her. Instantly wanting to make her feel comfortable, Tessa jumped into light conversation with her, not caring for the distasteful glares from the new divas of the group, just wanting to make Marley feel welcome at both their lunch table and in the glee club.

The next shock for Tessa came when Unique sat down with a huge smile on her face, oblivious to the fact that the glee club had widened their eyes, "Unique offers her greeting and salutations."

Furrowing her eyebrows deeply as she felt Blaine lean forward to say something, Tessa shot him a fierce glare that Santana Lopez herself would be proud of before grinning back at Unique, "Unique! You're makeup looks incredible. You have to do mine someday."

With that small compliment of acceptance, Unique's smile grew larger and she sat up taller in her seat, "I'd love to."

Just then, Kitty Wilde and a bunch of football players piled onto the end of the table where seats had been left free just for them to take their places and show off the glee club's newfound popularity. Only being at the table for a minute, the football players were already stirring up a conversation that would make Tessa more frustrated than she already was, "hey, you guys seen the new lunch lady? She's so fat, they took a picture of her last Christmas, still printing."

"Maybe she has a medical condition. Or swallowed someone with a medical condition." Brittany said completely seriously, to which Tessa could tell that she was trying her best to stick up for her as she looked around in confusion as the table burst out laughing.

At the taunting being thrown around at her mom, Marley had begun to wish that she'd just walked away when she was given the chance, sinking down into her seat sadly.

"Hey, she has to wear a watch on both wrists because she covers two time zones." The other one chipped in.

Finally snapping, Tessa glared across the table straight at them, "wow, guess who's won assholes of the month."

Whipping round, the glee club stared at her with their mouths hung open in fear of being pushed right down to the bottom of the food chain once again due to Tessa's moral code. Despite these pleading looks, she wasn't going to back down, her own experiences haunting the back of her mind as she kept her steely glare straight on him.

Keeping his cool, the football player just laughed in her face, "cool it princess, we're just messing around. You should try it sometime."

"Try telling that to the people who bullied me for my weight so badly that I'd spent about a year of my life throwing up after every meal I ate or running afterwards until I passed out for fear of gaining weight." She shot back, seriously, getting up out of her seat, "I'm done here." Taking a deep breath, she turned to Marley with a gentle smile, "I'm going to the choir room, fancy coming? We could practice for your audition."

"I'd love that." Marley smiled softly, getting up after her and following after Tessa, who was too blinded by her own anger to notice the look she'd exchanged with her mom, who was beaming proudly at the sight of her Marley walking away with a friend by her side.

Not taking any sympathy, the football players had just rolled their eyes, "what's up her butt?" He joked.

"You're not funny, you know." Sam spoke up, instantly coming to his girlfriend's defence, "she's right, you need to learn when to shut the hell up."

After the second member of the glee club had jeopardised their popularity, the remaining members of the table were grateful when he shook his head irritably and took off towards the choir room.

Meanwhile in the choir room, Tessa had calmed herself down, and leant herself against the piano whilst Marley had taken the moment to explore the new room, "so, do you have any ideas what you wanna sing for your audition?"

"I was thinking 'New York State of Mind', by Billy Joel." Marley replied, almost looking for approval.

"Sounds awesome." Tessa grinned, knowing that that was the exact song Rachel Berry herself was planning on singing at her NYADA showcase. Noticing how Marley was shuffling her feet, she gave her a reassuring grin, "you don't need to be nervous around me. I'm cool."

"I don't know how you do it, standing up to those football players and all that." Marley said quietly, "you're on top, you're Head Cheerleader, you don't have to."

"I think it's all the more reason to stand up to them. I get a slushy facial everyday, who gives a crap? I may be a loser but at least I'm a cool loser." Tessa replied with a shrug of her shoulders, "the lunch lady doesn't deserve any of the shit she's getting. She's totally awesome and she gives me an extra cookie when she can tell I'm having a bad day."

Marley's whole face lit up at the compliments towards her mom and she was beginning to feel completely comfortable with this girl stood in front of her who could've easily put her popularity and Cheerios uniform first but instead stood up for someone she didn't even know because she felt it was right, "she's my mom." She whispered.

"Huh, it's no wonder you're so awesome." Tessa winked at her, making Marley beam even more. Turning round, Tessa gave a quick look into Mr Schue's office to make sure he wasn't around before digging in the cupboard to find some sheet music, "I thought we could sing a duet, to get out your nerves, you know. Rachel told me about a secret stash of sheet music and I think there's a perfect song in here." Finally finding it, she held it above her head victoriously before handing a copy to Marley, "familiar with ABBA by any chance?"

Nodding her head, Marley looked up from her sheet music with a grin, "Angel Eyes?' I love this song."

"Awesome." Tessa grinned, putting the track on the CD player, "you lead and I'll follow, okay?"

Hearing the music begin to play, Marley swallowed nervously, giving Tessa a shy smile before beginning to sing.

[SONG — ANGEL EYES, SANG BY MARLEY ROSE AND TESSA SWANN]

By the end of the song, Marley was singing with full confidence and Tessa was on her feet clapping before the music had even come to a halt.

"Girl if you don't get into glee club I will be forced to leave. You have an incredible voice." Tessa gushed, almost blown away by the shy girl's talent.

Looking down to her feet, Marley felt her cheeks heat up, "you really think so?"

"Really." Tessa assured her with a light chuckle.

Standing in the doorway, Sam made his presence known with a clap of his hands, causing Marley to jump slightly, "totally, dude, you can sing. Rachel would've sent you to a crackhouse you're so good."

"A where?" Marley answered awkwardly.

"Don't worry about it. Rachel's not here anymore." Tessa assured her, "she's livin' the dream in New York, she's not totally bitter anymore."

"So I'm safe from Rachel's wrath?" Marley checked, a smile growing on her lips as Sam and Tessa nodded and began laughing.

Giving her a pat on the shoulder, Sam was seemingly just as eager to make Marley feel involved as Tessa had been, "you're safe. But we'd protect you from Rachel."

Looking up to see them both smiling brightly at her, Marley couldn't hide the massive grin that had come to her lips as she felt she'd really started off her time at Mckinley on a high, making two real friends who liked her just the way she was and even with the glee club not being everything she'd expected, she was excited just to spend more time being a friend to Sam Evans and Tessa Swann.

　　　　　　　    ☆

IT WAS FRIDAY, WHICH MEANT IT WAS TIME FOR GLEE CLUB AUDITIONS. Starting to lose hope after some awful attempts at an audition, Mr Schue had glumly called for the next person to walk in.

Coming on to the stage was a guy with a sense of over confidence that the glee club had been before. As soon as he looked up towards them in their seats, the girls on the row behind them had began swooning. Turning round, Sam scoffed and pouted, slumping down in his seat. Amused by his obvious jealously at his hot guy image being threatened, Tessa let out a small laugh and leant her head against his shoulder.

Tapping his microphone, Mr Schue began the audition with a cheery smile, "hello sir, what's your name?"

"Jake." He replied bluntly.

"You got a last name, Jake?"

Hesitating for a brief moment, Jake shook his head in reply, "just Jake."

"Okay well show us what you've got, 'just Jake." Mr Schue grinned round at his attempt at a joke, clearing his throat awkwardly when no one even batted an eyelid.

With a quick nod, the music to The Fray's 'Never Say Never' had began playing and once Jake began to sing, the girls were swooning once again. "He's so sexy." Sugar gushed, excitably.

"No he's not." Sam breathed out, irritated.

"Yes he is." Unique fought back, exchanging a grin with Sugar, who seemed delighted for the support.

Kissing the back of Sam's hand, Tessa brought his attention to her as he pouted sadly, "you'll always be the sexiest to me, baby." She whispered, chuckling playfully as the smile came back to Sam's face and he leant his head on top of hers to listen to Jake's performance.

It didn't last long though because Mr Schue had thought he was doing the right thing by cutting him off when he'd barely gotten to the end of the first chorus. When Jake looked around with a clenched jaw, the glee club could tell it wasn't going to be pretty, "I don't get to finish?"

"We've got lots of people so see." Mr Schue defended himself to which Tessa visibly rolled her eyes, confused as to why he hadn't let the only good singer so far finish when he'd let every other person who'd audition finish, no matter how bad they were.

Catching sight of her action only fuelled Jake on to continue arguing, "but I've been practicing."

"We've seen enough, thank you."

Staring daggers up at him, Jake spun round on his heels and began to leave. Letting his anger get the better of him, he kicked the nearest music stand to the floor, sending sheet music flying down onto the stage in all directions. Tutting disapprovingly, Kurt instantly spoke up, "that's rude and unacceptable."

"I'll handle this, Kurt." Mr Schue said, standing up in his seat to bring back order to the stage, "Jake, come on man, why don't you pick up the music stand?"

Struggling to stifle a laugh when Jake just gave him a challenging look and stormed off stage, Blaine's hand flew across Tessa's mouth to prevent any trouble from the now irritated Mr Schue. Calling next, she was all smiles when Marley shyly made her way out onto the stage.

Finding Tessa's eyes in the audience, Marley felt a rush of reassurance as she sent her an encouraging thumbs up, "hi, I'm Marley Rose and I'll be singing 'New York State of Mind' by Billy Joel."

[NEW YORK STATE OF MIND — SANG BY MARLEY ROSE]

By the end of the song, everyone was blown away by Marley's voice. Nudging Blaine in the side, Tessa raised a playful eyebrow his way in the hopes of stopping him from looking so jealous as she came to the end of the song and Mr Schue was showering her with praise.

Wanting her to know how good she was, Tessa sent Marley another thumbs up and a proud smile. Beaming back at her, Marley left the stage, leaving the glee club sure of a new member but the competition for the New Rachel already so tense meaning they weren't as supportive as they would normally be.

　　　　　　　    ☆

WHEN LUNCH ROLLED AROUND AGAIN, BLAINE HAD BEEN ANNOUNCED AS THE NEW RACHEL. With his new title, Blaine's confidence was on a high, sitting taller in his seat as he tried to convince Brittany to end her strike on singing whilst Tina sulked in her chair, rolling her eyes.

On the other end of the table, after he and Tessa had taken Marley with them to Breadstix, her mom was incredibly pleased to how quickly they'd taken her as their friend and had given both Sam and Tessa a second cookie. Delighted, Sam was unable to wipe the smile off his face as he tucked into his first whilst Tessa had broken her second in half, offering it over to Marley with an apologetic smile as Kitty and the football players return made her visibly uncomfortable.

Quickly wanting all attention on her, Kitty had dived into conversation over the homecoming float, "since we can't do a popularity homecoming float with all white people, I say we do one with all white chrysanthemums."

"We need a float, why don't we all just ride her?" One of the football players suggested, nodding over to Marley's mom.

Looking over Marley's shoulders at each other as she was sat in between the two of them, Sam and Tessa exchanged dangerous looks, communicating through their facial expressions who was going to speak up first, but Sugar had beaten them to it with another jab at Marley's mom, "look at her boobs. They're like two grocery bags full of soup."

"Do i have to tell you all to shut up again?" Tessa snapped.

Turning right towards her, Kitty had fixated her glare on her, "excuse me?" She challenged, taking charge of the argument this time around.

Just as Tessa opened her mouth to fire back, Marley had decided she was ready to stand up for herself, "you don't know her, you don't know what her life is like."

"So? Why do you care?" Kitty laughed.

"Because she's my mom." Marley told them, seeing the embarrassment on all of their faces, she felt herself grow even more upset and snatched up her tray to leave, "I thought you guys were different."

Watching as she threw away what was left of her food and left the lunch hall, Tessa turned back to the glee club with a sarcastic smile as they sat in an awkward silence, "well done guys."

Motioning for her not to fight any further, Sam reached out for her hand which she took with one last glare towards her friends before rushing down the hall after Marley.

Finding her at her locker, Tessa made the first move, tentatively tapping Marley on her shoulder for her attention. Turning round, she gave them both a forced smile as she waited for one of them to speak up. Sam started them off, "hey Marley, we just wanted to apologise and beg you not to quit."

"You haven't done anything." Marley mumbled.

"You still deserve an apology." Tessa said quietly.

"Look, I get you." Sam continued on, "like for instance I know that sweater is from Walmart and your mom sewed the J. Crew label into it."

Growing self conscious, Marley began pulling her sweater over her hands, "how do you know that?"

"Because my mom used to do the same for me." Sam smiled back at her softly, "Tessa tried once but she really can't sew."

"My mom tried to teach me and my grandad when I made a costume for a duets competition." Tessa explained, scratching the back of her neck through a chuckle, "she's now banned us from using the sewing kit."

Glad to see Marley looking down and cracking a smile, Sam carried on in the bid of persuading her to stay in glee club with them, "the best thing about glee club is that it's not about labels. If you can sing, if you can dance, you belong. And dude, you can sing."

"You can really sing." Tessa added on.

Conflicted, Marley let out a sigh as she thought back to everything being said about her mom over the week, "I don't know. You say that, but the way they were making fun of my mom... it doesn't feel right."

Just then, the glee club had all shuffled down the halls and appeared behind the three of them with sheepish looks around at each other. First to try and meet Marley's eyes was Artie, "we came to apologise."

Feeling especially guilty, Tina gave her an embarrassed smile, "I think being popular felt a little too good and we forgot ourselves."

"Well i didn't. I was always popular." Brittany chipped in before shrugging her shoulders, "I do forget to wear underwear sometimes though."

Moving straight on from Brittany's confession, Blaine had taken Kurt's words of wisdom to heart and took a step forward to use his new title as the New Rachel to take the lead in trying to convince Marley to stay, "the best part about glee club is that everyone gets to be a star. Which is why we're all hoping that you could come to rehearsals with us this afternoon and maybe sing lead vocals on one of the songs we've been working on."

"And if that doesn't convince you, let the majesty and mystery of Unique's fabulousness." Unique finished off, lending Marley a genuine smile, "I mean it. Glee club's a special place, where else could I dress like this and be welcomed with open arms."

Looking round to see the whole glee club with sincere smiles on their faces, Marley was seemingly convinced, relaxing her shoulders slightly, "okay, one last thing. I don't think I'm comfortable sitting with that cheerleader and those guys at lunch."

"That won't be a problem." Kitty spat, appearing basically out of nowhere, "we could handle Gimpy and the Tarantula Head and Richie Poor because you guys were Nationals champs like us, but our invitation was not extended to pre-op precious based on the novel Barf and Mike and Molly's daughter as part of our crew."

Shrugging her shoulders, Tessa grinned right over to her friends flashing them a quick wink, "well I guess we're not part of your crew anymore."

Smiling deviously, Kitty gave a look to the two football players standing behind her, "I was hoping you'd say that." Without another word, she and the two football players had revealed three slushies from behind their backs, tossing them straight into Tessa, Unique and Marley's faces.

Looking especially pleased with himself as Tessa gasped at the cold impact, the football players had backed up slower than Kitty, who had immediately spun round on her heels and strutted away down the halls without them, "and with that, order is restored." Turning to Tessa, he gave her an over dramatic pout, "hope we didn't hurt your feelings this time princess."

Noticing Sam clench his jaw, ready to go straight after him, Tessa just placed a hand on his chest and let out a loud laugh, wiping the slushy away from her eyes, a lot more use to the stinging sensation than both Marley and Unique, who were stood still out of the shock of the cold impact.

Hearing Tessa's laugh, Marley turned to face her and began to see the bright side as well, "a slushy facial? Who gives a crap?" She said, recalling her words from earlier in the week.

"We sure don't." Tessa giggled, pulling Marley into a side hug then putting her other arm around Unique to pull her into the hug too.

Smiling at the three of them, the glee club's concern had washed away, beginning to laugh along as well, before offering up their services to help them clean up as the glee club seemed to be going back to what was pretty much normal with the help of three red slushies.