YOU'RE COOL AND PUSH IT!

JUST WHEN PENELOPE THOUGHT THAT GLEE CLUB COULDN'T BE ANY MORE DOOMED, MR SCHUE WANTED TO PERFORM DISCO. Sighing into her hands, Penelope was grateful she'd remembered to shove as many spare shirts into her locker as she could, figuring that not even being able to dance along to the disco properly would cause her to be slushied by every football player, hockey player and Cheerio in the school twice.

Bumping straight into Finn as they both struggled to do the choreography, Penelope was quick to apologise, "sorry, I swear I could win the worlds worst dancer." She moaned, a bit embarrassed.

"Huh, I could challenge you to that one." Finn chuckled in reply, widening his eyes in shock as Rachel almost kicked Mercedes in the face.

Finally snapping, Mercedes pushed straight past her to the front of the room, "woah! Woah! Hell to the no! First of all, you try and bust my face again and I will cut you!" She shouted at Rachel before whipping round to face Mr Schue, "and second, this song is terrible."

"No, no, no, it's not the song," Mr Schue denied, "you guys just need to get into it."

"No it's definitely the song. It's really gay." Kurt commented, raising an eyebrow at Mr Schue's enthusiasm for the song.

"We need modern music, Mr Schue." Artie pleaded, desperately, trying his best to make their teacher see sense.

Shaking his head, Mr Schue stuck with his own vision, despite his students concerns, "I'm sorry guys, we don't have time to discuss this, we're doing the song at the pep assembly on Friday."

Mouth hung open in alarm, Tina glanced to her friends, who all had the same look of disapproval on their faces, "in front of the whole school?"

"Exactly!" Mr Schue exclaimed, ignoring the panic on their faces and taking it as excitement.

"They're gonna throw food at us." Penelope whispered, with a nervous frown towards Kurt who quickly agreed, tutting loudly, "and I've just had a facial."

"I'll press charges if that happens." Rachel insisted, immediately.

Sighing deeply as murmurs of disapproval went round the room and the small glee club showed no interest at all in showing off their talents to the rest of the school, Mr Schue ran his hands through his hair in an attempt to get them on board, "guys, I can't express to you how important this assembly is. We need recruits. There are six of you, we need twelve to qualify for Sectionals. We have no choice or the club is over. I know you guys don't like this song, but we took nationals back in '93 with 'Freak Out.' It's a crowd-pleaser. Trust me. From the top."

Realising he wouldn't be able to escape the torment from his friends after performing disco music in front of them, Finn took a moment to himself before resuming his position to practice, "I'm dead." He muttered, worriedly.

Tentatively, Penny reached out to give him a pat on the arm, flashing him a thin lipped smile which told him that she was sure they all were.

　　　　　　    ♪  ♪  ♪

RACHEL HAD CALLED THE GLEE CLUB TO THE GYM FOR A SECRET MEETING. After Kurt had warned her that Rachel had a plan to insist she joined the Celibacy Club with her, Penelope had spent practically all of the previous day hiding from her so the walls were looking pretty interesting away from Rachel's potential death stares. But a frustrating meeting with the Celibacy Club seemed to have got the wheels turning and had sparked in idea in Rachel's mind, "I officially call this glee club meeting in session."

"But Mr Schuester isn't here." Artie said questioningly, furrowing his eyebrows as everyone nodded along in confusion.

"Mr Schuester isn't coming." Rachel told him, putting her hands firmly on her hips, asserting her dominance in the situation, "I paid a freshman to ask him for help with irregular verbs."

Rolling her eyes, Mercedes was already annoyed at the thought of having to listen to Rachel any longer, "ugh, I'm so sick of hearing you squawk Eva Perón." She called out in such a way that Penny was forced to bite back a laugh.

"Let her talk." Finn intervened, gently, giving Rachel a nod to go on.

"I have another idea for the assembly." She said.

"Can I, once again, stress my most strenuous objection to this attempted suicide?" Artie stuck his hand up into the air, glancing round nervously, then looking back as Penny was quick to nod in full agreement.

Looking round in panic, Penny spoke up for the first time that day, "your idea can't be worse than disco." She whispered, whipping her head round to make worried eye contact with Tina, "can it?"

"We're gonna give them what they want." Rachel explained with a devious smile on her face as if she'd come up with the idea of the century.

"Blood?" Kurt questioned, raising his eyebrow slightly.

"Food?" Penelope whispered as Kurt's idea was shot down. Turning round to catch her eye, Finn nodded his head and gave her a discreet thumbs up, mouthing food right back at her.

Shaking her head at all their suggestions, Rachel had her own answer, "better: sex."

Mouth hanging open, Penny darted her eyes around to try and understand better from the confused looks on her friends faces, "wait... who am I having sex with?"

"No one." Rachel scoffed, staring right at her with a face of confusion as if she was making complete sense, "we're gonna do a sexy song. I'm going to go and choreograph a routine that will make the glee club look so sexy that nobody will be able to tease us. I will call another emergency meeting as soon as it's ready. Oh and nobody tell Mr Schue."

Going slightly red out of embarrassment as Rachel turned on her heels and marched out of the gym, Penelope's mouth dropped open and she slumped right back, "I can't even dance normally, let alone sexy. I'm gonna look like one of wobbly inflatable dudes."

Standing up from her seat, Mercedes held out her hands and motioned for Penelope to limply put them into hers so she could pull her up, "you'll be fine. It's Rachel's choreo, it's not gonna be sexy, did you see what she was wearing?"

"It can't be much worse than disco." Kurt shrugged, as they collected up their bags and began to leave the gym in collective agreement, all of them still pretty sure the assembly in general was an awful idea.

                         ♪  ♪  ♪

TERRIFIED WASN'T A STRONG ENOUGH WORD FOR HOW PENELOPE FELT AS SHE PEEKED ROUND THE CURTAIN. Snapping it shut for fear of being spotted looking out into the crowd, she spun around and moved from one foot to another as she mentally prepared herself for the inevitable disaster of their performance.

Equally nervous, Finn made his way over towards Penelope, standing next to her for a moment before giving her an anxious smile, "I was hoping that no one would show up."

Looking up to face him, Penny widened her eyes slightly with a chuckle of agreement, "me too. I'm gonna get drowned in slushy after this." She sighed, "I might as well slushy myself before they get chance."

"Quinn's gonna kill me." Finn sighed out, running his hands through his hair, "if she sees Rachel all over me she's gonna freak out."

Shrugging her shoulders, Penny flashed him a sympathetic smile in the hopes of helping him out, "if she gets too close I could just casually push her out the way if you like. Give me the signal and I've got your back."

"Thanks, dude." He smiled, gratefully, before scanning to check no one was watching and leaning down closer to her so no one could over hear them, "how are you not even a bit scared of Rachel?"

"Oh I'm petrified of her." Penelope laughed, "but she's probably expecting me to flat on my face anyway, she'd think it was an accident."

Both of them jumping as Rachel circled the group, clapping for them to get into their positions, Penny flashed Finn a last friendly smile before skipping of to stand besides Kurt, letting out a shaky breathe before the curtain could be drawn.

[PUSH IT — SANG BY THE NEW DIRECTIONS]

Clocking onto the disgusted faces of certain students, Penny was prepared for the worst so it came as a complete shock when the gym burst into applause.

Mouth hanging open, Penny stared round at the rest of the glee club, all of them — except Rachel — looking as shocked as she was by the applause as they'd all hated every second of being up there. Managing to catch her eye, Finn threw her the biggest smile, "we're still alive!"

Still eager to get off stage, Penny smiled back at his enthusiasm as they rushed out of sight, "it could've been worse I guess. I only tripped once."

"Awesome!" He grinned, holding out his hand for a high five before running off before he could get a truthful reaction from his football friends.

♪ ♪ ♪

AFTER THE ASSEMBLY, THE LAST THING PENNY WANTED TO DO WAS DRAW ATTENTION TO HERSELF. Walking down the halls with her binder held close to her chest, she kept her head down, navigating her way around the school from her knowledge of the floor tiles.

Hearing a loud group of football players coming her way, her eyes widened, struck with fear only flickering her sight up for a second to try and work out whose voices she was hearing. Unintentionally making eye contact with Finn, Penelope realised she had to look up for a second just to return the genuine grin he was giving her.

Finding herself distracted in trying to find a way to smile back that wouldn't get herself shunned, Penny hadn't noticed the purple slushy in the hands of Noah Puckerman. An evil smirk coming to his lips, he threw away the idea of drinking it to himself and tossed it right into her face. Dropping her binder to the floor as the cold ice hit her face, she stood there in defeat as the footballers laughed at her.

Frowning, Finn had instantly given Puck a hard shove, "what the hell dude?"

Scoffing at his friend, Puck was quick to shove him back with a judging roll of his eyes, "it's just a bit of fun dude, you gonna make a thing of standing up for losers now?"

"Just leave her alone, man." Finn insisted, sending a genuine smile Penny's way as she wiped the slushy away from her eyes, "she's cool."

Rolling his eyes even more than before, Puck mumbled a reply before stomping off with the gang of footballers following in close pursuit.

Bending down, Finn picked up Penny's binder from the floor before handing it back to her with an apologetic smile. Taking it back as she forced a smile through the slushy dripping off her face, she hoped that it was enough to hide her red cheeks, "thanks. You didn't have to, you know."

"I wanted to." He assured her, "you don't deserve the way they treat you like crap. Getting to know you I see you're so much cooler than you look."

Chuckling lightly, Penelope pouted at him, "thanks Hudson, you're cooler than you look too."

Furrowing his eyebrows, Finn was obviously used to that compliment, "yeah... I'm the quarterback. Ive always been cool." He trailed off, awkwardly.

"No, you're cool cool." Penny shook her head, "staying in the glee club, standing up for me just now, you're cooler than any of them."

Smiling softly back at her, Finn had to blink a few times to remind himself that the girl in front of his was covered in slushy. Grabbing her arm, he was quick to pull her down the hall, "my locker's just over here. I have a spare jacket you can wear."

"I know. My locker's opposite yours." Penny giggled, awkwardly.

"Is it? Huh! How come I've never noticed before?" Finn asked, furrowing his eyebrows as Penny just shrugged, not wanting to tell him it was because he's popular and she's clearly a loser. Reaching into his locker, he pulled out a hoodie and threw it her way, "so you don't have to stay in slushy stained clothes."

With a quick word of thanks, Penelope turned to her own locker, shoving her binder in before pulling a small towel, much to Finn's surprise. Haphazardly wiping the remaining ice from her face, she let out a laugh to the look etched upon his face, "i better get myself cleaned up." She forced a grin, walking backwards away from him, "but thanks, Finn, it means a lot that you stood up for me."

"What are friends for?"

"We're friends?" She questioned through a whisper. That was something she'd never have even dreamt that the quarterback would ever say to her.

"Yeah, we're friends." Finn grinned, laughing as Penelope shot excited finger guns his way and returning them with an equally large smile that didn't seem to want to go away any time soon before they went their separate ways.