Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 46th cycle. Now cycle 47!

This is a shift day. There was another upload this morning: Troika, chapter 13.

"Step Thirty-Nine, Open Your Mind"
Brittany & Will [Kurt, Santana, Brittana]
Paper Heart series
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)

She'd had butterflies in her stomach since she'd woken up, and she just hoped the baby wasn't scared of them… Today was her first day of lessons with her tutor, her once upon a time Glee Club director and Spanish teacher Mr. Schuester. It was like the first day of school, but with her own clothes, no ponytail, and best of all her fuzzy slippers, which had been a gift from Santana. They would be working on the dining room table, and she had spent the morning so far, after she'd eaten, showered, and dressed, gathering up all needed books and supplies she would need and bringing them to the able. Her books and things had gotten so scattered, it took her an hour and afterward she'd just sat there, still with the book Kurt had given her.

Finally Will had arrived, and there she presented him with a red apple. "That's what you do, right? Give a teacher an apple?" she smirked. Will laughed, taking the fruit.

"Well thank you," he bowed his head to her.

"My mother says I'm taking care of everyone now," she told him as they went toward the dining room.

"It's very much appreciated," he promised as they sat. She looked at him, hesitating.

"Do you think it means… I'll be a good mother?"

"I know you will," he gave an encouraging smile.

"I know what people say, about all of it. But me I don't care when or how it happened. I think I've changed a lot since this started, and not in a bad way," she explained.

"I see it," he agreed. "And I think your little boy is going to be very lucky to have you, and Kurt, too. He's going to grow up in a family with a lot of love, with hearts in the right places." She pointed to her chest, and he chuckled. "So what do you say we get started. She sighed, like she was nervous, but she nodded.

"I'm ready," she told him.

"We're not going to jump right into the hard stuff. Today is just about situating ourselves, looking at where you are, where you need to be, and how you're going to get there in the time we have. Does that work for you?" She raised her hand. "You don't have to ask for permission, you can just ask," he smiled.

"Right," she pulled her hand down. "Sorry."

"It's fine," he promised.

"Will there be singing?"

"Why?" he asked.

"You're doing everything, all my classes, so how about Glee Club?" He gave it thought.

"I know you miss it, so I'll tell you what, after our lessons, if we've finished everything, without rushing our way through it, if there's time left, then we can see about some voice lessons."

"Awesome," she smiled bright.

"But first we have to get through this," he indicated their work load. She reached over and grabbed a pencil: she was good to go.

As he'd told her, they had mostly stuck to planning and assessing for that day's time. He would work out the details of his lesson plans on his own, the better to get a jump on things for their next lesson.

Brittany was very productive and cooperative. She wanted this, for so many reasons. Even if it was just her and one teacher, in her house, in slippers, and with way too many bathroom breaks for her liking, she felt normal. She was in school. Summer had ended and she was back to learning. The year before the only appeals to going back to school were Cheerios, and then Glee Club after they'd joined, and getting to spend time with her friends. Going to class was hardly something she enjoyed.

Some people had written her off. They may not have thought that she'd noticed, but she had. Whether she liked it or not, it affected her, to the point she almost agreed with them… They were the teachers, they would know, right? And the ones who hadn't written her off, who did try, were met with her lowered expectations of herself.

She was turning it around though. Maybe she was young, and this impending motherhood was a lot to handle, but it had been the thing to come along and knock her senses awake. It had taken something big, but it had done it. Now she wasn't just doing it for her own future, which was always important to her, she was doing it for her son's future, too, and after all this time she'd wasted listening to other people's opinions on her, she was listening to the people who loved her; that included Brittany herself.

Now this morning she had woken up ready and motivated for this, because after waiting all summer to prove herself, the time had come.

She could see Mr. Schuester was noticing, and that just made her feel even better. They worked through everything he had meant to work through, with him taking notes the whole way. They took a break – not initiated by a pee break for once – in which Brittany told Will about the book she'd been reading, how Kurt had given it to her.

"Maybe we can use it. How do you feel about writing a paper on it? You told me you had trouble with those."

"Big, big trouble," Brittany confirmed.

"Okay, well, finish the book, pick a theme, write your paper, and we'll go through it together. Think three weeks will be enough?"

"I can do that," she nodded, and he smiled.

They finished out the day's work, and she was surprised it was already over. He gave her a look, and she paused. "We have time," he told her, and after a beat, she remembered her request to him about singing.

"Okay," she sat up. "Too bad I don't have a piano."

"I'll see what I can do about that next time," he told her, and he could almost think she would cry. "Are you okay?"

"More than okay," she beamed.

After he left, she gathered her things, put them on her desk in her room, took Kurt's book and sat to read. She had a paper to write.

THE END

A/N: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.
In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are
always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!