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 52nd cycle. Now cycle 53!

THIRD ANNIVERSARY CYCLE: It's late October again, and within this cycle I will be completing my third year of daily gleekathon stories and commencing a fourth! As in previous years, this means special things happening. I've selected my favorite stories from throughout the year, and I'll be treating them to something special. In previous years this included Prequel, Sequel, and POV Swap, and then Additional Scenes and Alternate Endings. This year I'm adding two new treatments: Genre Swap (I think that's pretty straightforward) and Element Change (I change one thing in the story, see how it affects the rest). Note that in both these cases and some of the others, there may excerpts directly transferred from the story it references. Also, since this year saw the addition of 'shift days', and since I suck at picking, I have selected 42 stories, to be treated two per day! So here we go!

This story is a Prequel to Walks Along the Shore, a Beiste & Ewan series story, originally posted on March 9 2012.

This is a double shift day. There will be one more upload today: What Had To Be Done.

"Dear Aunt Shannon"
(Younger) Beiste & Ewan, Kathleen
Beiste & Ewan series extra
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)

One day she had come home, and there was an envelope waiting for her, with the telltale postage that told her it came from Ireland, from her sister, and it made her smile instantly. She put her things down, taking the envelope and carefully opening it. Inside, she had found a second envelope. The first had been made of sturdier material, she guessed, to make sure this one reached its destination without any sort of damage. She had opened this envelope, only to find two more inside. She laughed… this was very much like her sister. The envelopes were numbered one and two, so she put everything else down, keeping only the one marked with a one. She didn't know what she was expecting to find, but when she pulled out the contents and turned it over, her heart stopped.

It was a picture, an ultrasound image, showing a very small shape even she could understand was a baby.

Her hand went to her mouth, feeling herself overflowing with a sudden joy, tears leaping to her eyes. She reached for the second envelope, quickly opening it and pulling out a single folded sheet of paper. She unfolded it, needing to wipe at her eyes so she could see clearly.

"Dear Aunt Shannon,

If you've followed instructions, you will have seen the very first picture of me! My mom and dad wanted to let you know that I am due next March, and they are very anxious to meet me, as you will be. Mom asks not to be mad for keeping me a secret, but she wanted it to be a surprise. Now that you do know, please call her so she can tell you all about me.

Love,

Your future niece or nephew."

She had needed a moment to gather herself up again before she could reach for her phone, making quick math in her head to make sure she wouldn't wake anyone. "Hello?" her sister's voice came on the line, and Shannon felt her smile triple.

"I got something very interesting in the mail today," she spoke, and then Kathleen was laughing.

"Did you?" she asked.

"You wanted me to be surprised, well mission accomplished."

"Best I could do under the circumstances," Kathleen told her.

"How long have you known?"

"About a month," she revealed, and Shannon was shocked, then again…

"You were always better at keeping secrets than I was…"

"Oh I almost told you so many times, you have no idea," she promised.

"How are you feeling? Are you okay?"

"Everything right on schedule, everything's happening just as it should… I'm nervous," she admitted.

"Don't be, are you kidding? You're going to be a great mom. The best," Shannon told her, imagining her sweet little sister, always so caring, now with a child of her own before long.

"I wish you were here… or I was there… I always thought we'd be together through this," she sounded sad, and Shannon could sympathize on that, more than she'd ever say.

"I wish I was there, too," she promised; it was all she could do at this point. "But no matter what, you just call me, whenever you need me, day or night, okay?"

"I'll hold you to that," Kathleen was smiling, she could tell.

"How's Glenn doing with this?"

"He's… well, when I told him we weren't moving, he started walking around the house, writing down everything he says needs fixing or building before the baby gets here," she explained. "He started reading this book, now won't let me eat half the things we had, threw out or gave most of it away… He's driving me crazy, but he means well, so I can't take it out on him, what can I say, I love the man," she went on, and Shannon smirked. She could imagine it, even having never met her brother-in-law. All she had to do was hear Kathleen talk about him and she could see him in her head. "He's convinced it's a boy, but I can't help feeling it's a girl; I don't know what would be worse, either of us being right, or having the kid know we thought the opposite… At this point I'd rather it be one of each, save us the trouble, but well you saw for yourself, it's just the one."

"No matter what happens, so long as he or she is healthy, you won't care who had it right," Shannon just had to smile.

And months later, one night in early March, she had gotten the call, hearing through that speaker, the cries miles and miles and an ocean away, of the newborn baby boy, her nephew, little Ewan Healy. He was as perfect as they came, and Shannon would have given anything to be there with him, with her sister and Glenn, to hold him in her arms. It would be weeks before she would receive the pictures in the mail, but later that night, once everything had calmed down, she had spoken with her sister again… she would always remember the moment, how Kathleen had described him for her.

"I think he's going to be tall… like Glenn… He hasn't got much hair now, but it looks kind of brown. He's going to have our eyes, I'm telling you. If he's anything like me, he'll be curious. I think I can see that in him. He's still so small, but there's just something about him that tells me he'll be curious. He could be an artist, like Glenn, what's a couple more paint-stained shirts to wash, right?" she laughed, low like she didn't want to wake him. "Oh he's so precious, Shannon, you should see him…"

The first time she'd see him he would be five years old already. It wouldn't matter how much she already knew, how many pictures she had seen, how much her sister had told her about him, the first time she had actually seen him, she could just remember what her sister had told her over the phone the night he was born… He was exactly as she'd described him, all of it. When it came down to it, this was just who Ewan was, and she only loved him more for it.

THE END

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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!