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 2.

"This Department And That One Too"
Rachel/Puck, + New Directions and Rent company
Project No Day But Today series
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)

Already there were twenty-five of them in this group. So when the talk started of mounting up their 'departments' and bringing in new people, the whole thing had come down to something like negotiations. At first, Rachel didn't want more than five new people: one per department. There were five of those, each with a captain and co-captain.

As she'd already claimed the slot, Santana was the head of the costumes department, with Brittany on assist. Their team consisted of Quinn, Mercedes, and Alicia. Craig had won out the head of the sets department, with Gus as co-captain. They had Puck, Finn, Sam, Greg, and Annie. Then Artie was put in charge of lights and all other techs. Mike assisted him, with Elliott, Reid, and Ben. Tina headed up hair and makeup, assisted by Lizzie. Their team was Ellie and Miranda, for the time being. The last team, in charge of props and 'miscellaneous issues,' had Kurt for its captain, and Blaine for co-captain. They had Taylor and Rachel.

One day, Rachel and Puck had heard out Santana, Craig, Artie, Tina, and Kurt, and after some pushing and pulling they had agreed on a number. In total they would bring in ten more people. Props, lights, and costumes would all get two, sets would get one, and hair and makeup would get three. Now Rachel would relinquish the selection to those five, which they could tell had required some self-control on her part. They knew very well that confidence and trust were key, knowing that whoever they brought in had to understand the matter of the secret. In the end it wasn't hard to see they had understood: their new recruits were friends, family, lovers…

One was an ex-lover, ex-boyfriend. Annie Frey may not have been too public of a person, but everyone who knew of her was at least vaguely aware of her coming out near the start of the school year. They were also aware of her relationship with Lucas up until the end of the previous year. He was good to her, and nowadays he probably remained the best friend she had. So when Craig had put it all to them to suggest some people, she had named him. She knew he would be up for it, and when she'd made the call, this was confirmed.

With the props department, after some consideration, they had filled their two spots, one coming from them, and the other through 'interdepartmental assistance.' The first was Taylor Johnson's boyfriend, Carson. They'd come to find that he already more or less knew about all this from Taylor, as she'd told him to keep from having him think all the sneaking around had to do with her cheating on him or something like that. He would hesitate at first, but he'd finally agree to help them.

The other slot would be filled by Elliott's sister. He may not have been in their department, but he had spoken with Kurt, asking if he might take her on. Meg was a freshman and a loner by choice, as she'd say. He hoped getting involved with this might help her open up some more, and the 'props and miscellaneous' team might actually be a good fit for her. He had left it as a detail which didn't affect the rest that she had been deaf since she was a toddler. Kurt had been all for it, if he could convince her, which he did.

In his own department, Elliott had seen the two spots filled by Artie when he'd brought in one of his friends from the AV club, Roger, and this had in turn led to Ben Gibson recruiting his brother Brian, who was also in the club. They knew that, present company excluded, those two were definitely the ones they needed. So when Brian had first said yes, but Roger had said no, they had more or less rallied together to convince him. It took three days, but they got him swayed.

With hair and makeup, Tina had found a one-two punch in Miranda's suggestion that they go after two of her fellow Cheerios, Ivy and Peter. She knew Ivy could work the makeup, no problem, while she figured having Peter might not be a bad idea. He'd been working part-time at his father's barber shop for years, and might in handy with the boys. Tina had agreed on this, so Miranda had been dispatched to make the pitch. In the meantime there was the third spot.

Here Ellie had suggested her cousin Mandy, who was a senior. It had come on the tail end of a long and spirited story about their childhood together and how Mandy would do her hair and how she was always so nice and careful and skilled. So again Tina had sent her off to make the request. She would return almost at the same time as Miranda, bringing good news on all accounts.

Finally there was the costumes department, and it had been Quinn who had been the 'liaison' to their new members here, when she asked Santana that they bring in two 'special friends' of hers. The two of them had been good friends to her back in the days of her pregnancy… because they had been pregnant themselves. There had been a group of them, and though they still talked from time to time, really she had only kept in touch with these two.

Both Dana and Rose had given birth to girls, as Quinn had. Rose had also given hers up for adoption, which had been difficult for her, sensing that if it hadn't been for how her family had taken to her pregnancy, she might have kept the girl she had called Cassie. In Dana's case, unlike the other two, it had not ended in adoption. It had meant moving in with her aunt, but she had kept her daughter and now raised little Keely on her own. She had help, from Rose, and Quinn, and some of the other girls. At the same time she wanted to try and help to make sure other girls at their school didn't end up where she had, no matter how much she loved Keely.

With those two coming into the fold, their recruitment was done. Rachel had ten new names to add to her lists, ten faces, ten people… and when Puck had watched her take this in, he could see how it was getting to her, with the trembling little smile she got. He nudged her to she'd look over. "You alright?"

"We've just… All this time has gone by, but it finally feels like it's happening now," she explained. "I always kind of thought it would fall apart, that it would all have been for nothing."

"Does that happen a lot?" he asked her.

"More than you'd know," she admitted.

"It won't happen this time," he promised, and she smiled.

"I know," she nodded.

"Now come on, put all that away, I'm taking you out," he offered his hands, and she took them, curious.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"You'll see," he told her.

"So you don't know," she guessed.

"Not a clue, he admitted, grinning. "But I swear you'll like it."

"Oh, I don't doubt that." All she could think about as they headed out was how much he kept surprising her, all these months, none more than how much she felt he loved her, and she loved him back.

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!