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 55th cycle. Now cycle 56!

"What's So Scary"
16/15yo Mike/Tina; New Directions
Chang Squared series
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)

For a few blissful days, things had been good. They might not have been too good as a unit yet, but they were all there for the same reason, and with practice they would get better, they did believe that. There was still some divide in that the two of them didn't seem to fit with the rest, but once they would start practicing all the differences went away. Attitudes would flare, voices would be heard voicing displeasure at the lineups happening, but they could deal.

"Anything's better than Ryerson," Tina would tell Mike whenever things got a bit dicier.

Then the subject of the student assembly had come up. Their first performance as a group before the school… It had the potential to be a mess, but also to be a launch pad.

Schuester wanted a male and female lead. Tina had fully expected the flurry of hands going up, vying for those solos. What she didn't expect was Rachel putting hers up and saying those solos should be hers… and Mike's. The three of them had sort of started becoming… maybe not friends yet, but maybe that was what they were heading for. She wasn't sure what had provoked it, she'd never really been the jealous girlfriend, but suddenly she was looking at Rachel, trying to see if there was motive behind the request that went beyond the choice of a voice.

"Tina, come on, that's ridiculous," Mike had insisted when they left the choir room.

"I don't know, is it? I mean I have to say it, have you seen you lately?"

"Thank you, and also even if she did look at me that way, I'm not, and I'm not going to… All I see is you," he smiled at her, and she had to smile back.

"Okay, fine. But if she tries something, I can't be held responsible for my actions."

"Got it," he nodded. "For the record, I would have loved to do the assembly number with you."

The constitution of the assembly number had not been the easiest thing to deal with. Schuester wanted to do disco, while the club… didn't. When Rachel had gathered them and decided they should go against it no matter what, no one had really resisted her, not if it meant they didn't have to do disco. Tina still kept an eye on the de facto leader, innocently making sure that she kept a 'respectable' distance from Mike.

So after the brief moment of unrest, they had started riding on toward a new unity they badly needed. So of course the next branch had come to lodge itself in their wheels… Well, three branches.

Tina and Mike had arrived to the choir room the next day to find the three of them sat there in the red chairs, in the Cheerios uniform that matched her own.

"What are you doing here?" Tina's words were directed not at Brittany, who was still her friend, or at Santana, but at Quinn, sitting in the middle. The blonde stood with a fixed smile.

"You made this all sound… so fun. So we decided maybe we should take a look. One thing led to another, we auditioned, and well… We're members now," she shrugged. Tina looked to Brittany, who was smiling in a way that said she wasn't sure at all where she was supposed to show allegiance, while Santana had a smile that more or less said 'you're so screwed.'

Mr. Schuester had arrived before they could go further, and he had been 'so thrilled' to welcome their new members to the fold, the better to integrate them right away into the assembly performance. And just like that, their plan to overturn disco had gone down the drain.

"I'm sure if I just talk to them, I can convince them t…" Rachel would tell Tina when she'd been informed they were scrapping the song swap.

"Trust me on this, that would be a bad idea," Tina told her before marching off to intercept Quinn. "We need to talk. Captain to… not captain," Tina got in her face, got her pre-fashioned smile for it.

"Of course, let's talk."

"What are you really doing in there? And don't give me that thing about it looking 'so fun.'"

"But it is fun. For instance, the face you're making right now? Priceless." Tina glared at her, having to dig her nails in her palm to keep from lashing out.

"Have fun at the bottom of the pyramid, Fabray," she had marched off back to Mike, who followed her.

"You okay?"

"I'd be willing to bet anything Sylvester put them up to this. I'd quit the Cheerios and stay focused on Glee Club, but I like cheerleading… and I'm not going to let them win, not like that," she shook her head.

"What about the assembly?" he asked.

"Maybe a little disco will get them to change their mind and they'll quit," she shrugged.

They hadn't done disco. She didn't know how she'd done it, but Rachel had finally convinced Schuester to change the song. She had still taken the solo with Mike, something Quinn and Santana both wasted no time in pointing out to Tina, several times. Why they had to come and ruin this for her, she didn't know, but she wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of backing out.

At the very least, if one good thing had happened, it was that for all the twists and turns that had led to it, their performance at the assembly had been their best so far. It had ended a bit chaotically, but it had worked. Her fellow Cheerios might have liked to take the credit for this, but Tina had given it to Mike and, whether or not she was entirely convinced that she didn't have her eye on him, to Rachel.

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!